First Encounter Plan

At our first meeting we will pair off the participants and ask that they pick one person to act as the storyteller and the other to be the listener. Then we will ask the storyteller to tell their most unbelievable story. Give them up to a minute to silently think of what story they wish to tell. At this point that is all we tell them; we do not reveal the second step.

 

Note the time and wait until everyone is done their stories. Note the time again and determine how much time it took to tell the first set of stories. This should not exceed 5 minutes.

 

Next, ask the storyteller to repeat their story EXACTLY AS THEY DID BEFORE. The listener can interrupt them when they aren’t faithfully reproducing their first attempt and they can collectively get the story back on track. Time this second attempt and stop everyone when they have taken as much time as the first attempt or taken 5 minutes.

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Discuss the challenges of faithfully reproducing something exactly. This is to reinforce the idea that we still need to have the same urgency and discoveries even when we are repeating the story as our production will take place over 24 hours.

 

For the second part of the encounter plan we will re-pair all the participants and ask them to play an improv game where they are given realistic premise to re-enact, like a young person asking their parent if they can go to a dance, or a couple trying to decide on a movie. The catch is that they may only use one word to express themselves. They must make the audience aware of what the interaction is and who it takes place between. This is an investigation into tone and expression to see how many ways a person can communicate using only one word.