🔀Detours

Setup and Launch

Get a suggestion from the audience.

Flow

1. The original scene

The group plays a medium-length scene, two to five minutes. It is usually a two-person scene. The scene runs through several beats — separate stretches of action.

2. Replay beat by beat

Once the original scene wraps up, the group starts playing it again. Perfect repetition is impossible: players make mistakes, and the scene changes. The form uses this — pick the mistakes up, or change details on purpose.

The original scene is usually not replayed in full. Instead, take it one beat at a time, in order. This way the group slowly makes its way through the original story. Vary every possible detail, but keep the general direction of the story.

3. Two kinds of edits

The form usually uses two kinds of edits — two ways to interrupt and restart the action. The tag-out: a player taps a partner on the shoulder and takes their place. It restarts the immediate line of dialogue or action, the same way New Choice is played. The sweep edit: a player crosses the front of the stage. It resets the action to the beginning of the beat.

4. Pace

The pace of the form keeps changing. When the group comes upon a detail with many possible alternatives, a rapid run of tag-out edits follows — one alternative after another.

5. Roles

Players from the original scene are not limited to their original characters. To keep things clear, take the spot on stage where the character you want to play is expected to be. Abe started on stage right — so whoever wants to play Abe after a sweep edit enters on stage right.