Heightening Your Scene with Jonas McLean

The Workshop

Do your scenes have great offers but feel like they aren’t living up to their potential? Are your shows full of fun characters who get discarded after one scene? Do you suspect your scene partners might be playing a different game of the scene from you? Try heightening! In this workshop you will practice taking your scenes to new heights. You’ll learn different ways to “raise the stakes”, how to keep a good thing going, and how to get your audience to follow stay with you when things get weird.

The Instructor

Jonas (he/him/they) got his start improvising as a player in the Canadian Improv Games 17 years ago, going on to volunteer for the games as a workshop leader, referee, and judge. Jonas has collected some expensive papers called degrees, including an Honours Bachelor’s in Dramatic Arts with a concentration in Theatre Praxis, a Bachelor’s of Education with Drama, English, and Social Sciences, and a Master’s in Theatre Theory and Dramaturgy for which his thesis, Can I Get a Volunteer: Contemporary Improvised Theatre and the Audience, focused on current examples of improv and audience participation. Jonas has performed on stages around Ottawa, Toronto, and Niagara, often in groups focused on narrative or genre-based improv including KO Improv, Outtake Improv, and currently Tangent Quest.