Melody [0:00]
Welcome to the Game Master Certification Organization's interview excerpt podcast series - featuring ShauntelleB. Shauntelle is an actor, psychologist and a creative artist across multiple mediums and genres. Hi, I'm your host, Melody Rainelle. Today we'll be chatting about the topic of performance, and we'll touch on some improv and its relation to the game. So, let's dive right in!

In the realm of performance and performing arts, it’s been said that “the audience is king.” Have you heard something like that, Shauntelle, or maybe you can share your thoughts on that statement with us.

ShauntelleB [0:43]
Yes, the audience is king! The audience from my perspective, is anyone that is around the table and that includes the GM/DM/Storyteller. Yeah, I mean, it's a good phrase for a reason; the audience is king. It's not a "the customer's always right." It's "the audience is king." Who you are telling a story with and who you are telling a story to - they are the people that are the focus of your attention.

Melody [1:04]
Awesome. In getting to know you just a little bit better, what would you say your strongest performance strength is?

ShauntelleB [1:12]
My strongest would be probably vocals. I am a singer, but it's largely priv- I mean I've been in a musical but singing for me is largely a personal thing. In terms of what I do for self care - I'll sing. But vocally, I will do accents, I will use accents, I will use different parts of my voice to communicate different things. I will do a lot with my voice. That said, I'm also a very physical actor, like I come from a devised theatre background so everything is sort of self creation.

Melody [1:45]
Okay, great! So, in regards to acting, do you have a particular method that you like?

ShauntelleB [1:52]
My style of acting... So the way that I was trained was to learn all of them, and then we were left to decide what we wanted, or what we wanted to take from it. So mine is a mix. It's a huge mishmash of pretty much everything. I largely don't use method acting, and that is almost exclusively because if you are trying to method act, you're deliberately trying to find something traumatizing, because those are the things that we generally don't have as much experience with or that we're trying to connect with. Method acting can be very dangerous and so... a very wise teacher once said to me, "Hey, don't use anything that is younger than seven years old, to try to connect with from a method perspective because it will be too close and you'll hurt yourself." So I don't. I generally don't method act. My view is if I can imagine it well enough then I'm probably in the right place. Another one of my teachers said, it doesn't matter how you portray a scene. It does not matter what you do, it doesn't matter what your reactions are largely because, if you can do it that way, that means someone in the world would do it that way also. There are enough people on the planet that if I am very quiet in grief, someone else will be very quiet in grief. If I am very loud or very boisterous, or laugh at hearing that someone has passed, then other people would too. There's no need to sort of mine it from yourself, when you can imagine it effectively.

Melody [3:19]
That's some great insight on that topic. Thank you so much! Okay, so if a game master is trying to help their players learn how to engage with their character better - perhaps for someone who doesn't really have any kind of theatrical experience... How would you maybe direct them to do that?

ShauntelleB [3:38]
That's when I would literally just say, "Okay. So what does the character want? What does the character believe in? What they do hope for? What are they afraid of?" That's when those questions come back in again because when those things come in, that's where the character is, that's where the character lies. We as people have wants and dreams, we have things that we want to get done, there are things that we don't want to do. Why? Every time I create an NPC, I don't necessarily come up with a motivation for them then and there. But when I'm listening to the other player, and that's that word listening again... When I'm listening to them, that's how I will decide, then, based on the situation of where that character's come from, who they were, where they- when they came from that place. That's how I know what they're going to do next. That's how I decide what's going to happen next. Whether they have an accent or not, doesn't really matter as long as the heart of the character is there, and the heart of the character is going to be in those really important questions that you don't even necessarily need to think about beforehand. Most of my character design, whenever I'm playing... when I'm running in fact, most of my character design is going to be happening in the moment. I'll fill out a character sheet, it'll be bare bones, and then I like to go back afterwards and go: "Ah! Okay, so they made this decision, they made this decision, and they made this decision. What does this say about them as a person? How does it say that they would behave in other situations? Cool. Okay, this is who they are for now. This is how they'll be for now." Next session. End of that: "Huh. Okay, so they made this decision that was counter to this one. What's that say about them?" And I kind of go through like that, with everything I do.

Melody [5:13]
Nice. It's an iterative and dynamic process in developing your characters, right?

ShauntelleB [5:20]
Yes.

Melody [5:22]
Alright, next question up. Do you maybe have any tips for people who are wanting to improve on their improvisational technique?

ShauntelleB [5:31]
You can attend improv classes, you can engage in all sorts of things. My suggestion is to listen, or learn to listen, and that takes time, and that's difficult because we're often afraid to... For the most part... but the process of listening is hearing what others are saying and responding honestly. Usually the issue, the thing that people find difficult with improv is not coming up with something funny or coming up with something heartwarming, or heartbreaking. Often the problem with improv is that people spend a lot of time trying to find or think of the best way to phrase the thing that they're thinking. Just say it! Just say it and you'll get used to saying better things over time, but you need to get used to just saying stuff, just do it, just come out with it, because for the most part, that was what held me back while I was at theater school in terms of learning how to just say, just do. We can think about it later. And I guess that's probably where my character designing comes from now is - say it; just do it. If I start to try to connect everything I do to some very, very deep thing that my character is doing, or it wants to be, then I'm going to struggle.

Melody [6:48]
That is some very sage advice. Thank you! Well, that is the last of the questions I have right now on the performance category, so we'll wrap up this podcast episode here. Thank you, as always, for being with us Shauntelle!

To our listeners: Please check the podcast description for details on how you can connect with ShauntelleB! Coming up next is our last episode in our interview series with Shauntelle, so stay tuned for that! Follow us to receive notifications when new podcasts are released. For more podcasts and information, check out our website: https://www.gamemastercertification.org/. If you liked what you've heard in this episode, please share it. Thank you for listening!