Blocking and Tech, as most of us know, constitute the physical movement and positioning of the performers during a piece. In forensics, blocking is often creatively re-invented because of the unusual restrictions on movement and space not normally found in theatre and other performance arts.

One example that I can recall from personal experience is when a performer named Josh Johnson, who would later go on to win our district tournament, performed a scene in which his character was chopped to pieces underwater or some such thing. He expressed his character being destroyed underwater by actually trilling/gargling his own saliva as he was being chopped up.

Also, I remember hearing stories of a performer who could actually give the appearance of throwing himself across the room. I feel silly for not being able to remember it, could someone fill in the details for me?

So what is the most interesting Tech/Blocking you've seen in an HI?

In 2005 there was a piece at CFLs (forget which) where the narrator started off in an office chair, and his portrayal of it was so quirky that he had the audience laughing for a good minute before he moved on. All he did was swivel back and forth and raise and lower the chair, but it was somhow just really great.

My favorite tech/blocking that I ever had to do was portray a room full of animals within a very short amount of time, so I spent a long time working through a list of animals and getting the muscle memory down so that I could snap very quickly through the motions and sounds. The tricky part was getting the timing down so that I could hit the next line quickly but crisply and still get some laughs.

Nick said:

In 2004, Andy Heald (I hope I spelled that right) also had some swiveling chair tech in his piece “Night of the Living Dummy.”  The part I remember best is when he spun completely around, but overshot it, ending up sideways.  He then had to swivel back to face the audience.  I hit him a couple times at NFLs and every time, I laughed at his chair tech.

-Nick

Yeah you spelled it right. Andy had a TON of awesome gags in that piece. The “psh ft ft uh ft psh” + drink of water gag was amazing.

Jeff Moscaritolo also had some good swivel chair tech in his piece as well. It's a tried and true piece of tech that you can do a lot with.

Once Upon a Wolf also had a ton of really cool tech/gags, singing harp being one of the most notable.

i love the rock paper scissors part in Parker Searfross's Sound Cues.

He pops into all 3 characters really fast and they all shoot a different sign.

I loved it.

Jeff Moscaritolo had brilliant tech in Rinse the Blood off my Toga. He told me he only had like 5 minutes worth of text in the actual cutting and the rest was tech that he threw in. Fucking genius.

And of course the computer and mouse tech that the Fully Committed did in 2006 or 2005…You know the one.