Rails Comedy's Character Game, Part 2: Heat, Weight, and Organic Discovery with Kate Symes on Jun 01, 2025 at 11:00 AM

Improv Workshop

Character Game, Part 2: Heat, Weight, and Organic Discovery with Kate Symes

🗓️ Date: Sunday, June 1
🕙 Time: 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
📍 The DC Arts Center, 2438 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009

In this advanced workshop, we’ll move beyond quick character initiations and into the more subtle terrain of discovering character through the emotional temperature of the moment. Drawing inspiration from the grounded, character-first philosophy of TJ & Dave, we’ll explore how to identify character game not by invention, but by responding authentically to the heat (emotional charge) and weight (stakes or intensity) of the opening moments of a scene.

Through deep listening and emotional attunement, you’ll practice letting a character emerge naturally from the space between you and your scene partner — often before a single word is spoken. This workshop focuses on patient scene work that builds specific, human characters whose consistent behavior becomes the engine of the comedy.

‍📕 Students will learn:

How to read emotional dynamics in real time and respond with clarity and presence.
How to allow character to emerge through behavior and reaction, rather than invention.
How to use small emotional shifts to build comedic patterns without sacrificing truth.

‍🎓 Students will walk away with:

A stronger grasp of how specific choices build richer, more playable characters.
A deeper ability to trust their instincts and emotional intelligence to create character.
Practice discovering and heightening character game without having to invent.

‍📚 This workshop's topics include:

Heat and Weight: Reading emotional temperature and intensity to discover character.
Organic Initiations: Letting the first moments reveal who you are and what matters.
Emotional Listening: Building scenes through behavioral and emotional responses.
Behavior as Game: How consistent emotional reactions become comedic patterns.

🍎 Prerequisites

Completion of Rails Comedy’s first Character Game workshop (titled Game On), or completion of the core curriculum at Washington Improv Theater or another long-form improv theater.

🎟️ Registration

Workshop Registration: $75
This workshop is limited to 10 students max

📗 Instructor Bio‍

Kate Symes has been performing improv in DC since 2010, and she started teaching and coaching in 2011. She has taught all levels of students the principles of improv: support, agreement, listening, and exploration. She is passionate about helping students find their sense of self-confidence, rediscover their ability to play, and take the skills they learn in the classroom into their daily lives or onto the stage.

She started her training at the DC Improv and continued on to complete the curriculum at Washington Improv Theater (WIT), complementing her studies along the way at Studio Theater, Second City, Upright Citizens Brigade, Magnet Theater, and People’s Improv Theater. Kate is a former member of many fantastic improv teams (full CV here), and she was most recently in WIT’s productions of POTUS Among Us and the White Elephant Holiday Blitz show. Now many of her improv friends have grown up and moved to the suburbs, or they get tired at 9 p.m., so she doesn’t perform as regularly as she once did, and sometimes she thinks she should do something about that.

Kate has also coached and directed several teams and shows, including The Fourth Estate, a WIT Directors Series show that ran throughout winter 2019 to sold-out houses and acclaim from the performers’ parents, and Madeline, a WIT house ensemble known for its long-running hilarity. Kate wrote and directed a web series called The Newsroom, hosted a late-night-morning-talk-show called Wake Up Late with Denny and Kate, and has been featured on several podcasts nerding out about improv. She also teaches yoga and meditation, and has a corporate day job in her spare time. Check out all her offerings at https://www.katesymes.com/.

🍸 Location

🎭 The workshop will be at The DC Arts Center, 2438 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009
🚗 Parking garage nearby
❌ This venue is not wheelchair accessible
👧 Age Requirement 18+

📋 Policies

All sales are final. Refunds and exchanges are offered only when a workshop is canceled or rescheduled.
If you have questions, please email classes@railscomedy.com

📣 Register today!