Class started off this week with all of sitting on the stage in a circle and playing the same name game we started off with last week. Susan is determined that we learn each others names in this class (and it's working very well too) cause as she says so often: once you know people's names you can start to care about them.
Next she broke us up into pairs (well actually she told us to go stand next to the person in class we knew the least about and those were our pairs) for a series of mirror exercises. We started off with the basic mirror exercise where one person leads movement and the other person follows - then the leader switches - and finally in theory no one is leading and no one is following really, the pair are simply moving as one (honestly about 75% of the time I ever do this - and Susan even mentioned this though used more profanity - one person does a lot of leading at the end - though I've had a handful of experiences where it was actually really great give and take and it really felt as if no one was leading we were just in the zone, which rocked...this wasn't one of those times).
Next we had to begin speaking and moving at the same time, still in pairs and then the exercise really got kicked up a notch.
Susan picked two pairs to stay on stage and had everyone else sit down. The two pairs on stage were then told they were going to do a scene where each pair was a single person (they had to mirror each other the whole scene, talk as one, move as one - say "I" not "we" - etc). My pair was in that first group - we ended up cobbling a shoe (at least that's what the action we were doing was in my mind) the entire time and talked like we were addressing a retarded child. Susan had us do it again this time having us talk faster and faster - much better when we thought less about mirroring each other and actually just did something.
Each pair did two scenes which ate up a good chunk of class time and each time the quicker the pairs simply either started doing an action or speaking - the better the scenes went - even if words were messed up - they simply became new words that Susan made sure were repeated since: Repetition turns wacky BS into facts.
After each scene we would talk about what happened a little bit then moved on.
A few very important ideas came out of those discussions:
Don't worry about finding the "appropriate" object in an environment (Some of the best examples of this can be found in the UCB sketch show from comedy central - note if you haven't seen it, go buy the dvd or download the episodes the Time Machine episode from season one is a near perfect Harold turned into a sketch and filmed minus the group games - in one episode, Bucket of Truth, a couple is being shown a house which has a Hot Chicks room among other weird things inside it).
Specifics Are More Fun for Everyone
Arguing comes a lot from Frustration
Taking is just as vital as Giving (just try not to do either too much).
And probably a million other things I wasn't fast enough to write down.
After this exercise we ended with doing individual truthful monologues based on a themes Susan gave us - and then had time for a few scenes based off some of them.
We took away from this class these bits of advice (along with the ones above):
The "Game" is just any pattern
You're Doing everything on Stage for a Reason, So Don't Drop it
It's an Evolutionary Art, once you master something you'll fine more to work on
Fear the Safe Zone - that funny thing/bit/character/voice/walk you've "mastered"- the place where you say I'll take risks tomorrow.
Always take Risks! Challenge Yourself!
Fucks ups (mistakes) are Good
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Annoyance Level One - Week Four
Class started off as it always does in order to get us in the groove of things with a series of open warm-up scenes.
After a number of these scenes, once we were all loosened up a bit, Dan, our teacher, went ahead and told us to start initiating vocally in some way the moment we stepped off the back line. So we could instantly start saying something – or simply make a sound, but it had to happen the moment our feet moved us off the back line.
It lead to a few instances of people almost talking over each other at the top of the scene however - even the most seemingly contrary comments worked themselves out because both players remained committed to their choices.
For example: "Good day for fishing isn't it." paired with "Give me all your money." Leads to a fun scene where a fly fisherman is mugged out in a forest as he stands in a river.
After a little bit Dan had us pause and let us know he was going to start calling people out two at a time to start these scenes and as soon as you heard your name you were to step out and initiate instantly. This served two great purposes - first it helped get the few people in the class who weren't as comfortable (or just as quick as some of the others to just jump out and initiate - and it kept all of us from really being able to pre-plan opening lines or whatever for when we stepped out.
This actually lead (for most of us at least) to a lot more of verbal initiations that weren't dialog (such as sighs, screams, laughs, etc).
These initiations had by far the easiest times adapting to one another - and were (from what I experienced and saw at least) were the most fun to play with, as they gave an instant point of view/attitude to play with in the scene (and of course from that an instant character).
After we had a run through a number of those Dan had us pause again and told us what we'd be working on for the rest of the class: Environment work (dunh dunh daaaaaaaaah - I ad the suspenseful music - note it sounds very suspenseful in my head at least - sense for a lot of improvisers environment and object work is a bane - I know I too often ignore it in my own work).
Dan broke it down in a way I had never had explained to me in class before (at least in terms of environment).
There are basically three types of environment to work with:
Primary: the room, immediate space you are in and the objects contained within.
Secondary: Building containing the room you are in (in the case of a scene outdoors the space beyond the confines of the stage - so the rest of the field/forest/ocean/etc.) and the objects contained therein.
Natural: Temperature, Time, Weather, etc.
Now I've had teachers talk a lot about the Primary and Secondary environments in classes and workshops - though the secondary one comes up far less often (and usually in relation to the note: "If you're going to mention going to the {so and so place} I want to see you go there - you don't have to stay in the room you are in..." or when talking about entering and exiting).
However, very rarely has anyone really talked about initiating the natural environment (oh I know almost every improviser at one point has done a scene where you're both cold - be it out in the snow or trapped in a freezer - but how often has the weather really played a role in one of your scenes - I know for me not that often). It really opens up a whole new layer of fun - and things to play with besides merely the objects you might find in your primary space.
We jumped right into scenes now where we could only talk when we interacted/added to the environment somehow (I've played a similar exercise before where you can only speak when you create a new object - however now our environment includes the weather and reacting to it - woohoo). The first few scenes for a few people were a little rough until everyone realized that they didn't just have to worry about creating new objects or stepping around chairs.
It was really eye opening in a lot of ways - asking someone to turn on the light completely adds a new dimension to a scene (especially if it's half way through it), taking off a coat when you enter through a door can say so much too (even more if you shake the water off it, or dust off some snow first).
Next Dan had us work more on our object work (dunh dunh daaaaaah) we were told that off to either side of the stage (well honestly room, but eh) were magical boxes filled with any and every item we could ever possibly need and that during the scene anything we needed we could get from there instantly.
Again at the start there it took a little bit for people to get used to the idea but soon we were having really object rich scenes (sometimes maybe a little too object rich) and we got to see how useful it is to have various objects in your environment as you can quickly go to them and use them to breathe more life into your scene work.
For the the final exercise of the class Dan had a third of us stay on the back line, while everyone else sat down. He had the people up one at a time enter a room and create an environment (he gave us a location and set one thing in it - and then one by one each person went in and created at least one new object and interacted with two things already there - the first person had to create two objects).
After the group had finished going through and basically fleshing out the environment they were in - they had a series of two person scenes in that environment.
Then after everyone had a at least one scene - that third sat down and another group got up and did the same thing - then once they were done the final group went.
Dan then had the whole class hop on the back line and we were told that for the last few minutes of class we were to do open scenes where we could be any characters we wanted but all of the scenes had to take place in one of the three created environments.
A few things we took away from class:
Initiate ASAP - it'll jump start your scene
Words Aren't the Only Way to Initiate - sounds, body language, physicality, object work, etc work just as well (and sometimes better)
There are Basically 3 Types of Environment to Play With
Anything/Everything You Need you Can Create Instantly on Stage - the art is learning when something is actually needed
You're Playing in an Entire World, Not Just a Space That Fits on the Stage
After a number of these scenes, once we were all loosened up a bit, Dan, our teacher, went ahead and told us to start initiating vocally in some way the moment we stepped off the back line. So we could instantly start saying something – or simply make a sound, but it had to happen the moment our feet moved us off the back line.
It lead to a few instances of people almost talking over each other at the top of the scene however - even the most seemingly contrary comments worked themselves out because both players remained committed to their choices.
For example: "Good day for fishing isn't it." paired with "Give me all your money." Leads to a fun scene where a fly fisherman is mugged out in a forest as he stands in a river.
After a little bit Dan had us pause and let us know he was going to start calling people out two at a time to start these scenes and as soon as you heard your name you were to step out and initiate instantly. This served two great purposes - first it helped get the few people in the class who weren't as comfortable (or just as quick as some of the others to just jump out and initiate - and it kept all of us from really being able to pre-plan opening lines or whatever for when we stepped out.
This actually lead (for most of us at least) to a lot more of verbal initiations that weren't dialog (such as sighs, screams, laughs, etc).
These initiations had by far the easiest times adapting to one another - and were (from what I experienced and saw at least) were the most fun to play with, as they gave an instant point of view/attitude to play with in the scene (and of course from that an instant character).
After we had a run through a number of those Dan had us pause again and told us what we'd be working on for the rest of the class: Environment work (dunh dunh daaaaaaaaah - I ad the suspenseful music - note it sounds very suspenseful in my head at least - sense for a lot of improvisers environment and object work is a bane - I know I too often ignore it in my own work).
Dan broke it down in a way I had never had explained to me in class before (at least in terms of environment).
There are basically three types of environment to work with:
Primary: the room, immediate space you are in and the objects contained within.
Secondary: Building containing the room you are in (in the case of a scene outdoors the space beyond the confines of the stage - so the rest of the field/forest/ocean/etc.) and the objects contained therein.
Natural: Temperature, Time, Weather, etc.
Now I've had teachers talk a lot about the Primary and Secondary environments in classes and workshops - though the secondary one comes up far less often (and usually in relation to the note: "If you're going to mention going to the {so and so place} I want to see you go there - you don't have to stay in the room you are in..." or when talking about entering and exiting).
However, very rarely has anyone really talked about initiating the natural environment (oh I know almost every improviser at one point has done a scene where you're both cold - be it out in the snow or trapped in a freezer - but how often has the weather really played a role in one of your scenes - I know for me not that often). It really opens up a whole new layer of fun - and things to play with besides merely the objects you might find in your primary space.
We jumped right into scenes now where we could only talk when we interacted/added to the environment somehow (I've played a similar exercise before where you can only speak when you create a new object - however now our environment includes the weather and reacting to it - woohoo). The first few scenes for a few people were a little rough until everyone realized that they didn't just have to worry about creating new objects or stepping around chairs.
It was really eye opening in a lot of ways - asking someone to turn on the light completely adds a new dimension to a scene (especially if it's half way through it), taking off a coat when you enter through a door can say so much too (even more if you shake the water off it, or dust off some snow first).
Next Dan had us work more on our object work (dunh dunh daaaaaah) we were told that off to either side of the stage (well honestly room, but eh) were magical boxes filled with any and every item we could ever possibly need and that during the scene anything we needed we could get from there instantly.
Again at the start there it took a little bit for people to get used to the idea but soon we were having really object rich scenes (sometimes maybe a little too object rich) and we got to see how useful it is to have various objects in your environment as you can quickly go to them and use them to breathe more life into your scene work.
For the the final exercise of the class Dan had a third of us stay on the back line, while everyone else sat down. He had the people up one at a time enter a room and create an environment (he gave us a location and set one thing in it - and then one by one each person went in and created at least one new object and interacted with two things already there - the first person had to create two objects).
After the group had finished going through and basically fleshing out the environment they were in - they had a series of two person scenes in that environment.
Then after everyone had a at least one scene - that third sat down and another group got up and did the same thing - then once they were done the final group went.
Dan then had the whole class hop on the back line and we were told that for the last few minutes of class we were to do open scenes where we could be any characters we wanted but all of the scenes had to take place in one of the three created environments.
A few things we took away from class:
Initiate ASAP - it'll jump start your scene
Words Aren't the Only Way to Initiate - sounds, body language, physicality, object work, etc work just as well (and sometimes better)
There are Basically 3 Types of Environment to Play With
Anything/Everything You Need you Can Create Instantly on Stage - the art is learning when something is actually needed
You're Playing in an Entire World, Not Just a Space That Fits on the Stage
Friday, October 19, 2007
iO Level Two - Week One
I meant to post this yesterday – but time just got away from me.
I started level two at iO Tuesday with the wonderful Susan Messing teaching. I have to say if anyone who reads this ever gets a chance take a class/workshop or see a show with this woman – do it (NB: if you are easily offended – she definitely will at some point though).
With her telling us how now we were entering the level she developed while high in her tub and cautioning the few latecomers to never be late to her vagina again the class started.
Throughout the entire class she managed to drop more pearls of improv wisdom than I had a chance to right down, but she started off the class with the advice that in a lot of encapsulates the theory behind iO’s style of teaching: You succeed if your friends succeed.
We began by sitting on the stage in the Del Close Theater and starting a simple name game – we’d go around the circle and each person would make a gesture while saying their first name – then every one repeated it. We continues until everyone had gone and then began sending the focus to each other by first saying our own name and making the gesture – then making the gesture of someone else and saying their name (they would then repeat their own and say someone else’s). Eventually we were passing the focus simply by making the gestures of people and making eye contact.
This was done to help us learn each other’s names cause as Susan says: once you know someone’s name you can start actually caring about them (this goes right along with her mantra about characters on stage as: since it’s a fucking legal obligation to name a child you should damn well name characters created in scenes too).
We then quickly jumped in to a warm-up I have played once before called Caligula. It’s basically a giant game of twister without the polka dotted mat and spinner. Everyone gets in a circle (or cluster) and touches some part of their body to the people next to them. Next everyone take a big step forward and begins moving slowly about while constantly retaining physical contact in someway with the rest of the group. The entire time as we were squirming about Susan kept reminding us to follow our bodies – go where they needed to go and to not try and to not aim for somewhere safe, somewhere easy.
Afterwards we took a brief break to catch some air (up till this point for some reason the AC wasn’t really working in the theater, so we were all covered in sweat – thank god it quickly got fixed) while Susan laid some of her improv philosophy on us:
Scenes are all about the people you meat in them (the characters) and the Harold or whatever form/show thing you’re doing are just little worlds where they live.
There are basically two types of scenes out there: Little slice of life scenes - this is a typical day in the life of the Johnson family type shit. And shit hits the fan scenes – this is the day where something unexpected/weird/whatever happens in the lives of the Johnson family.
The first three seconds of any scene is your promise to the audience of how you’ll be/act the rest of the scene.
You’re body is the only thing you own in a scene – everything else comes out through discovery.
This last bit of wisdom sent us into the next exercise. She had all of us hop up on stage and begin walking around normally. She then asked us to begin leading or focusing on specific parts of our body as we walked. For example: Leading with our arm, chest, forehead, hips. Telling us we were all hand models and to really focus on our hands – focusing on our eyes – first keeping them wide, as wide as we could – then squinting. Etc, etc. As we walked about each time focusing on something different she asked us to think about how it made us feel and to say hello to each other as we made eye contact – every time the hellos came out very differently. The exercise is a perfect quick door to creating new characters – just changing one little thing about your physicality can instantly give you a character and change the way you feel and act.
Susan next had two thirds of the class sit down – and got out 6 chairs for the rest of the class to walk around. As they walked (normally again) she asked the rest of us, and herself, what part of their body they were leading with/focusing on naturally.
After we had picked them out she asked everyone on stage to change it – focus on a different par as they walked and then after they had something – to sit down in the chairs (and to keep that thing, and the way it made them feel in mind). What followed next was basically a big group character interview (hot seat – for you theater people). She told everyone that they all new each other somehow and to be inspired from how they were just walking and be someone other than themselves. She then had all of the characters on stage introduce themselves and began interviewing them as to how they knew each other and for specifics about their lives. It was very interesting to see how quickly everyone found a relatively rich character and managed to interact with each other as they were questioned. Of course there was slight hiccup early on – as the third person in the first group, when Susan asked him to introduce himself, paused looked around for a minute and then asked if he was just supposed to make something up or what (though after the exercise was explained one more time – it all moved along beautifully).
After the whole class had a chance to be up in the exercise it really hammered the idea home that physicality an lead to a very rich character if you let it – it also set us up for her next comment: that people want to connect with each other (especially on stage). Very quickly on stage in this – even beside the caveat that we all knew each other – character found special relationships with each other. One person made themselves my sister and that I hated her, in the group scene even with our knowing each other as a group was being stuck at an airport together – people found all kinds of little games to play or connections to make with each other.
We then got our next piece of advice: be a doer on stage – once you’re on stage do something, anything – just make a damn choice and do something.
From this we quickly went into a series of big group scenes with half the class on stage. Once the group got up there they were given a location and asked to immediately start doing something – no dialog at first (she was going to interview us again – about the scene) just start interacting in the space.
The first took place in an emergency room and we quickly found out – with Susan again interviewing them – that there were only two doctors, the family of a guy who got his dick stuck in a chair, a man who answered the phone the docs, and a mortician cause the situation was grim.
The next scene took place at a firehouse – which we quickly discovered had no captain (he was away on vacation) and was part of an experimental urban out reach program that had criminals and drug addicts doing community service as firemen and was about to fail their monthly inspection.
We ended the class with these bits of advice:
On stage try it on, be a crazy drug addicted whore – psycho killer – whatever (take risks, don’t play it safe, lose your filter/censor). Off stage if you do it, get therapy.
Improv (and comedy in a lot of ways) goes against human nature. It’s Human to try and figure out how to do something before attempting it – with improv the moment you step on stage you just have to do something and then figure it all out.
If you aren’t having fun on stage – you’re the asshole.
And of course: “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”
I started level two at iO Tuesday with the wonderful Susan Messing teaching. I have to say if anyone who reads this ever gets a chance take a class/workshop or see a show with this woman – do it (NB: if you are easily offended – she definitely will at some point though).
With her telling us how now we were entering the level she developed while high in her tub and cautioning the few latecomers to never be late to her vagina again the class started.
Throughout the entire class she managed to drop more pearls of improv wisdom than I had a chance to right down, but she started off the class with the advice that in a lot of encapsulates the theory behind iO’s style of teaching: You succeed if your friends succeed.
We began by sitting on the stage in the Del Close Theater and starting a simple name game – we’d go around the circle and each person would make a gesture while saying their first name – then every one repeated it. We continues until everyone had gone and then began sending the focus to each other by first saying our own name and making the gesture – then making the gesture of someone else and saying their name (they would then repeat their own and say someone else’s). Eventually we were passing the focus simply by making the gestures of people and making eye contact.
This was done to help us learn each other’s names cause as Susan says: once you know someone’s name you can start actually caring about them (this goes right along with her mantra about characters on stage as: since it’s a fucking legal obligation to name a child you should damn well name characters created in scenes too).
We then quickly jumped in to a warm-up I have played once before called Caligula. It’s basically a giant game of twister without the polka dotted mat and spinner. Everyone gets in a circle (or cluster) and touches some part of their body to the people next to them. Next everyone take a big step forward and begins moving slowly about while constantly retaining physical contact in someway with the rest of the group. The entire time as we were squirming about Susan kept reminding us to follow our bodies – go where they needed to go and to not try and to not aim for somewhere safe, somewhere easy.
Afterwards we took a brief break to catch some air (up till this point for some reason the AC wasn’t really working in the theater, so we were all covered in sweat – thank god it quickly got fixed) while Susan laid some of her improv philosophy on us:
Scenes are all about the people you meat in them (the characters) and the Harold or whatever form/show thing you’re doing are just little worlds where they live.
There are basically two types of scenes out there: Little slice of life scenes - this is a typical day in the life of the Johnson family type shit. And shit hits the fan scenes – this is the day where something unexpected/weird/whatever happens in the lives of the Johnson family.
The first three seconds of any scene is your promise to the audience of how you’ll be/act the rest of the scene.
You’re body is the only thing you own in a scene – everything else comes out through discovery.
This last bit of wisdom sent us into the next exercise. She had all of us hop up on stage and begin walking around normally. She then asked us to begin leading or focusing on specific parts of our body as we walked. For example: Leading with our arm, chest, forehead, hips. Telling us we were all hand models and to really focus on our hands – focusing on our eyes – first keeping them wide, as wide as we could – then squinting. Etc, etc. As we walked about each time focusing on something different she asked us to think about how it made us feel and to say hello to each other as we made eye contact – every time the hellos came out very differently. The exercise is a perfect quick door to creating new characters – just changing one little thing about your physicality can instantly give you a character and change the way you feel and act.
Susan next had two thirds of the class sit down – and got out 6 chairs for the rest of the class to walk around. As they walked (normally again) she asked the rest of us, and herself, what part of their body they were leading with/focusing on naturally.
After we had picked them out she asked everyone on stage to change it – focus on a different par as they walked and then after they had something – to sit down in the chairs (and to keep that thing, and the way it made them feel in mind). What followed next was basically a big group character interview (hot seat – for you theater people). She told everyone that they all new each other somehow and to be inspired from how they were just walking and be someone other than themselves. She then had all of the characters on stage introduce themselves and began interviewing them as to how they knew each other and for specifics about their lives. It was very interesting to see how quickly everyone found a relatively rich character and managed to interact with each other as they were questioned. Of course there was slight hiccup early on – as the third person in the first group, when Susan asked him to introduce himself, paused looked around for a minute and then asked if he was just supposed to make something up or what (though after the exercise was explained one more time – it all moved along beautifully).
After the whole class had a chance to be up in the exercise it really hammered the idea home that physicality an lead to a very rich character if you let it – it also set us up for her next comment: that people want to connect with each other (especially on stage). Very quickly on stage in this – even beside the caveat that we all knew each other – character found special relationships with each other. One person made themselves my sister and that I hated her, in the group scene even with our knowing each other as a group was being stuck at an airport together – people found all kinds of little games to play or connections to make with each other.
We then got our next piece of advice: be a doer on stage – once you’re on stage do something, anything – just make a damn choice and do something.
From this we quickly went into a series of big group scenes with half the class on stage. Once the group got up there they were given a location and asked to immediately start doing something – no dialog at first (she was going to interview us again – about the scene) just start interacting in the space.
The first took place in an emergency room and we quickly found out – with Susan again interviewing them – that there were only two doctors, the family of a guy who got his dick stuck in a chair, a man who answered the phone the docs, and a mortician cause the situation was grim.
The next scene took place at a firehouse – which we quickly discovered had no captain (he was away on vacation) and was part of an experimental urban out reach program that had criminals and drug addicts doing community service as firemen and was about to fail their monthly inspection.
We ended the class with these bits of advice:
On stage try it on, be a crazy drug addicted whore – psycho killer – whatever (take risks, don’t play it safe, lose your filter/censor). Off stage if you do it, get therapy.
Improv (and comedy in a lot of ways) goes against human nature. It’s Human to try and figure out how to do something before attempting it – with improv the moment you step on stage you just have to do something and then figure it all out.
If you aren’t having fun on stage – you’re the asshole.
And of course: “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Annoyance Level One - Week Three
As usual class Monday night started off with all of us up and jumping right into a series of completely open “warm-up” scenes. Two people, no rules just right (the outback steak house scene method).
After we were sufficiently revved up from the scene work our instructor had two people step out and face each other. He then asked the two players to simply begin a back and forth stream of consciousness (word association between the two of them). Anyone of the two could start it – only caveat was to treat it like a game of ping pong – you serve up a word/short phrase your partner then needs to return a new word and so on – keeping it short and trying to just be inspired by what was said last.
I was in the first pair up and we began associating – it started with me saying the word “eyes” and ended up with a slew of drug references toward the end (after a few interchanges of course). On the word “Bong” the instructor yelled freeze and asked us to immediately jump into a scene. – We only got a few lines in before it was cut – but the moment he called for a scene we both snapped into a character (both stoners – laid back types) with dialog reminiscent of the entire journey we’d just taken verbally.
The key to this exercise (as quickly became apparent as other went up – and more and more scenes were started as such) was to instantly start a scene/doing something when the instructor called for it. The only times that scene floundered were when one or more of the players hesitated after the word association ended – instead of just going off whatever was the last thing said.
When we discussed it afterwards some people in the class mentioned that they froze for a second because they felt the last word/words said were so uninteresting compared to other stuff they discovered in the association.
Nest we leapt into more open scenes though this time we were asked to try and really focus on getting that sort of back and forth give and take we found doing the word association in our scenes – really focusing and being inspired by each line of dialog and/or action presented by our scene partner. These scenes plus the above exercise really hammered home how key listening is to any improvised work – and not just hearing what your partner is saying so you don’t mess up a name, or mistake the object he hands you for a grenade when it’s a puppy – but the idea that: listening is a willingness to change.
Now it doesn’t mean you have to change – it just means you willing to – be it action, emotion, whatever. Honestly the only part of improvising where you really have to “work” (not really the right word but it will do) is the first instant of a scene – you have to make yourself step out there and make a choice (can be what you say/don’t say, how you stand/sit/walk, attitude, reaching for an object, how you look at your scene partner, and a million other possibilities) after that it’s all about reacting to and building off of what your scene partner says – again like a game of ping pong, you have the serve and then you’re off (sure there are some crazy moves you can pull, put some spin on the ball, lob it, power slam it, whatever – depending on how you want to play – though you’re still just returning that ball).
Now during one of the above scene there came one of those rare instances of basically flat out reality denial. It started off with one of the girls in the class beginning a scene using a metaphor to explain her relationship with the guy on stage – it went something like this: “Have you ever scene the movie Cube where all the people are trapped inside a moving box of death and every time they think they are getting out of the box and moving on they find themselves in just another damn box with a brand new mechanism trying to end their lives – that’s kind of how I see our relationship right now and I want out of it” (note it was more eloquent and described the movie better than this)
To which her scene partner responded:
“Uh… lady you’re crazy I don’t know you and you’re not in any sort of box. You’re in a hospital and I’m your doctor.”
The scene kind of ground to halt after that – though afterwards we got into a very interesting discussion about what happened. Our instructor brought up the idea that even with those exact same two lines as the opening the scene could’ve worked – or almost any sort of seeming flat out denial situation like that: as long as both players are committed to their choices. For example what if she was a crazy woman who thought she had a relationship with her doctor – she would keep insisting they were long time lovers that weren’t working out –while he continued to add to the not knowing her aspect - as long as they were committed the audience would eventually catch on. It’s obviously not an ideal situation of course – but it brings up a great point – there are no wrong moves in improv as long as you commit to them.
We ended the class by running a series of two person scenes where each player was given a specific challenge about the types of inspiration they should try on: We were given. Some of the ones were: Coquettish, Airy, Rock star, Bombastic, dictator subservient, etc. All with the caveat that we take it and make it our won – so whatever the inspiration means to you (and also that instead of making your character a Rocker/Rockstar in every scene take some characteristics you associate with a rock star and play them - or what do you first think of when you hear rock star, dictator, etc then use that).
Things we took away from class:
Listening is a willingness to change
Commit, commit, commit to everything you do on stage
A Character/attitude can fit anywhere an entire scenario can’t
Play outside your comfort zone – follow your fear
After we were sufficiently revved up from the scene work our instructor had two people step out and face each other. He then asked the two players to simply begin a back and forth stream of consciousness (word association between the two of them). Anyone of the two could start it – only caveat was to treat it like a game of ping pong – you serve up a word/short phrase your partner then needs to return a new word and so on – keeping it short and trying to just be inspired by what was said last.
I was in the first pair up and we began associating – it started with me saying the word “eyes” and ended up with a slew of drug references toward the end (after a few interchanges of course). On the word “Bong” the instructor yelled freeze and asked us to immediately jump into a scene. – We only got a few lines in before it was cut – but the moment he called for a scene we both snapped into a character (both stoners – laid back types) with dialog reminiscent of the entire journey we’d just taken verbally.
The key to this exercise (as quickly became apparent as other went up – and more and more scenes were started as such) was to instantly start a scene/doing something when the instructor called for it. The only times that scene floundered were when one or more of the players hesitated after the word association ended – instead of just going off whatever was the last thing said.
When we discussed it afterwards some people in the class mentioned that they froze for a second because they felt the last word/words said were so uninteresting compared to other stuff they discovered in the association.
Nest we leapt into more open scenes though this time we were asked to try and really focus on getting that sort of back and forth give and take we found doing the word association in our scenes – really focusing and being inspired by each line of dialog and/or action presented by our scene partner. These scenes plus the above exercise really hammered home how key listening is to any improvised work – and not just hearing what your partner is saying so you don’t mess up a name, or mistake the object he hands you for a grenade when it’s a puppy – but the idea that: listening is a willingness to change.
Now it doesn’t mean you have to change – it just means you willing to – be it action, emotion, whatever. Honestly the only part of improvising where you really have to “work” (not really the right word but it will do) is the first instant of a scene – you have to make yourself step out there and make a choice (can be what you say/don’t say, how you stand/sit/walk, attitude, reaching for an object, how you look at your scene partner, and a million other possibilities) after that it’s all about reacting to and building off of what your scene partner says – again like a game of ping pong, you have the serve and then you’re off (sure there are some crazy moves you can pull, put some spin on the ball, lob it, power slam it, whatever – depending on how you want to play – though you’re still just returning that ball).
Now during one of the above scene there came one of those rare instances of basically flat out reality denial. It started off with one of the girls in the class beginning a scene using a metaphor to explain her relationship with the guy on stage – it went something like this: “Have you ever scene the movie Cube where all the people are trapped inside a moving box of death and every time they think they are getting out of the box and moving on they find themselves in just another damn box with a brand new mechanism trying to end their lives – that’s kind of how I see our relationship right now and I want out of it” (note it was more eloquent and described the movie better than this)
To which her scene partner responded:
“Uh… lady you’re crazy I don’t know you and you’re not in any sort of box. You’re in a hospital and I’m your doctor.”
The scene kind of ground to halt after that – though afterwards we got into a very interesting discussion about what happened. Our instructor brought up the idea that even with those exact same two lines as the opening the scene could’ve worked – or almost any sort of seeming flat out denial situation like that: as long as both players are committed to their choices. For example what if she was a crazy woman who thought she had a relationship with her doctor – she would keep insisting they were long time lovers that weren’t working out –while he continued to add to the not knowing her aspect - as long as they were committed the audience would eventually catch on. It’s obviously not an ideal situation of course – but it brings up a great point – there are no wrong moves in improv as long as you commit to them.
We ended the class by running a series of two person scenes where each player was given a specific challenge about the types of inspiration they should try on: We were given. Some of the ones were: Coquettish, Airy, Rock star, Bombastic, dictator subservient, etc. All with the caveat that we take it and make it our won – so whatever the inspiration means to you (and also that instead of making your character a Rocker/Rockstar in every scene take some characteristics you associate with a rock star and play them - or what do you first think of when you hear rock star, dictator, etc then use that).
Things we took away from class:
Listening is a willingness to change
Commit, commit, commit to everything you do on stage
A Character/attitude can fit anywhere an entire scenario can’t
Play outside your comfort zone – follow your fear
Saturday, October 13, 2007
I'm not going to be masturbating you...
I don't care what smooth line you give me I just ain't masturbating you. I got me a girl - we're separated, like a surgeon cut us apart - but I still got one. Now you can masturbate me - or you can give me some change, whatever works for you.
This is the wonderful bit of dialogue I caught while standing just outside of the McDonald's the other night around 2am (well actually it was more of a monologue I suppose) between a homeless guys and a young man. You see this McDonald's is open 24hrs - however after around 11pm/Midnight the dining room closes and it operates just it's drive through window and a nifty little walk-up window - perfect for all of us alcoholics who keep odd hours (but are just responsible enough not to be driving).
I was waiting for my food (if you can call it that) and just behind me were a group of young kind of preppy looking guys. I guessed they were probably early 20's sophmores in college somewhere in the city. Well a homeless guy saddles up besides the youngest and most uptight looking of these three guys - and then belts out the above (looking and sounding genuinely offended and aghast at the idea) while staring this kid dead on in the eyes (and to really give you an idea this guy looked filthy - long unkempt beard, maybe in his 50's, army jacket, missing some teeth, etc). People in McDonald's look at him, people walking by stare for a bit, and this kid looks like he was hit by a truck and turns bright red.
It was hilarious - and perhaps one of the best solicitations I've ever heard for money - at the very least it was effective. The kid quickly gave the guy a dollar just to get rid of him. Best part of all though, the moment the kid gave him the dollar the guy cracked a huge shit eating grin and said:
"Yeah I knew you were thinking about my dick."
And walked away laughing - you should've seen the kid's face, like a tomato and his friends gave him hell for it - it was the perfect end to a fun night out.
This is the wonderful bit of dialogue I caught while standing just outside of the McDonald's the other night around 2am (well actually it was more of a monologue I suppose) between a homeless guys and a young man. You see this McDonald's is open 24hrs - however after around 11pm/Midnight the dining room closes and it operates just it's drive through window and a nifty little walk-up window - perfect for all of us alcoholics who keep odd hours (but are just responsible enough not to be driving).
I was waiting for my food (if you can call it that) and just behind me were a group of young kind of preppy looking guys. I guessed they were probably early 20's sophmores in college somewhere in the city. Well a homeless guy saddles up besides the youngest and most uptight looking of these three guys - and then belts out the above (looking and sounding genuinely offended and aghast at the idea) while staring this kid dead on in the eyes (and to really give you an idea this guy looked filthy - long unkempt beard, maybe in his 50's, army jacket, missing some teeth, etc). People in McDonald's look at him, people walking by stare for a bit, and this kid looks like he was hit by a truck and turns bright red.
It was hilarious - and perhaps one of the best solicitations I've ever heard for money - at the very least it was effective. The kid quickly gave the guy a dollar just to get rid of him. Best part of all though, the moment the kid gave him the dollar the guy cracked a huge shit eating grin and said:
"Yeah I knew you were thinking about my dick."
And walked away laughing - you should've seen the kid's face, like a tomato and his friends gave him hell for it - it was the perfect end to a fun night out.
Friday, October 12, 2007
iO Level One - Week Eight
Yesterday was our final class in level one at iO (how time flies). It’s a pseudo bitter-sweet moment being done with level one, as the class had a number of very entertaining and talented people in it who sadly due to schedules have all now been split among the numerous level twos.
Before the last day two of my classmates got the idea in their head to arrange a sort of good-bye banquet….in the last class. They sent e-mails around and everyone brought some sort of food item (mostly things like beef jerky, donuts, chips, etc – though one person brought homemade tortillas and there was a salad and a few other actually food items – even our teacher was in on it…she brought the jerky). We all met 30 minutes early and ate and discussed which sessions of Level Two we had gotten into.
Eventually 7pm rolled around and we got started. Our teacher decided that on this the last day we were going to stray a little from the syllabus (keep that on the DL) and go ahead and perform the Harold followed by a surprise exercise. She asked for six people to hop up and told them the opening they were going to use was the Invocation. They got their word and jumped into it.
The first Harold went pretty well (very well considering it really being the first any of them had done). Their opening ended up creating a beautiful stage picture of someone riding a bike as they were talking which eventually morphed into a “Hell Bike” by the end with the Devil astride it. Really the only critique afterwards was the fact that they ended up too close to the initial suggestion: Bicycle – both group games centered around people cycling or bicycles and in a number of the scenes they appeared (and in general most of the scenes took the ideas from the opening too literally and they never really explored the themes they found in different settings).
Next five others and myself hopped up. We were told we’d be doing the Conducted story opening and got the suggestion Mop – then we began. Our opening told the story of a janitor, picked on by his peers – who only found solace in his mop – yet which he eventually forsook for a wet-vac. By the end we had discovered that the mop was magical and could fly yet tragically died alone despite it trying to improve others lives.
Our scenes went really well – we started off with a three person scene (one guy occasionally walked in and out as the new guy at a school) while his “friends” picked on him behind his back – making all kinds of assumptions about him from what he was dressed as (and a nice nod to the opening where the janitor was picked on). The second scene involved a parapsychologist who had been called into investigate the haunting of a family’s home where the appliances moved by themselves and had been for the past four weeks – the rest of the group got to help by making chairs move on stage. The final scene involved a poor old lady who got a neighbor boy to clean her gutters – yet constantly distracted him with depressing stories about her life and parties she got humiliated at. The first group game involved everyone excited about moving into their new entirely glass house which would serve as a perfect example to other families by showing how them the “perfect family lived.
The second beat first scene heightened with scenes about two closet racists on a golf course (playing 8 holes, cause 9 is too strenuous and 18 is just ridiculous and only for showoffs) as a their caddy and grounds keeper walked in and out (while they were they were very polite and chummy – yet the moment they were off stage the two let their true colors show commenting on stereotypical nonsense). Then there was a ghost party and finally a family who were living a peaceful life until the Harlem Globe trotters came in and started disrupting their house (don’t ask me where exactly that came from).
We had some trouble with our second group game (as everyone ended up on stage for the globe trotters scene – which some though merged into the game and other didn’t) – yet the peace ended nicely as we discovered the ghosts were kids who had been picked on who killed themselves out of shame – and many different types of bullies learned their lesson (and the globe trotters came back to play the ghosts at one point…which was weird but amusing).
Though there were some hiccups – pretty good over all (and I got to be racist – hooray).
The final group went and was asked to use monologues as their opening. They sadly jumped the gun a little bit and didn’t let the monologues go long enough (or get enough out – they only had three really short ones) – so that left them a little short on inspiration. A number of the scenes were very interesting but some lacked relationships and their second group game was just chaos with a lot of people over talking.
In the end though considering that for most it was their first introduction to improv let alone the Harold (note a form we’re not supposed to fully know till level 4) it went smashingly well.
Then we were told about the surprise exercise. Our teacher asked 6 more people to hop up on stage and bring chairs. She arranged all but two in a line the others she put on the end facing in ward (so it was an incredibly long flat u). She asked us to sit (but told us we could move if we wanted) and let us in on what we were doing. We were asked to do a 6-person scene focusing on tension between characters. She told us that we were in a hospital waiting room and off to the right behind a door was someone very dear to all of us – and they might not make it. However we could not focus on that – the scene was to start after we had all already spent a long time talking about their fate – and now we were to try to not talk about them or the situation at all – but have it in the back of our minds.
We began and quickly discovered we were all part of a big family – with an abusive dad, entitled grandpa, feuding siblings – with the youngest feeling that no one wanted him– a deaf middle child, stuck up sister, and takes after his dad eldest (and an alcoholic uncle). Very tellingly there was no mother present – and afterward we all agreed that rather quickly it seemed unspoken that was who was I the hospital and she was the only glue holding the family together. It went incredibly well – there was great give and take and we never talked about the situation except for the final line where the youngest pointed at the dad and said this is all your fault you put her here which shut everyone up and was the perfect ending.
The next two groups ended up talking about the situation a little too much which kind of hurt the exercise as once it was brought up (the other situations were they just saw a house explode outside the window and are not sure people made it out – and there’s a jumper on the ledge in the building across the street that they can see) tore the focus away from the relationships and toward the situation. Still there was fairly good give and take considering six people on stage- but very quickly into both scenes you could see some characters become far more focused on the jumper or the house than on what was going on stage.
In the end we did a 19-person scene with the same caveat (alien spaceship had landed in a field near us – we had already talked about it to death now it was time for us to deal which each other). Went fairly well – but again a lot of people ended up just speculating about aliens and eventually walking toward the ship.
All in all the exercise was really interesting as it brings up the idea that really in any scene – no matter interesting extreme the situation the focus is about the interaction between the characters (the relationship_ and how powerful either doing something or letting something affect you can be when you don’t talk about it or focus on it.
I have to say I'm very excited to move on to Level Two (I'm taking it with Susan Messing who rocks) and very interested to see how my internship will turn out.
Also though I'm only a few classes deep over all - I'm rather glad I decided to take classes at the Annoyance concurrently since so far they have served as a great compliment to each other - one focusing exclusively on scene work - while the other is gearing me up towards group improvisation and learning specific forms.
Before the last day two of my classmates got the idea in their head to arrange a sort of good-bye banquet….in the last class. They sent e-mails around and everyone brought some sort of food item (mostly things like beef jerky, donuts, chips, etc – though one person brought homemade tortillas and there was a salad and a few other actually food items – even our teacher was in on it…she brought the jerky). We all met 30 minutes early and ate and discussed which sessions of Level Two we had gotten into.
Eventually 7pm rolled around and we got started. Our teacher decided that on this the last day we were going to stray a little from the syllabus (keep that on the DL) and go ahead and perform the Harold followed by a surprise exercise. She asked for six people to hop up and told them the opening they were going to use was the Invocation. They got their word and jumped into it.
The first Harold went pretty well (very well considering it really being the first any of them had done). Their opening ended up creating a beautiful stage picture of someone riding a bike as they were talking which eventually morphed into a “Hell Bike” by the end with the Devil astride it. Really the only critique afterwards was the fact that they ended up too close to the initial suggestion: Bicycle – both group games centered around people cycling or bicycles and in a number of the scenes they appeared (and in general most of the scenes took the ideas from the opening too literally and they never really explored the themes they found in different settings).
Next five others and myself hopped up. We were told we’d be doing the Conducted story opening and got the suggestion Mop – then we began. Our opening told the story of a janitor, picked on by his peers – who only found solace in his mop – yet which he eventually forsook for a wet-vac. By the end we had discovered that the mop was magical and could fly yet tragically died alone despite it trying to improve others lives.
Our scenes went really well – we started off with a three person scene (one guy occasionally walked in and out as the new guy at a school) while his “friends” picked on him behind his back – making all kinds of assumptions about him from what he was dressed as (and a nice nod to the opening where the janitor was picked on). The second scene involved a parapsychologist who had been called into investigate the haunting of a family’s home where the appliances moved by themselves and had been for the past four weeks – the rest of the group got to help by making chairs move on stage. The final scene involved a poor old lady who got a neighbor boy to clean her gutters – yet constantly distracted him with depressing stories about her life and parties she got humiliated at. The first group game involved everyone excited about moving into their new entirely glass house which would serve as a perfect example to other families by showing how them the “perfect family lived.
The second beat first scene heightened with scenes about two closet racists on a golf course (playing 8 holes, cause 9 is too strenuous and 18 is just ridiculous and only for showoffs) as a their caddy and grounds keeper walked in and out (while they were they were very polite and chummy – yet the moment they were off stage the two let their true colors show commenting on stereotypical nonsense). Then there was a ghost party and finally a family who were living a peaceful life until the Harlem Globe trotters came in and started disrupting their house (don’t ask me where exactly that came from).
We had some trouble with our second group game (as everyone ended up on stage for the globe trotters scene – which some though merged into the game and other didn’t) – yet the peace ended nicely as we discovered the ghosts were kids who had been picked on who killed themselves out of shame – and many different types of bullies learned their lesson (and the globe trotters came back to play the ghosts at one point…which was weird but amusing).
Though there were some hiccups – pretty good over all (and I got to be racist – hooray).
The final group went and was asked to use monologues as their opening. They sadly jumped the gun a little bit and didn’t let the monologues go long enough (or get enough out – they only had three really short ones) – so that left them a little short on inspiration. A number of the scenes were very interesting but some lacked relationships and their second group game was just chaos with a lot of people over talking.
In the end though considering that for most it was their first introduction to improv let alone the Harold (note a form we’re not supposed to fully know till level 4) it went smashingly well.
Then we were told about the surprise exercise. Our teacher asked 6 more people to hop up on stage and bring chairs. She arranged all but two in a line the others she put on the end facing in ward (so it was an incredibly long flat u). She asked us to sit (but told us we could move if we wanted) and let us in on what we were doing. We were asked to do a 6-person scene focusing on tension between characters. She told us that we were in a hospital waiting room and off to the right behind a door was someone very dear to all of us – and they might not make it. However we could not focus on that – the scene was to start after we had all already spent a long time talking about their fate – and now we were to try to not talk about them or the situation at all – but have it in the back of our minds.
We began and quickly discovered we were all part of a big family – with an abusive dad, entitled grandpa, feuding siblings – with the youngest feeling that no one wanted him– a deaf middle child, stuck up sister, and takes after his dad eldest (and an alcoholic uncle). Very tellingly there was no mother present – and afterward we all agreed that rather quickly it seemed unspoken that was who was I the hospital and she was the only glue holding the family together. It went incredibly well – there was great give and take and we never talked about the situation except for the final line where the youngest pointed at the dad and said this is all your fault you put her here which shut everyone up and was the perfect ending.
The next two groups ended up talking about the situation a little too much which kind of hurt the exercise as once it was brought up (the other situations were they just saw a house explode outside the window and are not sure people made it out – and there’s a jumper on the ledge in the building across the street that they can see) tore the focus away from the relationships and toward the situation. Still there was fairly good give and take considering six people on stage- but very quickly into both scenes you could see some characters become far more focused on the jumper or the house than on what was going on stage.
In the end we did a 19-person scene with the same caveat (alien spaceship had landed in a field near us – we had already talked about it to death now it was time for us to deal which each other). Went fairly well – but again a lot of people ended up just speculating about aliens and eventually walking toward the ship.
All in all the exercise was really interesting as it brings up the idea that really in any scene – no matter interesting extreme the situation the focus is about the interaction between the characters (the relationship_ and how powerful either doing something or letting something affect you can be when you don’t talk about it or focus on it.
I have to say I'm very excited to move on to Level Two (I'm taking it with Susan Messing who rocks) and very interested to see how my internship will turn out.
Also though I'm only a few classes deep over all - I'm rather glad I decided to take classes at the Annoyance concurrently since so far they have served as a great compliment to each other - one focusing exclusively on scene work - while the other is gearing me up towards group improvisation and learning specific forms.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
I have the Power!
The power to retrieve large amounts of alcohol from behind locked doors and take them to where the public may consume them, the power to take your tickets and answer your questions, the power to remove trash at will and (if the manager says so) throw your ass out...in other words I am officially working for the iO theater in Chicago - booyah. I'm going to be a theater intern (cough... people's bitch...cough) And I just had the mandatory meeting for all new interns the other night - and it was a great start to the whole shebang.
I walked into the theater to find around ten other people sitting downstairs in the cabaret theatre (there ended up being 14 new interns this session – a record for the theater). The manager of the Theater – Mike, came in a little after everyone got there (to the theme from the exorcist mind you – played from the sound booth by Jason Chin a teacher/director/performer at the theater). He gave us the lowdown of the different type of positions – some interns would work the offices upstairs (back behind the Del Close theater) during the day – taking calls, dealing with paperwork, getting coffee – the usual office type intern stuff, some interns would be in charge of the box office – in the evenings – a couple hours before shows and during shows – ticket sales, merchandise, phone calls/reservations, etc – and then some would be working in the actual theaters – taking the tickets and seating customers, bar backing and occasionally helping the bar staff any way necessary (if they need help making drinks bam, stocking, bam, getting glasses, etc), set up & clean up for shows, dealing with customers the most directly often times (hecklers, overly drunk, or just questions and of course seating them), and opening and closing the theater. Of course during the entire briefing Jason Chin was in the light booth punctuating the speech with musical cues and lighting effects – much to the amusement to everyone.
(Note most new interns are theater interns – though very few are level one students/just beginning level two – it’s the earliest you can get into the program and most of them were level 3 or up – so I’m low, low man on the totem pole).
We got a tour of the whole theater – stock rooms, offices, theaters, etc – and then we finally got to see our schedules. I’m the closing shift of Friday nights and a theater intern. The good news is I get to see (no matter which theater I’m in – and often you run back and forth) one of the best shows/teams at the iO and am around to watch the open jam. Also from what I’ve heard this is the shift most likely to let you go early as rarely to people outside of performers stay too long after the final show lets out – and once it’s just performers you can relax. The bad news is it’s one of the theaters busiest nights usually (Saturday closing is the worst form what I’ve heard – as you’ll often stay an hour longer than Friday) – though at least I’ll stay busy – and the official hours are 9pm-2am (so potentially walking home very late in very cold weather – thank god I’m close), and my Friday nights are kind of shot. Still my level one teacher told me she started out in the exact same shift and loved it – so it should be interesting (it does mean I’m half the team responsible for closing the theater – trash duty woohoo, yet I also get the most potential chill time during my shift.
Anyway it goes it should be interesting – and after this session I can trade up to a different shift since I’ll no longer be a newbie.
I walked into the theater to find around ten other people sitting downstairs in the cabaret theatre (there ended up being 14 new interns this session – a record for the theater). The manager of the Theater – Mike, came in a little after everyone got there (to the theme from the exorcist mind you – played from the sound booth by Jason Chin a teacher/director/performer at the theater). He gave us the lowdown of the different type of positions – some interns would work the offices upstairs (back behind the Del Close theater) during the day – taking calls, dealing with paperwork, getting coffee – the usual office type intern stuff, some interns would be in charge of the box office – in the evenings – a couple hours before shows and during shows – ticket sales, merchandise, phone calls/reservations, etc – and then some would be working in the actual theaters – taking the tickets and seating customers, bar backing and occasionally helping the bar staff any way necessary (if they need help making drinks bam, stocking, bam, getting glasses, etc), set up & clean up for shows, dealing with customers the most directly often times (hecklers, overly drunk, or just questions and of course seating them), and opening and closing the theater. Of course during the entire briefing Jason Chin was in the light booth punctuating the speech with musical cues and lighting effects – much to the amusement to everyone.
(Note most new interns are theater interns – though very few are level one students/just beginning level two – it’s the earliest you can get into the program and most of them were level 3 or up – so I’m low, low man on the totem pole).
We got a tour of the whole theater – stock rooms, offices, theaters, etc – and then we finally got to see our schedules. I’m the closing shift of Friday nights and a theater intern. The good news is I get to see (no matter which theater I’m in – and often you run back and forth) one of the best shows/teams at the iO and am around to watch the open jam. Also from what I’ve heard this is the shift most likely to let you go early as rarely to people outside of performers stay too long after the final show lets out – and once it’s just performers you can relax. The bad news is it’s one of the theaters busiest nights usually (Saturday closing is the worst form what I’ve heard – as you’ll often stay an hour longer than Friday) – though at least I’ll stay busy – and the official hours are 9pm-2am (so potentially walking home very late in very cold weather – thank god I’m close), and my Friday nights are kind of shot. Still my level one teacher told me she started out in the exact same shift and loved it – so it should be interesting (it does mean I’m half the team responsible for closing the theater – trash duty woohoo, yet I also get the most potential chill time during my shift.
Anyway it goes it should be interesting – and after this session I can trade up to a different shift since I’ll no longer be a newbie.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Annoyance Level One – Week Two
Class started off today with the introduction of two new members (and the loss of a few who apparently were just sitting in and are now enrolled in another section – there was exactly 10 of us, though a couple who were supposed to be there were not). The reason I mention this is because one of the new members is basically completely new to improv itself – he’s been a fan of it for a while (perhaps did a little in high school – I can’t entirely recall), but his main introduction to improv is through Mick Napier’s book Improvise (which basically covers the annoyance philosophy) so it’s very interesting playing with him and watching him play.
Before we began we were asked to be willing to play outside of our comfort zone today in class and that in class it’s far better to take some risks and “fail” instead of play it safe and “rock out” all the time. We started off right away with all of us getting up to “warm-up” with some completely open two-person scenes. It took a couple for us to shake some of the cobwebs off, but after a few we were all in a pretty god spot.
Our teacher then asked for half of us to grab a seat while the other group remained standing. It was a very interesting split – myself and four other guys headed to the chairs leaving up on stage the four ladies in the class and one guy (the shiest and perhaps most tentative one).
Once we were divided as such – our teacher told us hat for this round of scenes both players (we are basically exclusively focusing on two person scenes in this level btw) will, like last time, be asked to start each scene with an attitude or “deal” already established. However for this day our instructor will be assigning them at the start of each scene and both players will be given the exact same one.
The one caveat we are given before this exercise starts is to try and shy away from playing the “cliché” of whatever “deal” we are given.
It became rather apparent (even more so when our group went up) as scenes went on that he was custom tailoring some of the suggestions based on the players. Some examples we were given: “You believe you can kick the crap out of anyone.” - “You’re a fixer: you have an eagerness to fix things.” – “Militant.” – “Subservient.” “Sharing: you want to share something with others.” – etc.
After each group had done a few scenes where both players had the same “deals” at the top he began assigning separate "deals" to people as they came out – so you might see a scene between some who’s deal is “You believe you can kick the crap out of anyone.” & someone with “You’re a fixer: you have an eagerness to fix things.” And all kinds of different combinations that lead to some very interesting scenes.
As these scene continues our teacher began to add more abstract “deals” – asking us to focus on a bold physical choice, or (in my case one time) simply giving me the color “orange” and saying whatever character that inspires in me (after this scene he paused and said that it was an experiment he likes to try every once and a while in class in order to show how you can take anything as inspiration – it actually worked out fairly well).
Eventually our teacher took the blinders off again and we were asked to basically find our own “deals” once the scene began – encouraged to both pluck form any we had worked on or any we thought up ourselves. I really tried to focus on physicality, as it is something that I personally want to improve in (both varying physicality between characters drastically, playing with levels, just being more physical in scenes – using the space and my own body, etc).
After this we organically moved into basically a La Ronde: http://improvencyclopedia.org/games//La_Ronde.html - in order to play our characters in very different situations – and help us focus on what were the key elements to the characters we had developed. I always enjoy the La Ronde simply because it forces you to find a strong character – because otherwise you’re going to have it rough in later scenes.
The class then wrapped up with a series of open two person scenes.
There were a lot of really fun scenes (both to watch and to perform in) that came out of this. Two scenes I did I really felt rather good about and I want to mention because they illustrate really well what this sort of style can do in terms of initiations (my ego has nothing to do with it I swear – mwuahaha…cough).
The first I simply came out with the idea in the back of my mind that “I could beat the crap out of anyone.”
Just telling myself as I walked out completely caused me to alter the way I entered the space – I through my shoulders back, lead with my chest a bit more, and had a very confident air about me. Before I had taken two steps my scene partner started off the scene by telling me how much she was looking forward to our date. Without having to think about it for even a second I responded with something along the lines of: “Damn right you are.”
The scene flew on from there being incredibly easy to navigate as I had a perfect sense of my character (and so did my scene partner – we found out afterwards, as the teacher paused to ask us, that her “deal” was being incredibly enthusiastic). At no point was there a moment of “what do we do now” and I feel the scene could’ve gone on much longer if it had bee allowed to – simply because we both had very strong characters – inspired by rather simple phrases/ideas. Heck the scene even ended up in some weird territory with my first date question being “What’s your biggest fear in a relationship.” Which simply came from my first response to her – the very direct & straightforward “damn right you’re excited.”
The cool thing about this scene – at least for me – was the fact that from a single idea/attitude I instantly found a physicality and from there instantly found a broad outline for a character which could work in any situation: I’m incredibly confident and direct.
The next scene I had decided that I wanted to start focusing more on my own physicality – so when I stepped out I decided to try and be as different from my normal physical self as possible. This lead to me not so much stepping out on stage as leaping (well as well as I can) and landing in a crouch on my tiptoes – ready to bound up again at a moments notice. This rather bizarre and extreme physical choice quickly prompted in me the idea of being rather light on my feet and lead to me talking in voice a tad higher than my normal cadence, which quickly developed a singsong quality to it. The first words out my mouth ended up being rather cryptic simply because of the genuine look of surprise on my scene partner’s face when she saw me leap into a crouch. From there the scene took off as I ended up being a cross between Puck, the Cheshire cat, and a lot of general snarkiness as I flitted about on stage as a jester/imp always pausing in a crouch and eventually ended up speaking in rhyming couplets.
All of this – that entire weird ass character spawned from a physical choice – I didn’t think of how my voice should sound before I began speaking – the higher pitch and sing song quality came naturally from the way I was moving, and everything spiraled off from there.
The thing about these two scenes is that they highlighted – at least for me – two incredibly easy ways to find a full and rich character for any scene situation (which is really what this entire level is basically focusing on). First if you have an attitude you can find an instant character if you let it and secondly if you start off with a physicality you’ll also find an attitude and character if you let it. And as many, many people have said before me – it’s all about finding a character and channeling a point of view (and currently my favorite way to do that is through physicality, though only slightly behind it is through and attitude/point of view – since they are really interchangeable: if you have one you’ll have the other if you let it happen).
Hopefully this makes sense and the descriptions of the scenes help illustrate the idea.
A few things we took away from class:
You can find a character through physicality or point of view very easily.
Specificity in scenes makes for much richer more interesting work
Subtlety is the key when being inspired by attitude (unless you make an active deliberate choice to be unsubtle).
Challenge yourself – play outside your comfort zone enough and your comfort zone will expand.
Before we began we were asked to be willing to play outside of our comfort zone today in class and that in class it’s far better to take some risks and “fail” instead of play it safe and “rock out” all the time. We started off right away with all of us getting up to “warm-up” with some completely open two-person scenes. It took a couple for us to shake some of the cobwebs off, but after a few we were all in a pretty god spot.
Our teacher then asked for half of us to grab a seat while the other group remained standing. It was a very interesting split – myself and four other guys headed to the chairs leaving up on stage the four ladies in the class and one guy (the shiest and perhaps most tentative one).
Once we were divided as such – our teacher told us hat for this round of scenes both players (we are basically exclusively focusing on two person scenes in this level btw) will, like last time, be asked to start each scene with an attitude or “deal” already established. However for this day our instructor will be assigning them at the start of each scene and both players will be given the exact same one.
The one caveat we are given before this exercise starts is to try and shy away from playing the “cliché” of whatever “deal” we are given.
It became rather apparent (even more so when our group went up) as scenes went on that he was custom tailoring some of the suggestions based on the players. Some examples we were given: “You believe you can kick the crap out of anyone.” - “You’re a fixer: you have an eagerness to fix things.” – “Militant.” – “Subservient.” “Sharing: you want to share something with others.” – etc.
After each group had done a few scenes where both players had the same “deals” at the top he began assigning separate "deals" to people as they came out – so you might see a scene between some who’s deal is “You believe you can kick the crap out of anyone.” & someone with “You’re a fixer: you have an eagerness to fix things.” And all kinds of different combinations that lead to some very interesting scenes.
As these scene continues our teacher began to add more abstract “deals” – asking us to focus on a bold physical choice, or (in my case one time) simply giving me the color “orange” and saying whatever character that inspires in me (after this scene he paused and said that it was an experiment he likes to try every once and a while in class in order to show how you can take anything as inspiration – it actually worked out fairly well).
Eventually our teacher took the blinders off again and we were asked to basically find our own “deals” once the scene began – encouraged to both pluck form any we had worked on or any we thought up ourselves. I really tried to focus on physicality, as it is something that I personally want to improve in (both varying physicality between characters drastically, playing with levels, just being more physical in scenes – using the space and my own body, etc).
After this we organically moved into basically a La Ronde: http://improvencyclopedia.org/games//La_Ronde.html - in order to play our characters in very different situations – and help us focus on what were the key elements to the characters we had developed. I always enjoy the La Ronde simply because it forces you to find a strong character – because otherwise you’re going to have it rough in later scenes.
The class then wrapped up with a series of open two person scenes.
There were a lot of really fun scenes (both to watch and to perform in) that came out of this. Two scenes I did I really felt rather good about and I want to mention because they illustrate really well what this sort of style can do in terms of initiations (my ego has nothing to do with it I swear – mwuahaha…cough).
The first I simply came out with the idea in the back of my mind that “I could beat the crap out of anyone.”
Just telling myself as I walked out completely caused me to alter the way I entered the space – I through my shoulders back, lead with my chest a bit more, and had a very confident air about me. Before I had taken two steps my scene partner started off the scene by telling me how much she was looking forward to our date. Without having to think about it for even a second I responded with something along the lines of: “Damn right you are.”
The scene flew on from there being incredibly easy to navigate as I had a perfect sense of my character (and so did my scene partner – we found out afterwards, as the teacher paused to ask us, that her “deal” was being incredibly enthusiastic). At no point was there a moment of “what do we do now” and I feel the scene could’ve gone on much longer if it had bee allowed to – simply because we both had very strong characters – inspired by rather simple phrases/ideas. Heck the scene even ended up in some weird territory with my first date question being “What’s your biggest fear in a relationship.” Which simply came from my first response to her – the very direct & straightforward “damn right you’re excited.”
The cool thing about this scene – at least for me – was the fact that from a single idea/attitude I instantly found a physicality and from there instantly found a broad outline for a character which could work in any situation: I’m incredibly confident and direct.
The next scene I had decided that I wanted to start focusing more on my own physicality – so when I stepped out I decided to try and be as different from my normal physical self as possible. This lead to me not so much stepping out on stage as leaping (well as well as I can) and landing in a crouch on my tiptoes – ready to bound up again at a moments notice. This rather bizarre and extreme physical choice quickly prompted in me the idea of being rather light on my feet and lead to me talking in voice a tad higher than my normal cadence, which quickly developed a singsong quality to it. The first words out my mouth ended up being rather cryptic simply because of the genuine look of surprise on my scene partner’s face when she saw me leap into a crouch. From there the scene took off as I ended up being a cross between Puck, the Cheshire cat, and a lot of general snarkiness as I flitted about on stage as a jester/imp always pausing in a crouch and eventually ended up speaking in rhyming couplets.
All of this – that entire weird ass character spawned from a physical choice – I didn’t think of how my voice should sound before I began speaking – the higher pitch and sing song quality came naturally from the way I was moving, and everything spiraled off from there.
The thing about these two scenes is that they highlighted – at least for me – two incredibly easy ways to find a full and rich character for any scene situation (which is really what this entire level is basically focusing on). First if you have an attitude you can find an instant character if you let it and secondly if you start off with a physicality you’ll also find an attitude and character if you let it. And as many, many people have said before me – it’s all about finding a character and channeling a point of view (and currently my favorite way to do that is through physicality, though only slightly behind it is through and attitude/point of view – since they are really interchangeable: if you have one you’ll have the other if you let it happen).
Hopefully this makes sense and the descriptions of the scenes help illustrate the idea.
A few things we took away from class:
You can find a character through physicality or point of view very easily.
Specificity in scenes makes for much richer more interesting work
Subtlety is the key when being inspired by attitude (unless you make an active deliberate choice to be unsubtle).
Challenge yourself – play outside your comfort zone enough and your comfort zone will expand.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
iO Level One – Week Seven
Earlier tonight I had my second to last class of level one at the iO theater.
Announcement
Before I get to the details about the class however (Hooray suspense) I have an important (at least to me) announcement to make. As of next week I will be interning for the iO theater – huzzah. Yep, earlier today I got a phone call stating I was on the “short list” for interns and that they would be finalizing who was in today and tomorrow. They conducted a brief phone interview with me and told me they would be in touch – well a couple hours later I got a call and they let me know I was in – woot. I still have no idea what nigh I’ll be working, but this is going to allow me to make a lot more connections at the theater (and within the community at large) and means that I won’t have to pay for level two (huzzah again). I’ll be sure to post information here to let people know what the experience is like.
I have to give major thanks to Jake, Rutherford, Bill, Dan, Linda & My Awesome level One Teacher for either recommending me or letting me list them as references (as a big part of the process is who you know from around the theater).
The Class
Anyway on to the details about the class. Tonight after a quick Crazy Eights warm-up our instructor told us were going to be working on a new opening. She first had all of us get up on stage and explained that we were going to construct a giant human machine (with all of us as moving parts). The key to this exercise she explained was the idea of complimenting each other – as one person steps out and begins making a sound and motion (machine-part-like mind you) everyone else should be thinking how they can add on to that and support it with their own sound and motion (another key she mentioned was keep it relatively simple). This exercise is of course a great metaphor for iO’s approach to improvisation (at least the core values they teach): you’re all part of a group, you must always look for how you can compliment/support the rest of the group (it can also be dissected further with the idea of every show being like the machine in the exercise and your scenes + yourselves being the players, and I’m sure other permutations as well).
This exercise was to get us in the mind set for the Doo Wop opening. I first saw this opening used maybe a year or so ago on a trip to Chicago where I caught the iO Musical featuring the Deltones (this was right around when Baby Wants Candy had moved out of the Theater and they had put a new musical show in their slot I believe) and even though what they were doing as the opening was fairly simple I was impressed. Btw in case you haven’t guessed yet from either the name, or my reference to seeing it in a musical show – this is a musical opening and for those of you not in the know, I’m fairly tone deaf (meaning if you play a few notes on a piano and ask me to try and sing along…haha I’ll fail miserably). Luckily, no piano was present and we were creating our own rhythm (I attribute my meager abilities of following a musical rhythm mind you to hours of free styling during long road trips to festivals with Whistlers btw).
The opening itself is fairly simple (though when done well is pretty cool) one at a time the players on stage simply repeat their own simple phrases inspired by the suggestion over and over again to a musical rhythm.
So a suggestion will be given and one player steps forward singing/chanting a phrase inspired by it choosing their own rhythm. Then another player will step forward singing/chanting his or her own phrase in a rhythm and tone that compliments and fits with the first person’s choice. This continues until all the players are singing/chanting something. Even though this is really just everyone just repeating different phrases because of the complimentary rhythms and tones (some phrases will end up overlapping btw) it comes across as incredibly unified.
Once everyone is singing/chanting one at a time, in any order, players step to the front of the stage and either sing (or if you’re not all the musically inclined share ) a brief monologue inspired by your phrase. Once everyone has gone (and during this the overall singing/chanting fades but doesn’t not stop – and everyone returns to their phrases after their monologue) you organically end the piece (can all end up repeating one phrase, can fade out, whatever you find at the time that leads to an out).
It’s actually easier to explain in person as you can give vocal examples.
The first group in the class that went nailed it – right off the bat. Then me and a few other people went. The first time we tried it we were all basically chanting and lacked really any sort of musical quality, the second time we tried it we ended up with two different main rhythms and it fell apart. The third time we tried it we nailed it (practice makes perfect). The final group to try took only two attempts before they nailed it. Subsequent attempts by groups were far better as we got used to it, but there were still some hiccups.
We ended this exercise by attempting this opening while focusing on different music genres (to give us an overall theme to further tie our piece together). We explored love songs, rock, country, hip-hop, and an awesome Blues inspired opening.
After break we moved on from the Doo Wop opening into some scene work but kept the ideas of working within different genres (fyi I love playing around with genres in improv, it can be really fun). We did a series of two person scenes with each pair getting a suggestion and a genre (or time period).
One thing came quickly apparent as these scenes went on – when playing with different genres in improv (or really homage’s to anything in improv) there is a real danger/temptation of allowing your scene to be too aware of the source material.
I swear there were more bizarre pop culture-esque references dropped in this round of scene than I’ve seen in a rather long time. For example one pair got 80’s as a time period and dropped references to Sixteen Candles & Pretty in Pink (talking about similar situation and even characters names), they popped their collar and some one mentioned going to MTV’s 2nd new years party. Sadly there was very little scene under all those references.
One pair got Film Noir and there were numerous mentions of shadows, smoking of cigarettes, French accents (the French were a huge fan of the genre and made some of their own so it kind of fits), and an audience aside (inner monologue). This was all on top of though (eventually – in the last minute or so) a scene about two prisoners just wanting to escape back to France.
The big problem I see all to often when people do exercises like this (or experiment with genre in shows – this is really prevalent in less than stellar performances of genres the short form game) – is players will sometimes forget that before you had on any fancy trappings (be it a new form, a new genre/style, a song, gimmick, game, etc) you need to have a scene – with relationships and characters (this is my big pet peeve with some of the short form I’ve seen – and admittedly performed - in my time): it’s never about the genre/style/game/gimmick/etc it’s about the characters and how they relate to each other.
Once you get down that little bit – you can slather all the bells and whistles you want on to it and it’ll be fabulous – with out it, you’re just being silly. Heck you can even make the conscious choice to go all meta with the genre or game/whatever and drop those cute references and comment on it – just as long as you have a real scene going on underneath it.
We ended the class focusing on another opening the un-conducted story (like the conducted story short form game but there’s no conductor) – so basically the group telling a story. The addition to this is hopefully the ensemble will also be acting parts of the story out as they are told, switching off between showing the story and telling it.
It was a lot of fun and actually brings up a great aspect of improv which I feel is so important and that we got to touch on in class thanks to this opening: Showing vs. telling. All to often I see scenes where players are talking about doing something, or telling their partners things (such as “I love you,” or I’m disappointed” or even much more mundane things) but rarely do I see improvisers just showing these things (or just doing them – don’t say we should go do Blah blah, do blah blah on stage). It’s so much more powerful to show that you love the other character than to say it – especially if you’re saying something completely different. This really gets back to the stuff we talked about in the Annoyance class: “how you do something is what you are.” The unspoken caveat of that statement being of course is that you have to do something first (even if it’s just stand their silently). And all to often I see improviser simply say something and rely on their verbal wit to carry scenes (and admittedly saying something is doing something technically) but again I want you to show me, I don’t care what you say it’s how you say it – I don’t care what you do it’s how you do it.
Anyway I hope that make sense – that’s all the ranting I have in me for now, as it’s getting late – all in all today was a good improv day.
Announcement
Before I get to the details about the class however (Hooray suspense) I have an important (at least to me) announcement to make. As of next week I will be interning for the iO theater – huzzah. Yep, earlier today I got a phone call stating I was on the “short list” for interns and that they would be finalizing who was in today and tomorrow. They conducted a brief phone interview with me and told me they would be in touch – well a couple hours later I got a call and they let me know I was in – woot. I still have no idea what nigh I’ll be working, but this is going to allow me to make a lot more connections at the theater (and within the community at large) and means that I won’t have to pay for level two (huzzah again). I’ll be sure to post information here to let people know what the experience is like.
I have to give major thanks to Jake, Rutherford, Bill, Dan, Linda & My Awesome level One Teacher for either recommending me or letting me list them as references (as a big part of the process is who you know from around the theater).
The Class
Anyway on to the details about the class. Tonight after a quick Crazy Eights warm-up our instructor told us were going to be working on a new opening. She first had all of us get up on stage and explained that we were going to construct a giant human machine (with all of us as moving parts). The key to this exercise she explained was the idea of complimenting each other – as one person steps out and begins making a sound and motion (machine-part-like mind you) everyone else should be thinking how they can add on to that and support it with their own sound and motion (another key she mentioned was keep it relatively simple). This exercise is of course a great metaphor for iO’s approach to improvisation (at least the core values they teach): you’re all part of a group, you must always look for how you can compliment/support the rest of the group (it can also be dissected further with the idea of every show being like the machine in the exercise and your scenes + yourselves being the players, and I’m sure other permutations as well).
This exercise was to get us in the mind set for the Doo Wop opening. I first saw this opening used maybe a year or so ago on a trip to Chicago where I caught the iO Musical featuring the Deltones (this was right around when Baby Wants Candy had moved out of the Theater and they had put a new musical show in their slot I believe) and even though what they were doing as the opening was fairly simple I was impressed. Btw in case you haven’t guessed yet from either the name, or my reference to seeing it in a musical show – this is a musical opening and for those of you not in the know, I’m fairly tone deaf (meaning if you play a few notes on a piano and ask me to try and sing along…haha I’ll fail miserably). Luckily, no piano was present and we were creating our own rhythm (I attribute my meager abilities of following a musical rhythm mind you to hours of free styling during long road trips to festivals with Whistlers btw).
The opening itself is fairly simple (though when done well is pretty cool) one at a time the players on stage simply repeat their own simple phrases inspired by the suggestion over and over again to a musical rhythm.
So a suggestion will be given and one player steps forward singing/chanting a phrase inspired by it choosing their own rhythm. Then another player will step forward singing/chanting his or her own phrase in a rhythm and tone that compliments and fits with the first person’s choice. This continues until all the players are singing/chanting something. Even though this is really just everyone just repeating different phrases because of the complimentary rhythms and tones (some phrases will end up overlapping btw) it comes across as incredibly unified.
Once everyone is singing/chanting one at a time, in any order, players step to the front of the stage and either sing (or if you’re not all the musically inclined share ) a brief monologue inspired by your phrase. Once everyone has gone (and during this the overall singing/chanting fades but doesn’t not stop – and everyone returns to their phrases after their monologue) you organically end the piece (can all end up repeating one phrase, can fade out, whatever you find at the time that leads to an out).
It’s actually easier to explain in person as you can give vocal examples.
The first group in the class that went nailed it – right off the bat. Then me and a few other people went. The first time we tried it we were all basically chanting and lacked really any sort of musical quality, the second time we tried it we ended up with two different main rhythms and it fell apart. The third time we tried it we nailed it (practice makes perfect). The final group to try took only two attempts before they nailed it. Subsequent attempts by groups were far better as we got used to it, but there were still some hiccups.
We ended this exercise by attempting this opening while focusing on different music genres (to give us an overall theme to further tie our piece together). We explored love songs, rock, country, hip-hop, and an awesome Blues inspired opening.
After break we moved on from the Doo Wop opening into some scene work but kept the ideas of working within different genres (fyi I love playing around with genres in improv, it can be really fun). We did a series of two person scenes with each pair getting a suggestion and a genre (or time period).
One thing came quickly apparent as these scenes went on – when playing with different genres in improv (or really homage’s to anything in improv) there is a real danger/temptation of allowing your scene to be too aware of the source material.
I swear there were more bizarre pop culture-esque references dropped in this round of scene than I’ve seen in a rather long time. For example one pair got 80’s as a time period and dropped references to Sixteen Candles & Pretty in Pink (talking about similar situation and even characters names), they popped their collar and some one mentioned going to MTV’s 2nd new years party. Sadly there was very little scene under all those references.
One pair got Film Noir and there were numerous mentions of shadows, smoking of cigarettes, French accents (the French were a huge fan of the genre and made some of their own so it kind of fits), and an audience aside (inner monologue). This was all on top of though (eventually – in the last minute or so) a scene about two prisoners just wanting to escape back to France.
The big problem I see all to often when people do exercises like this (or experiment with genre in shows – this is really prevalent in less than stellar performances of genres the short form game) – is players will sometimes forget that before you had on any fancy trappings (be it a new form, a new genre/style, a song, gimmick, game, etc) you need to have a scene – with relationships and characters (this is my big pet peeve with some of the short form I’ve seen – and admittedly performed - in my time): it’s never about the genre/style/game/gimmick/etc it’s about the characters and how they relate to each other.
Once you get down that little bit – you can slather all the bells and whistles you want on to it and it’ll be fabulous – with out it, you’re just being silly. Heck you can even make the conscious choice to go all meta with the genre or game/whatever and drop those cute references and comment on it – just as long as you have a real scene going on underneath it.
We ended the class focusing on another opening the un-conducted story (like the conducted story short form game but there’s no conductor) – so basically the group telling a story. The addition to this is hopefully the ensemble will also be acting parts of the story out as they are told, switching off between showing the story and telling it.
It was a lot of fun and actually brings up a great aspect of improv which I feel is so important and that we got to touch on in class thanks to this opening: Showing vs. telling. All to often I see scenes where players are talking about doing something, or telling their partners things (such as “I love you,” or I’m disappointed” or even much more mundane things) but rarely do I see improvisers just showing these things (or just doing them – don’t say we should go do Blah blah, do blah blah on stage). It’s so much more powerful to show that you love the other character than to say it – especially if you’re saying something completely different. This really gets back to the stuff we talked about in the Annoyance class: “how you do something is what you are.” The unspoken caveat of that statement being of course is that you have to do something first (even if it’s just stand their silently). And all to often I see improviser simply say something and rely on their verbal wit to carry scenes (and admittedly saying something is doing something technically) but again I want you to show me, I don’t care what you say it’s how you say it – I don’t care what you do it’s how you do it.
Anyway I hope that make sense – that’s all the ranting I have in me for now, as it’s getting late – all in all today was a good improv day.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Annoyance: Level One - Week One
Today (yesterday now I suppose) I started the first level of improv classes over at the Annoyance Theater.
Lowdown on the Annoyance:
First off for those of you not in the know, let me run down a few details about the Annoyance.
It was started as sot of a reaction to the training at iO by a group of very talented improvisers lead by Mick Napier. They believed that iO was a little too form-centric in their approach. Their training center has 5 levels (and a few electives offered). Their theatre has only one stage (and one bar – not in the same room) and they have shows 6 nights a week (Mondays they sleep). Their shows are primarily scripted (or honestly at least 80-90% scripted, leaving some room to improvise). All their shows are edgy, and they love musicals (who doesn’t) & they have usually two or more shows a night (a few are pure improv, usually done by their best alumnae).
For more information go here:
http://www.theannoyance.com
Or check out the last section of Mick Napier’s book: Improvise
(Their history is really quite interesting)
Students here get into any show for free (unless it's sold out).
The Class Itself
Now before the class even started I found myself wondering about one particular aspect which separated it from the courses at iO: it was scheduled for only 2 and half hours instead of three. I had to wonder how much of those 30 minutes I’d end up missing – especially depending on the size of the class (at iO we’re lucky to get 2-3 scenes in three hours in level one). Well a few minutes into the class all my worries went out the window.
There were around 12-14 people in the class (already a good sign). After quickly introducing ourselves to each other and our instructor – we were given a brief rundown on what we would be working on: improvised scene work. Before we got started he gave us
Two things for us to keep in mind concerning all the work we’d do that day:
“Everything you do today is completely 100% right as long as you commit to it.”
And
“Don’t worry about being funny up there today. It’s not about being funny.”
15 minutes into the class we were all asked to hop up against the back wall and asked to simply begin a series of completely open two person scenes, which were edited by the instructor.
Now by completely open, I mean just that – he’d say two people up and we’d begin improvising (well which ever two stepped out that is). The only other comments were to call scene and ask for two more.
After a number of scenes (all of us got to go multiple times) he had us pause and gave us collectively one note. The note was to start each scene from now on with an immediate point of view (our character’s deal if you will) – this could also be an attitude/emotion (I’m angry, or sad, or I’m a badass, etc).
We then did a butt load of scenes with this idea as our only inspiration. Which had a lot more energy to them & kick to them.
One of the coolest things that happened in class came about as the result of a joke actually (which is amusing considering the teacher’s second piece of advice). Two ladies in the class jumped out as very high-energy characters. They both started bouncing around the stage – basically very bad dancing, as one counted off a rhythm. The scene itself was completely nonsensical, ridiculous, and had very little dialogue, and one girl almost took off her shirt – though it was amusing to watch.
After our instructor called scene he laughingly said as two new people stepped out (obviously as a joke) – OK now do that exact same scene. We all chuckled – low and behold though the pair immediately lapsed into a parody of the scene (they were two big guys FYI) bouncing around singing gibberish as one of them yelled, “look at me, look at me” while raising his shirt. The teacher died, we died – it was funny. Scene was called, then the next pair stepped out. After a moment they were asked to do the exact opposite of that scene.
This sent the next round of scenes into a pattern – we’d repeat the same scene multiple times, each time either we’d organically alter it simply by our reaction – or we’d be asked to alter it in a specific way (ex: same scene but now the two of you are related). Then we switched again running scenes all starting with the same line of dialogue – all completely different.
Somewhere in there (it’s all a blur, really) we took a short 10-minute break. Then after a few more open scenes our instructor asked us to start a series of completely silent scenes – where we had to convey out “deal” ASAP.
Here some people ended up basically playing charades as the scene’s went on heavily pantomiming what they were trying to say and upping up the physical activity to intense heights – the really interesting scenes though, were the few with just two people standing staring at each other (or sitting, or whatever, but calm, almost still) letting their body language and glances tell the entire story of what they were feeling.
Right after this we switched into just saying numbers instead of words in scenes. It was fun playing with how tone of voice and posture could convey just as much meaning if not more than words. From this another cool change happened (at least for me) I was in a scene where my partner barked out “one” and pointed at the floor – I sullenly replied “Two” and stood my ground. My partner then dropped and began doing push-ups, clearly ordering me to join him with his tone and gesture. I walked over, and repeated “two” and switched between a pleading and resistant tone.
We were then asked to repeat the same scene now using words. It became a good scene about a father trying to force his teenage son to change, on the surface physically but there was more under the surface.
After this we stopped and talked about what we had been doing so far. We had just perfectly illustrated one of the core principles of the theater through a happy accident (that repeat scene):
“How you do something is more important that what you do.”
We ended the class with more open scenes, this time around we were asked to think of people we knew very well who were very different than us, and use their attitude/point of view for inspiration.
All in all I did more scenes in this first class than I’ve done in the entire first 6 weeks at iO – and it was so welcome.
He left with a bit of advice on how to make the most of our time at the Annoyance:
“Treat this as an acting class, because it is.”
Things we took away from this first class:
It’s not about being funny
How you do what you do is who you are
Hold on to the gifts you give yourself
As long as you commit to it everything you do is right
Start off with attitude/character/point of view if you don’t, find it FAST
Lowdown on the Annoyance:
First off for those of you not in the know, let me run down a few details about the Annoyance.
It was started as sot of a reaction to the training at iO by a group of very talented improvisers lead by Mick Napier. They believed that iO was a little too form-centric in their approach. Their training center has 5 levels (and a few electives offered). Their theatre has only one stage (and one bar – not in the same room) and they have shows 6 nights a week (Mondays they sleep). Their shows are primarily scripted (or honestly at least 80-90% scripted, leaving some room to improvise). All their shows are edgy, and they love musicals (who doesn’t) & they have usually two or more shows a night (a few are pure improv, usually done by their best alumnae).
For more information go here:
http://www.theannoyance.com
Or check out the last section of Mick Napier’s book: Improvise
(Their history is really quite interesting)
Students here get into any show for free (unless it's sold out).
The Class Itself
Now before the class even started I found myself wondering about one particular aspect which separated it from the courses at iO: it was scheduled for only 2 and half hours instead of three. I had to wonder how much of those 30 minutes I’d end up missing – especially depending on the size of the class (at iO we’re lucky to get 2-3 scenes in three hours in level one). Well a few minutes into the class all my worries went out the window.
There were around 12-14 people in the class (already a good sign). After quickly introducing ourselves to each other and our instructor – we were given a brief rundown on what we would be working on: improvised scene work. Before we got started he gave us
Two things for us to keep in mind concerning all the work we’d do that day:
“Everything you do today is completely 100% right as long as you commit to it.”
And
“Don’t worry about being funny up there today. It’s not about being funny.”
15 minutes into the class we were all asked to hop up against the back wall and asked to simply begin a series of completely open two person scenes, which were edited by the instructor.
Now by completely open, I mean just that – he’d say two people up and we’d begin improvising (well which ever two stepped out that is). The only other comments were to call scene and ask for two more.
After a number of scenes (all of us got to go multiple times) he had us pause and gave us collectively one note. The note was to start each scene from now on with an immediate point of view (our character’s deal if you will) – this could also be an attitude/emotion (I’m angry, or sad, or I’m a badass, etc).
We then did a butt load of scenes with this idea as our only inspiration. Which had a lot more energy to them & kick to them.
One of the coolest things that happened in class came about as the result of a joke actually (which is amusing considering the teacher’s second piece of advice). Two ladies in the class jumped out as very high-energy characters. They both started bouncing around the stage – basically very bad dancing, as one counted off a rhythm. The scene itself was completely nonsensical, ridiculous, and had very little dialogue, and one girl almost took off her shirt – though it was amusing to watch.
After our instructor called scene he laughingly said as two new people stepped out (obviously as a joke) – OK now do that exact same scene. We all chuckled – low and behold though the pair immediately lapsed into a parody of the scene (they were two big guys FYI) bouncing around singing gibberish as one of them yelled, “look at me, look at me” while raising his shirt. The teacher died, we died – it was funny. Scene was called, then the next pair stepped out. After a moment they were asked to do the exact opposite of that scene.
This sent the next round of scenes into a pattern – we’d repeat the same scene multiple times, each time either we’d organically alter it simply by our reaction – or we’d be asked to alter it in a specific way (ex: same scene but now the two of you are related). Then we switched again running scenes all starting with the same line of dialogue – all completely different.
Somewhere in there (it’s all a blur, really) we took a short 10-minute break. Then after a few more open scenes our instructor asked us to start a series of completely silent scenes – where we had to convey out “deal” ASAP.
Here some people ended up basically playing charades as the scene’s went on heavily pantomiming what they were trying to say and upping up the physical activity to intense heights – the really interesting scenes though, were the few with just two people standing staring at each other (or sitting, or whatever, but calm, almost still) letting their body language and glances tell the entire story of what they were feeling.
Right after this we switched into just saying numbers instead of words in scenes. It was fun playing with how tone of voice and posture could convey just as much meaning if not more than words. From this another cool change happened (at least for me) I was in a scene where my partner barked out “one” and pointed at the floor – I sullenly replied “Two” and stood my ground. My partner then dropped and began doing push-ups, clearly ordering me to join him with his tone and gesture. I walked over, and repeated “two” and switched between a pleading and resistant tone.
We were then asked to repeat the same scene now using words. It became a good scene about a father trying to force his teenage son to change, on the surface physically but there was more under the surface.
After this we stopped and talked about what we had been doing so far. We had just perfectly illustrated one of the core principles of the theater through a happy accident (that repeat scene):
“How you do something is more important that what you do.”
We ended the class with more open scenes, this time around we were asked to think of people we knew very well who were very different than us, and use their attitude/point of view for inspiration.
All in all I did more scenes in this first class than I’ve done in the entire first 6 weeks at iO – and it was so welcome.
He left with a bit of advice on how to make the most of our time at the Annoyance:
“Treat this as an acting class, because it is.”
Things we took away from this first class:
It’s not about being funny
How you do what you do is who you are
Hold on to the gifts you give yourself
As long as you commit to it everything you do is right
Start off with attitude/character/point of view if you don’t, find it FAST
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