Frostbite & Video Night...

A few big events happened for me this past week (well big theater events).

First off Splatter closed last week, with me indeed performing all the rest of the nights. The whole show was a rousing success and a ton of fun (I hope to be able to do it again next year).

Saturday night the Horror Holiday Show had it's first preview - and it went amazingly well. It's official name is: Frostbite and it's main story is a mash up between Frankenstein & Frosty the Snowman. I say main story, because around that plot there a numerous little vignettes which are all horrific X-mas stories (my favorite.. and not just because I wrote it.. is the story about a cripple girl who whenever she is beaten by her siblings gives births to gifts).

I really hope the rest of the run is as fun as the preview was. Though the one thing I will definitely change about future shows I'm in is limiting the number of elaborate costumes I wear.

I play the Murderous Snowman Monster (which is the hottest costume I've ever been in... which is my own fault as I made the thing from scratch - but it does look great) a drunken criminal Santa Claus, and a very ugly little girl. There are a couple of instances where I have to make a fairly quick costume change between the first two characters (the second act is a bitch) and it's a pain to get in and out of them at all, much less quickly & quietly backstage.

Still it's a blast - I just nearly die of heat stroke and stress half way through the show.

In other news - Earlier tonight was the Theater's 4th ever Video Night. This is a night where original video sketches created by performers at The Theater (and any other improviser who wants to submit) are show at The Theater in kind of a mini film festival atmosphere.

About four month ago I was asked to take over the responsibility of producing this night for the Theater (along with my buddy Sam) from the departing Managing Director (he's now dead... read in LA).

This was the first one where Sam & I took control of things. All in all it was a pretty successful night & I look forward to making the future video nights even better!

Splatter Theatre... Crazed Ramblings of a Random Bum!

Well I originally thought my Annoyance performance debut was going to have to wait till November when the Horror Holiday show I'm helping create goes up, but in fact it just happened tonight!

As I mentioned last time (I really should try to update this more than once a month... I blame life and early onset Alzheimer's) I've been working on Splatter Theatre as basically the stage manager (assistant blood manager). Well last week one of the actor's royally fucked up his knee - and (as this play requires some falling down and walking on a blood soaked stage) was deemed unable to go in this week for his role.

What was his role you ask? Well read the post title... That's right a crazy homeless person. So who did they immediately think of... Me, of course.

I went in tonight, with literally an hour or two's notice. The role is completely improvised (thankfully - as I had no time to learn lines) and I'm still trying to get the smell of chocolate syrup (what we use to make the blood) out of my hair.

It looks like I'm going to be taking over the roll officially for the rest of the run - ladies & gentleman, I'm officially a performer at The Theater (and what's best is I get to mumble crazy nonsense about Doom while asking for spare change... Booyah)!

A Very Grimm Christmas Story...

So I've worked on a number of shows at The Annoyance so far as a Stage Manager/Techie: Georgy Porgy, The Perfect Wave, Special Import, & Love is Dead... and I've added a brand new show to that list: Splatter Theatre (where my official title is: Assistant Blood Manager... trust me there's a lot of blood effects).

Well today I just had the first rehearsal for a show I'll actually be performing in at The Theater... Hooray!

It's a horror holiday show that we'll be creating entirely though the use of improvisation, which is really exciting to me (because I'm a huge dork). The cast is almost entirely made up from people from my graduation class at the Theater - and my friend Sam (the Director for Splatter). We're only one rehearsal in so far, but I'm super excited about this show - our director rocks, the cast rocks, and the whole process looks like it's going to be super interesting.

Now back to tech stuff for Splatter - we open incredibly soon, and there's a ton of raw meat to procure, and fake blood to make... my official performance debut can wait... Mwuahahaha!

A Milestone...

Happy Birthday to me.... Happy Birthday to me...

Well today is the anniversary of my Birth oh so long ago, but it also marks another sort of big event in my life I guess.

I am now officially a graduate of both the Annoyance & iO Training programs. In fact I just wrapped up my graduation show at The Annoyance Theater last week and am currently starting my grad show at iO.

Now my grad shows over at The Annoyance were honestly some of the most fun I've had on stage in a long time. Were all the shows amazing (nope only the first two really), but it's been the most fun I've had improvising in Chicago by far.

There were some terrible and amazing people in my grad class, but irregardless of who was on stage with me everything about the shows just rocked for me (even the shitty scenes, and trust me there were plenty).

We were only supposed to get one grad show at The Theater - but Mick (the Artistic Director) liked our class so much he gave us four extra spots. These classes and shows have been fantastic.

Which makes the iO shows so frustrating. I've only had a couple so far, but the vibe is completely different. I don't have fun improvising on that stage. Which is my fault I'm sure - but there's just too much BS middle school drama over there lately. Too many people care and it's forced me into the realm of not caring so much, that I see the shows as a job.

Ah well. C'est la vie.....

So Many Dance Parties...Or I'm Not Dead Yet!

So as you might surmise from the fact that I've updated this blog again somewhat - I am not in fact dead.
I've just been incredibly busy with work, improv, life, and dance parties (so many dance parties).

So for those who might be interested a few updates about what's been going on in my life in Chicago.

Even though the Improv Class updates end at Level 4 and Level 3 at iO and the Annoyance (respectively) I have continued on with the training programs.
In fact I am just a few weeks away from graduating both iO and The Annoyance training centers and if I may shamelessly plug myself for a moment:

I will be performing at The Annoyance Sunday Nights on August 3rd, 17th, & 24th and Wednesday night August 13th all at 7pm.
Then starting Sunday either August 24th or 31st - I will have an 8 week run of my 5b shows at iO at 8pm.

I now run tech/lights for and stage manage various shows at The Annoyance and run tech for the Improvised Sitcom: Guy Friends, Friday Nights at iO (in short I spend way to much time at these theaters.

Beyond the mainstream, my group Counter Productive Lover is doing very well - we still perform regularly at home theater CIC and will in fact be performing at the 10th Annual Del Close Marathon in New York (August 8th - 10th) which will be a blast.
Also very recently I became a part of a new independent group called: The Belmont Transfer. Which is made up of a number of classmates of mine from both the Annoyance and iO.

As it might be apparent it is very very easy to overextend yourself in this city (and in this art form in general.. in fact I'm right now straddling that line). And the big problem with that (especially for improv) is that you draw inspiration for your improv from your life experiences - so when the majority of your life experiences start to center around improv.
So I encourage everyone pursuing this wonderful art form to do the dame thing I am doing now: make sure to leave plenty of time in your schedule for non improv/theater related things. See movies, read books, go to parks, hang out with friends, play board games, throw crazy dance parties, etc.
In the end it'll all just add more fuel to your comedy fire.

I know I've posted this link before - but here is a good way to test if you're a little too involved in the scene:
http://www.dangoldstein.com/ImprovGeekQuiz.html

(I am now at 80%: an improv Geekarino ... man I need to go to more Dance parties....sigh).

iO Level Four - Week Six & Seven

I'm combining the last two classes of this level into one post (partly because I forgot to post last week and because most of the notes were fairly similar in both).

Our second to last class before our performance had us running full length Harold's exclusively with a focus on reaching a clear ending to our shows (instead of simply performing until someone kills the lights). The big note we took away form this class, besides how to end our shows was: Either you're doing something all together on stage - or you making an active choice to change it

Some of the tips we were given on finding ways to end our shows were:

• Return to and repeat the opening
• Return to the opening and finish it (if it ended with some sort of cliffhanger)
• Have one strong narrative in your show reach a conclusion (if you have one)

So our last class before our big show this Sunday is also the last class of this level (because apparently our performance counts as a class since the instructors all have to be there). This class much like the last one was all about running Harolds to prepare for the show.

I left the class with these notes:
Harold's are malleable, the strict version is just a teaching tool
You can break the form is the show calls for it
Play the Distractions in your scenes
Mix in both Narrative and tangential inspiration for Second beats
Look for moves/patterns that can tie the show together
Ideally each show should have a form unique to the suggestion

iO Level Four - Week Five

Hooray Bill is back - and again today's class was basically just running mini-Harolds in preparation for our class performance in two weeks. The mini-Harolds focused on full length openings and group games with shorter than normal scenes in between.

Here are the notes I took away from the work:
Follow the Distraction in a scene: The scene is not about ________
Mirror each other (especially in opening and group games)
Transitions in openings are as simple as one player simply making a different choice and everyone supporting all choices made
Don't leave people hanging out there on a limb - support each other
If you're playing with a lot of people on stage - not everyone has to be in a first beat scene - they can come in the second and third beats
Rarely does everyone in a group remember every detail about the show - but if everyone remembers one or two things then collectively you all remember enough to wrap it up
A great way to end is simply to return to the begining

Annoyance Level Three - Week Eight

Sadly my last class with Susan has come and gone.. as a side note to all of you reading this know that she is truly one of the absolute best instructors in Chicago and as I may have mentioned before if you ever get the chance to work with her - do it.

Anyway she started off class with a little challenge to all of us: do the absolute worst improv scene possible. For anyone who has actually read some of my later posts you'll recognize this from mid way through my level two class with her at iO.

After this exercise - which we all failed gloriously at. We moved into searching for whimsy in the way we perform once again. This time we started down this path with some very Dada-istic group work ( the most coherent moment was this: picture four actors as bees flitting about, and four as flowers resting peacefully... eventually the bees notice the flowers and begin to investigate...eventually the bees basically gang rape the flowers). Not necessarily the highest art - but fun as hell (considering we were all in on it together) and that was the point: finding what's fun about performing for us.
We mixed in a number of silent scenes, scenes that were truly Dada-istic where each person just started making a random noise/movement - and stuck with it, and finally moved on to more traditional two and four person scenes.
Interestingly enough one thing we found by the time that we actually got to "normal" scene work - just talking with each other became terribly boring and we discovered all kinds of wonderful things to do instead.

In the end Susan left us with these parting bits of advice:
Initiating a scene doesn't make it your scene, it's everyone's who is in it
You are powerful just by getting on stage
Do'ers always beat out talkers in scenes
Just Do something, it really doesn't matter what
Leap before you look - At the top of a scene do something physical and then figure it out
When a player stops and judges something - that kills it
Walk-ons: try to be an editor instead - however if you must walk-on please do it only to add to what already exists and then get the fuck out
If you want to make your friends happy - be as retarded as they are
Using sounds in scenes is one of the best games on the planet
If you're ever at a loss on stage - mirror your partner
Sometimes our brains hurt from too many classes, too many shows, etc - that's when you most need to stop and find the whimsy in your improv
You always have to fight your inner "snotty improviser": Don't judge
Every time you do something on stage you discover a new thing about your character & your world
You can NEVER fail by taking a risk in improv
If you're not having fun then you're the asshole

and finally:
"If any of you fuckers are on coke - get help."

iO Level Four - Week Four

Bill sadly had to miss our class today, so we had a substitute. The entire class we basically just ran openings and full Harolds - so I will cut to the chase and focus on the notes that were given to us (and that I gleamed myself from watching and listening).

Form is meant to make your life easier.
After you know the basic structure pick the elements you like - best poets create their own poem styles, best performers do the same.
There should be no time limit on your show.
Do something Fun for you.
Give whatever you're doing some emotional context.
Should never be any dead time - either in he opening or between scenes.
Everything said should be inspired by the last thing your partner said: LISTEN & Build.
Find themes in your opening.
DON'T HESITATE.
If you hate what you're doing on stage, either evolve it into something else or recommit and do it more.
Harolds crave strong initiations.
Stay active in your openings - don't just sit back and watch.
Organic openings are all about mirroring and supporting people's moves.
Steal what you like from teams you admire.
Don't try to be funny.

Georgy Porgy The End...& The Beginning

So this was the Last Night of the First Show I've had the pleasure of working on at The Annoyance Theater, but it won't be the last...

Could I have made that last sentence any more confusing if I tried? Does it even make sense grammatically? What the hell does any of that mean? Well I'll answer that last one.

So tonight the show: Georgy Porgy...and other stories by Roald Dahl (catchy title right...) closed at The Annoyance. I have been working on this show as the Stage Manager and Video guru - both of which were kind of intense, as this show was a bitch technically.

The Director is someone I've known since college (we met at a college improv festival.... aww) and knew I did a lot of video work in my spare time.

Well she pitched this show idea to the theater like four months ago - and then contacted me, as she wanted to mix live performance with various multimedia elements. Well the show got picked up and I started a lot of work - as through out the show there are various images and videos projected on a large screen to add to the performance.

There were over 100 different visual cues for this show alone (just pictures and video). That does not include, music, lighting cues, etc. so this was quite a job and for the past eight weeks I've been working my but off in the booth with the Theater's Technical Director (who's operating the board).

The sad thing is - as the post mentions - the show closed tonight. It was a fun, if sometimes stressful run and my first show at The Annoyance.

The nice thing is - because of how much work was involved in this show (and how well I did in the booth), I've been offered a technical internship at The Theater.

In fact I already have my next show, lined up: The Perfect Wave.

No more paying for classes, and I get to stage manage more shows.

Thus my official involvement with the Annoyance begins... mwuahahaha.

Annoyance Level Three - Week Seven

Today in class we were all very hateful to each other.
WE basically focused on the idea that even though improv is an art form based around the idea of agreement, you don't always have to be good two-shoes on stage living in a rainbow world of puppies and flowers. This idea actually goes to something I believe is absolutely key for great improv to happen: while as actors you must agree with your partner and accept any thing they throw out there - as characters, fuck that bull shit. You don;t even have to like the other character - in fact you can hate them.
And it also highlights one of the best things about The Annoyance: This theater gives you the freedom to be completely uncensored on stage, which honestly is an amazing gift in this art.

Comedy isn't personal, even when it's directed at you.

The main exercise we did was called "Thank You"
Two players did a scene where the goal was to be as hateful as possible to each other's characters. Whenever one character said something hateful to another, the recipient must reply thank you and expound on that flaw, or whatever the first character brought up.
The scenes were incredibly fun (both to watch and play in) and really showed how everything be a gift on stage if used correctly.

From the class we took these ideas:
If you start as yourself and someone says something hateful, you'll get defensive You don't have to one up people in a scene If you say something with "authenticity" the audience will believe you, if you say something with the mentality of "here's a funny joke" they won't
Everyone can talk out their ass & bullshit about random things at a party - the key is allowing yourself the same freedom to do that on stage
Your inner monologue is NOT serving you
If you want to be in the moment: DO Something, TASTE Something, FEEL Something
Comedy is never personal, even when it's directed at you.

iO Level Four - Week Three

Today in class we focused heavily on openings for our Harolds. Basically an opening is simply a group idea generation for the rest of the piece and can really be anything (from word association, to a scene itself), however the trend currently in Chicago (and honestly it's a bit more entertaining to watch than word association - also it gives you more elements to work with too) are organic group "non-scenic" situations - more on that bizarre phrasing later.

To start off class Bill had us play basically a big game of follow the leader - which is actually a perfect metaphor for how organic openings can work: one person makes a move and the group quickly supports them (the differences are two fold - one there is no set leader, just whoever makes a move should be supported - two supported doesn't always mean copied, though that's a great way to support).

Next Bill let us in on two big myths about opening and gave us a few tips:
Myth #1: We Have to generate information
(Anything you do on stage will provide information that you can use, so don't worry about trying to create some)
Myth #2: We Have to cover a broad range of things/ideas
(Delving deeper into a couple topics will provide far more than skirting over a thousand)

The big pieces of advice were three-fold:
Listen to each other & react to each other
If you think organic openings are "gay" (stupid) the stop doing stupid things in your openings
Don't feel like something has to happen

After this Bill gave us a heads up on a few common types of non-scenic situations that could be used in openings:
Press conference: one player is leading the press conference (he's the sane player) the rest are the reporters (absurd players). All about the Frustration game: group deliberately misunderstands one aspect of the sane player's statement and the group then explores that to death.
Scene/Character Painting: Players lay out details about an environment, character, whatever so the audience can visualize it.
Create Environments/objects with your bodies: Individual players can become objects in an environment - or entire group can become one object
We see Eight (or however many you have): Each individual in the group become a similar character - saying related lines of dialog. Example: We see Eight Pirates, everyone assumes a pirate character - one pirate then says a suggestive line of dialog (I'd like to search your booty) - suddenly it's eight pirates making suggestive comments.

The key with all of these above techniques is that they are there as a training tool - as an actual organic opening can really consist of nearly anything - and by combining elements/ideas of each (say the Scene painting with creating an environment with your body - so as people paint the scene actors step in and become it - or Character painting with we see eight - so after a character is painted one person becomes them and says something, perhaps the rest of the group mirrors that) along with other inspiration an opening is easy to create.

After practicing these Bill ended the class by having us divide into groups and practice doing an opening with three disctinct beats (using one of the above techniques as each beat) and he left us with this final bit of advice: Openings (and entire shows sometimes) are a series of Rooms & Hallways, with the Hallways being transitions.

Annoyance Level Three - Week Six

Class tonight started off with Susan uttering the following: "Tonight is the night we Fuck with you."
The entire class was about challenging us as performers and getting us to experiment outside of out comfort zone.

Susan had two of us hop up and stage and asked a simple question to kick things off: "How do you think you play?"
Which lead to some very interesting answers and a lot of insight as to the differences between how people perceive themselves versus what others perceive (this topic alone is undoubtedly the subject of numerous books, blogs, and god knows what else - so I won't belabor it more). Suffice to say there were some very surprising answers from some people considering what we've seen of each other in class.

We then proceeded to do a number of two person scenes where Susan would give each of us a specific challenge based on what she's observed over the past six weeks and our answers to the first question.
My challenge was to try on Bigger more active characters - almost over the top: think Baby Huey. And I have to say it was a complete blast.
Throughout the rest of the class we were challenged in various ways - both in two person scenes and larger group scenes. And in the end it was all about whimsy and figuring out what we all had the most fun doing and allowing ourselves to do just that.

From the class we took a ton of ideas - here are the few that translate coherently:
The day you take a risk is the day something happens
In scenes you are half of it - Create things - Make assumptions (you have all five senses to discover elements of the scene)
When people ask for help you don't have to give it to them (at least in comedy)
You don't need to know what is going to come out of your mouth Every energy is contagious Sometimes just being agreeable equals comedy
Don't be afraid to play a victim (often it's the victim on stage who is going to get off the most)
So much fun to lose in comedy You have to discover what Whimsy is for you

Annoyance Level Three - Week Five

Tonight's class focused on the dual ideas of speeding up & slowing down as well as talking versus doing in scenes.

We started off with a two person exercise that had the players get on stage - one would be designated the "talker" the other was asked to simply focus on exploring their space and existing in it (aka the "doer"). The major caveat was the "talker" had to keep talking - constantly for the entire scene (about anything - didn't matter). Each pair were given a location to play in (Taxi cab, hospital emergency room, etc).

What basically ended up happening in all of these scenes was the audience began focusing more and more on the person exploring their space instead of on the "talker" (ok I'm tired of putting that in quotes...so I'm stopping - I don't know why I started).
Also the other player ended up slowing things down a lot - not acting in slow motion - but being more deliberate in their choices and seemed to have a much more even energy than the person just talking.
In short the person just talking became much less interesting the longer the scene progressed.

The rest of the exercises in class basically just centered around varying the energy both inside scenes and between back to back scenes.

From this class we took these ideas:
At the start of a scene do something - anything.
Examine the energy of the scene before yours - Decide to match or contrast that energy.
Control the energy in a piece (show) don't let it control you.
Don;t look to the audience to tell you that you are ok - Don't say or do something because of the audience.
Express yourself.
Your characters are whole people before you ever get a partner to play with.
Feel free to let anything remind you of anything in a scene.
Watch for the frustration of "when is it my turn to talk..."
If you are already showing the audience something - you don;t have to talk about it too.
We look at your energy not the rightness of your object work.
Your strength will become your weakness - so always seek to make your weakness your strength.

Videos (aka I'm a Dirty Dirty Whore)

Hey all - so as I'm a shameless human being (and as this blog has very little integrity anyway - much less coherence). I'm posting links to a few video sketches I've produced while up here in Chicago. Watch them - tell your friends - hell tell your enemies and strangers on the street. Hopefully you'll enjoy them.


Friendship Test:


Sketch about two friends engaged in the ultimate test of their friendship.

Love in An Elevator:


Sketch about an incredibly awkward encounter between two co-workers in an elevator.

What Did You Say?:


You'll be asking yourself what exactly he said (or at least what they heard) when you see this short sketch about a fight which breaks out over a slip of the tongue (to date perhaps the most random thing I've filmed).

St. Patty's Day Shenanigans

So truth be told I really just wanted to use the word Shenanigans in a post title (is that so wrong) - though I actually do have a rather amusing story to tale about an encounter I had Saturday night.

Now wait a second, Monday was St. Patrick's day - how dare I talk about another night considering the post title, well (in case you didn't know) seeing as this year the holiday fell during Holy week the official celebration (the parades, river dyeing here in Chicago, et al) happened Saturday so it's all kosher.

So the majority of fake St. Patty's day I actually spent fairly sober and in one of two of the improv theaters up here in Chicago. I started off the day at iO where I had class managed to grab some dinner afterwards and fight the Wrigleyville crowds to make my way up to the Annoyance where I had to help run tech for a show from 7pm - 10pm. After the show (which ran a little long, but otherwise went very well) I spent the next two hours making up for lost time hanging out in the wonderful bar attached to the theater (go there sometime grab a drink catch the show, you'll thank me - go on a Saturday, you can either catch the show I work on at 8pm - or at 10pm there's the funniest Burlesque show you'll ever see with loads of Beautiful and talented ladies...and at midnight you can watch a bunch or rather drunk and hilarious guys strip and perform).
Anyway I ended up running into a fair number of people I knew while celebrating, about half of whom were scheduled to perform at midnight back down at iO.
Well when they left for the show I followed and continued the celebration back at that theater until I was booted out the door around 3am when they were closing.

And now on to the weird encounter:

So I'm walking home through Wrigleyville (which has just been ravaged by hundreds of drunk people wearing green) rather out of it from all of the celebrating when suddenly I hear a voice from across the street yelling at me: "Hey, hey wait up..."

I stop and turn and it takes me a second to spot a woman running across the street towards me. Well I wait for her to catch up to me trying to figure out who the hell she is. She gets to me and it's pretty dark on the street and I just can't place her for the life of me (I assume I have to know her because what stranger would call me out on a deserted street at 3am unless they were mugging me).
We start chit chatting, basically her asking me "Where I'm running off to so fast.." and I have no idea who she is (I'm thinking maybe someone from a class, another intern at the theater, random high school friend I don't recall). And then finally I tell her I'm heading home which is when she asks:
"Well am I invited Big Guy..."

So at this point I take a step back and really look her up and down .... definitely a fair bit older than me, knee high boots, fishnets over tights, short leather shorts, coat a little ragged and she's playing with the zipper (mind you it's 3o degrees out), bad make-up ... oh shit clearly she's a prostitute and not even an appealing one at that.

The first thought that goes through my head is: If a cop pulled up right now there would be no way in the world to explain my way out of this. My second though was what kind of shabby prostitute has to run down a potential John on the street by yelling for him to stop? My third thought was how out of it do you have to be to not recognize you're being solicited by a damn prostitute?

I let her no that I'm sorry but she is not invited back and turn to leave - only to have her follow me about half a block trying to hard sell me on inviting her home (note to the kids: the more desperate a prostitute the more likely she has an STD...and a drug addiction).


So I've finally encountered my first Chicago Lady of the Night and on fake St. Patrick's Day - I feel more and more at home here all the time.

iO Level Four - Week Two

Today in class we continued our exploration of the Harold - and actually this week jumped a little ahead of the syllabus.

After the typical warm-ups and a few open scenes to shake the cobwebs off - Bill told us we were going to roll some dice and jump right into working a little with third beats.
He got a third of the class up and basically let us know we were going to be doing a spineless Harold: a Harold sans the groups games in the middle.

The format would be as follows:

• An opening of three distinct monologues inspired from a suggestion
• Three distinct scene inspired by those monologues
• A second beat scene for each of the initial scenes
• A third round of scenes inspired by both the initial scene and it's second beat

One of the things we wanted to focus on was making the third and final scenes for each sequence be a scene that was inspired by both of the preceding scenes - instead of merely another second beat of the first scene (also that the first scenes weren't linearly inspired by the monologues: monologue A relates just to scene A, Monologue B to scene B, etc).

The biggest key in making sure that the third scenes were not just alternate second beats of the first scene was two fold: First be willing to drop your ideas of second beats for a scene after a second beat happens, Second look at the type of inspiration the second beat took (was it very literal/narrative or very tangential - if literal/narrative the third scene should probably take a fairly literal/narrative based inspiration from the first two scenes - if tangential it should probably be a tangential inspiration).

After everyone in the class got to be in one of these Bill changed it up a little bit. This time around he got four of us up and told us we would perform one initial scene and then two second beats and two third beats. The catch is - the order would go: Initial scene, Second Beat A, Third Beat A, Second Beat B, Third Beat B.
Obviously we were to take two very different inspirations for each of the second beats.

From this class we took these ideas:
Narrative & Plot are a trap in improv
In a Harold if the Second beat was tangential, perhaps the third should be as well (Likewise if the second beat was narrative based, then maybe the third should be too)
The Third beat should be inspired by both the first and second scene
Be affected by each other and really react to what your scene partner says & does
As characters you can be at odds, as actors you must always be together
You can always hold on to your characters - but you have to be willing to throw out your premises
Play the Distraction (put a spot light on the peculiar behavior or "mistake" and run with it)

Annoyance Level Three - Week Four

At the start of class the other day we worked on something that traditionally might be seen as an anathema to "good" improv to many people: Scenes & Situations where you don't automatically have a shared past with the other characters. For those of you who might not know one of the so called rules of improvisation is that you should know the other character in the scene (have a shared past of some sort) - some schools even go so far to suggest a period of time (at least six months) - this is done primarily to eliminate the start of most scenes being an awkward: "Hello, nice to meet you" or "Who are you" while at the same time automatically making it more likely that the characters on stage will care about each other (or at least be able to make assumptions on how they feel towards each other).

Well the first exercise we did instantly put us in a situation where that might not necessarily be true - though that was only one part of the exercise.
Three chairs were set up on stage and Susan let us know that all the scenes would be taking place in an airplane - we were told that we could know each other in the scenes, but were encouraged to experiment with each character being strangers to one another.
The key in these situations as we quickly found was to establish something strong for ourselves (namely a character/ point of view) as soon as possible so that we could comfortably exist in the world of the scene. The input from our scene partners still added to our own vision of our selves, but it was far easier to interact as strangers especially as all the scenes started in silence.

After this exercise - which produced some very entertaining and fun scenes - we moved on to a slightly different take on the idea.
This time four chairs were put up (we were told we could use them or not) and Susan let us know the following scenes would take place in a teacher's lounge and we were the faculty at a school. This time the focus was on shared experiences - something I've mentioned in my Counter Productive Lover posts (in regards to some of the earliest rehearsals: namely the conversation pieces). This was actually something that came about in the Airplane exercise as well - since we were all passengers on the plane and not a mix of employees (flight attendants) & passengers there was no instant status divide and we were all starting out on basically the same page in many ways.
The same thing was true about these scenes - since we were all faculty and not a mix of students and faculty and parents or whatever - we were less likely to focus on our superficial relationships (or even the setting - in this case school - related material) and instead simply interact as individual characters.

After this we moved on to playing board games (well not literally). Three people were asked to get on stage at a time and were then given a game to play: Chinese checkers, Kerplunk, Trouble, Monopoly, etc. As in the above two exercises the scenes never became about the games we were playing but far more about how we were interacting with each other through the game. If we were patient and supportive of person's move or angry and irritated by - it got us focusing on each other instead trying to develop plot or create a "funny" scene/situation.

From this class we took these ideas:
Check out why you enter a scene - often your impulse to enter is an impulse to edit
Watch out if you ever find yourself trying to "fix" things in a scene
No matter where you are (Second City, iO, etc) you've got to take care of yourself on stage
If you find that out that you are not connecting with your scene partners add to something they are doing
If you love your characters time passes and you'll bring them back naturally

iO Level Four - Week One

The other day was the first class of level four over at iO for me. This is the level where the great inner secrets of the theater finally begin to be revealed and we tackle the mythical beast known as "Harold."
What is the Harold you dare ask - well it was a show format created by the late Del Close which, in it's original form, was basically a compromise between the often chaotic open improvised scenes Del liked doing and a collection of short form games which his partner was familiar with (and helped pay the bills). Honestly entire books have been written on the subject and while I've read most of them (and can give a pretty nice history of the Harold) I'm not going to try and transcribe them here so suffice it to say it is the signature form of iO and for more information check out the improv encyclopedia article on: Harold.

The Class:
Class started off today with us talking about what makes a good Harold. We as a class decided on the following:

Good Harolds:

• Transcend the form
• Are clear and specific
• Have strong characters
• Are filled with performers that are having fun

Now trust me there are many teachers and performers who would scoff at this definition of a good Harold (especially the first item) and want to add lots more to the mix, but realistically at the end of the day this is all you need in my honest opinion (funny how these are actually the qualities of a good show, and don't comment on the structure at all - except to basically say not worry about it). Realistically in a lot of ways the Harold basically came about because people found it damn hard to teach people how to improvise by getting a group up on stage and saying do something (at least it's hard to get that to be consistent). Now don't get me wrong as a teaching tool is amazing and I love performing them - but in the improv world there are a lot of people who get a little too hung up on the form itself to the point where the structure starts to limit discovery and exploration instead of fostering it (which it was meant to do).
End Rant.

Anyway on to the class itself - today we focused on second beats of scenes, which is a huge part of the Harold - and something I love working on.
Quickly a second beat of a scene is basically just a fancy way of saying a new scene directly inspired from a previous scene. There are all kinds of ways to find inspiration for second beats - from the very literal to the very tangential.
An example of an incredibly literal second beat would be to see the exact same two characters return from the previous scene just at a different period of time (days later, months before, etc). An example of a very tangential second beat would be to see a scene inspired by a phrase someone said in the previous scene (or involving an object that was in the previous scene, or creating a character in the second scene based on the body posture of one in the first, etc) - basically anything is fair game.

Personally I usually prefer finding inspiration that falls somewhere in the middle (although I love skewing toward the tangential side from time to time). I just feel that if you end up with all very literal second beats of scenes (especially where both characters come back) you are not only limiting who can explore those scenes but also limiting the number of points of view you can bring to bear - for me at least I've always liked when the second beats try to move as far away from the first scenes as possible so that in the final act you are given more to work with (and more opportunities for connections). Though I've been in and seen shows where the characters came back again and again - and I loved them (but that was because the characters were so strong and interesting themselves).

We started with simply having a third of the class up on stage. Then two players were asked to step out and start a simple scene - inspired by a suggestion.
After this scene was over the players were asked to burn through as many possible second beats to that scene as possible (really as time allowed, as there were two more groups to go). Doing this we got to run the gambit of literal and tangential possibilities (hammering home the idea that almost anything can serve as inspiration).

After everyone had a turn at this - Bill again had a third of us hop us and this time we were to have two initial scenes. So two scenes inspired from the same suggestion but otherwise unrelated to each other back to back.
After they were done the players were then asked to perform as many second beats as possible for the scenes - but alternating back and forth (meaning the first second beat would be from scene A .. then a second beat to scene B ... the a second beat from scene A ... then another from scene B.. etc).
This was done to more closely resemble how it would work in an actual Harold as you do three initial scenes back to back and then only get to do a second beat to them after a group game - so you have to be able to remember and hold on to your inspiration.

This was a really fun class session as we were finally able to just run with a fair number of scenes and the tendency to think about what you wanted to do (that always comes up for me in exercises ... especially when your fifth in line and there's no suggestion) was eliminated.

We took these ideas away form class:
Second beats can be either very literal or very tangential - if the characters in the initial scene were very strong/interesting it'll probably skew more literal
Second Beats are the Entire team's responsibility - not just the two players who were in the corresponding initial scene
Second Beats should be able to live on their own - if a person walked in just as a second beat scene was starting they should still be able to watch and enjoy it
Characters are more important than premise
Don't worry about trying to make a scene fit into the show - just take inspiration from something that already happened and have fun with it.
If you actively try to have a message or a deeper meaning in your piece you'll come across as condescending
If you relax and have fun, while keeping your mind open connections will happen naturally
"If the whole is to be art, the parts must not try to be"

Annoyance Level Three - Week Three

This week class was all about Heightening: a term that I've seen confound numerous improvisers and improv teacher a like when asked to define it. It's almost gotten to the point in some improv classes of becoming a buzz word that people throw out with out fully understanding what it means.
So to call myself out I suppose - what is heightening exactly? First I will relate a direct quote from my teacher Susan: "There are a million different ways to Heighten."
Now to take the easy way out and borrow from the improv encyclopedia:

Heightening is adding information, to build upon what was built before and by others, to deepen character and emotion, to raise the stakes...

Now what the hell does all that actually mean? Good question - well the first part is easy: adding information - seems simple enough right, but what information exactly? Does adding any information to a scene heighten it?
Well the short answer is: kind of. as Susan said - there are millions of ways to do this out there - and technically just adding more information to a scene is one of them.

However, I feel probably eight times out of ten when talking about heightening in improv it refers to the latter half of the text book definition: deepen character/emotion and/or raise the stakes. And this is definitely what we focused on in class today - and so I'm going to throw my opinion on heightening out there.
When it comes to heightening character of emotions - the simplest explanation of what that means (at least as far as I'm concerned) is to realize what you are doing & do more of it. Sounds almost too simple right? Well the key is to realize what you are doing - emotion wise, that's fairly simple: you're angry, find thing to make you angrier - you're depressed, end up suicidal.
Character wise it can be a different story especially when you think about heightening your behavior (this isn;t the only aspect you can heighten of course - though for me at least I find working with behavior more satisfying, and often more practical in scenes).

The real trick with this of course is to make sure you don't just end up heightening you're behavior laterally (what the fuck does that mean?). Well for example say you start a scene by putting Purell (that hand sanitizer crap) on your hands and then before you open your breif case you put some Purell on it to clean it. Heightening this pattern of behavior laterally would just see you covering more and more things throughout the scene with Purell - going to kiss a baby, Purell it - about to get in a car, Purell it - etc. All well and good, except eventually you're going to run out of things to Purell and then there's no where you can really go with that. Instead if you recognize Why you might have put Purell on your hands and then brieffcase at the top of the scene - you might have decided that you're OCD, or that you're just terrified of germs and suddenly you have opened up options to yourself that don't directly involve Purell yet still heighten that original behavior. Also it's far more fun to play an OCD character, or a character terrified of germs than "guy who puts hand sanitizer on things" - especially if you end up in a long form piece where that character might come back again and again.

The Class:
We started off with and exercise I have dubbed: Holiday Dinner.
Four players hop up and sit in chairs as though they are around a table. Susan let them know that they were to be eating a holiday dinner together. The group must begin eating in silence and after a while are allowed to talk and slowly discover who they are to each other.

During this exercise Susan would often side coach people to revisit the choices they gave themselves at the top: if a player started off very happy and agreeable, no reason not to stick to that (and heighten it) even if the topic of conversation turns dark or negative.

After this exercise we moved on to a two person one which I am calling 1st Date:
Two players up on stage - they are told that they are on a first date with each other and to start in silence and naturally find out who they are.
Again the focus is on heightening the choices that the players make organically at the top of this scene.

From this class we took these ideas:
Be careful of falling into the trap of just heightening laterally
Specificity is so important
Once a character transforms in some way - the scene is over
If you can ask Why after something you do - answer it
If you as an actor are feeling a certain way - you can use it
We love what you are doing & hate when you suddenly stop/change it
There is no better idea than your idea

I almost got into a fight this week...

It was Thursday night and I was hanging out at the Annoyance theater after my class - just minding my own business. Anyway I walk up to the one open spot on the bar to get myself a drink and to my right is the short, clearly very intoxicated guy counting out cash on to the bar. There's a stack of one & twenty dollar bills and after he gets them both into a pile he mutter something and slams his fist into the bar itself.
Now I can't help but look over at this - and of course as I am he catches my eye - and in true drunk ass hole fashion he immediately asks me what the fuck I'm looking at.
I tell him sorry, just heard a noise and start to turn back. All of a sudden he gets this really intense look in his face - very angry, nostrils flaring, balls up his fist and points at me with his other hand and asks me real slowly:

"Were you born and raised in Peoria, Il?"

... Admittedly this question takes me a back - as in my long history of encounters with drunk assholes never have I had one ask me such a specific question. I tell him nope, I'm from Kentucky originally (I have to tell him twice before he understands) and as soon as he hears it all the anger just leaves him. He pats me on the shoulder and tells me "Oh good, cause you resemble some asshole I know who's ass I've wanted to beat since fifth grade."

I think that's the last I'll see of my drunk diminutive friend as we go our seperate ways, now bar friends - me 90 degrees to my left facing the bar, him to the box office. Low and behold I hear a commotion behind me and I see this guy standing at the ticket window his bic lighter in hand keeping two of my friends at bay as if they were Frankenstein's Monster. They had apparently been too close to him in the line for tickets, and so according to them he had threated to set them ablaze if they didn't back off.

The guy ended up be escorted out by two cops and while he was being escorted by me he gave me this look that I could tell meant next time we met it wouldn't matter where I was from ... unless of course he was sober.

Bad Decisions...

How can you tell when you've made a series of bad decisions? Well perhaps the easiest method is to look at the circumstances you currently find yourself in and decide whether you're happy or unhappy with them.

So the other day when I awoke in my foyer (read: the three or so feet of space that separate my apartments front door from the front door to my building) at around six in the morning to slightly below freezing temperatures & the sound of my cat meowing from inside my place - I deduced that the night before I had clearly made some bad decisions (as I was definitely unhappy).

It would not be until after a number of hours had passed however that I would slowly begin to piece together exactly what lead to me awaking basically outside with icicles on my eyelashes and an all to familiar pain behind my eyes.
Cut to around 10am. I awoke from my bed, my cat sound asleep beside me, my head clearly outside in the street being run over by a bus (at least if my nerve endings were to be believed).
After a handful of Advil and prayers to every deity I've ever heard of - I settled myself down and tried to piece together where it all went wrong the night before.

I recalled that I had been out with a couple members of my improv troupe - we had grabbed dinner together and were heading off to see the show of another troupe member as it was cheap, her last, and... BYOB (bad decision the first).

The three of us stopped at a liquor store along the way - the original plan, from what I can recall was to grab a six pack or two of beer and head out ... however when we walked in there was a wall of whiskey starring us right in the face... it was on sale (bad decision the second).

We got to the theater the plastic bottle of whiskey sitting nicely in it's black plastic bag at our feet. As the lights went down - one of my friends unscrewed the top and we started passing it around... and we didn't stop until the lights came up again (bad decision the third).

After the show I recall vaguely making a trip to the bathroom - congratulating performers - and then a problem arose. Who was to take home the half empty bottle of dirt cheap booze? Most people were walking ... at leas to the El and with the weather cold and the distance rather far, no one really wanted to carry it. It was so cheap we could have just thrown it away... but we didn't (bad decision the fourth).

I can't recall exactly the precise circumstances, but I do remember the words "kill it" - then a fire in my mouth - down my throat - in my belly. Then the next thing I knew was the cold - the sound of a cat meowing the only clue as to where I was.

I found out later from a friend of mine who works at the theater that he, along with my fellow team member who's show it was, had driven me home after I killed the bottle.
Apparently my sense of direction had gotten a little blurred and the trip took near an hour as we searched for my place. At one point I directed them to the wrong street and I hopped out making a bee line for an apartment that wasn't mine.
In the end, when my place was finally found, what apparently must have happened was they watched me walk inside the building and wave goodbye - only for me to collapse, once they were out of sight, to spend the next six hours suffering from my bad decisions.

Annoyance Level Three - Week Two

So after a week hiatus from class due to Susan being out of town for personal reasons - class has started up again.

I have to say, especially after my last class over at iO - this particular class was very much needed (even though something surprising happened to me in this one too).
Susan is huge on getting people to say fuck it and just do what they need to do to "get off" in a scene. The idea that if you are in the moment and having fun sticking to your shit no one is worrying if you are a shitty improviser (least of all yourself) is a great one.

The first exercise we did was the one where I was surprised in. Three people get up on stage in chairs. The players on either end are both given topics to talk about - their goal is to simply gain , and keep, the attention of the person in the middle by asking them questions about their topic. Sounds easy right? Well the key is both people on the end are trying to do this at the exact same time - and there are basically no rules as to how they gain/keep the attention of the person in the middle (invading people's personal space is encouraged).

The first time I went up I ended up being monkey in the middle. Both players did a pretty good job of of keeping my attention divided between them (one with very specifc personal questions and the other with such exclamations as: "If you don't look at me I'm going to punch you in the face). For me at least being in the middle was a fairly easy time - even though by the end I was having trouble keeping up my responses to match theirs - it was still fun.

The next time I was up, I was on the outside. I completely dropped the ball on this one. Which even Susan said was surprising for me. My topic was Mexican food and I started off strong but then as the cacophony rose I lost a lot of momentum. Part of the reason (a very small part) was I first started speaking in Spanish only to quickly realize I do not have enough mastery of the language to keep that going, but I think the bulk of the problem arose from the fact that I've been conditioned to be more of a facilitator in scenes: my polite improviser reared it's head and I started waiting for pauses to interject.
I've been in a rather large number of total clusterfuck situations on stage before and from my experience in dealing with those is to default to hang back and wait. I still hold on to my shit, but I move into improv robot mode - I analyze as much of the cacophony as I can and wait for a lull to interject something that will hopefully connect things and move the cluster fuck along.

After this we moved into an incredibly simple exercise - yet one of my favorites so far: "that reminds me..."
Basically three players hop up on stage and are given a simple location and appropriate activity (ie folding laundry in a laundry mat, cleaning the garage, etc). The three players then have light conversation while performing their task until eventually one person gets inspired to relate a TRUE story from their life - and starts it off with "That reminds me...".
After they tell their story (or at some point near the end) another player, inspired by what they've been hearing - tells their own true story ... again with "That reminds me..." - this goes so each individual gets to tell two stories - each inspired from the story they hear just before.

iO Level Three - Week Eight

So this was our last class of level three this session and the official midpoint of my training here at iO (that's right 3 levels of classes down, 3 more to go).

Tonight was a lot about how we play as individuals and namely having Bill challenge us to play outside how we traditionally tend to.
We started off with warm-ups per usual - this time Zip, Zap, Zop ... and then Double Zip, Zap, Zop ... then double Zip, Zap, Zop plus double Me, My, Mine (which is basically the exact same game).
Afterwards Bill had six of us stay up on stage to participate in the exercise which would take up the remainder of the class period. Basically each one of us on stage would get a specific challenge from Bill based on his observations of us from the last eight weeks as well as a few notes about how he perceived our play. That person then did three scenes in a row (with a few of the rest of us up there) focusing on that specific challenge.

My challenge from Bill was not a surprise to me ... it's something he's urged me to try on before and most definitely something I haven't done all that often (especially not up here in Chicago): Try on some dumb characters.
However, his notes on how I've been playing (and thus the reasoning behind the challenge) actually did surprise me a little bit and pointed out something I've been feeling in the back of my mind for the past few weeks or so.

By asking me to try on dumb characters Bill was in fact encouraging me to not worry about what I was going to say next - to stop trying to "win" in scenes as he put it: don't worry about saying the funniest thing or finding the perfect turn of phrase or sizing up the various angles I could work in a scene...just play. I sadly didn't have my notebook for this class (I was running late and it was in my other coat) so I don't have word for word his comments, but still it resonated with me and it's something I didn't expect to hear, even though I should have.

I especially realized what was up after the three scenes when he remarked about some of the things he really liked about my play: my gamesmanship and wit and what not.
I've been on auto-pilot - especially during the past 2 months of this particular class. I've just been sitting back and doing the exercises never really getting up there to just have fun and fuck around improvising - I switched over to my improv robot sometime during these classes and let him drive (it's one of the reasons my gamesmanship has been good - it's the UCB training, that's my improv robot's home sweet home).

I know that part of the reason I switched off a little bit was the format of this class - 20 some odd person class on mostly two person scene work. You are lucky to get basically just handful of minutes on stage per class and it's always in the form of a specific exercise - so that's where the "winning" mentality came about ... I was using my improv robot to figure out how to best play the scene according to the exercise.

Simply put I haven;t been taking chances and not focusing enough on just having fun in this class so far (I had a lot of pretty good scenes this way - but none that were awesome). Something that I definitely plan to fix asap - from now on every time I get up there I'm going to roll the dice and see if I can surprise not only my scene partner but also myself.

iO Level Three - Week Seven

Class started out per usual with a brief discussion about past shows followed by a simple pattern game warm-up. Next came a series of open scenes - for us to basically shake out the cobwebs (each person got to do two).

After this Bill had 6 of us hop up on stage and form two lines. We were to do two person scenes where one player was to simply initiate a familiar situation and/or relationship and then a scene would progress normally. We were given permission to be as hack as possible with these initiations.
The purpose was basically to get the idea that even though it's a familiar situation with perhaps characters behaving predictably - it can still produce comedy and be interesting.

After the whole class had a turn at this exercise we moved on to an exercise called: Click, click, Boom. Again a small group of us got up and formed two lines. One player would initiate however they wanted and for the first few lines of the scene it would just be a normal scene. Eventually though (when the second player felt right) they would throw a curve ball and do something bizarre in the scene (ie pull out a gun, snatch a fly out of the air with their tongue, scream for no reason). The first player's job is to play it real and react to the move truthfully. The scene continues with the move slowly being repeated/heightened so it comes in waves as the other player reacts to it.

All in all an incredibly fun exercise and tool to keep in mind.

Annoyance Level Three - Week One

The next session at the Annoyance has started up and I'm back in class with my iO level Two teacher Susan (who is wonderful - though you probably already know that if you've read my earlier posts).

Anyway she let us know that she tends to do things a little differently in this level than we've seen so in levels 1 & 2. Namely we won't be doing a million or so scenes because for her personally that doesn't work (and she has noticed over the years that when you do that many often people get in the mentality that some scenes are throw aways ... get your bad scenes out of the way and wait for your good ones to start). Well in this class she cares about all our scenes and wants us to as well.

We started off walking about the room as she asked us to begin leading with different parts of our bodies - each one we focused on inspired different ideas for characters, changed the way we walked, talked, even though in some cases.
This is a big part of Susan's philosophy (if I can use that term) that the only thing you own in a scene is your body and you should lead with it strongly.

After this we moved into five person scenes (that's right five) where basically we hopped up on stage Susan gave us a location (like McDonalds) and told us to "Do Something" with the one caveat that we couldn't talk till she let us.
The key to success was the moment she said do something - was to make a choice based on the locale and snap into asap not worrying about what your partners were going to be doing.
After a little while of us all milling about doing our own things - ideally sunk into a character as well - she told us we could speak, and scenes commenced.

Some of the scenes went very well (those were the ones where people had made firm choices up top about themselves and were comfortable in their own skin during the scene) - some devolved into arguments and general clusterfuck status quite quickly (these were the scenes where the moment they were allowed to talk - they worried more about creating something with the other four players than continuing to exist as that character).
Once people tried to make something happen - tried to add plot - or quickly establish everyone else's role in relation to themselves ... things devolved.

In the scene I was in - we all ended up just existing in the space (McDonalds), once we could talk - we didn't immediately all start. We slowly found out each other's roles ... (my choice at the top had been to start drinking a milk shake and being unhappy with it - from that I decided I was unhappy about something besides the milkshake and as the scene progressed it turns out I was the disappointed manager - unhappy about his staff).
Even when there were "mistakes" we were all enough into our own characters that we rolled with it (for example ... I called one of the players Sean at one point .... I'm not sure if I had missed him being called something else earlier, or he just decided I got his name wrong - but he told me that was wrong and his name was Patrick ... well for the rest of the scene I made the deliberate choice to call him different names - and I became the asshole manager who can't even recall your name).
One player was not addressed the whole scene until the very end - he just silently swept up the place - with the rest of us moving around him. The last line was when we acknowledged what a good job he did after he said excuse me to get one of us to move ... but it didn't matter cause he had his thing - and he was just as much as part of the scene as the rest of us.

We then ended the class with an exercise called: Protecting the Freak (of which there are three main variations).
Number 1: Two players up - one person is the freak and the other is the straight-man. The Freak is just asked to be balls out crazy, do whatever they want and just have fun and be weird. The straight-man reacts to the Freak, shocked by what he does, and gives it the context of "this is not ok".
(for example: Freak: "I just killed a nun", Straight-man: "Oh my god Jim that's horrible - I have to call the cops")
This is called the iO style - because if you be too weird in a scene over at iO this is most likely how your scene partner will react: treats crazy and weird as being crazy and weird.

Number 2: Two players up - one player is the freak (going crazy ... being weird) the other one is the Straight-man, though this time he is asked to give the freak's context as being normal. React as everything the freak does is perfectly ok (and even exactly what's needed) and just likes it in general.
(for example: Freak: "I just killed a nun", Straight-man: "Good job Jim, that's one more we don't have to worry about")

Number 3: Two player up - they are both freaks.
(for example: Freak #1: "I just killed a nun", Freak #2: "This tastes like happy" while gnawing on a chair leg).
This last one can form a satisfying (if perhaps not purely rational scene) as long as the two freaks stick to their guns - leading to an almost dada-ist tableau.

The one caveat about the above exercise is that you can never "fix" the problem of the freak ... can't try to stop/change them. Again all three are about giving the weird player the protection of a context to play weirdly in, be it: weird is weird, weird acceptable, or weird is normal.

From this class we took these ideas:
Try it on with Abandon
You don't worry if you're a shitty improviser when you have something to do
If you still feel like you in a scene - pull something out, change your spine
In terms of comedy, often it is just like minded people hanging out
Do'ers beat out talkers every time
Never be afraid to tell another character about themselves - detail them - endow them - give a gift.
Your "Mistakes" become the greatest gifts - as long as you don't treat them as mistakes
A good scene is one where you are having fun

iO Level Three - Week Five

To give you guys a head's up - we tend to spend the first five minutes of every class lately talking about shows we've seen around town (and what we liked or didn't like). It's one of the things that most of the training centers (at least those worth their salt) encourage ... actually seeing improv performed as much as possible.
One of the things that came up in this discussion today was the idea of "saving a scene" due to a recent show I saw where there were so many walk-ons I thought it was a new form (honestly there were more scenes with the entire group in them than two person scenes in this show).

The worst part about this was the fact that I recognized that a lot of the players in this group were very talented - the problem was every time it seemed like something was about to get going .... well here came a few more people and things derailed.
Part of it definitely came about form the fact that the audience wasn't really all that responsive early on in their laughter (lots of throat chuckles) and it's a relatively new team. Though as rule I'm loathe to really blame an audience - still it's understandable that early on in the show they panicked a little and then it snowballed out of control.

It brought up a good point in class though: namely that the urge to walk on into a scene is usually the impulse to edit it (in fact ... I'm probably going to do an extra post on just this topic later).

The Class
Anyway class started with some traditional warm-ups - passing the focus around through clapping and snapping - as well as a few pattern games.
Next we leaped into some person challenge scenes, where Bill gave us each a challenge to experiment with for a number of scenes.

My personal challenge was to try on a series of unconfident (even self loathing) characters & foolish characters.

After this we moved into some two person scenes where one player enters tabular rasa (blank slate for those not hip with the Latin) the second player then initiates very simply (ie Mark Can you hand me a Pencil). The first (blank player) then makes a character choice inspired from that simple initiation and begins talking to them selves completely ignoring the other person (pretending that they didn't even hear the initiation). Note: it's not a monologue - it's literally the character talking to themselves (ie "Gahhh did I leave the oven on ...").
After everyone clearly has a sense of that character the second (initiating) player repeats their first line and a scene begins normally.

Some things we took away from this class were:
Roll Some Dice - take chances, Don't be afraid to make "Crazy" choices.
Familiar Situations and Predictable Characters can be a good thing sometimes.
Say How Your Partner is Acting - Don't skirt around the issue.
Scenes fail when things are unclear or someone doesn't make a clear choice & follow through with it.

CPL's First Show

Note: For all those who instantly know what CPL stands for - congratulations you've been paying attention, bravo. For the rest of you lazy slobs - CPL stands for the troupe I'm in over at CIC: Counter-Productive Lover.

Anyway as the title suggests we had our very first show finally. It took place Friday night at our home theater (we're one of I think roughly three house teams there).
All in all I have to say I am very happy with how the show went considering it was our first - there were a lot of really fun moments (both for us and the audience) and of course a few kinks that we need to work out. Really the only two major complaints I have about our performance was the fact that early on one or two members got a little jumpy with the edit (cut a couple scenes short - editing before they really got going) and then the fact that our lighting person gave us a very poorly timed black out (which was about 4 minutes early too).

The first part (the Speedy Gonazlaes impersonation on the edits) is fairly easy to chalk up to first performance jitters - as they came on really big laugh lines (aka the default edit points for improvisers who don't entirely feel the rhythm of a scene) - and the second wasn't even in our control (though really ... the light person called it four lines into a scene that hadn't even reached the punch yet (and those lines were clearly in the process of setting up a nice call back to early on if they had just waited another minute).

We had a great crowd and heard afterwards that the higher ups in the theater were extremely impressed about our show - apparently most of the audience left still talking about some parts - so go us.
I think the funniest thing though is that we were not nearly as impressed with ourselves as the audience and even the guy giving us notes seemed to be (note: again for those not paying attention I mentioned in the last post our Director couldn't make the show and so had a friend sit in watching). The reason for this is because of the level of work we've done in the last two practices - we know we are easily capable of so much more, so while this was a fun show (and fairly good for our first ever performance) in our eyes ... we all are setting our goals much higher.

iO Level Three - Week Four

So tonight was the half way mark for level Three at iO.

We found out when we'd be able to register for the next session of classes earlier today (Feb 22nd - for those who are interested) - though the schedule won't be posted for a few more weeks.
I'm hoping I can find a good teacher with a class that fits mys schedule (as it's a tad hectic ... and this session the only evening class was Tuesday night - which I can't do, thanks to rehearsals). Also a consideration each session is trying to remain with other people you enjoy working with

It's kind of an odd three way balancing act from session to session: on one hand you need to find the class time (and teacher ... teacher is very important) that works for you, then you have to take into account what classes you friends (and those people you simply enjoy working with) are thinking about, and finally there's the whole registration time concern (there's no guarantee you'll get into the class unless you're one of the very first people to call/submit on-line for it). Especially with the higher levels at the training center it can get pretty crazy - as there are less and less classes (slightly less so at iO say compared with the Annoyance - though depending on the teacher, classes fill up within minutes at levels 4 & 5).

The Class:
Back to the class itself. We started off with all of us standing in a circle. Bill had one person simply start walking across the middle with, as he put it, "a little something behind it." That player was to walk towards someone else, who would (once the first person reached them) would start walking - doing their absolute best to mirror the previous person's walk in every way. And thus the focus would get passed in this way - each new walker was give the instruction to only focus on mirroring the person walking toward them and not worry about what went on before.
This of course led to the walk slowly morphing organically as it moved around the circle (as each person's body moves in slightly different ways, and some people naturally stress different aspects of the physicality). Eventually Bill had the person walking add a noise to the walk and we watched as that too changed slowly.
Next Bill tapped another player on the shoulder and sent them walking into the circle - suddenly there were two walkers. As this progressed Bill tapped more and more people until we had upwards of six different walkers moving about the circle.

After a little while of this Bill had us pause and then asked us to just bang out a few short warm-up scenes - in order to get the kinks out.

Next Bill had all but a small group (about a third of the class) sit down. He divided up that group into two lines. A player form line A was to step out and initiate by basically simply saying "Hello" with a specific emotion behind it. The other player would then have to respond with how the first person was feeling : "You seem very ______ today." If the second player was right about the vibe player A was giving, a short scene would then commence with that as the initiation. However, if the second person was wrong in their assessment the initiating player would step back and then deliver the greeting again with more emphasis on their emotion - until Player B got it.

After everyone in the class had gotten a chance to do a couple of these Bill switched it up by just having two people ho on stage. For the rest of the class we worked on longer two person scenes where one player would initiate verbally (say something) and then the second player would make some sort of emotionally based noise (a sigh) or emotionally based exclamation (Yipeee). After that the scene would continue normally with the second player being asked to really hold on to whatever emotion their noise had inspired.
There were a surprising amount of super happy characters through out this exercise as I feel that was the easiest for most people to convey (or at least figure out a noise for in their mind).
Everyone ended up playing both roles before class ended, so you got to both initiate verbally and then come in with a simple noise. I have to say this was definitely a fun exercise when you were on stage .. but off it - you really began to wish the class sizes were capped a little more rigorously (there were 20 of us there btw).

Bill left us with these thoughts:
Subtext is key
A Character's Behavior is either appropriate or inappropriate for any situation - either is fine to play, just realize it and have fun with it.
Most Denials in Improv are Denials of Omission - one person ignores (either on purpose or accidentally) an offer or bit of information. Sometimes because they are too focused on their own offers/plans - or because the don't know how to handle the new offer.
Feel free to make assumptions to move the scene along.

CIC Rehearsal - Counter-Productive Lover

So tonight we finally decided on a team name: Counter-Productive Lover.
I have to say I never thought I would be in a group with a longer name than my College team (Suspicious of Whistlers), which has a whopping 21 letters - but here I am with this new 22 letter name...sigh.

Seriously though I'm actually pretty happy with the name - it wasn't my top pick of the final 10 we voted on tonight (though in a way I'm glad it wasn't as now I'm storing that one in my back pocket for a possible future team name - mwuahaha), but it was definitely better than most (I'll give you one more example - the closest runner up was: Rad Dad ... sigh).
Also (and this is the main reason it won in my opinion) this name came up organically in a previous rehearsal from a series of scenes involving a (you guessed it) Counter-Productive Lover.
Anyway we now have a brand spanking new MySpace page - if you're on it feel free to be our friend: MySpace.com/CounterProductiveLover
(If you're not on it ... stop by and check out the logo and eventually we'll have some video up there - I promise).

The Rehearsal:
Anyway tonight was our last rehearsal before our first performance this Friday (quick freaking turn around - am I right?) - so tonight was all about running through our show format (which we had luckily figured out at the end of last the last rehearsal).
Also tonight we found out that sadly our Director Jorin isn't going to be able to make our show - he is booked for two shows himself already, both suffering possible number issues (performer wise). Luckily Jorin enlisted a good friend (and fellow performer he works with) to meet us at the show, warm us up, and take notes for us - and he was there tonight for us to meet and get a feel fr his warm-up style.

So our guest coach, Louie, went ahead and warmed us up (fairly typical exercises, some to build energy and some to focus our concentration) and then we jumped right into running our show. We're going to run for around 25 minutes Friday, so that's what we aimed for tonight. Our first set I was feeling a little out of it - I was thinking too much and a little tired, though it was surprisingly good for our first real run through (read: mediocre).
Our second and third runs were fantastic though - I guess that first set warmed us all up and got us in the groove. We all played very quickly and brought a ton of energy and it was a lot of fun.
Both Jorin and Louie agreed that if we had a show like either of those runs we'd be the hit of the night - and that even our first set was entertaining enough (just lacking in pacing and energy).

We left the rehearsal and headed out to our usual bar to hang out - all of us ery pumped about the upcoming show - Jorin giving us the final note: Have as much fun playing Friday as you did tonight and you can't go wrong.

Service With a Creepy Smile

So a Delivery person from one of my favorite Japanese places up here is hitting on me...
aggressively. How is that a problem you ask? Why am I not getting a tip instead of giving one with my food? Well this person is a guy...and not just any guy (cause honestly if that's all it was - it wouldn't be that big of a deal) - an incredibly creepy older guy who looks like he might once have been a Hell's Angel and might currently be hiding bodies in the back of his beat up car. Oh yeah and then there's the key word ... Aggressively.

Let me paint you a better mental picture - first off this guy is definitely not Japanese, he's very white - about a hand's breadth taller than me - looks like he weighs about 280lbs - 300lbs (easy) - sporting a scraggy gray beard, long dirty gray hair, a couple of visible tattoos and glasses.
Early on when I first started ordering from this place, He was joking with me that sometime I should order a side of him with my meal (I shit you not he said that) - so I politely let him know that I was not interested (and straight), but still in a light hearted way. In the past (and I've been hit on by men randomly a few times ... I fit into the Bear stereotype quite nicely apparently except for the whole liking cock thing) this has taken care of the problem. Not so with this guy - and every time I ordered since then he's been the driver.
This last time when I went to hand him the money he actually let two of his fingers stroke the inside of my wrist and slowly ran those fingers across my hand while taking the money.
I was so stunned I literally couldn't say or do anything as he walked off.

I'm going to have to either complain to the restaurant or just stop ordering from there - otherwise I might end up getting molested or at least groped. Though on the plus side this guy is most definitely being filed away into my character repertoire.

Annoyance Level Two - Week Seven

Earlier tonight was the second to last class of this particular level over at the Annoyance.
I'm going to be sad to see it moving on as our teacher rocks, however there is some good news:

Follow up Aside:
As some of you recall in my last post about Annoyance classes (last week) I mentioned my failure in getting a slot in the next session. Well after a little over two weeks of pestering people (and calling in a favor or two) I just found out that I'm now enrolled. So lucky for all the readers out there - no 2 month hiatus from the Annoyance for me - and of course lucky me cause I get another two months with the awesome Susan Messing - mwuahahaha.

The Class:
Anyway back to the topic at hand. Surprisingly enough today we had a ton of people miss - there were only eight of us in class (hooray for us - cause more stage time .. but still sad in a way). Actually in many ways it was probably a good thing there were so few of us as we only ended up having time to get through two basic exercises (besides the ubiquitous warm-ups scenes which are always present at the top).
First was the continuation of last week's exercise designed to challenge us by forcing us to rapidly switch characters throughout a gauntlet of scenes. Of the eight people who were in class only two of us had gotten to go last week - so a good hour at least was devoted to finishing that exercise up.
Also since there were fewer people to go through today (and honestly because a few people in the class had a tougher time with finding different characters quickly) a couple players went through some extra rounds of the gauntlet.

By the time we had gotten through everyone in this exercise there were only about 25 minutes left in class. So Rich decided to let us basically kind of help and test each other with a character mirroring exercise. One player would step out and then anyone on the back line who thought they knew a good character energy that would challenge the first player would step out and start a scene. The first person who stepped out then had to mirror that character and continue the scene with the other player making that energy their own. All in all it was a fun way to end the class and let us get an idea of how our peers saw us.

iO Level Three – Week Three

For the first time since the class started there was less than 20 people in the room today. We officially have 18 people signed up for our section - however the past two classes have seen multiple people sitting in. Today we actually had a few regular people missing and one new face (who was actually in my level one class - so not new to me - hooray).

Anyway we started off the class with everyone hopping up and playing a quick name game again - incredibly simple this one - you just pass the focus by pointing to someone and saying their name - that's it.
We followed that up with a pattern game - everyone in a circle, one player looks to their left and says some object (like red, or zebra, etc) and claps in unison with the person they are looking at. That person then turns to their left and says a new object in that same category (so if player A said red, Player B would name another color, Blue -- If A said Zebra, B would name another animal, beaver - etc) and claps in unison with that person.
This continues around the circle till it reaches the starting point. Once there it starts again only this time both players say the object they mentioned before in unison while clapping (so Player A looks a Player B - both say Red and clap - player B looks at C - both say Blue and clap - etc).
We ended up getting four different patterns like this going around the circle at the same time - though they were close on each others heels.

Next Bill had us just bang out some quick warm-up two person scenes - and once everyone had gotten two under their belt he had all but a third of the class sit down.

Bill then introduced us to what he calls the Clingy Priest exercise.
The small group forms two lines against the back wall - A player form Line A steps out and quickly gives the player from line B a character - by saying something along the lines of:
"Oh look it's the Clingy Priest from my parish..."
And then then the scene commences with Player B embodying that character to the best of his ability (some other examples besides Clingy priest are: Judgemental Step-mom, insecure cop, perverted uncle, overly enthusiastic business man, etc).
Again this is to get in our heads that How we do what we do is who we are on stage.

After everyone had gone through this Bill switched it up on us. Now a player from Line A enters the scene and silently gives himself a character like one of the above and then plays that in the scene. The player from line can give himself a character as well but is mostly there to support A in this exercise (basically to play the straight man).

After this we took a brief break and when we got back Bill again had a smaller section hop up and form a back line. This time around we would be focusing on character mirroring and general agreement: one person would hop out and assume a character then another player would join them in the scene mirroring their character (copying it basically). Bill would only call scene once the second player heightened that character even more than the player who initiated it.
Eventually after everyone had tried their hand at this a couple of times Bill varied it up on us again - having people come out and mirror each other's characters, only to have a third person walk on once the scene and characters had been fairly established and completely change the setting.
So once the new player walked on the three were suddenly in a completely new space (dare I say context even) initiated by the third player (for example two overly enthusiastic businessmen who were having a scene in an office - suddenly find them selves at a Drive through window ordering food - and they have to maintain their character's activity).
This exercise really hammered home the idea that it's what you are doing or talking about in a scene that makes your character, it's how you do it or talk about it.

At the end of Class Bill asked us this question:
"What's more important the Actor, or the idea?"

Our answer was the Actor, because as Bill said: "Give me the best premise in the world and I guarantee you I can find terrible actors who will kill it [ruin it] - I'll even work with them and coach them, it'll still turn out terrible. On the other had give me a terrible premise and I bet I can find a few actors who will make it wonderful."


This class left us with these ideas:
Keep it Simple
Don't be afraid to say exactly what is going on
How you do what you do, that is your character
Let things really affect you - react to what your partner says and does
Characters are portable
The art is in concealing the craft