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."