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Post by peter on Sept 27, 2007 0:25:13 GMT -5
It's a journal about my forays into the seedy underbelly of the Chicago improv scene...among other things.
Hopefully it'll serve as a resource to St. Louis improvisers (and curious stalkers) by providing an interesting glimpse into the workings of the current Chicago scene. There'll be updates about improv classes I'm taking from some (at least two) of the major theaters up here - and also random thoughts about shows and the scene in general.
At the very least it should provide a way for my distant friends to keep up on what I'm up to improv-wise (along with possibly random tangents covering various interesting shenanigans I get up to - don't say I didn't warn you when it happens) while in Chi-town.
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Post by peter on Sept 27, 2007 1:51:39 GMT -5
Update the First: Getting you all up to speed. BackstoryI made the move from good old St. Louis up to Chicago back during the first week of September - and (as of today) am currently in my sixth week of classes at the iO theater. Now for those of you math majors out there that seems nigh impossible - here we are four weeks into the month of Chicago yet I've been taking classes here for two extra weeks. Well I managed this feat not through the use of a Tardis, tricked out Delorian, or phone booth sent from the future by George Carlin - but by driving up here and sitting in on the classes before I moved (well one of them at least... I called in a favor or two) and was officially enrolled. Lowdown on the iO theaterBefore I begin my recap on the classes up to this point let me begin by giving you a lowdown on the iO Theater (for those of you not in the know). So the way iO works is that there are 6 main* levels of classes (1,2,3,4,5,& 5b) each class meets once a week for a total of 8 sessions (so eight weeks). Each class lasts 3 hours and has a short (10 minutes or so) break in the middle. The theater itself has two stages (both with a full bar - hooray) - the Del Close Theater upstairs, then the Cabaret Theater downstairs (the downstairs is where the House or Harold teams perform) - and has multiple shows going every night of the week. Students at the theater can get into almost any show for free. Recap of the ClassesSo here's a quick look back at the past 5 classes of Level One at iO. I recall begin very surprised after the first class I attended at iO by one thing in particular: the size of the class (we started out with 23 people...for a 3 hour class - if you work the math out in your head that means each person averages around 7.8 minutes of stage time....less when you factor in the break, warm-ups + discussions). Luckily in subsequent classes we now average between 18 & 20 (a couple people have just vanished and one or two miss, making up the classes at other times**) The very first day I we did a short name warm-up (where we "try" to learn people's names and also get some energy up) - with that many people a few people I have only just now learned their names. Afterwards we quickly jumped into an exercise on listening called cocktail party: greenlightwiki.com/improv/Cocktail_PartyFrom there we worked briefly on short true personal monologues, a few agreement exercises - such as yes and..., and by the end of the 3 hour class we were doing short scenes. After the first day (a I foolishly did not keep a record of everything we did at the time) it gets a little hazy as to the specifics. I recall that by the next class we were already doing open scenes - at the beginning of each class so far we always perform one short warm-up and then sometimes will learn a warm-up that is actually a possible show opening. Some opening we've already covered include: word association, monologues, and the invocation: An object is gotten to inspire the opening. The performers then begin with a series of "It is..." statements describing the object and its environment, next a series of "You are..." statements follow where the performers relate to the object in some way, this is followed by a series of "Thou art..." statements which describe the nature of the object (in terms of the personal "you are..." statements) in an almost Shakespearian and epic poem style, next comes the last series of statements: "I am..." simplifying the nature and picking out thematic elements from the descriptions before. Ex. Spaghetti = object. It is siting in a blue bowl covered with Parmesan cheese. You are the meal my mother served me every time I got sick. Thou art the soothing balm that washes away all pain. I am love.Big Ideas we have covered in the previous classes: Relationship, relationship, relationship: The scene is not about dead space hookers, or the fact that you failed chemistry, or digging holes - the scene is about the interaction between the two characters on stage - and how those above things influence it. Secret wants: Everybody secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) wants something from almost any interaction they have - so why not your character. It can be as epic as wanting your partners undying love, or as simple as wanting a snickers bar or high five - and it never needs to actually be addressed in the scene, however it can be a great tool to find a character. Main focus of all the first five classes: Learning some of the basic techniques that will prepare us to tackle the Harold and the iO style of improv. We've gone over tag outs, walk ons, openings, drawing inspiration from an opening for a scene, group games, and the structure of the first two beats of a Harold. I plan on going into more detail about these things in later posts - however for now, at least you some idea of what goes into the iO style. My ThoughtsSome of the classes have been incredibly interesting - though for the most part it is a real struggle to keep the energy up. On a good day you can hope to average maybe 2-3 scenes (or group games or scene-like exercises) and only if you're fast and sitting in the front row (this I think is key in any performance class like this where you have to get up and work - otherwise you'll be one of the last every time). About 75% (or more) of the class you are sitting and watching other people improvise or listening to other people's notes or explanations about exercises and scenes. As they say, however, you can learn almost as much by watching other people and listening as you can by doing - however, it requires effort on your part to stay focused. All this down time can make for some rough/off/low energy scenes if you let it - and considering how little stage time you might get - it's incredibly important to maintain your focus. For me I usually try and be one of the first people up for every round of new exercises - it keeps me on my toes (especially if I'm in the first group, pair up - as usually our instructor doesn't explain the exercise until the first bunch are on stage). Also I've found that the longer you sit and watch other people do the exercise before your turn, the greater tendency you have to get in your head and start thinking way to much about when your turn comes. As a performer I very rarely get in my head on stage - I just don't worry about it and focus on what's going on in the scenes. But I swear there have been times in these classes (or some workshops) where I end up just completely analyzing an exercise and how to respond or what I'd like to do (This type of scene would be perfect for this exercise.... or If I was in that scene I'd probably...). I often try to direct this to more constructive thinking (I've played an angry character today..I should try happy or some different emotion - or I started my last character out with a different voice, maybe this time I'll start with a physicality or emotion) - still getting up early and then being able to just sit back watch and absorb the other scenes is much better. That's all I can recall right now sadly - I promise later posts will have more details about the individual classes (as I'll be writing them either right after, or the next day). Also in last three posts concerning Level One I'll look more in depth to some of the main ideas and exercises above. So stay tuned. *There is at least one optional level and also a series of electives available at iO as well. For the full curriculum and descriptions, check here: www.iochicago.net/classes/classes_curriculum.php** Note: you can only miss two of the 8 classes per level, after that you must retake the entire level. It is possible to make-up a missed class by going to another section of the same level on a different day. During my session there were five different sections of level One being taught (so at roughly 20 x 5 that means approx 100 people are taking just level one at iO).
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Post by peter on Sept 28, 2007 3:19:04 GMT -5
Level One - Week Six
So yesterday night (Wednesday) was the sixth session of my level one class. As we do at the top of every class period – we briefly talk about what improv shows people saw the previous week – almost always only a handful (today only two of us) have actually gone to see any improv, much less an io Harold team. This wouldn’t be so surprising except we get into almost all the shows at the theater for free (and one of the best shows in the city is right after our class downstairs (admittedly that’s one of the few we don’t get into for free, but it’s $5). The most shocking thing it’s always the same people who go to see shows – nearly half the class has yet to see an improv show in the city (or at least admit to it) since the class started (6 weeks ago) – which boggles my mind – here you are shelling out hundreds of dollars to take this (and possibly other) classes, yet you don’t want to take advantage of one of the few perks (free admission to most shows) and see how it’s “supposed” to be done.
It’s part of a weird phenomena I’ve started to notice since being up in Chicago – one you’re surrounded by so much improvisation (really theater, the arts, and most things in general) it becomes very easy to take it all for granted.
Anyway we next had a quick round of 8’s (what I secretly call cerebral palsy...if you know the warm-up you understand, but still probably think just as poorly of me for thinking that) and then had half the class picks up where we left off last week.
Last week we learned the Invocation (see above post for details) – and ended the class with half of us performing an invocation then going right into the first two beats of a Harold (so invocation as the opening, three scenes, a group game, three more scenes). We ran out of time before the second half of the class got to try it though – so they did it this week.
It was very clear a little bit into the invocation, that some of the group either did not fully remember how the opening went or did not understand it the first time around – either the start of it was great…then it got a little messy. The scenes in the first beat were ok, if lacking a little in the relationship department, while the second beat scenes were a little more strained – as with out strong relationships early on, connections between the various scenes were hard to make.
After the shaky repeat of the invocation (due to time) we had to plow forward in order to cover the lesson for today: The Armando. Now for those of you not in the know the Armando (aka Armando Diaz – named after the person who came up with it) is a show format where one individual is set as the Armando for the show – his job is to, based off an audience suggestion, begin a true (meaning a real anecdote from his life experience) monologue at the top of the show which will inspire a random number of scenes (I say random, because the number usually isn’t set beforehand). Then after a number of scenes the Armando feels is right (or after the info from the monologue has been bled dry for inspiration) the Armando steps forward delivers a new monologue (still true – only now inspired from the scenes which just occurred) and a series of scenes happen again (and as the second monologue was inspired itself from the first round of scenes – connections between the first and second beats often happen). The piece ends with either a scene or a final monologue – that really depends on the tech guy/Armando.
Now I love the Armando – it’s format is so lose that there’s an incredible amount of freedom and the standard inspiration is such that getting everyone in the ensemble on the same page is incredibly simple. Now when I say “standard inspiration” here’s what I mean: the source is a monologue (basically a true anecdote/story from a person’s life – however there’s a standard way to dissect this for scene work (note as with any opening players are actually free (depending on the director) to take whatever inspiration they want (word, tone, theme, phrase, physicality of the presenter, etc): what my level one teacher calls commenting.
A quick tangent here: I learned how to do “long form” based off of the Armando premise (scenes from a monologue), was trained in this idea at the UCB theater in New York in their level one program, and have taught a number of workshops where I’ve talked about how to dissect a monologue for scenes.
The way our teacher described how to do it the first time made me go “whaaaa?” in my head. Now my level one teacher is incredibly nice and very talented and this is the only time in 6 weeks where I almost did a double take at something, but the first attempt at breaking this down was not the most efficient explanation I’ve ever heard. It was described as such: “basically all the scenes in an Armando are comments about the monologue – in other words you should be commenting on something you heard from the monologue in ever scene.” Now I can see what she was trying to say (at the time I was a tad confused), but it’s not the best wording. Eventually through a number of question asking on the part of some of the students and some explanation on the part of the teacher we got out the simplified idea: For an Armando, you don’t want to reenact the story (or situations) you heard – you want to figure out what the monologue (stories/situations) are really about/ what they are saying – and do a scene based on that (ok maybe not all that simple).
I language used when I was first taught was: take an idea (dare I say a theme) from the monologue and apply it to a completely different situation.
Where the word Commenting comes from is because in essence the ideal is that your scene will (or should depending on who you ask) probably voice an opinion (comment) about the idea - leading to a deeper message – I’m all for a piece having a message (and that is what teaching it under this method pushes for) though most of the time if you’re doing your job it will have one organically – you just have to be open to it when it pops up.
Honestly I can't really fault them too much for teaching it in terms of calling it commenting on a scene (heck I call crazy 8's or whatever, cerebral palsy in my head - though I'd never teach it that way) I just wonder sometimes about how much is being lost due to the way they have structured their curriculum and the sheer number of people per class, and I think this was a small symptom of it.
The scenes in the Armando were great for the most part (a few were a little rough – but that was mostly due to too many people being on stage at one time). I also did something a haven’t done since the first day – I made sure to go in the last group (those of you reading the post above must be shocked) however what I realized was that by getting up first every time (the way this class is) I ended up playing with the same 10 people almost every time… or at least mainly. I had never worked with almost half the class in the past 6 weeks –so since her are only two classes left I wanted to challenge myself by playing with the others. Overall a fun class and I managed to get in on two really nice character driven scenes in the Armando – and one amusing cluster fuck, which at least was… amusing.
That's all I have for now - told you I'd be more detailed... see ya next week.
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Post by peter on Sept 28, 2007 4:11:15 GMT -5
Open Court: Long Form Improv Jam
So an early post - very early if you check the time stamps (that joke has multiple meanings - booyah) - but tonight I finally managed to get my but down to the corner of Belmont and Halstead for the weekly long form jam at the Playground theater: Open Court.
Now for those of you not in the know this is how Open Court works. Basically you show up to the theater a little bit before 10:30pm on Thursday (when the show starts). The cost is $5 and for that they give you a ticket - if you wish to perform that night as part of the jam you take the ticket and write your name on the back of it and return it to them (if you don't just leave it blank and go sit down you freeloading bum). Once the show starts whoever is hosting comes out and introduces two guest coaches (improvisers with some know how from around town) who then draw the names out of a hat (or whatever) in order to form two random teams. The teams run back stage (which actually means through a door into the alley behind the theater) and meet with their coach to decide on what format their show will take. Sometimes the coach has a preconceived notion of a new form to try, or sometimes the players just make something up (the key here is every night each team plays with a different format - some simple, some really fucking complex). The coaches then run over the details making sure people understand. The team then decides on a name - does a super fast warm-up - and runs back in... all in all this should take less than 15 minutes.
The coaches come on stage and flip a coin to see who goes first - each team gets roughly 25 minutes to jam and then at the end of the night those same tickets are used to draw for crazy awesome prizes (like a stop watch, or a flashlight, or whatever has been left in the theater storage area that isn't claimed by a staff member).
All in all this is a pretty interesting idea - it has the potential to be incredibly awesome... Tonight not so much.
I quickly realize the level of awesome for either show is almost entirely in the hands of the coach - who has final word on the format of the team's show (especially considering the usual people at this jam are beginning to mid level improvisers - some from a short form, some for a long form background - who don't know each other and have drastic ranges in performance abilities and styles).
The form our coach came up with for our team - was a bunch of great ideas formed into a less than stellar concoction. He asked us what we liked most about forms we had played (personally I don't give a rats ass about forms - I like relatively open forms where the focus is more on scenes and just improvising instead of worrying about what beat your in, or whatever gimmick you have come up with). Here is the list he got from the others of what they like in their forms: Tag outs, time dashes, multiple scenes in the same location, character switching & something else I can't recall.
Now by themselves I'm cool with all of these - hell done right I'm a hundred percent down to throw all these on together.
Here is what he laid out for us (in parentheses are my thoughts): We'll get one location for all the scenes to take place in (cool, I've rocked shows like that before).
New scenes will take place in the same starting location we get from the audience, but in different times (OK that's fairly obvious - unless your locale is like a motel, or ball room and you want to show what's going on in the next room, or in the hall, or across the room - but cool)
And by different times I mean time dashes to different time periods - as many as possible - stone age - future - 16th century - etc (... first off that's not the proper use of the term time dash - secondly sounds a bit kitchy & short formy, but whatever I've done worse - though I wish you would've let us discover that possibility organically as we played instead of mandating it)
We sweep edit to change scenes, but can use tag edits to take over another person's character (kick ass - a little TJ & Dave style here, I've experimented with taking on other people's character mid scene, should be interesting - if potentially a little chaotic)
And it'll be the same scene replayed each time - so try and remember the key lines of dialog (what the fuck? I misheard you right, you're joking....that's funny - cause if we did that it wouldn;t really leave all that much room to improvise as we'd basically just be playing a big old game of genres, but with less freedom....son of a bitch you're serious)
So in case you missed it - our format (for what is billed as a long form improv jam) was one scene set in a single location that was to be repeated multiple times in different time periods - with a focus on remembering the original lines - and we could switch characters. Sigh.
Our location when we went in was courtroom and we all ended up being in the first scene (the original plan was it would be two person scenes so everyone would play the same scene in a different time period, with two different actors in the original roles) - however one person started off as the judge, then a bailiff entered and the rest of us (7 in all) were called in to be attorneys, defendant, random guy in witness stand - yet the only dialog was between three people...
So yeah - every time the scene ended (on the same line - just sometimes delivered slightly differently - as new time period means silly accents - such as French for Victorian era, pirate? for whenever pirates roamed, vaudeville barker for I guess around the 20's, binary for the future, and dinosaur/caveman for prehistoric) we'd scramble and take on a different character that had already been established.
The other team's form was normal scenes but ever edit just had the person editing telling us a fact which was inspired from the previous scene - and lead to the new one.....so they actually ended up having a lot more freedom. It was still fun to be performing even though it was not what I expected (went in looking to do some open scenes ended playing a slightly altered long ass short form game).
However at the end of it all I won two comic books (one of them being Super Man: Red Son....awesome) in the prize drawing and got to maul someone as a pterodactyl on stage - so not a total loss.
Anyway I definitely plan to go back there - cause the idea has so much potential - I just pray I don't end up on a team with a coach is is confused about the meaning of the term long form (I found out afterward most of the people there that night were either from comedy sports or the early second city classes: non conservatory - so aha).
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Post by peter on Oct 2, 2007 4:12:26 GMT -5
Annoyance: Level One - Week OneToday (yesterday now I suppose) I started the first level of improv classes over at the Annoyance Theater. Lowdown on the Annoyance: First off for those of you not in the know, let me run down a few details about the Annoyance. It was started as sot of a reaction to the training at iO by a group of very talented improvisers lead by Mick Napier. They believed that iO was a little too form-centric in their approach. Their training center has 5 levels (and a few electives offered). Their theatre has only one stage (and one bar – not in the same room) and they have shows 6 nights a week (Mondays they sleep). Their shows are primarily scripted (or honestly at least 80-90% scripted, leaving some room to improvise). All their shows are edgy, and they love musicals (who doesn’t) & they have usually two or more shows a night (a few are pure improv, usually done by their best alumnae). For more information go here: www.theannoyance.comOr check out the last section of Mick Napier’s book: Improvise (Their history is really quite interesting) Students here get into any show for free (unless it's sold out). The Class ItselfNow before the class even started I found myself wondering about one particular aspect which separated it from the courses at iO: it was scheduled for only 2 and half hours instead of three. I had to wonder how much of those 30 minutes I’d end up missing – especially depending on the size of the class (at iO we’re lucky to get 2-3 scenes in three hours in level one). Well a few minutes into the class all my worries went out the window. There were around 12-14 people in the class (already a good sign). After quickly introducing ourselves to each other and our instructor – we were given a brief rundown on what we would be working on: improvised scene work. Before we got started he gave us Two things for us to keep in mind concerning all the work we’d do that day: “Everything you do today is completely 100% right as long as you commit to it.” And “Don’t worry about being funny up there today. It’s not about being funny.”15 minutes into the class we were all asked to hop up against the back wall and asked to simply begin a series of completely open two person scenes, which were edited by the instructor. Now by completely open, I mean just that – he’d say two people up and we’d begin improvising (well which ever two stepped out that is). The only other comments were to call scene and ask for two more. After a number of scenes (all of us got to go multiple times) he had us pause and gave us collectively one note. The note was to start each scene from now on with an immediate point of view (our character’s deal if you will) – this could also be an attitude/emotion (I’m angry, or sad, or I’m a badass, etc). We then did a butt load of scenes with this idea as our only inspiration. Which had a lot more energy to them & kick to them. One of the coolest things that happened in class came about as the result of a joke actually (which is amusing considering the teacher’s second piece of advice). Two ladies in the class jumped out as very high-energy characters. They both started bouncing around the stage – basically very bad dancing, as one counted off a rhythm. The scene itself was completely nonsensical, ridiculous, and had very little dialogue, and one girl almost took off her shirt – though it was amusing to watch. After our instructor called scene he laughingly said as two new people stepped out (obviously as a joke) – OK now do that exact same scene. We all chuckled – low and behold though the pair immediately lapsed into a parody of the scene (they were two big guys FYI) bouncing around singing gibberish as one of them yelled, “look at me, look at me” while raising his shirt. The teacher died, we died – it was funny. Scene was called, then the next pair stepped out. After a moment they were asked to do the exact opposite of that scene. This sent the next round of scenes into a pattern – we’d repeat the same scene multiple times, each time either we’d organically alter it simply by our reaction – or we’d be asked to alter it in a specific way (ex: same scene but now the two of you are related). Then we switched again running scenes all starting with the same line of dialogue – all completely different. Somewhere in there (it’s all a blur, really) we took a short 10-minute break. Then after a few more open scenes our instructor asked us to start a series of completely silent scenes – where we had to convey out “deal” ASAP. Here some people ended up basically playing charades as the scene’s went on heavily pantomiming what they were trying to say and upping up the physical activity to intense heights – the really interesting scenes though, were the few with just two people standing staring at each other (or sitting, or whatever, but calm, almost still) letting their body language and glances tell the entire story of what they were feeling. Right after this we switched into just saying numbers instead of words in scenes. It was fun playing with how tone of voice and posture could convey just as much meaning if not more than words. From this another cool change happened (at least for me) I was in a scene where my partner barked out “one” and pointed at the floor – I sullenly replied “Two” and stood my ground. My partner then dropped and began doing push-ups, clearly ordering me to join him with his tone and gesture. I walked over, and repeated “two” and switched between a pleading and resistant tone. We were then asked to repeat the same scene now using words. It became a good scene about a father trying to force his teenage son to change, on the surface physically but there was more under the surface. After this we stopped and talked about what we had been doing so far. We had just perfectly illustrated one of the core principles of the theater through a happy accident (that repeat scene): “How you do something is more important that what you do.”We ended the class with more open scenes, this time around we were asked to think of people we knew very well who were very different than us, and use their attitude/point of view for inspiration. All in all I did more scenes in this first class than I’ve done in the entire first 6 weeks at iO – and it was so welcome. He left with a bit of advice on how to make the most of our time at the Annoyance: “Treat this as an acting class, because it is.” Things we took away from this first class:It’s not about being funny How you do what you do is who you are Hold on to the gifts you give yourself As long as you commit to it everything you do is right Start off with attitude/character/point of view if you don’t, find it FAST
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Post by peter on Oct 3, 2007 4:49:34 GMT -5
Answering some Questions.I was recently asked some great questions in a message by someone on the board about some stuff I’ve mentioned in the Journal so far – and as I was writing up a response, I thought – hell, why not share the answers with everyone (as who know how many others might be thinking the same thing). If anyone else has any questions at all about anything in the Chicago scene, or I write in my blog, or you think I might know the answer too – please feel free to either Private message me/e-mail me and I’ll do my best to answer them – or post them in the IMPROV DISCUSSION forum, and likely all of us will do our best to answer it. The Questions are: How did you decide to do those classes and get involved?This is an awesome question cause there are so many different improv theaters/training centers/troupes out there (Just in Chicago you have: iO, The Annoyance, Second City, Comedy Sportz, The Playground, pH productions, and probably a bunch of smaller companies that offer classes that I don’t even know of yet – in St. Louis you have a smaller number of troupes/people that offer training/classes). My best advice (and how I finally settled on these two theatres) is to first go see shows (if at all possible). They can be shows featuring the people who are going to be teaching the classes or (sometimes even more telling as the best performers are not always the best teachers & vice versus) featuring people who have gone through the training just like you will. See as many shows as you can from different theaters and featuring different students and decide which style/troupe/etc you prefer. After that another key thing you can do (and something I definitely did) is ask around in the community (take what people say with a grain of salt mind you, but if 99% of the people you talk to say so and so rocks as a teacher/theater, it might behoove you to look into their classes). If you know people already involved in classes somewhere great – if not, after a show you see that you enjoy strike up a short conversation with a performer if you can (as you’re congratulating them on their show, ask them about classes/theaters they recommend). Or you can check out improv message boards like this one (or the big three: Chicagoimprov.org – Chicago improv, ImprovResouceCenter.com – Primarily New York improv, but has a number of other cities with their own sections, or YesAnd.com – hodgepodge of improvisers from all around – if you snoop a little you can easily find a lot of great resources, or just post any questions you have, 95% of all the improvisers on the boards would be happy to help). Getting involved in the community in any city can be as easy as simply gong to a few shows (jams are especially a good way to meet people early on in some communities) and, when you’re ready and have made a choice – signing up for classes at whatever theater/group/etc catches your fancy. Deciding to get involved (especially to where I actually chose to move up to Chicago) was an entirely different matter. It came down to the fact that after improvising for 4 years in college (with a little stuff in high school thrown on) I fell in love with it – improv has become one of my major passions and I think that’s really key (I’m not saying you shouldn’t try getting involved if improv is not the love of your life obviously, but don’t set off down the improv pass if your goal is just to end up on SNL, or get famous, or as a means to an end. Yeah a number of people have become very successful who started their careers improvising – but if you just want fame, there are far easier ways to go about it – trust me, and besides you can’t do it just through improv): do it because you enjoy it. Personally I was very fortunate in deciding on these two theaters as I got numerous chances (though my college group) to go to Festivals and see numerous shows by troupes from all kinds of theaters all over the country (as well as taking trips to Chicago to see shows) – and meet and talk with people in the scene who gave me advice – and in the end for what I was most interested in improv-wise iO and The Annoyance were the perfect fit. Are they [the classes] expensive? Well the classes at all the theaters up here vary in price (most even differ from level to level in the same theater). For iO: Level One costs $255 for an 8-week session (8 classes once a week – each class lasts 3 hours). This cost included in it a copy of the book Truth in Comedy (which is the iO bible if you will – and contains a lot of its philosophy), and you get a student pass that gets you into the majority of the shows at the theater for free. Levels Two, Three, & Five cost $240 each (also 8-week sessions, same deal as above except no book). Levels Four, FourB*, & FiveB cost $260 each (8-week sessions, same deal as above – however the extra fee goes towards providing you with a DVD copy of your class performance. *Note FourB is an elective). Various other electives cost different amounts. The Annoyance: Level One costs $190 for an 8-week session ($20 off for early registration). 8 classes Once a week, each class lasts 2 and a half hours. Level Two Costs $210 ($20 off early registration). Same as above. Then I’m not exactly sure of the progression but the final level I believe costs (there are 5 levels total) $235 – and I think it’s a fairly steady progression up form $210 to the $235 over the other two classes. Other theaters up here vary price-wise with Second City averaging around $265 per 8-week session and Comedy Sportz averaging right at $200 per session. This is of course just Chicago prices – the UCB in New York (where I spent a summer training), charges $325 per session across the board – with their LA theater charging only $300 per session. iO West in La charges $325 for their level One. So when you factor it all together it can get a little pricey at times – though almost all the theaters (at least the ones mentioned above) offer some sort of internship program where they will either severely reduce costs or let you take classes for free (of course these few spots are very hotly sought after in the major markets and so can be hard to get – I’m currently waiting to find out if I got an internship at iO) – and a few theaters offer payment plans. Why did you have to go to Chicago to take them? Anything similar in STL area?Well clearly you don’t have to go to Chicago to take improv classes. There are some great teachers right in St. Louis and probably a lot more places than you’d think around the country where you can find great teachers as well. For the sheer number of improvisational opportunities (both in training and doing) Chicago is one of the best places to be – it’s called the Mecca of improv for a reason. Mind you it is by no means the only or necessarily the best (depending on what you want to do). New York has an incredible improv scene – one of the top theaters in the country was started there (founded by Chicago expatriates actually): the Upright Citizens Brigade. I trained there for a summer and trust me they rock. Also there are a number of other theaters in that city that are great – and a lot of opportunities. LA has blown up recently with a branch of iO there, & the UCB and there are all kinds of other opportunities there as well. Even beyond the big three if you will – there are some amazing communities out there whose improv scenes are just as vibrant as any o the above. North Carolina has an incredible improv scene and actually most likely far more performance opportunities for beginning improvers – you have the great people at the Dirty South Improv Theater in Carrboro (Chapel Hill area near Durham) and another branch of iO in Raleigh. Also I have to mention the scene down in Austin Texas, which has blown up in the past few years – with the Coldtowne theater and a bunch more – also currently the home of one of the most talented improv teachers I’ve met. These “smaller” communities offer for the most part all of the same things you’ll find improv wise in the more well known “Mecca’s” – some are far cheaper and offer far more performance opportunities to beginners as well. It all depends on what you want out of your improv experience and which scene/city/etc interests you. In St. Louis the two people I have to recommend as being basically the exact same as almost anything you’ll find in Chicago are Bill Chott and Ed Reggi. Sadly both don’t always offer classes with the same sort of frequency you’ll find in Chicago – however the trade off is right now – in the places which offer regular classes – the very best teachers are only leading the most advanced levels – in St. Louis you can hop right into a class or workshop taught by Bill or Reggi and that’s awesome. Also thankfully their classes are cheaper 9at least all the one’s I’ve encountered are). Also beyond this I highly suggest if you can, to keep your eyes and ears open for nearby improv festivals (there’s an annual one in Kansas City – and there’s been an annual St. Louis one… hopefully at the very least there will be another college one – because at these festivals usually performers and teachers are brought down from Chicago/New York and the like and offer workshops – a great chance to shake it up). Also (I almost forgot this in my Ramblings) - if you don't want to uproot your life permanently yet are still wanting to take classes at one the "major theaters" - most offer special Intensive courses. For Example the UCB offers each of their first three levels (each normally 8 weeks long) as three, two week long intensives (so each level takes two weeks). iO offers a five week summer program where you can complete their entire course of study in five weeks - and every so often offers week long intensives where you can complete a level in a week. The Annoyance also offers a very similar program (also about five weeks or so I believe to study with their best teachers). In the end the reason I decided to train in Chicago is because of what I want to do. Ideally at some point I’d like to be able to teach improvisation (workshops, corporate, coach, etc) – in order to do that it helps tremendously to have theaters like iO, Second City, Annoyance, UCB, etc on your resume (I actually plan at some point, if I'm able, to go complete the full course of training at the UCB as well - and I have a few specific improvisers from all around that I really really want to train with - yeah I'm a dork). Add to that Chicago was cheaper to live in than New York and then I came in knowing more people in Chicago than LA (plus I’ve heard so many great things about the Annoyance which is only in Chicago) and a few other non improv related factors (jobs woohoo) – and it just made more sense for me. Anyway I think this is long enough - hopefully I managed to answer your questions in some sort of coherent manner and hopefully some of the other people who read this got something out of these answers as well. Edit: I recently came across a breakdown of total prices for the major training centers in Chicago - if anyone is interested. farm2.static.flickr.com/1346/1365972927_fad10aa304_o.jpgThe adorable kitten makes it easier to take I feel.
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Post by peter on Oct 4, 2007 3:34:23 GMT -5
iO Level One – Week Seven
Earlier tonight I had my second to last class of level one at the iO theater.
Announcement Before I get to the details about the class however (Hooray suspense) I have an important (at least to me) announcement to make. As of next week I will be interning for the iO theater – huzzah. Yep, earlier today I got a phone call stating I was on the “short list” for interns and that they would be finalizing who was in today and tomorrow. They conducted a brief phone interview with me and told me they would be in touch – well a couple hours later I got a call and they let me know I was in – woot. I still have no idea what nigh I’ll be working, but this is going to allow me to make a lot more connections at the theater (and within the community at large) and means that I won’t have to pay for level two (huzzah again). I’ll be sure to post information here to let people know what the experience is like. I have to give major thanks to Jake, Rutherford, Bill, Dan, Linda & My Awesome level One Teacher for either recommending me or letting me list them as references (as a big part of the process is who you know from around the theater).
The Class Anyway on to the details about the class. Tonight after a quick Crazy Eights warm-up our instructor told us were going to be working on a new opening. She first had all of us get up on stage and explained that we were going to construct a giant human machine (with all of us as moving parts). The key to this exercise she explained was the idea of complimenting each other – as one person steps out and begins making a sound and motion (machine-part-like mind you) everyone else should be thinking how they can add on to that and support it with their own sound and motion (another key she mentioned was keep it relatively simple). This exercise is of course a great metaphor for iO’s approach to improvisation (at least the core values they teach): you’re all part of a group, you must always look for how you can compliment/support the rest of the group (it can also be dissected further with the idea of every show being like the machine in the exercise and your scenes + yourselves being the players, and I’m sure other permutations as well).
This exercise was to get us in the mind set for the Doo Wop opening. I first saw this opening used maybe a year or so ago on a trip to Chicago where I caught the iO Musical featuring the Deltones (this was right around when Baby Wants Candy had moved out of the Theater and they had put a new musical show in their slot I believe) and even though what they were doing as the opening was fairly simple I was impressed. Btw in case you haven’t guessed yet from either the name, or my reference to seeing it in a musical show – this is a musical opening and for those of you not in the know, I’m fairly tone deaf (meaning if you play a few notes on a piano and ask me to try and sing along…haha I’ll fail miserably). Luckily, no piano was present and we were creating our own rhythm (I attribute my meager abilities of following a musical rhythm mind you to hours of free styling during long road trips to festivals with Whistlers btw). The opening itself is fairly simple (though when done well is pretty cool) one at a time the players on stage simply repeat their own simple phrases inspired by the suggestion over and over again to a musical rhythm. So a suggestion will be given and one player steps forward singing/chanting a phrase inspired by it choosing their own rhythm. Then another player will step forward singing/chanting his or her own phrase in a rhythm and tone that compliments and fits with the first person’s choice. This continues until all the players are singing/chanting something. Even though this is really just everyone just repeating different phrases because of the complimentary rhythms and tones (some phrases will end up overlapping btw) it comes across as incredibly unified. Once everyone is singing/chanting one at a time, in any order, players step to the front of the stage and either sing (or if you’re not all the musically inclined share ) a brief monologue inspired by your phrase. Once everyone has gone (and during this the overall singing/chanting fades but doesn’t not stop – and everyone returns to their phrases after their monologue) you organically end the piece (can all end up repeating one phrase, can fade out, whatever you find at the time that leads to an out). It’s actually easier to explain in person as you can give vocal examples.
The first group in the class that went nailed it – right off the bat. Then me and a few other people went. The first time we tried it we were all basically chanting and lacked really any sort of musical quality, the second time we tried it we ended up with two different main rhythms and it fell apart. The third time we tried it we nailed it (practice makes perfect). The final group to try took only two attempts before they nailed it. Subsequent attempts by groups were far better as we got used to it, but there were still some hiccups. We ended this exercise by attempting this opening while focusing on different music genres (to give us an overall theme to further tie our piece together). We explored love songs, rock, country, hip-hop, and an awesome Blues inspired opening.
After break we moved on from the Doo Wop opening into some scene work but kept the ideas of working within different genres (fyi I love playing around with genres in improv, it can be really fun). We did a series of two person scenes with each pair getting a suggestion and a genre (or time period). One thing came quickly apparent as these scenes went on – when playing with different genres in improv (or really homage’s to anything in improv) there is a real danger/temptation of allowing your scene to be too aware of the source material. I swear there were more bizarre pop culture-esque references dropped in this round of scene than I’ve seen in a rather long time. For example one pair got 80’s as a time period and dropped references to Sixteen Candles & Pretty in Pink (talking about similar situation and even characters names), they popped their collar and some one mentioned going to MTV’s 2nd new years party. Sadly there was very little scene under all those references. One pair got Film Noir and there were numerous mentions of shadows, smoking of cigarettes, French accents (the French were a huge fan of the genre and made some of their own so it kind of fits), and an audience aside (inner monologue). This was all on top of though (eventually – in the last minute or so) a scene about two prisoners just wanting to escape back to France. The big problem I see all to often when people do exercises like this (or experiment with genre in shows – this is really prevalent in less than stellar performances of genres the short form game) – is players will sometimes forget that before you had on any fancy trappings (be it a new form, a new genre/style, a song, gimmick, game, etc) you need to have a scene – with relationships and characters (this is my big pet peeve with some of the short form I’ve seen – and admittedly performed - in my time): it’s never about the genre/style/game/gimmick/etc it’s about the characters and how they relate to each other. Once you get down that little bit – you can slather all the bells and whistles you want on to it and it’ll be fabulous – with out it, you’re just being silly. Heck you can even make the conscious choice to go all meta with the genre or game/whatever and drop those cute references and comment on it – just as long as you have a real scene going on underneath it.
We ended the class focusing on another opening the un-conducted story (like the conducted story short form game but there’s no conductor) – so basically the group telling a story. The addition to this is hopefully the ensemble will also be acting parts of the story out as they are told, switching off between showing the story and telling it. It was a lot of fun and actually brings up a great aspect of improv which I feel is so important and that we got to touch on in class thanks to this opening: Showing vs. telling. All to often I see scenes where players are talking about doing something, or telling their partners things (such as “I love you,” or I’m disappointed” or even much more mundane things) but rarely do I see improvisers just showing these things (or just doing them – don’t say we should go do Blah blah, do blah blah on stage). It’s so much more powerful to show that you love the other character than to say it – especially if you’re saying something completely different. This really gets back to the stuff we talked about in the Annoyance class: “how you do something is what you are.” The unspoken caveat of that statement being of course is that you have to do something first (even if it’s just stand their silently). And all to often I see improviser simply say something and rely on their verbal wit to carry scenes (and admittedly saying something is doing something technically) but again I want you to show me, I don’t care what you say it’s how you say it – I don’t care what you do it’s how you do it.
Anyway I hope that make sense – that’s all the ranting I have in me for now, as it’s getting late – all in all today was a good improv day.
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Post by peter on Oct 9, 2007 3:37:47 GMT -5
Annoyance Level One – Week TwoClass started off today with the introduction of two new members (and the loss of a few who apparently were just sitting in and are now enrolled in another section – there was exactly 10 of us, though a couple who were supposed to be there were not). The reason I mention this is because one of the new members is basically completely new to improv itself – he’s been a fan of it for a while (perhaps did a little in high school – I can’t entirely recall), but his main introduction to improv is through Mick Napier’s book Improvise (which basically covers the annoyance philosophy) so it’s very interesting playing with him and watching him play. Before we began we were asked to be willing to play outside of our comfort zone today in class and that in class it’s far better to take some risks and “fail” instead of play it safe and “rock out” all the time. We started off right away with all of us getting up to “warm-up” with some completely open two-person scenes. It took a couple for us to shake some of the cobwebs off, but after a few we were all in a pretty god spot. Our teacher then asked for half of us to grab a seat while the other group remained standing. It was a very interesting split – myself and four other guys headed to the chairs leaving up on stage the four ladies in the class and one guy (the shiest and perhaps most tentative one). Once we were divided as such – our teacher told us hat for this round of scenes both players (we are basically exclusively focusing on two person scenes in this level btw) will, like last time, be asked to start each scene with an attitude or “deal” already established. However for this day our instructor will be assigning them at the start of each scene and both players will be given the exact same one. The one caveat we are given before this exercise starts is to try and shy away from playing the “cliché” of whatever “deal” we are given. It became rather apparent (even more so when our group went up) as scenes went on that he was custom tailoring some of the suggestions based on the players. Some examples we were given: “You believe you can kick the crap out of anyone.” - “You’re a fixer: you have an eagerness to fix things.” – “Militant.” – “Subservient.” “Sharing: you want to share something with others.” – etc. After each group had done a few scenes where both players had the same “deals” at the top he began assigning separate “deal’s to people as they came out – so you might see a scene between some who’s deal is “You believe you can kick the crap out of anyone.” & someone with “You’re a fixer: you have an eagerness to fix things.” And all kinds of different combinations that lead to some very interesting scenes. As these scene continues our teacher began to add more abstract “deals” – asking us to focus on a bold physical choice, or (in my case one time) simply giving me the color “orange” and saying whatever character that inspires in me (after this scene he paused and said that it was an experiment he likes to try every once and a while in class in order to show how you can take anything as inspiration – it actually worked out fairly well). Eventually our teacher took the blinders off again and we were asked to basically find our own “deals” once the scene began – encouraged to both pluck form any we had worked on or any we thought up ourselves. I really tried to focus on physicality, as it is something that I personally want to improve in (both varying physicality between characters drastically, playing with levels, just being more physical in scenes – using the space and my own body, etc). After this we organically moved into basically a La Ronde: improvencyclopedia.org/games//La_Ronde.html - in order to play our characters in very different situations – and help us focus on what were the key elements to the characters we had developed. I always enjoy the La Ronde simply because it forces you to find a strong character – because otherwise you’re going to have it rough in later scenes. The class then wrapped up with a series of open two person scenes. There were a lot of really fun scenes (both to watch and to perform in) that came out of this. Two scenes I did I really felt rather good about and I want to mention because they illustrate really well what this sort of style can do in terms of initiations (my ego has nothing to do with it I swear – mwuahaha…cough). The first I simply came out with the idea in the back of my mind that “I could beat the crap out of anyone.” Just telling myself as I walked out completely caused me to alter the way I entered the space – I through my shoulders back, lead with my chest a bit more, and had a very confident air about me. Before I had taken two steps my scene partner started off the scene by telling me how much she was looking forward to our date. Without having to think about it for even a second I responded with something along the lines of: “Damn right you are.” The scene flew on from there being incredibly easy to navigate as I had a perfect sense of my character (and so did my scene partner – we found out afterwards, as the teacher paused to ask us, that her “deal” was being incredibly enthusiastic). At no point was there a moment of “what do we do now” and I feel the scene could’ve gone on much longer if it had bee allowed to – simply because we both had very strong characters – inspired by rather simple phrases/ideas. Heck the scene even ended up in some weird territory with my first date question being “What’s your biggest fear in a relationship.” Which simply came from my first response to her – the very direct & straightforward “damn right you’re excited.” The cool thing about this scene – at least for me – was the fact that from a single idea/attitude I instantly found a physicality and from there instantly found a broad outline for a character which could work in any situation: I’m incredibly confident and direct. The next scene I had decided that I wanted to start focusing more on my own physicality – so when I stepped out I decided to try and be as different from my normal physical self as possible. This lead to me not so much stepping out on stage as leaping (well as well as I can) and landing in a crouch on my tiptoes – ready to bound up again at a moments notice. This rather bizarre and extreme physical choice quickly prompted in me the idea of being rather light on my feet and lead to me talking in voice a tad higher than my normal cadence, which quickly developed a singsong quality to it. The first words out my mouth ended up being rather cryptic simply because of the genuine look of surprise on my scene partner’s face when she saw me leap into a crouch. From there the scene took off as I ended up being a cross between Puck, the Cheshire cat, and a lot of general snarkiness as I flitted about on stage as a jester/imp always pausing in a crouch and eventually ended up speaking in rhyming couplets. All of this – that entire weird ass character spawned from a physical choice – I didn’t think of how my voice should sound before I began speaking – the higher pitch and sing song quality came naturally from the way I was moving, and everything spiraled off from there. The thing about these two scenes is that they highlighted – at least for me – two incredibly easy ways to find a full and rich character for any scene situation (which is really what this entire level is basically focusing on). First if you have an attitude you can find an instant character if you let it and secondly if you start off with a physicality you’ll also find an attitude and character if you let it. And as many, many people have said before me – it’s all about finding a character and channeling a point of view (and currently my favorite way to do that is through physicality, though only slightly behind it is through and attitude/point of view – since they are really interchangeable: if you have one you’ll have the other if you let it happen). Hopefully this makes sense and the descriptions of the scenes help illustrate the idea. A few things we took away from class:You can find a character through physicality or point of view very easily.Specificity in scenes makes for much richer more interesting workSubtlety is the key when being inspired by attitude (unless you make an active deliberate choice to be unsubtle). Challenge yourself – play outside your comfort zone enough and your comfort zone will expand.
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Post by peter on Oct 12, 2007 1:48:03 GMT -5
iO Level One – Week 8 (the final class)
Yesterday was our final class in level one at iO (how time flies). It’s a pseudo bitter-sweet moment being done with level one, as the class had a number of very entertaining and talented people in it who sadly due to schedules have all now been split among the numerous level twos.
Internship Before I get into the details of the last class I finally got the information about my internship at iO – and went to the mandatory orientation meeting Tuesday evening.
I walked into the theater to find around ten other people sitting downstairs in the cabaret theatre (there ended up being 14 new interns this session – a record for the theater). The manager of the Theater – Mike, came in a little after everyone got there (to the theme from the exorcist mind you – played from the sound booth by Jason Chin a teacher/director/performer at the theater). He gave us the lowdown of the different type of positions – some interns would work the offices upstairs (back behind the Del Close theater) during the day – taking calls, dealing with paperwork, getting coffee – the usual office type intern stuff, some interns would be in charge of the box office – in the evenings – a couple hours before shows and during shows – ticket sales, merchandise, phone calls/reservations, etc – and then some would be working in the actual theaters – taking the tickets and seating customers, bar backing and occasionally helping the bar staff any way necessary (if they need help making drinks bam, stocking, bam, getting glasses, etc), set up & clean up for shows, dealing with customers the most directly often times (hecklers, overly drunk, or just questions and of course seating them), and opening and closing the theater. Of course during the entire briefing Jason Chin was in the light booth punctuating the speech with musical cues and lighting effects – much to the amusement to everyone. (Note most new interns are theater interns – though very few are level one students/just beginning level two – it’s the earliest you can get into the program and most of them were level 3 or up – so I’m low, low man on the totem pole). We got a tour of the whole theater – stock rooms, offices, theaters, etc – and then we finally got to see our schedules. I’m the closing shift of Friday nights and a theater intern. The good news is I get to see (no matter which theater I’m in – and often you run back and forth) one of the best shows/teams at the iO and am around to watch the open jam. Also from what I’ve heard this is the shift most likely to let you go early as rarely to people outside of performers stay too long after the final show lets out – and once it’s just performers you can relax. The bad news is it’s one of the theaters busiest nights usually (Saturday closing is the worst form what I’ve heard – as you’ll often stay an hour longer than Friday) – though at least I’ll stay busy – and the official hours are 9pm-2am (so potentially walking home very late in very cold weather – thank god I’m close), and my Friday nights are kind of shot. Still my level one teacher told me she started out in the exact same shift and loved it – so it should be interesting (it does mean I’m half the team responsible for closing the theater – trash duty woohoo, yet I also get the most potential chill time during my shift. Anyway it goes it should be interesting – and after this session I can trade up to a different shift since I’ll no longer be a newbie.
The Last Class Before the last day two of my classmates got the idea in their head to arrange a sort of good-bye banquet….in the last class. They sent e-mails around and everyone brought some sort of food item (mostly things like beef jerky, donuts, chips, etc – though one person brought homemade tortillas and there was a salad and a few other actually food items – even our teacher was in on it…she brought the jerky). We all met 30 minutes early and ate and discussed which sessions of Level Two we had gotten into.
Eventually 7pm rolled around and we got started. Our teacher decided that on this the last day we were going to stray a little from the syllabus (keep that on the DL) and go ahead and perform the Harold followed by a surprise exercise. She asked for six people to hop up and told them the opening they were going to use was the Invocation. They got their word and jumped into it. The first Harold went pretty well (very well considering it really being the first any of them had done). Their opening ended up creating a beautiful stage picture of someone riding a bike as they were talking which eventually morphed into a “Hell Bike” by the end with the Devil astride it. Really the only critique afterwards was the fact that they ended up too close to the initial suggestion: Bicycle – both group games centered around people cycling or bicycles and in a number of the scenes they appeared (and in general most of the scenes took the ideas from the opening too literally and they never really explored the themes they found in different settings). Next five others and myself hopped up. We were told we’d be doing the Conducted story opening and got the suggestion Mop – then we began. Our opening told the story of a janitor, picked on by his peers – who only found solace in his mop – yet which he eventually forsook for a wet-vac. By the end we had discovered that the mop was magical and could fly yet tragically died alone despite it trying to improve others lives. Our scenes went really well – we started off with a three person scene (one guy occasionally walked in and out as the new guy at a school) while his “friends” picked on him behind his back – making all kinds of assumptions about him from what he was dressed as (and a nice nod to the opening where the janitor was picked on). The second scene involved a parapsychologist who had been called into investigate the haunting of a family’s home where the appliances moved by themselves and had been for the past four weeks – the rest of the group got to help by making chairs move on stage. The final scene involved a poor old lady who got a neighbor boy to clean her gutters – yet constantly distracted him with depressing stories about her life and parties she got humiliated at. The first group game involved everyone excited about moving into their new entirely glass house which would serve as a perfect example to other families by showing how them the “perfect family lived. The second beat first scene heightened with scenes about two closet racists on a golf course (playing 8 holes, cause 9 is too strenuous and 18 is just ridiculous and only for showoffs) as a their caddy and grounds keeper walked in and out (while they were they were very polite and chummy – yet the moment they were off stage the two let their true colors show commenting on stereotypical nonsense). Then there was a ghost party and finally a family who were living a peaceful life until the Harlem Globe trotters came in and started disrupting their house (don’t ask me where exactly that came from). We had some trouble with our second group game (as everyone ended up on stage for the globe trotters scene – which some though merged into the game and other didn’t) – yet the peace ended nicely as we discovered the ghosts were kids who had been picked on who killed themselves out of shame – and many different types of bullies learned their lesson (and the globe trotters came back to play the ghosts at one point…which was weird but amusing). Though there were some hiccups – pretty good over all (and I got to be racist – hooray). The final group went and was asked to use monologues as their opening. They sadly jumped the gun a little bit and didn’t let the monologues go long enough (or get enough out – they only had three really short ones) – so that left them a little short on inspiration. A number of the scenes were very interesting but some lacked relationships and their second group game was just chaos with a lot of people over talking. In the end though considering that for most it was their first introduction to improv let alone the Harold (note a form we’re not supposed to fully know till level 4) it went smashingly well.
Then we were told about the surprise exercise. Our teacher asked 6 more people to hop up on stage and bring chairs. She arranged all but two in a line the others she put on the end facing in ward (so it was an incredibly long flat u). She asked us to sit (but told us we could move if we wanted) and let us in on what we were doing. We were asked to do a 6-person scene focusing on tension between characters. She told us that we were in a hospital waiting room and off to the right behind a door was someone very dear to all of us – and they might not make it. However we could not focus on that – the scene was to start after we had all already spent a long time talking about their fate – and now we were to try to not talk about them or the situation at all – but have it in the back of our minds. We began and quickly discovered we were all part of a big family – with an abusive dad, entitled grandpa, feuding siblings – with the youngest feeling that no one wanted him– a deaf middle child, stuck up sister, and takes after his dad eldest (and an alcoholic uncle). Very tellingly there was no mother present – and afterward we all agreed that rather quickly it seemed unspoken that was who was I the hospital and she was the only glue holding the family together. It went incredibly well – there was great give and take and we never talked about the situation except for the final line where the youngest pointed at the dad and said this is all your fault you put her here which shut everyone up and was the perfect ending. The next two groups ended up talking about the situation a little too much which kind of hurt the exercise as once it was brought up (the other situations were they just saw a house explode outside the window and are not sure people made it out – and there’s a jumper on the ledge in the building across the street that they can see) tore the focus away from the relationships and toward the situation. Still there was fairly good give and take considering six people on stage- but very quickly into both scenes you could see some characters become far more focused on the jumper or the house than on what was going on stage. In the end we did a 19-person scene with the same caveat (alien spaceship had landed in a field near us – we had already talked about it to death now it was time for us to deal which each other). Went fairly well – but again a lot of people ended up just speculating about aliens and eventually walking toward the ship.
All in all the exercise was really interesting as it brings up the idea that really in any scene – no matter interesting extreme the situation the focus is about the interaction between the characters (the relationship_ and how powerful either doing something or letting something affect you can be when you don’t talk about it or focus on it.
I have to say I'm very excited to move on to Level Two (I'm taking it with Susan Messing who rocks) and very interested to see how my internship will turn out. Also though I'm only a few classes deep over all - I'm rather glad I decided to take classes at the Annoyance concurrently since so far they have served as a great compliment to each other - one focusing exclusively on scene work - while the other is gearing me up towards group improvisation and learning specific forms.
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Post by peter on Oct 17, 2007 12:25:29 GMT -5
Annoyance: Level One - Week Three
Hey better late than never I always say expect a double post today - as later I'll be putting up the details about iO and my first level two class there.
The Class As usual class Monday night started off with all of us up and jumping right into a series of completely open “warm-up” scenes. Two people, no rules just right (the outback steak house scene method).
After we were sufficiently revved up from the scene work our instructor had two people step out and face each other. He then asked the two players to simply begin a back and forth stream of consciousness (word association between the two of them). Anyone of the two could start it – only caveat was to treat it like a game of ping pong – you serve up a word/short phrase your partner then needs to return a new word and so on – keeping it short and trying to just be inspired by what was said last. I was in the first pair up and we began associating – it started with me saying the word “eyes” and ended up with a slew of drug references toward the end (after a few interchanges of course). On the word “Bong” the instructor yelled freeze and asked us to immediately jump into a scene. – We only got a few lines in before it was cut – but the moment he called for a scene we both snapped into a character (both stoners – laid back types) with dialog reminiscent of the entire journey we’d just taken verbally. The key to this exercise (as quickly became apparent as other went up – and more and more scenes were started as such) was to instantly start a scene/doing something when the instructor called for it. The only times that scene floundered were when one or more of the players hesitated after the word association ended – instead of just going off whatever was the last thing said. When we discussed it afterwards some people in the class mentioned that they froze for a second because they felt the last word/words said were so uninteresting compared to other stuff they discovered in the association.
Nest we leapt into more open scenes though this time we were asked to try and really focus on getting that sort of back and forth give and take we found doing the word association in our scenes – really focusing and being inspired by each line of dialog and/or action presented by our scene partner. These scenes plus the above exercise really hammered home how key listening is to any improvised work – and not just hearing what your partner is saying so you don’t mess up a name, or mistake the object he hands you for a grenade when it’s a puppy – but the idea that: listening is a willingness to change. Now it doesn’t mean you have to change – it just means you willing to – be it action, emotion, whatever. Honestly the only part of improvising where you really have to “work” (not really the right word but it will do) is the first instant of a scene – you have to make yourself step out there and make a choice (can be what you say/don’t say, how you stand/sit/walk, attitude, reaching for an object, how you look at your scene partner, and a million other possibilities) after that it’s all about reacting to and building off of what your scene partner says – again like a game of ping pong, you have the serve and then you’re off (sure there are some crazy moves you can pull, put some spin on the ball, lob it, power slam it, whatever – depending on how you want to play – though you’re still just returning that ball).
Now during one of the above scene there came one of those rare instances of basically flat out reality denial. It started off with one of the girls in the class beginning a scene using a metaphor to explain her relationship with the guy on stage – it went something like this: “Have you ever scene the movie Cube where all the people are trapped inside a moving box of death and every time they think they are getting out of the box and moving on they find themselves in just another damn box with a brand new mechanism trying to end their lives – that’s kind of how I see our relationship right now and I want out of it” (note it was more eloquent and described the movie better than this) To which her scene partner responded: “Uh… lady you’re crazy I don’t know you and you’re not in any sort of box. You’re in a hospital and I’m your doctor.” The scene kind of ground to halt after that – though afterwards we got into a very interesting discussion about what happened. Our instructor brought up the idea that even with those exact same two lines as the opening the scene could’ve worked – or almost any sort of seeming flat out denial situation like that: as long as both players are committed to their choices. For example what if she was a crazy woman who thought she had a relationship with her doctor – she would keep insisting they were long time lovers that weren’t working out –while he continued to add to the not knowing her aspect - as long as they were committed the audience would eventually catch on. It’s obviously not an ideal situation of course – but it brings up a great point – there are no wrong moves in improv as long as you commit to them.
We ended the class by running a series of two person scenes where each player was given a specific challenge about the types of inspiration they should try on: We were given. Some of the ones were: Coquettish, Airy, Rock star, Bombastic, dictator subservient, etc. All with the caveat that we take it and make it our won – so whatever the inspiration means to you (and also that instead of making your character a Rocker/Rockstar in every scene take some characteristics you associate with a rock star and play them - or what do you first think of when you hear rock star, dictator, etc then use that).
Things we took away from class: Listening is a willingness to change Commit, commit, commit to everything you do on stage A Character/attitude can fit anywhere an entire scenario can’t Play outside your comfort zone – follow your fear
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Post by peter on Oct 18, 2007 23:58:38 GMT -5
iO Level Two – Week One
I meant to post this yesterday – but time just got away from me.
I started level two at iO Tuesday with the wonderful Susan Messing teaching. I have to say if anyone who reads this ever gets a chance take a class/workshop or see a show with this woman – do it (NB: if you are easily offended – she definitely will at some point though). With her telling us how now we were entering the level she developed while high in her tub and cautioning the few latecomers to never be late to her vagina again the class started.
Throughout the entire class she managed to drop more pearls of improv wisdom than I had a chance to right down, but she started off the class with the advice that in a lot of encapsulates the theory behind iO’s style of teaching: You succeed if your friends succeed. We began by sitting on the stage in the Del Close Theater and starting a simple name game – we’d go around the circle and each person would make a gesture while saying their first name – then every one repeated it. We continues until everyone had gone and then began sending the focus to each other by first saying our own name and making the gesture – then making the gesture of someone else and saying their name (they would then repeat their own and say someone else’s). Eventually we were passing the focus simply by making the gestures of people and making eye contact. This was done to help us learn each other’s names cause as Susan says: once you know someone’s name you can start actually caring about them (this goes right along with her mantra about characters on stage as: since it’s a fucking legal obligation to name a child you should damn well name characters created in scenes too).
We then quickly jumped in to a warm-up I have played once before called Caligula. It’s basically a giant game of twister without the polka dotted mat and spinner. Everyone gets in a circle (or cluster) and touches some part of their body to the people next to them. Next everyone take a big step forward and begins moving slowly about while constantly retaining physical contact in someway with the rest of the group. The entire time as we were squirming about Susan kept reminding us to follow our bodies – go where they needed to go and to not try and to not aim for somewhere safe, somewhere easy.
Afterwards we took a brief break to catch some air (up till this point for some reason the AC wasn’t really working in the theater, so we were all covered in sweat – thank god it quickly got fixed) while Susan laid some of her improv philosophy on us: Scenes are all about the people you meat in them (the characters) and the Harold or whatever form/show thing you’re doing are just little worlds where they live. There are basically two types of scenes out there: Little slice of life scenes - this is a typical day in the life of the Johnson family type shit. And shit hits the fan scenes – this is the day where something unexpected/weird/whatever happens in the lives of the Johnson family. The first three seconds of any scene is your promise to the audience of how you’ll be/act the rest of the scene. You’re body is the only thing you own in a scene – everything else comes out through discovery.
This last bit of wisdom sent us into the next exercise. She had all of us hop up on stage and begin walking around normally. She then asked us to begin leading or focusing on specific parts of our body as we walked. For example: Leading with our arm, chest, forehead, hips. Telling us we were all hand models and to really focus on our hands – focusing on our eyes – first keeping them wide, as wide as we could – then squinting. Etc, etc. As we walked about each time focusing on something different she asked us to think about how it made us feel and to say hello to each other as we made eye contact – every time the hellos came out very differently. The exercise is a perfect quick door to creating new characters – just changing one little thing about your physicality can instantly give you a character and change the way you feel and act. Susan next had two thirds of the class sit down – and got out 6 chairs for the rest of the class to walk around. As they walked (normally again) she asked the rest of us, and herself, what part of their body they were leading with/focusing on naturally. After we had picked them out she asked everyone on stage to change it – focus on a different par as they walked and then after they had something – to sit down in the chairs (and to keep that thing, and the way it made them feel in mind). What followed next was basically a big group character interview (hot seat – for you theater people). She told everyone that they all new each other somehow and to be inspired from how they were just walking and be someone other than themselves. She then had all of the characters on stage introduce themselves and began interviewing them as to how they knew each other and for specifics about their lives. It was very interesting to see how quickly everyone found a relatively rich character and managed to interact with each other as they were questioned. Of course there was slight hiccup early on – as the third person in the first group, when Susan asked him to introduce himself, paused looked around for a minute and then asked if he was just supposed to make something up or what (though after the exercise was explained one more time – it all moved along beautifully).
After the whole class had a chance to be up in the exercise it really hammered the idea home that physicality an lead to a very rich character if you let it – it also set us up for her next comment: that people want to connect with each other (especially on stage). Very quickly on stage in this – even beside the caveat that we all knew each other – character found special relationships with each other. One person made themselves my sister and that I hated her, in the group scene even with our knowing each other as a group was being stuck at an airport together – people found all kinds of little games to play or connections to make with each other.
We then got our next piece of advice: be a doer on stage – once you’re on stage do something, anything – just make a damn choice and do something. From this we quickly went into a series of big group scenes with half the class on stage. Once the group got up there they were given a location and asked to immediately start doing something – no dialog at first (she was going to interview us again – about the scene) just start interacting in the space. The first took place in an emergency room and we quickly found out – with Susan again interviewing them – that there were only two doctors, the family of a guy who got his dick stuck in a chair, a man who answered the phone the docs, and a mortician cause the situation was grim. The next scene took place at a firehouse – which we quickly discovered had no captain (he was away on vacation) and was part of an experimental urban out reach program that had criminals and drug addicts doing community service as firemen and was about to fail their monthly inspection.
We ended the class with these bits of advice: On stage try it on, be a crazy drug addicted whore – psycho killer – whatever (take risks, don’t play it safe, lose your filter/censor). Off stage if you do it, get therapy. Improv (and comedy in a lot of ways) goes against human nature. It’s Human to try and figure out how to do something before attempting it – with improv the moment you step on stage you just have to do something and then figure it all out. If you aren’t having fun on stage – you’re the asshole. And of course: “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”
All in all an awesome first class. Tomorrow I start working at iO as an intern, so expect an update about that experience.
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Post by peter on Nov 7, 2007 23:50:09 GMT -5
Despite many rumors to the contrary I am still actually alive - though very behind in my updates.
I just managed to win an epic battle with pneumonia which had completely out of it the past two weeks. I had to miss out on one week's of classes due to it (which sucks). Though fear not soon the tales of the classes I had right before the disease struck - and this week - shall be told and they shall be told right here where they belong (I just have to transfer my handwritten notes to electronic form - so stay tuned).
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Post by peter on Nov 18, 2007 5:04:14 GMT -5
So after a few weeks delay (and a missed class session - or two thanks to sickness) - here finally are the updates I promised (this is where taking notes during class actually comes in very handy).
Again sorry for the delay on these, but it's been a crazy month so far and once I got out of the rhythm of posting it became all that harder to get back into it. Hopefully after the Holiday things should become regular once again.
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Post by peter on Nov 18, 2007 5:45:57 GMT -5
Annoyance Level One – Week Four
Class started off as it always does in order to get us in the groove of things with a series of open warm-up scenes.
After a number of these scenes, once we were all loosened up a bit, Dan, our teacher, went ahead and told us to start initiating vocally in some way the moment we stepped off the back line. So we could instantly start saying something – or simply make a sound, but it had to happen the moment our feet moved us off the back line. It lead to a few instances of people almost talking over each other at the top of the scene however - even the most seemingly contrary comments worked themselves out because both players remained committed to their choices. For example: "Good day for fishing isn't it." paired with "Give me all your money." Leads to a fun scene where a fly fisherman is mugged out in a forest as he stands in a river.
After a little bit Dan had us pause and let us know he was going to start calling people out two at a time to start these scenes and as soon as you heard your name you were to step out and initiate instantly. This served two great purposes - first it helped get the few people in the class who weren't as comfortable (or just as quick as some of the others to just jump out and initiate - and it kept all of us from really being able to pre-plan opening lines or whatever for when we stepped out. This actually lead (for most of us at least) to a lot more of verbal initiations that weren't dialog (such as sighs, screams, laughs, etc). These initiations had by far the easiest times adapting to one another - and were (from what I experienced and saw at least) were the most fun to play with, as they gave an instant point of view/attitude to play with in the scene (and of course from that an instant character).
After we had a run through a number of those Dan had us pause again and told us what we'd be working on for the rest of the class: Environment work (dunh dunh daaaaaaaaah - I ad the suspenseful music - note it sounds very suspenseful in my head at least - sense for a lot of improvisers environment and object work is a bane - I know I too often ignore it in my own work). Dan broke it down in a way I had never had explained to me in class before (at least in terms of environment).
There are basically three types of environment to work with: Primary: the room, immediate space you are in and the objects contained within. Secondary: Building containing the room you are in (in the case of a scene outdoors the space beyond the confines of the stage - so the rest of the field/forest/ocean/etc.) and the objects contained therein. Natural: Temperature, Time, Weather, etc.
Now I've had teachers talk a lot about the Primary and Secondary environments in classes and workshops - though the secondary one comes up far less often (and usually in relation to the note: "If you're going to mention going to the {so and so place} I want to see you go there - you don't have to stay in the room you are in..." or when talking about entering and exiting). However, very rarely has anyone really talked about initiating the natural environment (oh I know almost every improviser at one point has done a scene where you're both cold - be it out in the snow or trapped in a freezer - but how often has the weather really played a role in one of your scenes - I know for me not that often). It really opens up a whole new layer of fun - and things to play with besides merely the objects you might find in your primary space.
We jumped right into scenes now where we could only talk when we interacted/added to the environment somehow (I've played a similar exercise before where you can only speak when you create a new object - however now our environment includes the weather and reacting to it - woohoo). The first few scenes for a few people were a little rough until everyone realized that they didn't just have to worry about creating new objects or stepping around chairs. It was really eye opening in a lot of ways - asking someone to turn on the light completely adds a new dimension to a scene (especially if it's half way through it), taking off a coat when you enter through a door can say so much too (even more if you shake the water off it, or dust off some snow first).
Next Dan had us work more on our object work (dunh dunh daaaaaah) we were told that off to either side of the stage (well honestly room, but eh) were magical boxes filled with any and every item we could ever possibly need and that during the scene anything we needed we could get from there instantly. Again at the start there it took a little bit for people to get used to the idea but soon we were having really object rich scenes (sometimes maybe a little too object rich) and we got to see how useful it is to have various objects in your environment as you can quickly go to them and use them to breathe more life into your scene work.
For the the final exercise of the class Dan had a third of us stay on the back line, while everyone else sat down. He had the people up one at a time enter a room and create an environment (he gave us a location and set one thing in it - and then one by one each person went in and created at least one new object and interacted with two things already there - the first person had to create two objects). After the group had finished going through and basically fleshing out the environment they were in - they had a series of two person scenes in that environment. Then after everyone had a at least one scene - that third sat down and another group got up and did the same thing - then once they were done the final group went. Dan then had the whole class hop on the back line and we were told that for the last few minutes of class we were to do open scenes where we could be any characters we wanted but all of the scenes had to take place in one of the three created environments.
A few things we took away from class: Initiate ASAP - it'll jump start your scene Words Aren't the Only Way to Initiate - sounds, body language, physicality, object work, etc work just as well (and sometimes better) There are Basically 3 Types of Environment to Play With Anything/Everything You Need you Can Create Instantly on Stage - the art is learning when something is actually needed You're Playing in an Entire World, Not Just a Space That Fits on the Stage
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Post by peter on Nov 18, 2007 6:23:33 GMT -5
iO Level Two - Week Two
Class started off this week with all of sitting on the stage in a circle and playing the same name game we started off with last week. Susan is determined that we learn each others names in this class (and it's working very well too) cause as she says so often: once you know peoples names you can start to care about them.
Next she broke us up into pairs (well actually she told us to go stand next to the person in class we knew the least about and those were our pairs) for a series of mirror exercises. We started off with the basic mirror exercise where one person leads movement and the other person follows - then the leader switches - and finally in theory no one is leading and no one is following really, the pair are simply moving as one (honestly about 75% of the time I ever do this - and Susan even mentioned this though used more profanity - one person does a lot of leading at the end - though I've had a handful of experiences where it was actually really great give and take and it really felt as if no one was leading we were just in the zone, which rocked...this wasn't one of those times). Next we had to begin speaking and moving at the same time, still in pairs and then the exercise really got kicked up a notch. Susan picked two pairs to stay on stage and had everyone else sit down. The two pairs on stage were then told they were going to do a scene where each pair was a single person (they had to mirror each other the whole scene, talk as one, move as one - say "I" not "we" - etc). My pair was in that first group - we ended up cobbling a shoe (at least that's what the action we were doing was in my mind) the entire time and talked like we were addressing a retarded child. Susan had us do it again this time having us talk faster and faster - much better when we thought less about mirroring each other and actually just did something. Each pair did two scenes which ate up a good chunk of class time and each time the quicker the pairs simply either started doing an action or speaking - the better the scenes went - even if words were messed up - they simply became new words that Susan made sure were repeated since: Repetition turns wacky BS into facts.
After each scene we would talk about what happened a little bit then moved on. A few very important ideas came out of those discussions: Don't worry about finding the "appropriate" object in an environment (Some of the best examples of this can be found in the UCB sketch show from comedy central - note if you haven't seen it, go buy the dvd or download the episodes the Time Machine episode from season one is a near perfect Harold turned into a sketch and filmed minus the group games - in one episode, Bucket of Truth, a couple is being shown a house which has a Hot Chicks room among other weird things inside it). Specifics Are More Fun for Everyone Arguing comes a lot from Frustration Taking is just as vital as Giving (just try not to do either too much). And probably a million other things I wasn't fast enough to write down.
After this exercise we ended with doing individual truthful monologues based on a themes Susan gave us - and then had time for a few scenes based off some of them.
We took away from this class these bits of advice (along with the ones above): The "Game" is just any pattern You're Doing everything on Stage for a Reason, So Don't Drop it It's an Evolutionary Art, once you master something you'll fine more to work on Fear the Safe Zone - that funny thing/bit/character/voice/walk you've "mastered"- the place where you say I'll take risks tomorrow. Always take Risks! Challenge Yourself! Fucks ups (mistakes) are Good
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