Live From Chicago...

[peter]

iO Level Three - Week Five

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[peter]

Annoyance Level Three - Week One

So the very astute of you (or at least the more mathematically inclined). Will notice that the last entry for my Level Two class at the Annoyance (week 8) is missing.
Well sadly I had to miss that class (along with my iO class for that week) in order to work on a show over at The Annoyance.

The Show is Georgy Porgy and other stories by Roald Dahl - and it's been eating up all my free time for the past few weeks (and probably will continues to do so till it opens). I'm in charge of all the Multimedia (videos, images, sound), assistant Tech director (meaning I basically ended up setting up half the light cues and what not - and will be running the tech about half the time, pseudo stage manager - as we don't have an official one, and at times Assistant director) Expect a separate post about that process when I find the time (in other words once I'm no longer spending so much time on it).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[peter]

iO Level Three - Week Seven

So if you know why I seemed to jump from week 5 straight to week 7 already - bravo, you read my last post...continue on. For the rest of you - I had to skip week sic of my iO classes due to the show I'm working on over at The Annoyance - check the top of the last post for more details.

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

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

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

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

[peter]

iO Level Three - Week Eight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[peter]

Annoyance Level Three - Week Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

All in all this lead to an incredibly easy - and very entertaining scenes. There was rarely (only for a few people at the very start ... and once someone just made a choice it passed) any searching for something to say - no need to invent something "funny" ... just discovery on everyone's part.
We all served as each other's own inspiration in every scene and it was incredibly fun (and also funny) - and very welcome.

[peter]

Annoyance Level Three - Week Three

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[peter]

iO Level Four - Week One

The other day was the first class of level four over at iO for me. This is the level where the great inner secrets of the theater finally begin to be revealed and we tackle the mythical beast known as "Harold."
What is the Harold you dare ask - well it was a show format created by the late Del Close which, in it's original form, was basically a compromise between the often chaotic open improvised scenes Del liked doing and a collection of short form games which his partner was familiar with (and helped pay the bills). Honestly entire books have been written on the subject and while I've read most of them (and can give a pretty nice history of the Harold) I'm not going to try and transcribe them here so suffice it to say it is the signature form of iO and for more information check out the improv encyclopedia article on: Harold.
( improvencyclopedia.org/games//Harold.html - note it's by no means a perfect definition, but it will give you the basic idea)


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

Good Harolds:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[peter]

Annoyance Level Three - Week Four

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

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

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

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

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

[peter]

iO Level Four - Week Two

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

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

The format would be as follows:

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


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

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

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

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

[peter]

Annoyance Level Three - Week Five

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

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

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

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

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

[peter]

Annoyance Level Three - Week Six

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

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

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

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

[peter]

iO Level Four - Week Three

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

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

Next Bill let us in on two big myths about opening and gave us a few tips:

Myth #1: We Have to generate information
(Anything you do on stage will provide information that you can use, so don't worry about trying to create some)

Myth #2: We Have to cover a broad range of things/ideas
(Delving deeper into a couple topics will provide far more than skirting over a thousand)

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

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

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

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

[peter]

Annoyance Level Three - Week Seven

Today in class we were all very hateful to each other.

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

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

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

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

[peter]

iO Level Four - Week Four

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

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

[peter]

Annoyance Level Three - Week Eight

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

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

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

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

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