To have another language is to possess a second soul.
- Charlemagne (apparently)
I'm taking this quote to encourage everyone to keep playing with new people. When you're very comfortable with another improviser, it's like you share a common dialect. You can grasp subtext and meaning from the smallest move, and you can understand far more because of you intimacy.
This comfort can breed complacency. There is something scary and refreshing about sharing the stage with someone new, especially in a format that is extremely focused like a duo. But it's in this environment that you can figure out new and interesting things about yourself and learn how to listen and play in ways you may have forgotten how to.
Take a chance. Ask a stranger to do a duo. If there's an improv jam available that lets you play with your own team, take advantage of that and make it happen. You may find your self pushed in new directions, and in that, you may find yourself growing.
Don't let you ego get in the way. Don't let you preconceptions of someone else get in your way. Reach out, be open, and you can discover something new an satisfying.
23 - Set Yourself Up For Surprises
I had lunch with Karen today, and at one point we touched on a move that she's been doing lately that I love. Karen will start a scene by toppling a chair over on stage. The more I think about it the better this is.
It makes the chair very not chairlike but it's still there one stage taking space, waiting to be discovered or endowed with meaning. The fact that's it weird, out-of-place, and "wrong" makes the eventual use of it all the more interesting. Is it a set of drawers? A bush? We know what it ain't, so whatever it is is surprising and (hopefully) interesting.
In forcing a unusual choice, you can stumble out of your comfort zone and into some great scenes. It's like playing Switch in your head in a scene: occasionally just throw out the first gut reaction, and then just react some other way: maybe the opposite, maybe something completely different.. Follow your mouth, commit extra extra hard and see what happens.
It is natural to want to control as much as you can, it feels safer. But it's the moments that get out of your hands and into the space between you and your scenemate that are most magical and collaborative. Let your self have the opportunity to be off-balance, sometimes be your own spanner in the works.
22 - No Sorry
Attention new improvisers, please stop saying you're sorry. With your mouth or with your body.
Stop saying it, stop doing it. They are poisonous.
I resolve in 2014 to yell at you for this if I'm in a position to.
You have to, have to, accept your actions as they are. Take your notes as avenues to improvements not as you being chastised. It's not personal. It's making what you do better, it's not about making you better.
If you continue to let yourself say you're sorry, you'll do it on stage. And that's breaking, and that's not commitment, and that's not support.
You did what you did, it's over, no take-backs and the intention doesn't ever matter. You have to own everything you do, you have no choice. There's no such thing as a take two here. You will make mistakes, that's fine. We don't care about you last scene, even when it's great, even when it's terrible , even when it's just ok. We care about the next. We always are looking for the next.
Don't say you're sorry. Listen, care, and work hard.
21 - Short Form is Hard Work
I have no idea if that whole short-form vs long-form thing is really a thing. Maybe in our little hamlet it's not as big of a deal, given the strong history of short-form shows here.
But having just done a show with short form games, with little preparation it has reminded me:
Doing short-form right ain't easy.
I think the same skills that make for good long form, largely translate to short-form (agreement, engagement, commitment), but there's definitely stuff that exists exclusively in the short-form. Like...you have to work to make the game theatrically interesting... you have to really understand the constraints and how to play off them in a way that lets you do good scenework in addition to fulfilling the writ of the rules... you might just have to damn practice an idiosyncratic skill like rhyming couplets in order to even do it without looking like an idiot.... etc &c.
Lazy short form, like lazy anything, is terrible. But when you see pros do short-form right, there's no denying that it can be really good improv.
Plus! Switching it up and playing some short-form, or even practicing it, might just stretch and strengthen the muscles you need for your long-form work.
The idea of consistency for a character can be very tricky in improv. You never know what kind of crazy endowment you might get from your partner. It can be incredibly stressful, if you're in your head, to try and make a call between "Am I denying?" and "I need to stay true to my character".
Complete crazy bombs aside, things are going to go best if no matter what you keep to come core conceits of your character. They are what make you recognizable and relatable.
This is another, no-quick-fix reality of playing but it bear mentioning that staying true to what you believe you character is and not letting that go is not necessarily being selfish, it's being more honest.
studied nonchalance : perfect conduct or performance of something (as an artistic endeavor) without apparent effort -Also an album by Jimmy Pardo
What a great word! So much fun to do in an over-the-top Italian accent. Almost as good as "Mootz-za-rell" for mozzarella.
Anyway.
The concept of effortless for something that you're working hard on, is pretty much just what practice gets you, right? Improv has the same requirements and the same pay-off. The more work you do, the more classes and study you do the more natural you'll play. Call it what you want: muscle memory, trained instinct, sprezzatura: it comes from work.
Mike Krol has put out two discs of great rock and roll and you should check them out. Like early Weezer, part of what makes it charming and approachable and fun is that he (they?) write the songs straight from the heart of a 17 year-old. The music is loud and distorted, and the lyrics are honest and simple. It's a really refreshing change from say, Reflektor.
Which brings me to: there's an improv saying about young children being the best improvisers because they just play, man.
But let's hear it for the teenager.... well at least the stereotype of what a teenager is. They are emotional, overly so, flying off the handle at the slightest provocation. They are 100% certain in what they know.They can be monomaniacal in pursuing what they want. They're terrified a lot of the time. And they are capable of revelatory change. They're awash in hormones, and those chemicals call the shots. They strongly define themselves by their choices. They are sometimes way too honest. Other times they are transparently full of shit. Even when acting tough, they are very vulnerable.
Tonight was the last Totally Free Monday at the Steel City Improv Theater. TFM was the free Monday night show that featured the house teams of the SCIT. It was all long-form, it was always free and it had been going on for over two years.
I was on a team, The Owl Room, at the first TFM.
I was on a team, Hotel Nowhere, at the last TFM.
I made some of my best friends at TFM.
I got to do work, at this point, probably the majority of my total work at TFM
I got to learn how to coach at TFM.
I got to get inspired weekly.
I got to see people get their start, improve, and blossom into the performers that they are now.
I got to see people leave for greener pastures, and knew the cocktail of pride, excitement, and loss in that.
If it wasn't for TFM, I definitely would not be the person I am now. I would be a different, poorer person.
And now it's gone.
We will all still do work.
People will still be on their house teams performing weekly on Fridays.
People will continue to come in, break out of their shells, get on stage, and prosper.
People will continue to do hilarious, magical shows that will make us laugh long after we've all stopped doing this.
People will continue to have bad nights, but keep going, knowing that the only cure for a bad show is a good one and that that is the engine of this art.
People will continue to leave to pursue their dreams.
We will continue to love and support them, and we will continue to do what we do because we are compelled, beautifully, to do it.
But this one specific thing we had is now over.
And it's sad, but that's okay. Because it is sad because it was so great while we had it.
Thanks: Justin, Kasey, Emily, Woody, Brian, Michael C, Keara, Ayne, Fawad, Alex T (new Alex), Alex L (old Alex), Eric, Anna, Jocelyn, Brett B, Brett G, Umar, Dan, Jerome, Dillon, Cassie, Conner, Ben, Tessa, Nicole, Alex R, Andrea, Nathan, Matt, Justin V, Derek, Lorin, Renee, Karen, Tom, Brad, Travis Chris W, Pete, Mike, Dave, Steve, DJ, Jamison, Patricia, Tamara, Jasmine, Molly, Tami, Mary, Sara, Jamison, Ben, Graham, Remy, Ciaran, Kyle.... and the people I'm forgetting because I'm trying to do this by memory after going to the Parkhouse, my sincerest apologies.
Today I had the opportunity to play with a guy I don't play with anymore. Scott had a bunch of things come up ( a baby) that took him out of the improv game, I didn't realize how much I missed him.
Even with all of the rust playing with him today was amazing. Before his hiatus we had played for years together and there is no substitution of that kind of bond.
What I want to say is twofold: when you find someone who you have developed connection with you need to cultivate and nurture that. Don't let that work fall away.
Also, be greedy. Make a point to work with the people you want to work with. Take the time and make the effort to do shows with the people you love. You don't know how long you'll have opportunity
Flubs, trips, missed-marks, bum notes, dropped props: unfortunate things in theater. Things that an audience knows to let slide. Bumps in the road that, unless particularly grievous, are quickly forgotten by the viewers. Because we're good a figuring that out and giving leeway to those kind of accidents.
In improv, there's not script to forget, no blocking to mess up, no score to get lost in. So, then, everything that happens is exactly how it was supposed to happen.
There still are honest mistakes: a stutter, a trip, an accidental walk through a couch. These we can still just notice but disregard.
Everything else though, is being noticed, digested, and held on to as meaningful. In your talking heads scene were you and a partner are just arguing six feet from each other in who-knows-where, the audience is starving to find out more of the meaning of what they're seeing on stage. They want to see more context, more information. Do they need it? Not always need. But they do want it, and will be delighted to discover it.
Everything you do on stage looks intentional, so even if you're not thinking about it, the audience is.
Preface: I was not good at SF2. I would pretty much just use Chun-Li and headstomp over and over.
But stick with me. Remember Street Fighter? In a match you couldn't turn around, you always faced your opponent. If you threw the stick backwards you'd walk backwards and go into a block. If you put the stick back and down, you'd turtle up protecting your shins. Blocking was very important. Blocking was also very boring when both players were conservative. Even then, if a player went on the attack his opponent could just keep their guard up, and unless the aggressor was good at it the match would become a boring ol'blockfest in the corner.
Action only progresses with risk. You have to open up yourself to getting hurt to have something happen. That means in your characters, they have to be able to be hurt. And that comes from being active, from accepting and giving as good as you're letting yourself get get. When people think of blocking in a scene, think of it as literally putting your hands up and preventing anything your partner is doing from landing. Think of the most boring Street Fighter fight: two Blankas, in opposite corners, cowering (or just doing that electrity thing) as the timer ticks down.
For a fun match, especially from the POV of the audience, there has to be the back and forth. YHou try a punch, it might land, it might get countered. But something happened. You have to take open yourself up to take some licks too for it to be interesting.
HERE COMES A NEW STRAWMAN
But wait!I'm really good at Street Fighter! I know how to do unbeatble bullshit! You won't even be able to get a move off, but there will still be action!
The novelty of an unbreakable combo or glitch expires pretty much after you see it once. Similarly an untouchable character is fun for a little bit. But then we get it, and then it just gets annoying. In fact everyone just wants you to lose. But you can't do that can you? No because you're character doesn't want to lose, so why should you?
You should because that doesn't exist in real life. You should because it's really hard to have a interesting scene with a superman. You should because playing invincible is unseemly, annoying, and bratty. You should because you've accidentally got some of your ego invested in your made-up, disposable puppet.
You should because you'll have more fun playing when you're not afraid of getting hurt.
What’s the trick to writing believable dialogue? Write out the scene the way you hear it in your head. Then read it and find the parts where the characters are saying exactly what you want/need them to say for the sake of narrative clarity (e.g., “I’ve secretly loved you all along, but I’ve been too afraid to tell you”). Cut that part out. See what’s left. You’re probably close.
A slight continuation from #11. This is more of the "show don't tell" part of the equation. When you're really in sync with someone you don't need to hammer on the "things that come next". You can concentrate on the emotionally charged lines that surround the implied next action.
When you're in this kind of groove, it's just about the best feeling in the world. Next to when you actually have the dramatic reveal.
When you're comfortable and good at informing you partner in a scene, using choice specifics, emotional acting, and clear subtext.... remember that subtlety and inference are what make scene not just work, but shine.
If a mad tattooist is to attack you, it's a mistake to discuss the rumors about a mad tattooist, but a stranger an admire your skin, and force you to strip, because the audience still won't know what's intended.
There is a line that's important not to cross with specificity. Too much explicit leading in a scene diminishes the surprise. It blows the joke. Too little, and you might not be communicating enough with your scenemate.
Young improvisers tend to do this swing of the pendulum: OK I need to be specific and add information! And then everything about a premise is made perfectly clear very early on... which means you get locked in to a trajectory. And the funny reveal has been ... well... revealed. So now you're just doing the things we expect you to now. The magical has become procedural. The tension has been dropped.
This gets easier as trust and confidence with who you're playing with increases.
But, hell, most things get better with that, right?
Good point! I'll just keep talking constantly in scene! Finally, some advice that validates my motormouth style!
Take Two - A Take I Like Better
Good point! I don't have to worry. I can just let the scene go, the funny will come out of me eventually because I'm a funny person. Just relax and go with the moment, I'll get there.
Take Three - A Take I Like Even Better Even Though It Gets Persnickety With Semantics
Good point... with some additions. Don't worry about saying something funny, something funny will happen naturally through the work. In fact, nothing that's said or done might be funny in of itself at all, but as long as everyone plays honestly what happens in the reality of the scene might be funny because life is funny sometimes. So don't sweat it and just be in the moment.
9 - Shaking hands and kissing babies
Improv is not a big community. It's very much a niche type of theater. The disadvantage to this is that it can be difficult to explain (No, it's not like stand up. It's not always like Who's Line... uh ... it's like SNL but we don't have a script. No really, we don't know what we're going to do....), but the advantage is that the people who are committed to it are really committed to it.
I'm in Pittsburgh, at best a tertiary market, and I'm really lucky to be doing my work during a serious upswing in interest. What this means is it is extremely important to be supportive and open to other people who are getting into and working on their craft. We're all on the same side, and it'll do you craft and soul good to make sure that you're out there getting to know and finding the time to support you colleagues.
There are only so many hours and nights in a week, but find a way to go out and meet the local people that are passionate about improv like you are. You don't have to make it a full-time job (as exciting a prospect that is) but make an effort to keep abreast of what's going on in your backyard. You never know who could be doing things that will inspire you. You never know if you'll meet someone who you can help on their journey. And we all need to pitch in to maximize success.
Not all improvisers are extroverts, but even if you're not (I'm definitely not) go out every once in awhile. Shake hands, see what's coming down the pike, kiss babies, encourage young talent. It's easy to indulge in dismissal and negativity, I'm as guilty as anyone, but for an artform that is predicated on agreement and collaboration that kind of attitude is poison. Give a hand, guide when you can and but out when you know you should.
Rising tide lifts all ships.
At least where I am, we're not gunning for writing jobs, we're not fighting to get parts, we're all in this for the love of it. Approach it all with that love.
I may be a Pollyanna in the worst way but that's the truth: Love all the people.
[What do you think an improviser absolutely needs to know...?]
Trust your partner, the audience is already on your side, and above all else ... listen.
-Randy Dixon, in The Improv Handbookby Tom Salinsky and Deborah Frances-White
I'm pulling this quote because I was reminded of it it this weekend. I was talking with Laura Lind from The Amish Monkeys. When I asked Laura about what she's learned over her career of playing, the idea that the audience is already on your side came up similarly.
Improv, for the most part, has an audience that is ready to go with you. Unlike, say, stand-up [Derek Minto, am I way out of line here?]. There's the old high-wire act metaphor, the danger and unpredictability and... frankly... gimmick of it does get you some slack.
That's good to know, on some level, because you need to trust your audience to go along with you. To be as smart and patient as your partner on stage should be.
Don't just do the easy stuff to please them because you'll end up insulting their intelligence. Just like if you blew a scene for a joke and hung your teammate out to dry.
Trust and respect them when you're performing.
And I say this as a guy who says "Fuck the audience" before shows a lot.
Please, please make sure to do things besides improv. I know it's addictive but you have to keep a life outside of it. Every once and a while take your team and do something not improv related, it'll do you all good.
That quote is specifically about working on a format with a group. I think there is wisdom in there generally. We as performers know what works, what we're good at, what character types, voices, and tics get the audience going. Subconsciously we build up rules: I can do a british dude but is has to be a RP British guy / I should bring out my hilarious salesman character now / People like my dinosaur walk, time for a dinosaur walk on ... etc and we follow them without thinking. These are the patterns that naturally evolve with performances. Fine, it's normal, it can be great. They give you a style.
But when you plateau, or start feeling like you're stuck, that's when it's most important to scale back your habits.
It can be a real hurdle for nice people to act mean, even when playing. Pleasant people spend 95% of their life being pleasant, fact. But when you're working on stage, you can't limit yourself to what you, the actor, is comfortable with in everyday life. On stage with partners you trust you're free to use everything at your disposal, even those meanie muscles you've worked so hard at atrophying.
Be conscious of this, because you can forget that you have it in you.
Sennett used to hire a “wild man” to sit in his gag conferences, whose whole job was to think up “wildies.” Usually he was an all but brainless, speechless man, scarcely able to communicate his idea; but he had a totally uninhibited imagination. He might say nothing for an hour; then he’d mutter “You take…” and all the relatively rational others would shut up and wait. “You take this cloud…” he would get out, sketching vague shapes in the air. Often he could get no further; but thanks to some kind of thought-transference, saner men would take this cloud and make something out of it. The wild man seems in fact to have functioned as the group’s subconscious mind, the source of all creative energy. His ideas were so weird and amorphous that Sennett could no longer remember a one of them, or even how it turned out after rational processing. But a fair equivalent might be one of the best comic sequences in a Laurel and Hardy picture. It is simple enough—simple and real, in fact, as a nightmare. Laurel and Hardy are trying to move a piano across a narrow suspension bridge. The bridge is slung over a sickening chasm, between a couple of Alps. Midway they meet a gorilla.
As I continue to chip away at my larger history project I'm snailing away on, I'm going to start doling out some bite-sized posts all the way up to Christmas.
1 - Ben Hauck On Back Line Support
In long-form improv, the backline actor never directs the scene. The backline actor only describes a scene, and it is up to the frontline actors to figure out what the description might mean in terms of direction.
The backline has a lot of power and a lot of responsibility. But you have to never forget that anything you add from outside of the scene should be in service of the scene as it is, not how you want it to be.
This can be tough when you're having fun and oh-man-wouldn't-it-be-great-if-instead.... stay strong!
A couple weeks ago I was up at the New York Musical Improv Festival with the improvised-rap group Yo Gloria! And we had a pretty good set. After the show I got a compliment about a segment of the show. I was told that it was great when I kept yelling something over and over again (yeesh, that might be part of the style). As usual, after a show I completely forget what I just did. So I started to talk with this guy about what moment that was, and I rattled off some of the more (to me) clever things that I did during the show. Nope, nope and nope. We couldn't figure it out.
One the way back to Pittsburgh I think I realized what he was talking about. It was the end of a scene and I got into a huge call and response with the team (repeating the word hologram: HOLO! GRAM!).
It wasn't a character line, it wasn't a joke, it wasn't really anything except us all pouring everything we had into one tiny idea.
I fuzzily recall an applause break after that too. It was a great moment of enthusiasm and team commitment. It was a bold-faced expression of group mind. And now that I think back on it, that's exactly the kind of magic I see all the time in the shows I especially love (hi, The LuPones!)
And a little humbling to realize that one of the most memorable parts of the show for this guy wasn't us "being funny" or doing something really clever with the world, or acting the shit out of character, but us simply being big and supportive.
Last weekend the sketch show that I was deeply (and to the distraction of a lot of other stuff) involved in went up for its two show run. The show was called Rein in the People and it was a stressful, scary, and incredibly fun to do. I haven't done sketch show.... well really ever ... and it was a great stretch to try a staged show after years of improv. Boy, preparation is hard.
Some small observations:
I was lucky that RitP had all excellent improvisers as the cast. As we ran through scripts it was fascinating to see characters that were only briefly sketched (I'm, err, a very novice writer) in the script gain depth and nuance. It helped me understand how to write better, watching how things evolved in the moment.
The ideas I had that were the dumbest sounding to me ended up being some of the most fun ones. One sketch in particular I thought was way too just-makes-me-laugh, but it ended up going over really well. Never know what'll hit, just throw it out there.
You have to, have to, have to have a good tech person. Thank god for Aaron Tarnow.
It was a pleasure and privilege to work with everyone on it. I already miss it!
The gist of it, as musical and theatrical improvisation are brothers, definitely applies: listening and accepting are principals that success is built on. An artistic collaboration falls apart and sours when you don't actively pay attention to and adapt to your partners.
Listen to the segment. When they play the F# as a dissonant note against piece and no one adapts, and it just sounds wrong? I don't know about you but that is exactly the same gut reaction I have watching an improv scene that's thrashing. It's the same physical experience (upset stomach, pursed brow,flinching). Same with when Stefon Harris bullies his way through a song. I got the identical feeling from that that I get when I see someone seriously steamroll someone on stage (clentchy teeth, closed, rolled eyes)
Unpleasant!
But isn't it wonderful when it all does come together? And isn't it magical when the mistakes get turned into what makes things interesting?
Last day of the festival! Started off great with a workshop with improv iconoclast Dave Razowsky (his podcast, ADD Comedy is pretty great). It was a really challenging and enlightening three hours. One lesson that especially resonated with me was in appreciating the moment. Which when coached to try and have the focus Dave was encouraging I found to be much easier said then done. I had thought I was pretty perceptive and good at picking up on the energy of a scene but I had my eyes opened about how much I was throwing away. We stripped away a of the "tricks" that improvisers usually depend on, and it was amazing to feel all the reality of moment and just go on that. It's weeks later and I'm still trying to digest what happened in that workshop. So great.
The after the workshop and sitting in for a little of a live taping of Dave's podcast (this episode, with TJ and Dave) the afternoon was spent drinking terrible 40s, getting ready for the night's shows and having some great food at the Cafe Sonshine
That evening, minor car accident aside, the rest of Hotel Nowhere arrived for our end-of-the-festival performance. We ended up literally having the last show of DIF.
As much as the shows were fun and the workshops helpful the best part of DIF was hanging out with all the people. Especially the Pittsburghers who moved away (Miss you, Dan and Lorin and Jocelyn and Mike and Nathan and Ellie... oh man a lot of people have left)
Finally, thanks to everyone at Go! Theater and the all the volunteers who helped make DIF happen. I can't wait for next year.
OK enough half-assed travelogue, back to half-assed improv stuff
More Pittsburghers are trickling in, and on the recommendation of Alexei Plotnicov, we all grabbed lunch at a killer Thai place called Pi's Thai
Def. an album cover
Which was amazing. They did not fool around with spiciness, which was fine by me and Niesh
That afternoon I got to take Dr Cack's Improv Cleansing, taught by the Craig Cackowski. It was a packed class and I wish we had more than the 2 and half hours we got, it was really a useful class.
An interesting aspect of the clinic was an exercise using the phrase "I know" in the place of the typical "Yes and". Atopic touched on before by Brian, it's instructive to notice the subtle differences that this change in wording makes. Craig made a lot of good points about the utility of an improvisor "knowing everything" in a scene. This doesn't mean that you can't be surprised, or affected: you don't need to be a know-it-all, but the mindset of already knowing the information does allow for the scene stay more in the moment. With "I know", you don't waste cycles going back and explaining things, or having to invent context. You've already agreed that its the truth. Additionally, it allows for exploring one thing, whereas I see strict "Yes And" often heightening into new ideas.... inventions basically. "I know" pushes towards being confident in the moment, rather than on tilt. At least for me that's how it felt.
I still haven't fully digested this, but it's fun to think about.
That night I got to finally see TJ and Dave live at Go! Comedy. And boy it was something else. It was as engrossing and engaging a show as I've ever seen in any medium. One thing that stood out and that I really hope to someday achieve was their sense of patience and command. Nothing felt rushed, ever. Nothing felt wasted, ever. It... felt scripted. And that's a hard feeling to recapture after you've seen a bunch of improv and recognize moves. Everything was comfortable and real, even when it was silly.
If you haven't seen their film, go, do it now. Watching them is as good as taking a class.
Tomorrow, soul food, a workshop with Dave Razowsky and closing out the festival with Hotel Nowhere.
Day two! After a rough night, Woody, Brian and I had some time to kill before the shows started so we went down to Mexicotown. We shopped at a wonderful Mexican grocery, and had way too much lunch at a place called Mexican Village. Then retired to the house for an afternoon of Herb Alpert, beer, and some terrible Mexican cookies.
In the evening more of the Pittsburgh crew showed up: Tessa Karel and Nilesh Shah from The Writers' Room, and Hotel Nowhere's Brad McNary and Tom Achkio.
I messed up Tom's face bad
The shows started at 8 and Brian and I, Iguanatron, were lucky enough to kick off the festival. The whole first show was duo shows: us, then Purple Monkey Dishwasher and finally Craig Cackowski and Rich Talarico. Great sets all around.
Next up was the 10PM shows which lead off with Detroit's own Hypeman. After them I got back up with The Writers' Room, and Tessa had a killer show. The evening ended with Holiday Road, a one-off show that had a really frenetic core game: a road trip source that branched out to a bunch of show-me-scenes: high energy and fun.
What as cool was that the evening had a mix of types and styles of shows. Even the three duos in a row all had extremely different personalities. Given that lot of my improv watching nowadays is Harold-after-Harold-after-Harold it's awesome to see so much variety at once.
Woody, Brian and I rolled into Detroit at around six and I was genuinely surprised how big this city was. It was huge, flat and sprawling. With none of the hills in the background I am used to.
Our rental house in scenic Virginia Park, Detroit, spitting distance from a liquor store (convenient!) It's operated by a group called Detroit Loves You, and they're doing a great job with it.
We went to the opening night festivities and saw a high school group open up the festival. The group was from the Detroit Creativity Project, and they did a selection of short form games. Very enjoyable, and it was great to see such young kids doing the work. I'd love it if Pittsburgh had similar programs.
After them was a group called Celebrity Soapbox, a monologue deconstruction Armando type show, with local celebrity, Pulitzer Prize winner and Howe Gelb simulacrum, Charlie LeDuff. Mr. LeDuff did a no-holds-barred performance. His monologues were amazing. I wish I had the opportunity to play with his stories. That said, some of the younger people in the audience are going to have uncomfortable questions for their parents after the show.
Then Woody and I went out to Go! Comedy to check out their bar and meet up with some people Woods knew from LA. Technical difficulties with the point-of-sale system at the bar aside, we had a great time watching the Fresh Sauce improv jam. It's been a long time since I've been to a good ol'fashioned short-form jam. There were new games that are unique to Go! Comedy that were really interesting.
My favorite game was one based on eye contact and musical cues. You played a scene not allowed to make eye contact until there was a piece of background music brought up, at which point you had to maintain eye contact. It was instructive how much the scene felt flat without eye contact and how much things took off with that connection and an emotional perspective (foisted on them by the music). The two players did a great job with the game too, a ton of fun.
After the show, Woody and I came back home to drink, talk and listen to distant gun fire. A fantastic first night, no kidding. I'm really excited for the rest of the fest and to get up and do some shows.
Detroit Style "Four Corner" Pizza... apparently Enjoy it, Well Known Strangers!
There is something very exciting and really effective about getting out of the familiar and learning in a new environment. Putting yourself on tilt, or making yourself uncomfortable, in little and big ways provide the environment you need to make breakthroughs.
I can't wait to make it up there and work, think and drink hard.
Ah group games. What should be the most fun, free, Yes and the And time in a show.
Then we get dinosaurs tromping on stage for 90 seconds before someone says "Hey guys! This is a library!" Then we get 5 seconds of quiet dinosaurs. Edit.
OK, that's a perfectly fine group game. But it happens all the damn time.
The formula
90% organic pattern matching
5% justification
5% Pay off (if we didin't end the scene on the justification, that it)
is weak soup. The set up is too long for my tastes. We get stuck in a deadlock of diffused responsibility, no one wanting to "break" the game or no one really sure what the game being played is.
Without an individual making a choice, putting some traction down, the game wastes time. The group needs a platform to heighten from. If that library line happened within 10 seconds of the dinosaurs stamping around, we have an awesome premise to play in. That's something crazy, interesting, and fertile. That's a group game I want to watch. That's a group game I want to play in.
When I was coaching some teams I would do Blind Harolds, a form where people would do a show "in the dark" using only their voices. It was incredible how creative, huge and hilarious the group games got. People had to act and justify immediately. And that's how it always should be. Play organically but make the discoveries strongly and build on them.
The sound-and-motion-pattern-matching thing is great but it can be a crutch. Be agressive! Put grist in that mill. Just like in a scene, you need the context and specifics to grow. Group games should be the time to most take advantage of the fact that you're on a team with people who want nothing more than to make every idea look amazing.
In a class recently the question came up of if it was ever OK to just leave a scene, to just walk on off.
My gut reaction and answer was "Yes, if you need to leave, leave. If your character wouldn't stay, go. Don't be dishonest about that.".
But then I thought: how often do you want to leave because your character wants to leave and how often do you want to leave because you're having a bad time up there? Everyone has and will experience a scene where it feels like you're playing against a brick wall. That stuff just happens. You will be that wall someday. It's fine because there will always be more scenes. Learn from it and keep playing.
But that said, when there's no traction, or no agreement, or there's deep confusion, or reality got fucked up, or whatever, it is an awful feeling. A cocktail of confusion, indignation, frustration , fear and embarrassment It's easy to let the annoyance or frustration bleed into the performance. And that's dangerous territory. It's as heady as you can get.
At the risk of giving advice to go even more in head... if you are not having fun in a scene, you need to be vigilant about making sure that you're not letting your bad feelings affect your work. Don't bail on scene as a "Fuck You". That's awful stuff. Even when you're pissed off, wait. especially when you're pissed off, treat everything you're getting as a wonderful gift. Go into hyper-YES mode. Just getting mad and bailing will sink the scene and lead to that souring of chemistry that can leave a stink over a whole set.
Your answer to anger has got to be love.
But if your character has no reason to stay, leave. If there wasn't any relationship or dynamic between the players keeping them there well... what was the scene in the first place?
The Empty Baker is an initiation pattern that I do all the goddamn time.
Player A's Brain
Uh-oh! Time to initiate a scene!
I don't have any ideas but I need to just go right?
Well fuck, I'm going then.
(Moves waaaaay downstage, to the edge, probably out of light, and begins: Making a cake, mixing bowl in hand / working on a flat tire with a jack / stirring and pouring a drink / typing furiously on a computer, occasionally wiggling a mouse )
Surely this elaborate object work will inform my "deal"!
Player A's Mouth
...
(7 seconds pass, which is forever when mixing batter, then Player B pops out from back line)
Player B
Uh, Is that cake done/ tired changed/ drink ready /report finished?
The Empty Baker makes a strong initial move, and picks and commits to an activity. That's great!
What The Baker also does is put themselves in a position where all they can do / see / focus on is their activity. Running and sticking at the edge of the stage, or flying to a corner, and immediately being heads down in an activity tells your team one thing: what your back looks like when you change a tire.
I don't know why other people do it but I can say why I do The Empty Baker. It was comforting.
When I had no idea in my head I knew I could just pick an activity and do it really really hard. Then hopefully something would come from that. That uncertainty, or lack of trust in myself, is also why I always went really far downstage. All I had was a motion, so fuck it, I'm going to shove it in the audience's face. Shutting out my teammates from getting a good handle on what the hell I was really doing and why.
That "why" is what really counts. Without some idea of why someone is invested in doing something, or how the activity is affecting them you're practically begging your teammates to just ask about the activity. And that can lead to a scene about getting something done, which is boring.
Without seeing or presenting your activity with some other kind of dimension (some emotion, quirk, degree of enthusiasm), it's a shallow offer. And these extra dimensions are all most efficiently communicated through the faceparts.
So to improve on The Empty Baker tendencies:
Be courteous with your blocking! Make sure the audience and your team can understand the what and why of your activity.
Remember that the action is not your only deal, you're doing something for a reason and you're feeling something while you do it. Know it and show it. Make that emotional choice and demonstrate it! Decide what you want and channel it through your activity. Broadcast assertively! Grumble at the tire! Laugh at the drinks! Cry in that cake!
The only reason we're seeing you do that activity is because it is informative of your character. We have no interest in seeing an invisible oil change.
h/t to the wonderful Emily Askin who got me thinking about this one
This week, Zach Simons of the Writing on the Floor podcast was gracious enough to have me on. We talk comedy, the emerging Pittsburgh scene and why Dane Cook got a bad rap (kinda)
The Mirror is a well-meaning but scared improviser. Maybe they're new, maybe they're uncomfortable with their partner,...maybe they've been told they "write too much" by a teacher. The mirror deals with this by going 110% on the Yes and 0% on the And.
Player A
I'm upset with you.
Player B
Yes! You're positively furious! Your knuckles are white!
Player A
You said you were done drinking and I find this?
Player B
That's a bottle! You're angry because you found that bottle I hid!
Player A
You were sober for two years!
Player B
I was sober for two years!
Like its cousin The Waterfall, The Mirror is trying to be supportive but is not taking care themselves. Without giving back, the weight of the scene gets stuck on the back of your partner. And while the The Waterfall comes from enthusiasm, The Mirror comes from fear. They often aren't confident in their choices, or their character so it's easy to just parrot the information that's already out there. It even kind of "sounds right". But it is really hard to play with.
To work on this tendency try exercises they get you out of judging yourself: lights down monologues, aggressive line switching, monologue rants (It's Tuesday!). Or drill the And of Yes And in circles or back and forth. Instilling confidence that they can just go with what comes out of their mouth without thinking about it and that that'll be supported should help break this pattern.
This is fun exercise I use a lot in my level ones. It works on storytelling, listening and support.
Have a back line and choose a player to start a true to life monologue. During the monologue start dimming the stage lights: if you get to complete blackness the monologue is over no matter where it is.
The only way to get the lights to reset is to tag out the monologist and continue the story from where they left off. As the monologue goes on the dimming becomes more aggressive until finally it either reaches total black from inaction or hits a resolution and you black it out.
Like conducted monologue, it works on active listening and being prepared, it additionally introduces the idea of action as support. Plus it gets frantic and fun and the stories get crazy, so it's a nice bonding game.
Play it multiple times... since it's all editing from the line more cautious or shy players might not try as much, gentle encouragement usually does the trick, especially after a couple runs when they see that the story can get nutso and that's ok.
If you don't have dimming lights, I've done this by standing next to speaker and lowering my hand from way up high and if it touches the ground it's over. It's a good workout that way too. Oof.
Grampa! Did you forget to take your pills? You're crazy! How did you get out of the hospital? You're just drunk, you don't mean any of that! Maaaan we're so high! I think those were special brownies! This is one weird dream....
Is there a time for these kind of things in scenes? Sure. Sometimes a person is acting unhinged and it needs to be called out. But I often see this when one improviser is panicking. And they out-of-nowhere endow their partner with unreliability: a really difficult, stakes-lowering attribute. Watch as the scene suddenly becomes a game of how crazy/demented/drunk/high the person can get, and watch how everything before is pretty much thrown out.
And I know the excuses. Reality got denied! They said something that's impossible to justify! They weren't listening to what I just said and it got weird!
Or
What I wanted the scene to be wasn't happening!
I've definitely seen this move done with a real annoyance from the player, not the character, and that's the real trouble. I know that feeling when a scene's not going the way you think it should, it can be really frustrating, and the temptation to blow it up can be strong. But doing it can erase all that's come before, and lead to a scene that's just a game of heightening a quirk. You've basically cut out everything that was interesting in one quick jab.
If you're the one made mentally unstable,stay grounded in what's been established. Going to, heh, crazytown and putting the needle to 11 can be fun but you've lit the fuse on the scene. Be crazy, drunk, whatever, but keep the same investment you had before you were labeled that way. As always, play it real. A crazy but human and relatable character can be terribly interesting.
PS
And please, for me, if you get called high, do not immediately grab a bong out of nowhere.
My good friend and improv spirit guide Brian Gray has started a rad new blog and podcast about improv and I was lucky enough to be on the first episode, Go check it out here. And read his blog, Something to Care About.
What strikes me about the interview is how crazily out of touch I might be about the strengths and weaknesses of my work. I'm a huge proponent of self-evaluation, watching tape and etc, (and I still think it's incredibly valuable) but it now seems like I might have developed a particular lens for watching myself. A distorting lens. So I may be seeing the faults I have decided I already have rather than what's actually going on.
I certainly have a lot to think about now.
Now go take a listen to and look at Brian's hard work!
Dave, I haven't felt this young in years. Thanks for taking me out.
Player B
You always loved going fishing, I remember when you taught that adult education course on it last year
Player A
Yeah, I did always want to teach...
Player B
You always said that! Even back in elementary school you were dressing up like our teachers! Remember Mr. Carsen, you two had a really strange relationship
Player A
Yeah, he really treated me like a son, he was a great guy...
Player B
That's why you got that tattoo of his face on your neck...
Player A
Uh, yeah. That I did.
Player B
While you were in prison, for fishing without a license!
Boy, is Player B being supportive. Look at all of that information he's giving his partner! He even brought it back around to fishing! What a rich stew we have now! If only there was a scene!
This pattern I call "The Waterfall". It's a deluge of information in one direction with little regard to the scene. When you're The Waterfall, you can feel good about yourself: you're endowing your partner with so many gifts! The problem is that without taking care of yourself, or allowing your partner to give back, you end up with a scene that is an exercise in describing and inventing instead of exploration.
Players who are writers fall into this rhythm ( I know I've done it a lot in the past), because what feels like a great round of "yes anding" is in reality a one-man-writing-room. This becomes especially apparent watching performances on tape.
To combat The Waterfall, and other writer-y beasts, slow down, recenter yourself, limit your words, make the choice to listen. It's the now that's the most important. Take a breath, maybe busy part of your brain with an informative object, but most importantly run the circuit: look at your partner and decide what you are feeling, what they are feeling, and then how that affects you. Then maybe say something about it. From your perspective. About you. Right now.
I was having an awful week and I was in a terrible funk. Walking to the theater I was talking to myself out loud like a crazy person: "I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here".
I tried to get my mind off things. I sat backstage and tried just closing my eyes and counting, contour drawing, just breathing and counting. A lot things that looked really weird to everyone who came backstage.
Still: "I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here".
Not the best head-space to be in before a show.
But I went out anyway, and actually had a, amped-up sure, but really satisfying set. I played in a really physical way, much more than usual. It felt different. And it made me think.
Playing a character that's indifferent, apathetic, or unaffected is very hard to do. Without emotional commitment things can lay flat, or just circle pointlessly. If you're out there, feel something, jerk.
Similarly: being a performer who feel's indifferent or unexcited is hard. I may have been in a bad place but at least I was in a heightened state. That energy had an effect on my work and that got me to a place I usually don't get to. It put into perspective all the times that I've just gone out on stage with nothing in me except "Time to do a show". And that feels like not caring. And that leads to doing work that's at best comfortable, at worst boring. Without the investment it's very hard to be adventurous.
This goes back to how I feel about warming up preshow. You don't have to be doing cartwheels coming out on stage but have some investment in what's going on. Feel something, jerk.
Working with some groups lately, I've had a lot of fun with variations on the cloverleaf exercise. It's a really flexible game is easy to modify to target different skills.
At it's simplest the cloverleaf just a core scene (ideally a two-person, relationship-based one), then on the edit we start a "leaf" of scenes exploring a theme that was brought up. That one idea can then be heightened and explored before being exhausted and returning to the source scene. Repeat this a few times, and try to make the leaves come from different places.
The variations I've been trying:
Support the Characters- Make each leaf kind of "slacker"-y. Tag out and work with a core scene character, expanding and exploring an aspect of that character. Try to avoid tag-runs, instead try small vignettes that give detail and focus to their personality. When you return to the core, the player will have a stronger, more nuanced understanding of their character. This is good for teams that might need to focus on non-"gamey" heightening and players that want to deepen their characters. Allow the core scenes to breathe and be "boring".
Support the World - Make each leaf an expansion of the world as it's being defined in the core scene. Work with the "If this is true, what else is true" maxim. The leaves should be distant from the source, no bringing the characters along. In fact, the further the away from the setting of the source you can get while still clearly being in the world the better. Return to source scene or let there be a time/space jump or character introduction. You can be freer here, because the focus is on world building and driving creative consistency. This can be good for groups that tend to use very linear or ploty moves, people that wimp out on sticking with choices, or groups that have trouble focusing on what game to play.
Support to Idea - Make each leaf analogous to the source. This is can happen a lot of ways: same relationship, same "Oh shit" moment, starting with the same energy, following similar narrative points, etc. Then the scenes after that will echo the same aspect that was copied but with increasing intensity, What has to happen is that the new scenes are, like in Support the World, removed from the core scene's specifics. In this variant allow for, or insist that, the worlds of the scenes to be completely different. When returning, allow for any new initiation, as long as it's clear you're back in the core scene's universe. It could even be a new set of characters in that world, go nuts. This exercise is good for a lot of the same skills as Support the World, but I think is especially good for groups looking stretch their way of approaching later beats and reincorporation.
There's a look that happens when someone completely gets thrown off their game. The face drops, especially the eyes, and the body goes into a tense lock-up (a lot in the legs or shoulders). Usually this comes right after a bizzaro-world offer or a complete and utter denial.
That's one thing. The Writer's Gaze is another, more subtle, and dangerous thing.
The Writer's Gaze isn't like a person getting lost and breaking character. Most times the character remains strong, or even gets stronger. Strong movements are made, although they often devolve into pacing or "look out into the audience" poses...and even though it presents differently, The Writer's Gaze is just as dangerous as completely losing your place.
The Writer's Gaze is that disconnected far-off look players get when they get scared and start inventing. The eyes go up! Or go down! Or go a thousand yards off the horizon. Where they never go is to their partners'.
I believe that physical connectiveness and position have profound effect on the dynamics of a scene, and that if you can tame that part of your game it will pay off elsewhere. When you make a break from your scene-mate and retreat into your own head you've waded into murky waters.
If you're a writer-y like person (I am myself), start to recognize The Gaze, and when you do it. Watch tape: it will really jump out there (Oh, hey! I keep moving downstage and basically address the audience. Coincidentally That's when I talk for a minute straight. hmm)
When you feel the gaze coming over you, stop. Take a breath, refocus on the scene. Limit your words. Look at your partner. What you see then is most likely what matters.
I see people just stroll on stage, and that's fine for them. But I need some intensity. Some esprit de corp. Getting hands in, touching each others backs, all that silly stuff I think has a real positive effect.
Brian Gray used to always give a little pep talk before Irony City shows, "you're playing with the best people you could be playing with tonight". And I miss it.
If you've gotten into the just sit-and-chat-and-opps-it's-places! routine try some psyching up, some "gotcha backs", some "'Fuck the audience' on three!". Might not work for you all the time, but a little extra energy never hurt anyone.
There are grumpuses think it's lame and childish and etc... but you are just getting ready to out and maybe be a anthropomorphic barrel or kitty cat or hyrdogen atom for 20 minutes so why judge?
It's based on the simple pass-the-clap game: Everyone in a circle, passing the focus by making eye contact and trying to clap at the same time. The common variations of this are:
Start just going in a circle, one-way
Let people reverse the circle's direction by maintaining eye contact on the pass and giving it back
Opening it up to passing anywhere in the circle
I like to extend this exercise by
making people move around while passing the clap. Try to avoid walking in a circle or a repeating pattern. Encourage people to move faster and faster as the rhythm increases
Once this is old hat, get back in the circle and pass the clap in a repeating order. So you are always getting the clap from the same person and giving it to the same person.
Take this pattern and then move around with it
Bonus round is to try a pattern that goes through the group twice before repeating
I like that this is more energetic than regular pass-the-clap and that it works on body position awareness, group listening and placement on stage. I like to use it for people that have tendencies to either be static on stage or tend to get themselves into positions where they can't pay attention to their other players on stage.
