Group Games Are Made By Individual Moves

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. 

Trust and act, y'all.

On Leaving And Being Maaaaaaaaaaaaad

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?

Improv Bestiary: The Empty Baker

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

Writing on the Floor Podcast

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)

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