Detroit Day #4

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

Photos

Detroit Day #3 Part 2

Day #3!

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.

Sidebar! New blog!

Real quick! My Hotel Nowhere teammate Karen has created a tumblr, Improv and Tears.

Detroit Day #3 Part 1

Wifi in the house broke! So I'm running behind on the recaps. Stay tuned.

Detroit Day #2

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.

The Writers' Room

Tomorrow: workshops and TJ & Dave. Can't wait.

Detroit Day #1

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!

To Detroit!

I'm psyched to go to Detroit.

Today is the first night of the Detroit Improv Festival and  Pittsburgh has a bunch teams going up: Iguanatron, The Writers' Room, Hotel Nowhere, Well Known Strangers, Hipsterpotamus. Congrats to everyone!

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.