Hotel Nowhere-ian Mike Peditto just posted a great blog entry about his two years in improv
Check it out!
Friday, February 14, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
The Magic Circle And Professionalism
Brett Bavar posted this a little bit ago and it merits spreading around:
It's a great video from a great series (their videos on narrative are fantastic). And this one has a bunch of applications to improv.
One aspect I want to consider, when thinking about this "magic circle" is how easily it can be broken by small technical things. Mistakes as tiny as a messed up music cue, or lights on the audience, or a show announcement that gets things wrong, or your team doesn't know who's introducing: these things all put a little tilt on the show for the audience. When the little stuff is going wrong people start to worry about the quality of... well... everything. It cracks the circle a bit.
Will these things turn a good show into a bad one? Of course not. But they don't serve to give your show the best chance it can have.
So practice the little things that set up and close out your show: who gets the suggestion, what you're all wearing [if you have a dress code], how you go on and off stage, who talks when. Talk with your tech people. Walk through the lighting and music cues, give them a cheat sheet, have them do a dry run before the house opens.
And be sure to thank them.
Professionalism does matter. It keeps the circle strong: keeping the crowd calm and ready to enjoy the show.
Show that you care about it and they'll care about it.
It's a great video from a great series (their videos on narrative are fantastic). And this one has a bunch of applications to improv.
One aspect I want to consider, when thinking about this "magic circle" is how easily it can be broken by small technical things. Mistakes as tiny as a messed up music cue, or lights on the audience, or a show announcement that gets things wrong, or your team doesn't know who's introducing: these things all put a little tilt on the show for the audience. When the little stuff is going wrong people start to worry about the quality of... well... everything. It cracks the circle a bit.
Will these things turn a good show into a bad one? Of course not. But they don't serve to give your show the best chance it can have.
So practice the little things that set up and close out your show: who gets the suggestion, what you're all wearing [if you have a dress code], how you go on and off stage, who talks when. Talk with your tech people. Walk through the lighting and music cues, give them a cheat sheet, have them do a dry run before the house opens.
And be sure to thank them.
Professionalism does matter. It keeps the circle strong: keeping the crowd calm and ready to enjoy the show.
Show that you care about it and they'll care about it.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Improv Advent #25
25 -
Merry Christmas everyone!
Ok great, that's done.
Now it's time for News Year's Resolutions
At least once:
Merry Christmas everyone!
Ok great, that's done.
Now it's time for News Year's Resolutions
At least once:
- Do something creative that scares the hell out of you (Solo show? Musical? Write a book?)
- Seek out and play with people you wouldn't normally do a show with
- Watch yourself on tape, take notes as if you were your own coach
- Tell the people you love working with that you appreciate them
- Get involved in something that interests you that has nothing to do with theater
- Sit down, alone, and talk yourself through a few questions
- Why do I keep doing this?
- Who do I love watching and why?
- What makes this important?
- What would I say to someone starting out doing improv?
A few times:
- Read a book on theater. Not just improv (but do that too). Acting, directing, history. Anything.
- Go see non-improv shows
- Make yourself take a break if you're never stopping
- Make time to take a class or workshop
All the time:
- Reach out to new people
- Reach out to older people
- Spread you love and enthusiasm
- Be kind
- Be honest
- Be aware
- Commit
- Create
Also, stop going to Wendy's after 1 AM, you're going to regret it
Improv Advent #24
24 - New Languages
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.
Or it can crash and burn.
But that's learning too.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Improv Advent #23
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.
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.
Improv Advent #22
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.
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.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Improv Advent #21
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.
That said.
I still hate Party Quirks.
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.
That said.
I still hate Party Quirks.
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