Category: Link

Your Team’s Vision→

One night, we gathered around a table with pizza, wine, and a lot of blank paper, and set out to create a list of standards that we could expect from one another at all times. Everyone brainstormed, and we ended up with about 60 ideas scrawled across five or six pieces of construction paper.

Over the next course of the evening, we distilled them into ten principles that we all thought were essential to Book Club’s success. We all agreed on them, turned out the lights, and did an unspeakable-darkness-ritual-thing to seal the deal.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. While I have played on house teams where there have been established guidelines (you must hire a coach, if you miss two trainings in a row you can’t play, etc) and in indie teams where we have set goals in terms of what kind of show we want to put on, I’ve never played on a team where the team have set out principles.

I think it’s important – maybe the most important thing when you’re starting a new group or joining an existing one that plans on doing anything more than a one off show. Part of it is to make that initial decision making easier – am I joining a team simply to get stage time? Do we have long term goals as a team beyond learning a certain performance style or form? What is the respect level between performers of different experience levels?

Another part of it making people accountable for their actions (indeed, making myself accountable for my actions too!). I’ve played on teams where conflict between players has came up, or communication issues have lead to a lack of commitment, perceived or otherwise. What came out of it? Fear and resentment. Without clearly stated principles, people were upset because their own ideals didn’t match with their teammates, and had no resource to try and solve those issues.

How enforceable are principles in a team? I don’t want to play on a team where everyone is pointing to the sacred parchment with the team code, where breaking the rules equals instant death. But the folly of improv is that it’s so easy to get up and do without any real focus. Maybe too easy. There has to be a happy medium between the freedom and principles. I’m not sure what it is yet.

The very interesting Improv Questions podcast (which annoyingly doesn’t have a proper podcast feed) has a new episode up all about coaching. I did a good bit of reflection while listening to this one. Stream it at Bandcamp.

China: Day 1→

Will Hines is in China, leading a group of Level 1s. Cool reflections.

How do you play differently with different people?→

All great improv is done in the moment. Like anyone else starting a scene, I either make the first offer, or respond to the first offer, and go from there. I don’t go in expecting anything, and find if I go in trying to do anything I either won’t succeed at it or I won’t succeed in having a good scene.

If I go into a scene with, say, TJ, thinking any variation of “OMG OMG OMG”… I’m in my head from moment one and I’m fucked. Likewise, if I’m with a rookie thinking, oh, this person isn’t good, I’ve got to dumb it down… I’m probably limiting both of us.

There’s a saying in college basketball, “Don’t play the name on the jersey.” If a small school is preparing for an NCAA Tournament game with, say, vaunted Duke University, it’s too easy to psyche themselves out on the name DUKE and their history plus high caliber of talent, and completely get the small school out of their game. Conversely, if a big school looks down at a lesser opponent and doesn’t do much to prepare for them, they increase the chances of suffering the upset loss. If you focus on the actual players and team, and matching up with them in the moment, you will have a better chance of exploiting opportunities, playing to your strengths, and beating them.

Sidney Goldstein, Basketball and Improv→

Goldstein has a solid fundamental philosophy on developing basketball skills, one a lot of coaches don’t share. Most coaches recruit and play the best talent available, treat drills as a warm up and think that drawing up plays and running their players in scrimmages will make them better. Goldstein believes any player of any shape or size can learn and develop the skill to do anything with regular, proper practice. Goldstein for example says a 7 footer could learn to crossover dribble and hit a jump shot with practice, and the reason most can’t is because most coaches focus on having them stand near the hoop, rebound, block shots and dunk on people… and thus never teach them those other skills.

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I read through Goldstein’s topics, specifically his Advice to New Coaches, and couldn’t help notice parallels to learning and teaching effective improv. Both basketball and improv are active skill based endeavors that for any preparation has to be done in the moment on the fly, where a combination of execution and creativity determines success.

Some thoughts on Neo-Futurism→

These have really reinforced for me that creating good theatre is about being true to why the show is being put on in the first place and having your performers bring themselves to the stage and draw the audience in as part of the show, rather than putting up walls that separate the performers from the punters.

Hey Fred Schneider Warm-Up→

The variation I was taught by someone (I completely forget who) and now use adds in a justification aspect to it:

Group chant: “Hey, Fred Schneider, what are you doing?”
Performer A: “I’m learning to knit Christmas sweaters.”
Group chant: “Hey, Fred Schneider, why are you doing that?”
Performer B: “This is how I express my artistic side.”
Group chant: “Hey, Fred Schneider, what are you doing?”
Performer B: (Whole new what)
Group chant: “Hey, Fred Schneider, why are you doing that?”
Performer C: (A why to B’s what)

This has always been one of my favourite warm-ups, and adding the justification makes it even better.

The frisbee zone→

When you’re playing frisbee, the exciting parts aren’t when someone throws you a nice easy catch right at chest height. That’s no fun. When it gets exciting is when it’s just out of reach and you have to jump or dive to get to it. Then it’s like, wow, what a catch! Maybe sometimes you dive and you don’t quite catch the frisbee. But it’s still more fun than an easy lob.

Improv Interviews: Armando Diaz→

But that’s always the biggest thing: finding a fair way to do it, because it’s such a hurtful thing not to be on a team. Everybody’s feelings get hurt if you don’t make it, but then again not everybody’s ready for it. And there are some who you don’t know. You put them on a team and you might have your doubts about them, then all of the sudden they get a chance to play on a team for a while, they gel and all of the sudden they’re awesome. And who are you to say you know best. And there are some people who you give them a chance and they never grow anymore. Then you have to deal with the hurtful process of what should I do? Should I take them off? Now that I put them on? It’s kind of like ‘here’s you baby. Oh wait a second. It’s not your baby anymore. We’re giving it to someone else.’ That’s still the biggest nut to crack.

Well, we’re getting to put people on teams in a class setting, so you really get a chance to see them under fire, and really know how they’re doing before you make that decision. Because I think there’s such a gap between, someone’s in a class, you toss them on a team, then you don’t get to watch them very much. Then you come back a few months later and get to watch their group, and you’re like ‘oh my God. These guys are terrible.’

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Hopefully, by the time they’ve done so many shows, you’ve had the chance to work with them and give them notes and things like that, when you put them on a team you’re going to feel confident that you’ve taught them the things that they should know, and that they can perform them at a reasonable level.

And the people that you don’t put on teams, hopefully the opposite. You know that you have given them a chance and they understand that they know that they’re there to learn, and you’ve given them feedback. It’s not an arbitrary decision. So hopefully that’s something they can accept easier than it just being like ‘alright, let’s have an audition I’ll see you for three minutes and hope that was a representative sample of what they can do.’ So the hope is by doing the team performance workshop at least everyone knows exactly what you’re supposed to be doing on stage, so it isn’t like ‘oh they haven’t taught it.’