You Already Know The Real “Why”→

Being able to stop, hold and articulate your natural feelings is a hugely necessary skill in improv. There are many people out there who can’t do that. The moment you make them think about what they’re saying or feeling and ask them why —- all their awareness vanishes. Can you imagine your co-worker, after they say something like how they “hate French Vanilla coffee” being asked “why?” They’d look at you and just say “what do you mean WHY? I just DO.”

The Improv Conspiracy: Melbourne Fringe 2014→

Melbourne Fringe starts next week! Between drinking beers and seeing all of the shows, I’m going to appear in a bunch of them! I’ll be with my three person team It’s A Non-Committal Date, appearing with my Harold Night team Your Elected King, and producing Cage Match. Check out the link for tickets and times.

Make A Big Choice→

I just took a workshop with Susan Messing and even her throwaway comments were illuminating. The thing that clicked with me in regards to this was, “No backsies!” If you do something that you can go back on, it’s probably a weak choice or could be better implemented. A strong choice gives something for you, your partner, and the audience to have fun with.

The example I’ve seen her give a couple times is a woman who walks on stage thinking and acting she’s playing a man but gets labelled as a woman. Now she’s playing a woman who walks and talks like a man. That’s way more fun.

Bill Murray on finding satisfaction with your career→

You can do the very best you can when you’re very, very relaxed, no matter what it is or what your job is, the more relaxed you are the better you are. That’s sort of why I got into acting. I realized the more fun I had, the better I did it. And I thought, that’s a job I could be proud of. It’s changed my life learning that, and it’s made me better at what I do.
Bill Murray on finding satisfaction with your career.

Bodies in Space→

The big thing from yesterday’s workshop, I think, was about taking the scene at face value. A beginning improvisor will tend to project things onto the scene to give it weight, significance, plot. A more experienced improvisor will find those things in what has already been offered, drawing them out and amplifying them. This is important because it relieves us of the pressure to “come up with something good” and instead lets us relax into the scene, focus on our partner, embrace an outward-directed style, and present ourselves naturally.

Matt Powell writes about a body language/non-verbal workshop he ran. Really love the above paragraph and need to incorporate more of it in how I play.

Back to Basics

Five weeks ago I sat in the event space at Chicago’s iO Theatre ready to take on the theatre’s summer intensive program. Five weeks of non-stop learning about the hobby I love – improvised comedy.

And now I’m done! I graduated! I must be a master improviser! An expert! Every scene I’m in from now on is going to be perfect!

Erm, not quite.

The truth is, I don’t believe that I’m a better improviser right now then I was when I left for the airport. Don’t get me wrong – the program was amazing. I’ve had a wonderful time in a wonderful city, both hanging out with my existing Improv Conspiracy pals and making many new friends (trips to Poland, Canada, Florida, and Minnesota are now being planned). I have a full notebook of everything I have learned, lessons and wisdom gained from going to class, performing, and just watching shows.

But for as much as I have gained, I’m by no means perfect. Intensive students squeeze three hour lessons into two hour twenty-five minute chunks, four days a week per level. A year’s worth of learning in just over a month. Unfortunately, that doesn’t equal a year’s worth of comprehension in the same amount of time. For every “this is the best scene I’ve ever done” feeling, there was a corresponding scene where I froze, not knowing what to say or do as if I had forgotten everything I’ve learned about long-form improvisation. The same problems that existed before I left for the States still exist, and a few things I never noticed before are now on my radar.

What the course does is emphasise the entry level basics to creating great improvised comedy. Over, and over, and over again. To listen intensely and respond with how you feel. To support your scene partner and your teammates. To forget about structure and rules and just have a shitload of fun. When you are so focused on trying to get the pacing of the Invocation right, or trying to remember something to pull for Beat 2C in a Harold, it’s easy to forget about those things. Then all of a sudden you are wondering why the hilarious line you had in your head didn’t get a single chuckle and oh god will someone please wipe the scene and get me out of here.

Growth from learning is slow but constant. For all the things I want to bring back to share with my Harold team, Your Elected King, there are a bunch that will take me a while to gain an understanding of, let alone know how to execute. I imagine over time the things that I picked up will start clicking and will be more incorporated in how I play, but I don’t have all the answers and don’t think I ever will.

One thing is for certain. There will be no strutting into class, telling my fellow YEKers “I am a great improviser and this is how things are done in Chicago.” I’m going to focus on those basics – the same basics my teammates know and I can trust to bring to any scene we are in. That is the exciting thing – as a team we may have been in different locations for the last couple of months, but we are all on the same page.

Although I will be teaching them Uhlir 8s. That shit is dope.

lessons from wrestling: trained and ready→

If you turn up to a show having skipped training, or with sloppy stage work or without having worked on your notes from last show, you are telling your fellow players and your audience that you aren’t taking this artform seriously, that you aren’t taking our experience playing with you or watching you seriously.