The answer is "yes."

At the end of last week's Exit 16 show, I just wished I could make them feel better.

And that's where being a workshop whore gives me power. Yeah, taking workshops every chance I get makes me a better improviser. But even more than that, it gives me toys to pass on to the kids.

Two weeks ago, I had a refresher course in Jill's Fireball Theory—which turned out to be just the thing they needed. I told them her theory about Boomer and outrunning the voice that says "you suck." And we did some of her exercises, some of Dave Razowsky's, some Annoyance stuff....and we talked about exactly what the voice was saying. And I asked them questions and let them talk even more than usual, because Jill reminded me that's how people learn.

Sometimes this stuff is so obvious I look right past it.

When I've been new or haven't been comfortable in troupes, I've either felt like the giant gas-guzzling steamroller that crushes everything in its path or the idiot newbie who really should just sit down and shut up and maybe learn something, moron.

And, as it turns out, those feelings are the ones getting in the way of the kids making strong choices. The experienced ones are afraid of being stage hogs. The new ones are worried about staying in their places. So they're being incredibly polite.

All the trust falls in the world are no substitute for telling each other everything they do is right. We forget to tell our partners...

I need you to be confident.
I love it when you're fearless.
I want you to be big and loud and powerful.
I won't judge you when you try something different.
It's OK when you grab me, push me, poke me, climb on me, and do all that stuff we wouldn't do to each other in real life.
If you edit my scene, I won't resent you.
If you change my idea, I'll have another one.
If you don't get what I mean, it's no big deal.
If we step on each other every now and then, it's just because we're going somewhere.
I've got your back. I'm going to play like you've got mine.

Tonight, I think the kids found out all this stuff. It's more than a toy or a tool—it's truth. I can't wait to see them play this Saturday.

Comedy On The Square
Featuring Exit 16
The Corbin Theatre, 15 N. Water on the Historic Square in Liberty, MO
8pm $5

Is there such thing as an improv Band-Aid™?

Dude.

The kidlings did NOT have an easy time of it tonight. Small crowd. Small cast (we were down two). Their hosting was strong, and the show structure was fine...

...but they were missing the fun. And they knew it. And, God bless 'em, they tried to bring it with them every time they went on stage, but it just wasn't there.

Because we haven't had help in The Expensive Sound and Light Booth, I've been running both from just off stage. Which means I spent the whole show trying not to wince, and to say supportive things as they went out for the next scenes. We did some high-energy scene-starts at the break, and everyone knew exactly what they needed to do.

And that's the tough part. They're new improvisers—even though, in their lives, it probably feels for the seniors like they've been doing it forever. The ones who've been doing it longer have a pretty good idea of what they were missing; the newer ones, even, have a sense of what happened.

They just don't have the tools to get themselves out.

Hell, even experienced improvisers can't always extricate themselves from a horrid show. But we have more tools. If I'm mired in a sucky scene, I have quite a few ideas for how to get out of the quicksand—by myself, by grabbing onto someone or something. And I'm on stage with experienced players who know when to throw me a branch and when to fire up the Jeep and toss in the cable.

The kids—they're just lucky to keep their heads above ground. Which they did, making me insanely proud. Everybody has a not-great show every now and then. Theirs came after just one real rehearsal in a month. In front of a smaller-than-usual crowd. Nobody's making excuses—least of all them. Next Tuesday, we'll work on what they think they need. Because they know a lot about what that is.

ImpFest 2009, part 2

Ooof. Stayed home from work AGAIN today, and slept most of it. Stupid cold—though I guess I'm lucky it's not the flu. We'll see how much of this I can get through without dozing off...

Saturday
Workshops with Jill
Omega Directive, Coma Chameleon, Improv-Abilities
One, Dictionary Soup, Brownies Don't Lie

Jill taught her Fireball Theory class, which I've taken once and watched her teach the kids. It was interesting to take it again with a different—and much larger—group, and to hear their takes on the work and their improv issues. Her Fix 'Em Up session was terrific; we gave her our issues, and she put together exercises to help us work on them. Exhausting, but a great warm-up for our show.

A little thing about the make-up of the class: It was mostly John's Roving Imp students, plus a few local improvisers. One of the things John's doing is instilling a love of the craft in the folks who work out of the Imp. Every local group has a vibe—whether it's one they intentionally seek and foster or not—and theirs is full-on improv geek, in a wonderful way I love being a part of.

We finally have Ryan back in Omega Directive, which is wonderful. I love playing with those guys. It's not just that I don't have to do any of the production-side work; John has put together a fun, strong, really interesting mix in this cast.

I'm not proud to say this: Somewhere around hour 15 of the ImpFest, I hit a wall. The cold, being tired, doing shows, taking classes...it all took its toll and I missed a few sets while Jill and I walked around and cleared our heads before our show. I would have loved to have not missed a minute of the festival...but to get ready, getting out for a while was really important.

Plus...well, Jill and I have only done the show once, and hadn't had a chance to rehearse for the one we had coming up in a couple of hours. So we got some down time: wandering around the Dollar General, walking around downtown, browsing a great little Mexican convenience store I didn't know existed, and getting in a good (if really, really quiet) warm-up in the green room and out on the back deck. (From what we heard from backstage, the sets before ours rocked. I don't think anything all weekend made me much happier than hearing Julie get loud, enthusiastic, sustained, well-deserved applause.)

I would be lying if pretended I didn't spend the first scene and a half all the way up in my head. The monologue: "Holy crap. What's going on? I'm not getting it. I'm not connecting. This isn't working. I'm totally blowing a chance to play with Jill. ARRRRRGH." Then: "Fuck it. Let's play."

In our third scene, I climbed up on a box and hid in the nook at the back of the stage, and played the first third of the scene in total silence, just playing some subtle stuff and trusting that it would be plenty for Jill to mess with. It was, and after that I totally relaxed and just played. We played the kind of long scenes we did in our first show—strong relationships, multiple turns and an inside joke or two (rrrawwwrrr).

Sunday
Coaching session for as-yet-unnamed duo
Making Connections class (teaching)

So Erik and I got a couple of hours with Jill to work on our show, and it made me realize just how invaluable to work with someone who's seen, performed with and directed multiple two-person shows. We started with warm-ups, and her advice that any group warm-up can be a two-person warm-up. (Aaaaah, Big Booty...)

Then a series of questions: Have you said "I love you?" Have you kissed? Have you slapped each other? Are you portable? All designed to make sure when that stuff comes up on stage, it doesn't freak either or both of you out. (We may have to work on the slapping thing. I'll have to convince Erik he can hit me at least a little harder. And the stage slap won't work, because I always turn my head the wrong way—plus, the loud noise startles me more than a real slap.)

Next, more questions, this time to get at an aesthetic for the show. Stuff like favorite books, movies, TV shows...what kind of improv we like doing...what we feel like the show absolutely should have in it...what skills we have outside of improv.

Um. This is where the one-dimensional thing really sucks.

Here's the surprising thing, though—turns out we're both pretty physical, so that could be something fun to explore. That never in a million years would have occurred to me; I used to have to work really hard at making physical contact on stage. I'm not completely without issues or self-consciousness, but thanks to two-plus years of three-a-week workouts with a trainer, the physical stuff doesn't scare me anymore. Not being picked up. Not climbing on someone. I've done a few dozen push-ups on stage, know how to lift with my legs instead of my back, and have the core strength required to play a monitor lizard (see above).

As far as aesthetic, we both seem interested in the same stuff, which we knew: Rich, grounded characters in real relationships. (Pretty much the same stuff Jill and I do in Brownies Don't Lie, so that's handy—I want to do more.)

We spent the rest of the time on exercises—including one Jill had run with Tantrum in her Truth & Beauty session with us a couple of years ago. It's simple: A five-minute scene where one person talks, and one doesn't. It's great at building trust on both sides.

And then I taught a class—and Jill hung around. Um...eep. We talked beforehand about being students in situations where we were sometimes teachers, and vice versa—she did a very gracious job of jumping in with really insightful comments, but never, you know, rolling her eyes and stuff.

The class I taught was on making connections (described here). The goal: Help improvisers get more out of openings, whether they're monologues, stories, scenes, or single suggestions. The first two-thirds were mostly what we notice, why we listen and how we remember things; for the last part, we started scenes, just to explore different ways to use the stuff we remembered (from purely verbal to more character driven starts). It was a more intellectual class than I usually teach—and I had a ton I wanted to cover. So it ended up being more about giving people new ways to approach the work than it was about fixing or changing what they normally do.

Then it was off for more BBQ. And a loooooong freakin' nap.

ImpFest 2009

The boring preamble

From the top, I've known this week would be a long, fun one. I'm enough of a grownup that I know to plan real-life stuff around festivals: Get the house ready in advance for guest artists (Jill!), make sure work is under control so I can leave on time, arrange workout schedule so I don't miss any, figure out meals and stuff so I don't go nuts with unhealthy food, plan time for sleep.

Of course, life doesn't cooperate, so Thursday I realized I was coming down with a cold. Awesome. The good news: My job is flexible enough that if you're sick, you can take your laptop and work from home so you don't infect everyone in our giant petri dish of an office. The bad: There is no telecommuting in improv.

And when you're sick, your characters all have to have one thing in common: PLAY SOMEONE WHO ISN'T SICK.

So for two shows each night, two classes (taking) on Saturday, one class (teaching) on Sunday, and a coaching session Sunday morning, that's what I got to do. Whee!

Thursday night
Anomaly Orange, Tantrum, TrivProv, Spite

Our first question: What's the rating? On one hand, we're all present and former ComedyCity/ComedySportz players, which means we can do family-friendly content in our sleep. (And honestly, if you're a professional improviser, you'd better be able to do that.) On the other, we don't do it much with those troupes. And "family friendly" means different things to different people.

John's rule: Anomaly Orange brought the most people, so they could set the rating. Happy times for Spite: They set it in our comfort zone.

Tantrum was a little shorthanded—missing Pete and Josh—but we put up a fun little short-form set. Not inspiring, ground-breaking genius improv, but we had some fun moments (and it turns out Megan didn't actually give me a black eye). Spite had our best set in a while—we felt totally on and in sync with each other. The after party would have been nice, but we're grown-ups, so we skee-daddled.

Anomaly Orange has grown tremendously since last time I saw them; Tom Kessler is a natural monologist and mixed commentary with storytelling, all with a strong, authentic emotional point of view. Triv-Prov was a blast—and included the most fun white-boy rap I've seen.

Friday night
Anomaly Orange, Biblioclast, Spite
Improv-Abilities, Coma Chameleon, Tantrum

Whaaaat? Spite in a 7pm show? OK. We came close. And didn't feel as great as Thursday, but were really happy with our set. Tantrum was—well, Tantrum was Spite plus Michael with special guest, Jill Bernard. Being four-sevenths of a group makes you play differently—so there was a fun energy there—and you can't go wrong with Jill as a monologist. But to say we didn't miss Pete and Josh (and Rob, on Friday) would be a big fat lie. Tantrum is the seven of us, and we're missing part of our brain when they're gone.

Another night groups bringin' it. I got to see Coma Chameleon's super-fun format for the first time (a town of sentient animals—whee!). I-A, with a much-smaller-than-usual cast, did some really fun stuff—and they've got girls now, which gives them new dimension. And Biblioclast, with John and Nifer, was wonderful; their trust in and patience with each other made their piece a joy to watch.

Jill and I got lost three times on the way to the after party, because I stupidly trusted google instead of Keith.

Saturday
Workshops with Jill
Omega Directive, Coma Chameleon, Improv-Abilities
One, Dictionary Soup, Brownies Don't Lie

And...hey. My cold has sensed weakness. And I've still got work to do. So more tomorrow.

Focusing on emotional reactions.

After Mark Sutton's class at KCiF, and in an effort to get ready for the show with Jill on Saturday, I've been thinking a lot about staying in the moment and reacting to what just happened.

Which means that's what my kids got to work on tonight.

There are a couple of challenges to working on this stuff with teenagers:

• The teenage brain isn't completely wired for emotional response. From an interesting article: "The area of the brain associated with higher-level thinking, empathy, and guilt is underused by teenagers, reports a new study."
  
• Life experience is helpful in playing scenes that let you showcase a range of emotional reactions.
  
• Kids are giggly.
  

So I went in with my usual general idea of what to do: a goal, some key exercises, and a flexible attitude. We're down two kids for this show, and there were only eight at rehearsal, so it was a calmer, more focused group—at least by a little—than usual. Here's what we ended up doing:

• Warmup: Big Booty, Killer Bunny (to build energy and get focused)
• Pass an emotion
• Ping Pong (from the Physical Comedy Handbook)
• Character walk with animal spine and status—add Ping Pong
• Timed scenes with setup (no eye contact, start with shape) and physical/emotional check-in before dialogue
• Ditto, but with numbers instead of dialogue* (scene ends when they hit 50)
  
• Full Plus Ronde with numbers instead of dialogue
• Busby Berkeley

The Plus Ronde was fascinating to watch. Creating characters and scenes without dialogue forced them to focus on the physicality and emotional games their characters played. It showed them that any character can be in a scene with any other character and it can be interesting to watch if they're affected by each other. It brought out some really nice acting in players who tend to be either over-the-top or primarily verbal.

Now I'm looking very forward to trying the same thing with Erik when we rehearse tomorrow.


*Yes, we could use gibberish instead. If you're good at gibberish, awesome—if you're not, or have never done it before, it's easy to let working hard to create varied gibberish become a distraction. Numbers make it easy to say something without that something mattering.

First official rehearsal for as-yet-unnamed show.

Ultimately, Erik and I will work with a few different coaches on our show, but in these first rehearsals, we're just kinda figuring out what we're interested in doing. So after last week, when we just talked about direction, we were ready to start playing.

We don't have a show date, a venue, a format or anything like that, so for now, we're just rehearsing at my place. I've done that before—both with bigger groups and the show with Tommy—and it's great in some ways and weird in others. Rather than treating it like a stage, we just decided to use it for the space, editing into other rooms, or even playing scenes in two separate spaces.

(I think my walls are pretty stout. If I'm overestimating their soundproofedness, neighbors on both sides are likely to think I'm involved in a bizarre relationship or three.)

Our first scene, using a Ping Pong exercise from The Physical Comedy Handbook that Jill recommended in a forum somewhere, best reflected how it feels to do the first exercise in a situation like this: a simple encounter between two people who feel kinda silly.

After that, though, it was easy to just focus on the scene.

We've decided to start off just playing long, patient scenes about real people, which is a challenge for a bunch of different reasons:

• Trusting the scene to unfold—focusing on moment-to-moment reactions instead of forcing something to happen. Erik takes more risks that I do here; I tend to get locked in stasis instead of making turns. I wasn't using my Viewpoints work, which can make a big difference. We're getting together again Wednesday night, so I can give myself that as an assignment (which will be especially helpful since I'll need it Saturday night).
  
• The whole acting thing. I struggle to differentiate between characters without feeling cartoon-y. How much change is enough to become a different character? It felt like everything I played tonight was some version of me—no changes in diction or POV, and physical changes based more on body language than structure. I may be trying to reign things in too hard.
  
• Damn comfort zones. Nothing brings out your crutches like playing long scenes with just one other person. I'm pretty happy with the fact that I had real emotional reactions in scenes. But. They were pretty similar emotional reactions from character to character, and those reactions were awfully close to...oh, hell. They were mine.
  

On the plus side, we've gotten our first rehearsal out of the way, and it was fun and comfortable and left us both wanting to play more. So I've got my assignments for Wednesday: Viewpoints work and emotional range.

Brownies Don't Lie

From the debut performance of Brownies Don't Lie, featuring Jill Bernard and Trish Berrong, in October 2008.

(Videos contain adult material.)


Service


Not What You Think

Brownies Don't Lie returns to the metro area Saturday, October 24, at 9pm at the ImpFest, hosted by the Roving Imp. Click here for more information.