Class September 29, 2007

Lorien, Andy, Li-At, Angela, and Roberta in an Irish Drinking Song. The full set of pictures from the workshop is now in the on-line album. We had four new players with us for the night, and they impressed all of us with their bold choices and willingness to dive right in. Welcome!

We started with a pretty traditional set of warm-up exercises, including the 1-Word Story. And, I debuted the new Improv 101: Yes & introductory talk. A door replaced the table and vase, and denial of relationship replaced denial of children. We'll see how much of that sticks.

Our first stage piece was the 5-Letter Word, and most of the scenes kept to the letters in their words, more or less. All of them were fun to watch.

Next we did a set of Dialog Separate From Activity exercises. We did these in large groups, and so there were a lot of elements to juggle. My biggest concern - that give and take would be abandon creating multiple, conflicting dialogs - was unfounded. The group discussions were easy to follow and interesting. Some of the physical work between players could be improved, so we'll do some work in the next workshop focusing on that skill.

The rest of the night had a more musical theme. We performed our usual Irish Drinking Songs and then did a series of Dubbed Opera scenes. The singers in the operas all had a delightful sense of the dramatic, and I think all the translators did fine jobs telling their stories.

We finished the night with Freeze Tag. Thanks everyone!

Class September 19, 2007

Scott, Nick, Alan, Sol, and Ben in a Sporting Event scene. I just like the looks on everyone's faces. I've got the album on-line and captioned so stop on by and enjoy. It was a fun night (and I'm writing this up within a week of the class!)

We started off with a set of Story-Story-Die scenes. Everyone has become quite adept at this structure, and the crowd has to be pretty critical to get the players to die off.

Next came Last Letter scenes and this was more of a challenge. It's critical for the lines of dialog to be crisp with clear endings. Run on sentences or tentative statements makes it harder to start a follow up line.

We tried a new exercise called Sporting Event. This also proved to be a challenge, requiring us to be aware of what everyone was doing in the scene. When it works, it makes for some compelling scene work and it's a skill that's worth developing.

We followed up with our traditional Irish Drinking Song, and then got in a 3-Line Drill. Our time was a bit short, so we finished the night with Michigan Freeze Tag.

Class September 12, 2007

Well, there aren't any pictures from this class because I didn't get a chance to pick up batteries to the camera. It's too bad because there was some great character work in the course of the night. We started with our usual warm-ups. After that, our scene work began with a series of Counting Words scenes.

I brought a couple of bins of hats, and we broke them out for Panel of Experts scenes. This was the part of the night for which I most regret not having pictures. There was a lot of great character work using the hats as influence.

We did a set of Irish Drinking Songs, and then moved on to the advanced part of the night. Everyone did the 3-Line Drill and then we worked on a series of Scene On Scene structures. Hats were available for this exercise, and again they prompted some good characters.

Class September 5, 2007

I like this shot of Jim, Sol, and Victoria. It's very dramatic. The album for this workshop is now available so head on over and check it out. You'll also see pictures of Neil (yay!), who had a chance to come to class during his quick return visit to Santa Barbara.

After warm-ups, we did a Speaks As One Dialog. This looks easy, but is really a challenge. It's hard not to have one leader, but the challenge of the scene (and the technique) is to avoid that. And the other challenge (apparently) is to avoid rocking back and forth!

Next, we did a series of Rhyming scenes which I thought were a lot of fun. And then, to keep honing the rhyming skill, we sang a series of Irish Drinking Songs.

We ended the night with a long set of 3-Line Drills. I need to start these earlier in the evening to give us a chance to work on our open scenes.

Class August 29, 2007

Linda, Aidan, Li-At, Kenna, Don, and Sharon belting out an Irish Drinking Song. The album for this workshop is available now, so check it out.

After our warm-ups we got right into a couple of Tag-Out Stories. The energy was good and I think the stories were fun. A series of ABC scenes followed and we quickly learned who doesn't feel constrained by the traditional order of the alphabet. Who Am I was next, and it's been some time since we worked on these endowment/guessing game scenes. We'll need to revisit these scenes to keep in practice.

Everyone worked on their improvised song skills with the Irish Drinking Song. For the advanced part of the night, we did something a little different. We skipped the 3-Line Drill and instead went into scene work with Assigned Professions. I think everyone got quite a bit out of a more structured set of open scenes and I was pretty happy with the results. It's a good exercise that we will revisit.

We ended the night with a round of Freeze Tag in the line form - what I sometimes call Michigan Freeze Tag for reasons that I can't remember.

Class August 22, 2007

I know this photo is a little blurry, but I like the action and enthusiasm from Robert, Ann, and David. They're in a Hitchhiker scene, and David just entered as a rowdy concert goer. They all look the part! The album from the workshop is now available. We started off (after the warm-ups) with a set of Hitchhiker scenes that were pretty physical. That got everyone ready for a full rotation of Puppet scenes which were also very physical - even though the puppets don't initiate any movement. Those puppeteers are busy.

We then practiced the Irish Drinking Song before a full round of the 3-Line Drill. We finished the night with some Montage (although the camera had run out of battery charge by then).

Class August 15, 2007

Have you noticed that the performers in an Irish Drinking Song start to look like they're going to punch someone. Here, Gina, Sol, Scott, David, and Christine are belting out a song, but because this is Christine's first song, she doesn't appear quite as mad at Scott as all the others do. The album for this workshop is available on-line. We took advantage of the group being a little bit smaller to do some two person scenes. After our warm-ups, we got to a round of Mutant scenes and then a full set of Gibberish Switch. It's been awhile since we've been able to spend the time with these scenes, so it was great to see how well folks did with these 'old-timers'.

We followed up with our standard Irish Drinking Song, and then on to the 3-Line Drill. We finished the night with a couple sets of Montage, and I must say that the quality of the scenes are getting much better. Good work, everyone.

Improv Workshop August 8, 2007

Ah yes ... the ladies. All of the women in class gathered for a round of the Irish Drinking song. Later, all the men (including myself) performed together in our own drinking song. No question, the women kicked our asses. They sang beautifully, in rhythm and formed wonderful rhymes. I'm not even sure that all the men were singing the same song ... or at times whether we were in the same building. Sad.

You can find the rest of the pictures from this class are at our album. I didn't have the usual camera, so the resolution is a bit different on these photos. Actually, I didn't have a lot of the things I usually bring to class, like a lesson plan! So, we improvised the workshop, and in many ways it was one of the better classes (uh oh, this just encourages bad habits).

Also missing (I came to class directly from another appointment and was ill prepared) was my notebook, so I'm only working from my (very poor) memory - oh yeah, and the photos. I know we worked on a Repeating Scene, Changing Genre piece that was a lot of fun. Everyone did well with that one. We also had a gender based pair of Irish Drinking Songs. Did I emphasize how badly we (men) did?

The whole group did some 3-Line Drills and ended the night with quite a few rounds of Freeze Tag. As I mentioned before, this turned out to be quite a fun workshop.

Improv Workshop August 1, 2007

Scott and Jim are the players in a Pillars scene, with Allegra and Andy as the word-providing pillars. More pictures from this scene as well as all the other pictures from this workshop can be found at the online album. We had 18 people in class that night, and it started with the usual warm-ups, including a couple of rounds of 1-Word Story. After that, we started some scene work with a full rotation of Gift Giving. Next came Pillars as a rotation that everyone participated in, both as performers and as pillars. Then came Questions Only which we did in three groups.

At that point the pictures stopped, although I don't know if it was because of low battery power or lack of memory chip space. In my notes I see that we did a set of Irish Drinking Songs next, and then a set of Soap Opera scenes. I particularly like Soap Opera and hope to get some pictures from that exercise in the future.

Thanks everyone, for a very fun class.

Improv Workshop July 25, 2007

Mike taught the workshop on July 25th, filling in for me while I was out of town. From all reports, it was a great workshop, and I really appreciate him stepping in for me.

Thanks Mike!

Making a Sandwhich

Okay, this is a very silly entry about a personal bias in my own scene work. I found this blog posting which has pictures of some rather creative sandwiches. It doesn't take many workshops to learn of my tendency to start a scene by miming the making of a sandwich. From now on, I will have these pictures in mind during those opening offers.

Now I need to find a site on digging holes.

Link

Class July 18, 2007

Robyn, Li-At, Mark, Justin, and Karla in a Ritual scene - sweet! The album of pictures from this class is posted with comments so head on over there. This will be another short summary post.

After our warm-ups, we did a few rounds of ABCs, and everyone kept the pace up nicely. Then came a series of Ritual scenes where small groups showed us how to celebrate several holidays that no one had heard of before (Broken Zipper Day?). Irish Drinking Songs were sung, and then we ended with a set of Switch Dubbing scenes.

Class July 11, 2007

Once again, a great photo with everyone having a good time. Pictured are Ben, Kenna, Allegra, Ben, and Dustin singing the Irish Drinking Song. So, it's been awhile since my last update and I have a few workshops to catch up on. I thought I was done with summaries, but circumstances overtook me, and I'll be doing a quick summary of the next three classes.

The July 11th workshop has an album available with the pictures taken that night, so check that out.

After our warm-up exercises, we started working on Zelig, and then moved on to a series of 5-Letter Word scenes. Next came several rounds of Worlds Worst. We all sang the Irish Drinking Song, and then the more advanced 3-Line Drills. We ended on some rounds of Freeze Tag.

Class June 27, 2007

An Irish Drinking Song with an enthusiastic audience! Andy, Kathy, Ben, Jim, and Ben are singing for Justine and Susannah with Alan directing. Hopefully, this will be the last Workshop report that is just a brief overview of the night. With this entry, I'm finally caught up on the backlog. Don't forget to check out the album of pictures for the night.

We started with Counting Words scenes (well, the first scenes after our warm-ups). After that, we did something fairly new for us: 3-Headed Conversation. Six people play 2 characters, where each character consists of 3 people talking one word at a time (a la 3-Headed expert). It created some very interesting conversations.

We sang an Irish Drinking Song and then had a chance to try a set of Sound Effects scenes with random, prerecorded sounds. That went pretty well and helped me straighten out some problems from our last attempt.

We finished with a set of Entrances and Exits. There was a lot of great frenetic activity in those scenes.

And that brings us current on the workshop reports!

Class June 20, 2007

We had 19 people in class this night, and it's amusing to me that we consider that a small class. This picture shows Marika, Kathy, Dustin, and David in a Defining Environment scene. You can see Sol's legs behind David. Once again, for the sake of catching up on my backlog of workshop postings, I'm going to briefly summarize the games we did for the night. The pictures from the night are collected in an album that you can view.

After our warm-ups, we did a set of Define Environment scenes. I think everyone had a good time with those scenes, especially the one where Andy started off dancing on a stripper's pole. Lots of tippers in that scene.

Next was Attitudes in which everyone did well, followed by our singing a Ho-Down. That also went well.

The advanced portion of the night saw our traditional 3-Line Drill, and once again we were able to fit in a Montage.

Thanks again for another fine night.

Class June 13, 2007

This picture is from our warm-up, the 1-Word Story, with Mark, Adam, Sharon, Mike, and Tina. The pictures from this week's class (which are in an album) are a bit different. There were very few large group photos, and a lot of individual shots. I've gotten pretty far behind in the workshop reports, so I'm just going to recap the work that we did so that I can catch up.

The night's work was pretty traditional. Our scene work started with a set of 5-Letter Word scenes and then moved on to Counting Words. We sang a set of Irish Drinking Songs. We practiced a set of 3-Line Drills and then we had the chance to work on open scenes with a Montage structure. I was pretty happy that we got to the Montage because the more experienced players have been needing to work on their open scene skills.

And that's a brief review of the night.

July 4th Class CANCELLED

Based on an informal poll of some of the class, I've decided to cancel the workshop scheduled on the 4th of July. I'm sorry we didn't get this announed earlier, but I just hadn't realized that the 4th fell on a Wednesday this year. We'll be back for our regular workshop on July 11!

Class June 6, 2007

I think this picture captured the essence of the last class. It's from an Animal Transform scene with Scott as a baboon, Dustin as a hyena, Jim is a chick, Justin is an owl, and Mark is a termite. It was that kind of night. You'll find the rest of the 111 photos from the night at the album. We had 30 people in this class, and I think it moved along fairly well for being so large. We had 6 people with us for the first time, and so welcome to Susana, Justin, Lilly, Ellah, Spenser, and Todd. We never had to coax any of the new folks onto the stage. They were ready to jump in with the rest of us and it was great to have such new and energetic players.

Warm-ups consisted of Character Intro, Enemy-Defender, Whoosh-Bang-Pow, and a set of 1-Word Stories. After a brief "Intro to Basic Improv" speech we were off to our first stage work of the night: a set of Yes And scenes. It's more of an exercise than a performance piece, and everyone enthusiastically set to work trying to sell the most ridiculous of products (although I'm assured that there really is musical underwear).

Next we got to a favorite of mine: Animal Transform. This piece is meant to explore characters and get a player away from their normal biases in creating a character. The range of animals was fairly diverse, but what I thought everyone did really well was stay away from weird, animal-human hybrids. Once folks transformed to humans, I thought they were all fairly believable humans. They had characteristics influenced by the animals, but were not part-animal. That's a subtlety often missed.

Next was a set of Irish Drinking Songs, and I think everyone redeemed themselves from the last week. I'm less concerned with how well everyone hits all the notes (although that is helpful) as I am that everyone keeps to a beat and gets their lines out (rhyme or no rhyme). That helped to make it fun.

I decided to forgo the advanced work this week and instead do one more large group exercise, Entrances and Exits. The scenes were quite fun and everyone kept their energy high even though it was the end of the night.

And so it was a very good night!

Class May 30, 2007

A bit late on the posting for this class, but the pictures are now available in the on-line album: all 140 of them! This shot was from the 1-Word Story warm up at the beginning of class. The night started off with a fairly standard set of warm-ups: Character Introductions, Pass the Clap, and 1-Word Story. Scene work started with a pretty good set of Tag Out Stories, and I think all the groups kept their energy accelerating through their scenes.

Next was a series of Superhero scenes. I thought the Superhero names were very clever (Black-Eyed Susan, Mismatched Lingerie Man, and Mrs. Grumpy Pants being my favorites) and everyone took their superhero name endowment to heart really well.

A series of Panel of Experts scenes followed with the topics Beekeeping, Vacations, Glass, and Sororities/Fraternities. Pretty good characters, and we need to work on getting those characters to have interesting history with and feelings about each other.

Also that night, we tried to introduce a song that's pretty new for most of the players - the 50's Do-wop Song. Let's just say that was a challenge for me as well as for all the players. What it pointed out (to me anyway) was that we've become rather accustomed to the Irish Drinking Song and need the challenge of a new piece to get us out of our complacency. We will revisit this song in later workshops and work out the kinks!

We ended the night on a Double Blind Freeze Tag. I like this version of Freeze Tag because it forces everyone into a scene, and forces everyone to call out a "freeze". Both skills are needed to participate in the more traditional Freeze Tag.

And that was the night!

Class May 23, 2007

I don't know why I find this image so appealing, but I do. In the background, I'm setting up a Playbook scene with Sol, Mark, and Ben. But there's Mike, looking good for the camera. The other pictures from this class (127 of them!) can be found in the album.

We had a smaller and more experienced group this night, so we got in a few more smaller group scenes. After a warm-up of Pass the Clap and 1-Word Story, we started the scene work with some Last Letter scenes. My favorite scene in this set took place at the Renaissance Faire with Eric, Mark, and Andre. Mark, who was trying to play a woman in the scene, had a unique way of emphasizing his non-intuitive gender.

We then moved on to a series of Sound Effects scenes which I intended to be based on a set of random, recorded sound effects. For a couple of scenes this worked wonderfully. But then, the battery ran out on my ipod, and we were left with the more traditional, mouth based sounds. However, I think everyone agreed that the scenes with the technical effects were great - so we'll be trying that again.

We moved on to three person Playbook scenes (also known as Actor's Nightmare). There were some very intense scenes in that set, and since I'm sure that describing those scenes won't do them justice, I'm not even going to try. But I'm really glad those scenes happened.

We also got in a round of Irish Drinking Songs. Since this is an experienced group, I'm sorry we didn't try a new song. I believe it's time to bring back a few of the more difficult song rotations to keep challenging all the players.

We got in a set of 3-Line Drills, and then we did a few rounds of Montage. As I mentioned last week, it's time that we started using some of the skills we've been practicing and move into multi-scene structures. This week, we re-introduced basic scene transitions and sequences of open scenes. We'll work on these structures for the next few weeks.

That's it for this week!