THE SAME PAGE The team met last night to discuss a few things. Like I was saying in my last entry, I'm worried that I'm pushing things on the group that aren't what we want to be doing. I also was worried that I'm trying to organize things too much - I'm not the voice of Kissing George by any means... To my surprise, everyone's really into performing more and doing more with the group. We discussed future gigs, press kits, festivals, websites... things that established groups talk about. We've only been together for six months. I like the attitude and drive of the group a lot. Hell, after six months The Sidewalk Ends were lucky to still be communicating with one another and perhaps rehearsing. BLENDING INTO THE WALLS Is what I've apparently been doing on stage. I really don't feel comfortable being the focus of attention in our new forms, and so I've been playing a lot of support characters. I like playing them, mainly because I have a little time to figure things out before I have to be on stage doing something. It's the visual person in me, Joe Bill would say. I want things to look right, so I need that time to prep. And these people are fun because I get to help shape the "main" characters into the people that they are. Kissing George is filled with people who will take focus - we are often fighting to be heard and talk over one another because we're trying to grab center stage... Which can cause clusterfucks, but then again, we're never without something going on. We're aggressive on stage. I think I used to be a lot more aggressive than I am now, but the longer I work with the team the more it's tempered. I once got a note that I was an "alpha-male" - not meant as criticism, merely an observation - but I've always taken it in a negative sense. Improv's about give and take, not domination. I know that I don't initiate verbally and that's a problem. There's a lot of very strong verbals on the team and I tend to get buried. I really don't want to slip back into my slamming-head-into-brick-wall phase since I'm starting to feel better about what I'm doing on stage. Mark insists that I'm doing good work, but if I'm only doing support work than I'm merely supporting other people's good work. And that's frustrating. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY 1. Kissing George is breaking into new comedy territory with ground shaking new bits about child abuse, suicide, and alcoholism. We are a friggin' LAUGH RIOT. 2. I cannot sit down in rehearsals. I lose all my energy because I get myself nice and relaxed to listen to what people are saying. Then I get back on stage and suck. I had the same problem in college sitting in class. They made me fall asleep. It's hard to sleep in an acting class, but I've done it.... (and a big apology to David Downs who was so very patient with me.) 3. Remember that it's a privilege to be on stage. I don't think enough improvisers really appreciate the teams they're on or the people they perform with. You should. 4. Thursday is Fuzzy's birthday. Happy Birthday, Fuzzy! Required viewing: Bare Essentials Theater That's all I have to say about that. BIG BOWL OF ROBOTS Aside from a small house, (though bigger than the past few Playground shows I've been to) the second Big Bowl of... was a good time. Black & Tan - Simone and Dave Gilley in a long two person scene. Excellent play between the two as they explored the relationship between a married boss and a secretary with confidence problems. I missed the very beginning of their piece because I was fiddling with the box office, but they latched on to their characters early on and over the course of the 30 minutes gently morphed the emotional states and personalities back and forth. While Dave is a talented improviser, Simone clearly drove the piece the entire time. She's very endearing to watch, and has a knack for physical comedy both on a large and small scale - her facial expressions got some of the biggest laughs of the piece. I highly recommend catching these two if they choose to continue performing as Black & Tan. Sybil - It's quite captivating to watch Andy Eninger run himself ragged on stage in Sybil. Having seen him do this form before, I'm always amazed at the incredible amount of energy it requires to do an entire improvisation by himself. The characters are fully realized and unique, and despite the time it takes Andy to switch from one person to the next, the piece has a wonderfully smooth flow to it. Andy wove a wicked little tale of an sweet, elderly woman with a knack for knocking off her husbands in "accidents". My favorite character was the second husband - a French harpsichordist that spoke with an English accent (as he had been talk to speak British English) who found himself married to darling Betty after some serious drinking. Flashlight Theater - We did it, and it was kind of weird. I liked playing around with it much more in rehearsal and felt that with an audience it really wasn't as effective as it could be. I think it's a neat rehearsal tool, much like the Bat is a neat rehearsal tool, but as something of entertainment, it kind of left me thinking we'd done a big gay opening in the dark. But, you live and learn. A fun second show. Except... I really hate emceeing these things. I'm not very good at it and I feel dorky on stage. Dorky and nervous. IMPROV AT THE NOTE Teammate Patrick scored us a great gig at The Note, a bar in the heart of Bucktown. Starting at the end of March, we'll be hosting our very own weekly improv show on Tuesday, with two guest ensembles. I like that we're finding opportunities outside of the Playground. We're definately moving into a new level of improv as a team, which is exciting and worrisome. It means that while we have fun doing what we're doing, there's going to be an element of work that wasn't there before. We're beyond the six-month mark, but fresh into new territory - one that requires a different kind of commitment to performing - one that spawns PR and press kits, mailing lists and organization. Odd. GOODBYE AND HELLO Simone officially quit the team this past week. I was pretty upset at first, but that's mainly because I was overreacting to the change. Teams have a weird, delicate balance to them - sometimes roster changes completely destroy them, sometimes they hardly effect them. Who knows... Marc Ovies is back from an extended vacation (his Second City show is over) and ready to get back to work with the group which is neat. I haven't rehearsed with him in months, so it's kind of like getting a new teammate. OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO Had lunch with Ms. Bills today and we did our typical improv gossip. She's done with 5B, performing with SPREAD, joined up with the women of Red, possibly doing some exciting things at the Annoyance... Allison's my bookmark, improv-wise. We started classes at the same time, played on our first IO Harold team together, blah de blah blah. I guess I'm not too surprised to see the different directions this big world of improv is taking us in, and I'm happy that we're out of the gates of the first year. Even though I complain about a lot of things, I feel that I'm pretty lucky when it comes to the opportunities I've been given in this community and the experience that I've gained. I know that Ms. Bills and I won't be too much farther along than where we're at in five or ten years, but it will be interesting to see the places we'll go... THINGS I LEARNED TODAY 1. There is no such thing as free time in improv. If you want a weekend to get away or a night off, you have to fight pretty damn hard to get it. It's easier to win the lotto. 2. A wad of Kleenex is gross. A big wad of imaginary improv Kleenex is really funny. 3. If you want to be a part of Screw Puppies, wear a big stupid hat. You may not get to be on stage, but you'll definately be a part of the show. Required viewing: Pants Happy! And that's all I have to say about that. WHY? Been pondering the question - Why do people want to see improv? Not performers, mind you. But the average Joe audience member - what is it about improv that is entertaining? I think back on my days working the box office at IO and seeing the different people that would wander in for shows. There's a high percentage of friends and family in that mix, another percentage of people who think they're going to see sketch comedy and then the curious, interested people... I think the secret to enjoying improv is watching the truth of it unfold on stage. Wacky characters and cheap bits are funny, but reality and honesty are the things we value the most from a show. They're what catch my attention when I sit in the audience. I've seen a lot of improv devoid of truth lately - from some very talented teams and improvisers - and it's disappointing. WHAT Is the future of improv? We're missing an element of experimentation and creation lately... and seem stuck and intent on ancestor worship of Del in the form of the Harold. The Harold wasn't all that Del did for us, so why are we intent on shaping the world of improv around one single form? It's a training wheel - throw it away after a while and think for yourselves! There is a laziness that is running rampant in our community. Just like the individual performer, we're all stuck at that growth plateau - we know what works for us and have fallen back on our strengths instead of working through a rough spot. We are lucky, as improvisers, to have so many talented people teaching and coaching us in our performance efforts. They, more than anyone, need to step up to this challenge and fill the void that Del left behind. CHILDREN OF A REVOLUTION It's time to change what we've got. I know you're out there. I know you feel confined to your artistic cages. Make something happen. There's nothing to stop you. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY I've got a lot of questions about what's going on in improv. I don't know if I can do anything to answer them completely, but I'm going to keep asking them until somebody listens to me. That's the opposite, I guess, of learning something - but I think the most important thing you can do in life, not just improv or acting or whatever, is to question what is already there. If nobody challenges the status quo, how can we ever figure out what's beyond it? Required reading: Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck My newest reading project, partially because I love Steinbeck, partially because I was forced to read snippets of it in high school, but never the entire book. It's short, it's got the same kind of feel to it that Kerouac's On the Road does, except there's a dog and a lot less drugs. There is an important message in it as Steinbeck is speaking with an actor - never discount your audience. They're not stupid, they're not unrefined - they may be different, but if the body of work that you present to them is valid and interesting, it won't matter who they are. They will listen. That's all I have to say about that. 3/2/00 SIRENS I must extend my congratulations to the women of Sirens for raising a lot of money for Gilda's Club in their 24 hour LAUGH benefit. Nice work, and I look forward to it again next year. :) VOODOO PORK I went to the Kids in the Hall show last Friday... it was really neat to see them on stage, but especially neat to see the amount of crazy fans that showed up to see them. Comedy deserves that kind of appreciation. The show was decent, mostly a rehash of their more popular characters. I was most impressed by "Jesus 2000" and "The Power of the Suburbs" montage at the end of the show; I could have done without Buddy Cole's monologue and the Chicken Lady. While the group was so excellent doing sketch on the television show, I was more impressed with their character work. It's the reason they come off as well as they do (that and the fact that they've been doing those same characters for a really long time...) - they have the subtle nuances down, the timing, the details in order. It's something that we don't always get the opportunity to do in improv - but we should. I don't like the Chicken Lady, I don't find her funny, but I was impressed with all the little elements that Mark McKinney puts on her - the walk, the clucks, the way she sits in a chair. There has to be a happy medium in improv, I guess - I freak out about the content of the scene and what's going on so much that many times I leave these elements of character out, and just go back to being Megan on stage. There's nothing wrong with the character of me on stage, it's just not always the most interesting... OWN YOUR INNER PRICK Started class with Rob Mello on Sunday. It's a little experiment of his - Meisner for improvisers... I've been through a basic one-shot workshop with Rob before. Meisner is a difficult technique to own up to, but an effective one to use, I think. It provides you with an immediate response recognition - you answer the "how do I feel about this person?" right away and react accordingly. And that's kind of the basics of improv - action, reaction, reaction.... so on and so forth until the edit happens. The problem with marrying Meisner with Improv is that there are rules and shortcuts that we, as improvisers, tend to rely on to keep everybody on the same page. That's the hitch of it. It does, however, bring me one step closer to answering the problem I had in the last section of this entry. It also tends to make me cry a lot. Oh well. I'll get over it. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY I'm 24 years old. I never pictured at this point in my life that I'd have a stockbroker working for me and be taking advice from a guy named Rocco. Required viewing: Big Bowl of Voodoo That's all I have to say about that. BIG BOWL OF VOODOO Aside from a very light house, Fuzzy and I pulled off another quality show. We ended up doing a little last minute shuffling of the groups to accommodate people, which led to a running order I wasn't entirely pleased with, but things still came across well. Kissing George: Our first attempt at the Rashomon in front of an audience. It's a fun, quick form at the moment that takes the events in one large scene and focuses in on three separate points on view in later "playback" scenes. Our suggestion for a setting was a laboratory, the initial scene got off to a slow awkward start and then sped through the conflict and character interactions way too fast. Of the five of us on stage, four were scientists which didn't lead to a whole lot of variation in point of view or status. Fuzzy, thank God, decided to play a janitor. Then we took it from my point of view (although it appears that he actually pointed at Emily, but I misunderstood), Bill's point of view, and the janitor's point of view. Unfortunately, there wasn't much variation between mine and Bill's as we were both playing relatively the same person. All in all, it went too fast and the team didn't invest in what was going on. But... the form has the glimmerings of something bigger and more interesting. While it will never be our main form, it would be something to build on and put on stage every once in a while... Thankfully, this is the last Big Bowl of... Kissing George will play in for a while. I hate having to perform, host and run things as I'm sure Fuzzy hates performing, working lights and running things. It's distracting and I find I really don't want to be on stage. I was also a little disappointed in the attitude my teammates have had towards these Big Bowl of... shows. It seems they see the show as a "gimme" and don't really seem to put in their best effort because of it. But enough about that... Black Uterus: While these lovely ladies really didn't have a "form" per se, they put on a really great set. Frances, Angela and Claudia are very funny women and all three do the same thing extraordinarily well - they latch on to a character instantaneously. All three established who they were and what their relationship was within the first 5 seconds of their scene. Their games were clearly defined and heightened. The improv basics were well covered and they were entertaining. It was simple and not cluttered up with rules or elaborate form. Most of all, all three seemed to have fun onstage and the audience had a lot of fun watching them. That's honestly the most important thing to me as a producer. Cinco de Bob: Cinco tried out a new longform they've been playing with based off of improvised storytelling. I must say, their opening stage picture and presence is very striking and adds a more theatrical, serious note to the improv that they do within the main body of the form. The way the initial event described in their opening is explored is very interesting as well - the scenes branch out of the main body of the story more than building upon the momentum of previous scenes as seen in most montage forms. The content of their show was good - although I must add that it seemed that one member of the team was performing in a different show altogether, not listening, not watching his teammates. That's always a little sad to see from the audience. You feel bad for the rest of the team because you've been in their shoes before, watching a well crafted, slow scene get demolished by a crappy walk-on. Ah, well, back to my main point - it's definitely a form that Cinco should try again. STAT: Their show was very good, high quality scene work. An interesting form, with scenes overlapping one another, a technique that reminds me of some exercises Joe Bill likes to use to teach heightening. The personalities of the three seemed to drive the piece from a high energy, slightly hopeful feel to a much darker place. Watching Tim, Josh and Scott was kind of like watching three roommates that have lived together for a really long time - they like each other, but they also really like to make life hell for the other two. Tim was the innocent one, Scott was the problem child and Josh was the disgruntled, angry one. I've watched them on Black Sheep before and I get a different vibe, but I guess that's the beauty of their group. It's strange how transparent the improv veneer can be sometimes - I'm not saying that Josh is always angry or Tim is naive - but that sometimes the emotion a performer drives on stage is not necessarily telling of the emotion that is currently driving the performer. I was pleased with the quality of work that was presented on stage. The nature of the night is to experiment, and I'm very happy that we provided that opportunity to the Cincos and Frances & Co. But... The other point of Big Bowl of... was to give existing "experimental" groups/forms an audience, of which last night's show was sadly lacking. I want to thank those performers that brought their friends and neighbors (especially Scott of STAT) to watch. Fortunately, we made our rent. I understand that Chicago is a town that is CHOCK FULL of improv shows. Shit, there's something going on every night someplace. I understand that people get sick of asking their friends and neighbors to come to their shows, I know I do, especially when they've got to pay to get in. But I don't understand that when I offer performers the opportunity to comp as many people as they like in, why they don't take me up on it. I don't understand why people experimenting with forms (Kissing George included) aren't excited to show people what they've been doing. Why do it at a show? Just stick to rehearsal. I know that it takes a while to build an audience, but I was really embarrassed by the light house I had to offer my performers. I hate feeling like I'm seven years old and nobody came to my birthday party. That's me being too hard on myself, however. Ack. TONIGHT Kissing George has another show, this time a guest slot at the Playground. I'm a little nervous because we're flying solo - Mark's got his own rehearsal to be at for Black Sheep, so we're coachless. I'm tired and the team could use probably use a good kick in the ass, especially since our gig at The Note is coming up fairly quickly and we're down two members. JAMAICA I'm going to Jamaica, due to the financial wizardry of Mark. First class all the way... thanks, baby. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY 1. Improv hangovers exist. 2. I freak out about weird things the older I get. Checking accounts and airplane trips just to name a few. 3. Some people live all their lives with big holes in their hearts. It's pretty amazing, when you look at a sample... I sat through the medical students' lecture on congenital heart disease today (it's part of my job, don't ask how it relates to improv because it doesn't). All of the information will be filed by my brain in the category of "Things Meg shouldn't think about too much because they'll cause her to freak out". I trust that my body can run it's own affairs, or at least, I hope it can... Required Reading: Peter Gwinn's Notes on TourCo Auditions That's all I have to say about that. HAROLD Seems that there's been a lot of talk about the Harold lately. I want to clarify a few points from my previous posting and add a few more observations in response to the email I've received and the other websites I've read on this subject... I'm not attacking the Harold. It is a very good training form, built off the basics of a short play, something everyone is familiar with. I worked with it on my first team at the Improv Olympic. The Harold was tremendously beneficial to us because we really had no idea what we were doing and needed the training wheels that it provided. It provides a focus and form to improvisation, both of which are essential to a coherent show. I feel, however, that the Harold is a form that is prone to bits and cheap laughs. Organic group games often turn into wading through the Rule of Threes or bring in a quick joke to get the team through the "gay" part of the form. It seems there is no time for slow, grounded scene work when so many beats have to be brought back. A team that doesn't have the patience to wait for their teammates to get the audience to laugh (or throw beer bottles or hiss or whatever) often tries to overcompensate by pulling the next scene out of Wackyland. This is true of other forms as well, but the Harold overall doesn't seem to be grounded in reality - it tends to lean towards UPN sitcom. I remember the first show with the Sidewalk Ends that we tried to think outside our Harold box, after we'd been together for about seven months. It was disastrous and exhilarating. The ability to try something new was pretty great, unfortunately we were so tied up in the rules of the Harold that we were incapable of continuing after we'd taken our risk. We had no flexibility, even though we desperately wanted it. We had no idea there could be improv beyond the Harold, and I criticize that way of thinking. That's actually my main beef with Harold - improvisers limit themselves to only doing the form, coaches limit themselves to only teaching the form. It makes sense to do that at IO, mainly because you're put on a Harold team, advertised as a Harold team and introduce as a Harold team. So naturally, you should do a Harold. BUT... It's never too soon to experiment with what a form can be or what you can do onstage as an improviser. Sometimes your experiment will succeed, most often times it will be less than great. Along the way, you might find something that suits your team or your own style of improvisation better than what you originally started with. And yes, it is WORK. People probably won't get it at first, but I'm sure they didn't get the Harold at first either. Yes, I'm a relatively young improviser with about a year and half's worth of experience with improv, form, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. I'm still learning what it is to improvise and how to find the truth in comedy. I'd like to direct my arrogance for one moment at the statement - "You can learn the basics from doing the Harold". Sure. You can learn the basics of the Harold by doing the Harold. If you want to learn the basics of good scene work and how to develop yourself as an actor and improviser, don't look for the "basics" in any given form, especially not the Harold. That's bullshit. Take an acting class. Go to the Annoyance or Susan Messing at IO and develop your strengths as an individual improviser. As much as we don't like to admit it, improvisers are actors that don't use scripts. Doesn't it make sense to learn how to be an actor? That's where you get the "basics". THEATER VS. COMEDY After a less than great Kissing George show (I'd honestly say our worst to date, since we've started), the debate erupted during notes (sans coach I'd like to add.... <minor rant mode on> While I know we're going to have to deal with this in the future, the team is not a point yet where operating without a coach during a show is a good idea, especially with the form we employ. I know the reasons behind his absence and so I'm not going to criticize, but as a team member I am a little bit angry. <minor rant mode off>). Is improv theater or comedy? I contend that improv is theater and that the focus of a show should not be getting laughs, as my teammate insisted, but doing good scenes. It should be fun, it should be playful, but it certainly shouldn't be trying to force laughs out of the paying customers. I think that one of the most harmful things about improv is that we bill it as comedy. We prime audiences with the notion that they're gonna get a bunch of laughs because, hell, they're doing comedy. We're not clowns, we're not stand-up comics. We're improvisers. I know that my opinion is not one shared by the general improv community, but I honestly don't care. I think back on the improv shows I've seen - Armando, JTS Brown, Screw Puppies, a bazillion Harolds in the Cabaret, a bazillion sets at the Playground - and my favorite moments were not created through anything absurd or "comic" - they were generally real moments, emotional moments, maybe even dramatic moments. I respected those improvisers and teams for giving me something to think about, instead of another wacky set-up. I like that theaters like the Improv Olympic present the best of both worlds. Yes, yes, I know I bash many things that IO does, but it should be noted that they do a lot of things right too. Namely, they've got the Harold thing going on downstairs - that's where the bits and cheap laughs can exist - but they're doing theatre upstairs in the aptly named Del Close Theater. 5B shows are theater, gentle readers, JTS Brown (while not an IO group, per se) was theater. They're almost like plays - the Prisms and Slam Dunks and Sex Wars and Armandos... and the reason that they're as good (or as bad) as they are is because they're not about getting laughs. They've got a loftier purpose in mind. As should the improv community... we are still relatively young as far as artforms go. We've seen our first few generations of heros marked in the successes of our founders. There's so much more to do and see, why stop here? WHAT I LEARNED TODAY 1. I'm making more and more enemies every day with this little website. Which either means I'm a really big bitch who's out to wreck improv, or I'm pushing the right buttons. 2. The more I listen to people talk about improv, the more I wonder why non-improvisers want to watch improv. 3. Not really something I learned, but a big congrats to everybody who auditioned for TourCo last week. Whether or not you got called back, I hope it was a good experience. That stuff can be pretty scary, so good for you. Required Reading: Edible Improv I'm sure that's not all I'll have to say about that.
2/1/00
We've hit the second month of the millennium. I'm still waiting for something cataclysmic to happen. Y2K sure looks more devastating in the movies.
8pm - Thursday, February 4th
@ The Playground
Admission: $5
Other groups: St. John's Wort, Red
2/10/00
Ah... Another Big Bowl of has come and gone. I really like doing that show.
Thursday nights thru March 2nd @ IO, 10:30pm
Admission is absolutely free
I haven't yet seen this, but I do like seeing Jason & Mulhern & Pat Shay perform. It's free... what do you have to lose, really?
2/21/00
Gah - I haven't written in a while... sorry. It's not for lack of things to say, that's for sure...
About time I got my butt back to writing this thing...
March 8th, 8pm @ The Playground
Admission: $5
Featuring: STAT, Kissing George, Cinco de Bob, and Black Uterus
3/9/00
Another Big Bowl of... completed. I've got mixed feelings about this show.
Granted, the auditions are over (except for tomorrow's callbacks), but Peter has some good advice that can be applied to improv auditions in general.
3/13/00
Here's one of the musings that's been written as of late about the Harold from Ed O'Rourke.
