A Sort of Apology

This blog has been dormant for a while. It’s not because I have not been thinking about improv; I have. A lot. I just have had very little time to write those thoughts down and edit them into something coherent. I also had an intention to do some of them as video or audio, but this takes even more preparation and editing. I think in here is the essence of why I have done improv for so long, the fact that you just have to turn up. There is no script to learn, no props to bring, no specific outfit to have prepared.

Obviously, I have prepared. I have rehearsed a lot with the group ideally but even this is often just turning up and playing. And I have taken courses, etc to which I had to turn up and absorb. And play.

I am clearly ignoring a big part of the preparation for a show – someone has to find and book the venue, plan who is in it, promote it, organise guests, musicians or other external performers. And for rehearsals, someone has to find and book the venue, organise a coach, make sure enough people can come. But for people who are just players, a lot of improv is just turning up and being there. But it spoils you for when you have do something preparation-heavy such as acting or stand-up, or something post-performance heavy such as video making.

Anyway, this is turning into post rather than a brief note to say there will be more posts coming soon. (Cynical editor: Cue another long hiatus.)

Improvisation and introversion

It had been a good, fun show in a cheap room above a popular bar. Chatting with an audience member after, they suddenly said, “You must be an extrovert!” I was surprised at the time, but I’ve heard it enough since that I can now be all cool about it. It is a common assumption that performers are all extroverts. It makes sense. But as you probably know, many, many performers are the opposite. We’re introverts.

The stereotypes are that extroverts are all attention-seekers and introverts are all recluses. These are definitely extreme and narrow views. However, even the standard dictionary definitions of the words don’t do either side justice:

Extrovert: noun: an outgoing, socially confident person.

Introvert: noun: a shy, reticent person.

It gets worse when you look at the synonyms:

Extrovert: outgoing person, sociable person, life and soul of the party, socializer, mixer, mingler, social butterfly, socialite, party animal

Introvert: recluse, lone wolf, hermit, solitary, misanthrope, outsider

You’re either a mingler or a misanthrope!

Graphic by Allison Plume.

The common psychological definitions are somehow better and much less concrete:

Extrovert: A person predominantly concerned with external things or objective considerations.

Introvert: A person predominantly concerned with their own thoughts and feelings rather than with external things.

The original definitions, popularised by psychiatrist Carl Jung, were about where we focus our mental energy, and again a bit fuzzy:

Introverts direct their psychic energy inwards and extroverts, outwards.

Really, introvert and extrovert are best defined, as I see it, by answering this: where do you get your energy?

Extrovert: A person who gets energy from being with other people.

Introvert: A person who gets energy from being on their own.

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So an introvert can be happy in crowds, be the life and soul of the party, but they will go home for alone time to recharge, whereas an extrovert will get energy from being at the party and will get more quickly bored of being alone.

That is not to say people and parties can’t energise an introvert or that extroverts don’t like alone time. As we see with many human classifications, things are not defined as being completely one thing or another. We all have introvert and extrovert sides to us, but very often there is one end of the spectrum we tend to be. People you meet will never be entirely at the end of the in/extrovert spectrum as the extremes are actually disorders.

In a very unscientific poll of improvisers I made, the numbers of introverts and extroverts were pretty close, but over half the people identified as in the middle or ambiverts, having both sides in more or less equal amounts.

We’re currently experiencing a huge test of ex/introversion: the lockdown challenge. Those people coping very well, and even secretly enjoying lockdown more than they feel they should, are almost certainly introverts. If you were tearing your hair out after 2 hours, you are probably an extrovert.

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it’s very difficult to tell who is an introvert or an extrovert on stage. Especially with seasoned performers. But you might get an idea at an after party, but even then, not for sure. Plenty of introverts love being at parties; some will be the so-called life and soul of said same party. And it’s possible to be an extrovert AND shy and retiring.

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In the so-called “West,” we seem to favour extroverts. You are expected to be fun at parties, overjoyed to be part of a large crowd, and sparkling at interviews. And whilst you don’t have to be the life and soul of the office, it is frowned upon if you miss too many of the unnecessary meetings, social events, and teambuilding ordeals.

Improv, despite the fact a large number of performers are introverts, is really no different.

In fact improvisational theatre is often described in very extrovert terms. I was always told my energy should be outwards when improvising. It is definitely about focussing on other people. And of course we all know being in your head (a classic introvert move) is bad for improvising. All of which implies improv is for extroverts, even though a lot of us introverts are pretty good at it.

And offstage, there is a very social aspect to improv. It sometimes feels as though it is frowned upon if you go to very few social events and don’t hang out too much after shows. Of course, you should do some of that social stuff and many of us introverts enjoy it. Up to a point.

Nowhere is this more apparent than at improv festivals. I love festivals, but they are often framed as very social endeavours where there is an expectation that you will be there for every social activity, after party and meal. I do pretty well at festivals because socialising that much is a novelty and actually fun for a few days. Fun, but totally exhausting.

Now, it’s a fact of life that going to social events improves your integration into a community. There is probably no way to avoid this without devaluing human contact which is not my intention. I am all for human contact. But at some point, as an introvert, you’ve had too much of it, and you need crawl off back to your cave.

It does seem that extroverts rule the world, but that’s not surprising cos we’re pack animals and consequently social creatures and have built a society where social confidence is highly rated. Plus as an introvert I’d hate to rule the world. Far too many meetings.

My purpose here is not to vent; my only purpose with this post is awareness. (All right, maybe a little venting, but mostly awareness.)

It’s often hard for us to understand what goes on in other people’s heads as we tend to assume the other’s brain works the exact same way as our own, just with a different set of experiences. But given we had to program our own brain from scratch since the day enough cells fused together to make half a dozen synapses, it would be weird if two people did think alike.

What I would like ultimately is awareness that if someone leaves an after-party early whilst not being tired to the point of near death or so drunk they need to immediately check into a rehab clinic… or if they stay but are quiet or hard to talk to… they should not be considered anti-social, boring, reclusive, a bad member of the community or snooty.*

They might need to recharge their batteries.

Note: * Of course they might be one of these things as well or instead, but never assume. Be kind.

 

Sources

• If you want to read more about what makes an introvert an introvert, there is an excellent book on the subject called “Introvert: The friendly takeover” (“Introvert: Den tysta revolutionen”) by Swedish author Linus Jonkman.
• I found several useful articles on psychologytoday.com and psychcentral.com and the dictionary definitions are on lexico.com.
• And naturally, we leave the last word to Audrey Hepburn: “I have to be alone very often. I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel.”

IMPRO Amsterdam 2018 - Gotta get down on Friday

On Friday I took a workshop on hip hop improv because one should always push oneself. Plus it’s a workshop with a beatboxer in it, and pretty much anything without a beatboxer is lame. I won’t even go shopping these days without someone beside me laying down some dope beats.

The night started with Friend Friend, where two friends, Amy and Anna, channel their love for each other to portray a heart-warming array of characters. There is so much charm and calm joy on display here. You get drawn into the worlds they are themselves discovering and feel you’ve just watched a show of two people giving each other lovely gifts.

I'll Be There For You. (Photo by Marwan Youssef)

The second show was Stuck in the middle. In this show, one of the players is selected to be “stuck in the middle” which means they are on the stage the whole time and it’s up to the other players to start scenes with you, to look after you, and to mess with you. I was blessed enough that day to be the one selected.

You know that feeling when you are in a toy store and one of the staff comes up and says “here’s a large scale millenium falcon, play with this” and then when you’ve had a little fun another comes up and says “here’s a lego castle, play with this” and shortly after another appears and says “here’s an classic Atari console fully loaded with Ms Pacman…” (Let me know if my references are dated at all.) Anyway if you can understand the concept of this then you understand what it’s like to be the chosen one in this format. A gang of talented performers give you a selection of awesome gifts and the main thing you have to do is react  I’m still a little hyper from it all.

We'll be there for you (Photo by Marwan Youssef)

After all this fun, there was more fun. A choice of fun. There was The Final Gig, a duo show showing the final concert of a legendary, nonexistent musical pairing, with great singing and high emotions.
The other show was Decibel, a Franco-Finno trio who combine mime and acrobatics with their improvisation. And I really do mean acrobatics, I’ve never seen a group, climb, carry each other and tumble with such ease. They also do the one of the seemingly most difficult improvisational skills: not speaking. Also they had beatboxers guesting because, well, if you can you really really should.

This is the last time we'll be here.

IMPRO Amsterdam 2018 - Tales from the Garage

Flicker is a format by Katie and Chris of Project2 and one I was lucky enough to be in. The simple explanation is that half the scenes are played in the dark and the other half in the light. The scenes without light force you to use sound to create radio plays or soundscapes. They also hopefully remind you to be more physical in the scenes where people can see you. It certainly produced some fun scenes and made for a show with a strong visual identity.

Scene with the lights on (Photo by John Mabey)

The second half was given over to Dad’s Garage. Dad’s Garage are a theatre with a good reputation based in Atlanta in the US. What do they make in Dad’s Garage? Well, lots of things, but tonight two of them showed us Working Title, which is an improvised Hollywood movie. Using the language of movie scripts to help paint and link the scenes, they get a description of a hero from the audience and two very different locations and launch themselves into if. Our hero then somehow gets from the first location to the second one, far from home and what he knows. They hit all of the beats of a good script and clearly know their movie structure. So the show has a well-structured story with some action, a little romance, camera pans and a satisfying end where everyone feels good. But it’s all done with a ton of confidence and a lot of fun, discovering the story as they go and following the twists to their conclusion.

Lights on, cameras on, actions (photo by John Mabey)

After the main shows, there were 2 options as previously:

In one room, most of the cast of the main stage shows ganged up and threw down a show. It was basically a talented bunch of friends putting on a show simply for the joy of what they do.

In the other room, BAFNI from Scooby Doo, I mean BAFNI the Vampire Slayer, I mean BAFNI from The Czech Republic performed. They took stories from themselves and the audience to inspire them in all directions.

I know I promised lots of gossip, but I think everyone is too sleep deprived to cause scandal, or I’m too sleep deprived to notice it. All I can say is that in the green room there is a teddy bear groupie that partied way too hard this week.

Fight's on! (photo by John Mabey)

IMPRO Amsterdam 2018 - Mardi

Tuesday night began with The Ghost of Love, a format where 4 couples go on 4 very different romantic journeys. For each couple, two “ghosts” control them, mock them, add atmosphere, emotions and plot points. The ghosts leave the actors free to play the characters and situations and not worry too much (or anything) about the story, which is always helpful for an actor.

Ghosts, Actually. (photo by Robin Straaijer)

The resulting show was somehow very cinematic, touching and filled with metaphor and symbolism. The fact that all 4 paths were very different made this feel like a written piece. The paths were not just a new couple getting together, but an established couple getting over a rocky patch and a couple who has always been together who never experienced a bump, but were still a joy to watch. The fourth couple got together, but it didn’t work out, and this, more than anything, made it a well-rounded show. None of this, four neat, happy endings mulch. And seeing the characters in their couples (or not) in the final moments, dampened many a nasolacrimal duct.

L'Action (photo by Robin Straaijer)

From the joy and heartache of love, we moved on to the joy of joy. La Carpe Haute are from Strasbourg in the bit of France everyone thinks is in Germany. They do physical theatre with a ton of mime, clowning and plenty of heart and soul. If there is an object needed, they will not hesitate to demonstrate or be that object - whatever it is to make sure you know what that object is. There is never doubt. And even that object, no matter what it is, exudes joy. They love to play, they clearly love each other and they commit to whatever they discover about 104%.

To cap off the evening, there was a choice between two solo shows:

Las Vegas I Gave You My Heart (Photo by John Mabey)

The Laser Comedy Show by Chris Fair is comic book drawn right in front of you with the addition of sound. You’ll find comic books pretty lame after this.

The alternative was Trudy Carmichael Presents: The Improvised One-Woman Show, in which Robin Rothman plays a Las Vegas legend telling the improvised story of her life and career in between songs.

Lasers or divas, sometimes in life you have to choose between the two.

IMPRO Amsterdam 2018 - Opening night

Festivals should begin with a bang. That is unless you running The International Festival of Slow Fades, or Disappointed! The Festival for Mismanaged Expectations. (Both of which are great festivals, but I’ll discuss them another time I absolutely promise. Honest.) But this festival went for the tradition of bangular openings.

This show is the first chance for the general public to really see the ensemble cast. For this first show, everyone performed in their original teams. Each team has a show of their own later in the week. Except the Dutch who were only assembled as a team for this festival and are merely along for the ride. It's a kind of taster for the whole week.

(Also there is another team with a main-stage show that is not part of the ensemble, but I won’t mention that now to keep from confusing you. It’s Dad’s Garage.)

Each team showed off a bit of their style and were then given a second challenge to pay homage to another team, which got Americans being Australians, Australians being Dutch and the Dutch rapping. What could possibly go wrong?

Ouestern!

The second half of the show was given over to Project2 an English duo who improvise in the style of science fiction. It is fair to say they kicked the ball straight out of the stratosphere. A lot of improvised science fiction is goofy, soulless, gadget-obsessed parody. (Actually a fair few movies are too.) Katie and Chris (who are the current incarnation of Project2) are doing this out of love and respect. They know their science fiction. They might mock it, but they do it with love. They can find the funny, but they are not afraid to be truthful and their commitment cannot be questioned. The stories they weave and eventually manage to tie together contain so much human truth, that the end was a veritable burst of joy.

And all this with a superbly atmospheric live soundtrack by one half of noughties electronica duo Lemon Jelly.

Zombie vs Sentry Drone

Night at the Museum of Stories

After most of the shows this week, there is a choice of 2 late night shows. Firstly, there were Brazilian living statues with Museum of Stories. Yes those actual living statues you find in most big cities on the streets near the most touristy of spots were brought into theatres to be both statues and actors in scenes. Any improviser who has ever had to try and be still on stage for more than 1 minute can learn a lot from these guys.

And secondly there was some “playback theatre” from local group, Wordt Vervolgd (which means To Be Continued). Playback theatre is where the audience tells their stories and these are then recreated or interpreted on stage for fun or therapy.

In all a great official first night. Well up there with the opening night of Bangfest IV: The Bangening.

IMPRO Amsterdam 2018 - Secret Preshow

A festival the size of IMPRO Amsterdam doesn’t just happen because of the efforts of one person. There are scores of people who help make the magic happen. From the artistic team who decide which teams come to the people who wash the dishes after the performers have eaten. (Yes, this festival provides food for the performers. I know, right!)

As many of these volunteers as can fit in the chosen venue (about 50) are rewarded with an extra free show where they get to see the newly assembled team show what they can do. It’s a very nice pre-actual festival show. A time to really play with your new friends but without the pressure of a show in a 220-seater theatre.

And house spirit makes three.

The players were divided into two groups, spreading each of the national teams as evenly as possible between them. Each group played for 40 or so minutes. Showing off the mixed skills, styles, heights and accents of the cast. It’s hard to remember scenes in shows you were in, but from what I recall there were scenes about how accommodating French hairdressers can be to uncomprehending foreigners; haunted hotels where you can probably never leave; the difficulty of finding pets that will stick around; waiters caught between a hard chef and a gang of customers; the complexities and absurdities of negotiating a shoe shine; and the importance of light-switch positioning when taunting light-fearing demons. All very valuable lessons in life.

You actually can'r even check out anytime you want.

There was definitely a lot of not just playing well together but the joy of playing together on display. It all ended with a huge dance number including much of the audience, which, being almost entirely made up of improvisers, was more than will to join in.

It’s already uberfun and it’s not officially started.

Megajazzhands

IMPRO Amsterdam 2018 - introduction (not that it needs one)

In September last year, Theatersportvereningenamsterdam (TVA), organised a kind of knock-out competition to find who is the team to represent the Netherlands in this year’s IMPRO Amsterdam. The various gods of comedy smiled on me that night and I am to be part of the 6-strong cast of funny people who next week will, as they say, represent.

For those of you who don’t know IMPRO Amsterdam, shame on you. But, it doesn’t matter, it will happen without you knowing about it. And even if you know nothing about it, it doesn’t really need an introduction, all you need to know about it is in the title. And certainly if you use it’s full title, “Improvised Comedy Festival Amsterdam The Netherlands 2018.” (Which in Dutch would be “Improvisatiekomedietheaterfestivalamsterdamnederlandtweeduizendachttien” (IKTFANTTA).)

As last year, I intend to blog every day about the festival. This time from an insider’s perspective. As a performer at the festival. I’ll give my impression of the highlights, the lowlights, and the midlights. I’ll give you the low down, the goss, and the words from the streets. I give you as much as I can before I fall asleep through sheer exhaustion, because it’s quite a full-on week.

So, if you can’t make the festival, keep reading and live it through these words and occasional pictures. If you can make the festival, still keep reading and see if you agree with my twisted view of what happened. And if you are involved in making the festival happen, keep reading as all this is dedicated to you.

The Dutch cast: Jochem, Sven, Nardje, Huib, Nicole, and
Myself (winning the goofiest expression competition).

Personal Boundaries And The Stage

You are on stage in the middle of a scene. The other player is someone you have seen around but have not played with much before. The scene started fine, but somehow it seems to be going out of control and suddenly your scene partner is up very close and grabbing you. You feel uncomfortable but put it down to being inexperienced or that you missed something. After the show, rehearsal or workshop is over the incident sticks with you longer than you expect. Does this sound at all familiar to you?

An essential thing that is missing here is not experience; it is trust. A comparable interaction with an improviser you have played with a lot maybe does not bother you. The trust is there; you are looking out for each other.

In improv we spend a lot of time out of our comfort zone. So much so, that we can find it difficult to realise straight away when things go too far. It can be hard to differentiate between the discomfort of being on stage with no idea where the scene is going and the discomfort of doing things that are crossing personal boundaries for you.

For some things, the best illustrations come from workplace stock photos.

There is a difference. On a low level, it feels different. But it may get mixed in or confused by the higher part of your brain with everything else that is going on.

Things that cross personal boundaries are varied. They are things like physical closeness, bodily contact, especially if not gentle, and things that are more intimate. It can also be of being in a scene where the content is uncomfortable somehow. Mostly I’ll be talking about physical contact as this is where the greyest area is. I’m not even talking about when it is actually violent, dangerous or genuinely sexual as this is never okay.

We all have boundaries about these sort of things. They vary for different people; they vary by situation; they vary depending on who else is in the scene, who is in the audience, and what has happened that day. And it’s made harder because when you begin, most of improv is putting yourself out of your comfort zone.

But these boundaries exist and they should be respected. By yourself as well as others.

As I said, we tend to blame ourselves that we aren’t better improvisers or that we didn’t understand what was going on. And worse, scene partners can also often blame us if we don’t fully go along with where they thought the scene was heading.

A very clear example of what I’m talking about is being handled roughly in a scene, say grabbed forcefully. This will almost certainly cross a boundary in the other player if you don’t know each other so well and haven’t discussed this sort of thing.

Sometimes, players do realise their boundaries are being crossed on stage and their response is influenced by that. But even here, there is a tendency for the performer to criticise themselves for their response and even for the other player to do so too.

This scene has been recreated by actors.

Let’s take as a specific example, Augustine has gone to touch Bertha’s hair and Bertha, not feeling comfortable with this, has leant back to avoid the touch.

A frequent response to this is afterwards for Augustine to complain that Bertha blocked him. Which is not true. You can say that Bertha yes-anded their own sensibilities (boundaries), and, indeed, that of the audience, who would not want to see a player truly uncomfortable.

Now, was Bertha overriding Augustine’s offer with her own internal impulse? I say no. The impulse was a reaction to the offer.

Yes, in  a different situation, if Bertha trusted Augustine more, she would have possibly allowed him to touch her hair. But this is irrelevant. What matters is what happens in the scene between these players at this moment.

The problem here is not Bertha’s reaction to the offer, but Augustine’s response to Bertha’s reaction. If Augustine was paying full attention to Bertha, he should have realised Bertha’s response was due to boundaries being crossed. He could even have seen the signs before hemade the move and made a different offer that indicates the same emotion but less intrusively. Bertha’s response is an offer, and as it was so nicely put to me recently: “Your job as an improviser is to make your scene partner comfortable. If they feel uncomfortable or scared, you have failed.”

Augustine’s objection comes in part from only seeing his offer as he originally intended it. He is seeing his offer as “A touches B’s hair,” but this is presumptive. The offer is in fact, “A tries to touch B’s hair” and the response is “B avoids the their hair being touched.” In terms of wants of the character, there is no blocking. In fact it’s fine for two characters to want different things as long as they acknowledge the others want.

The real problem, of course, is the fact Augustine reached for the hair at all when Bertha wasn’t ready for it. It shows there isn’t a good connection between the scene partners and/or the offer to touch the hair really wasn’t the next step in a process of discovery by the two players in that a scene. In fact, in most cases this sort of thing happens because one actor is railroading the scene, pushing forward their own vision of what should happen whilst taking little input from the other player.

I’ve heard people explain that they went too far because they were “in the moment.” But “the moment” is not just whats going on in your head, it’s what is happening all around you, between you and your partner. Being so into something you are doing that you don’t notice your partner is NOT improvising.

Improv is about taking care of each other. It’s about paying attention. Inattentiveness is not an excuse. We have to be attentive: it is the CORE of what we do. If you are not paying attention how can you accept?

Being aware; Read signals; Always be respectful.

And this doesn’t just happen between actors who don’t know each other, it can happen between people in the same team, people who have played a lot together. As we said, it’s not about inexperience, it’s about not paying attention

If you do accidentally go too far, which can of course happen, you should be aware of it and adjust. Use the response from the other player in an accepting way, and most of all apologise after the scene. You might step over a line very occasionally, but have the awareness to realise it and the humility to apologise for it. The big problem is not that it happens at all, it’s when it happens frequently.

If you find yourself in the situation of being uncomfortable due to boundaries being crossed, don’t be afraid to let your scene partner know. Any good, attentive improviser should pick up on this and use your response as an offer and certainly they should not push further.

You are not being a bad improviser for not accepting something you feel highly uncomfortable with (i.e. something beyond any normal feeling of being out of your comfort zone in improv). As I have explained, this is usually not actually blocking.

What can you do if your signals are not seen?

• You can make them more obvious.
• Make an offer that deflects where the scene is going. 
• You can even call out the actor’s behaviour attributing it to the character.
• And if still, it continues, you can always leave the stage. No show is worth being made to feel unsafe for. Your integrity as a player is more important than the scene.

(These are easier said than done, I know, but it’s good to be aware of options.)

Players on the side can also help.

• Edit the scene and start a new one or tag one of the players out.
• Intervene as another character or voiceover.
• Bring it up after the show/rehearsal.

The audience will probably have sensed your unease and will not want it to carry on as it is. In fact, in cases like these, often only one person wants the scene to go the way it is going, and that’s the player forcing the offers.

This sort of thing affects us all, whether you are a victim or not. In fact, I’m sure more people have had this happen than you think. Maybe all of us. Not too long ago, I was groped on stage by an actor I did not trust who did it because he knew I would accept it and because he thought it was funny. (The audience did laugh, but mostly at the how weird and inappropriate it was.)

Discussing this sort of thing within you group, saying what people do and don’t feel comfortable with is the best way to raise awareness and prevent things going too far.

Everyone, especially more advanced players, should be more attentive to this sort of thing (and not just on stage). We should edit uncomfortable scenes, call-out inappropriate behaviour, remind everyone that this is a medium that only works when we work together. As always we should remember the words of the great guru, Gerald Springer, “Take care of yourself and each other.”

IMPRO Amsterdam 2017: Day 1: The Mondayening (part 1)

The performing part of the public festival started off with an open stage, where eager festival attendees can perform with each other and cast members. Unfortunately due to a scheduling conflict no cast members could be there, but 20+ eager improvisers of all levels from all corners of the globe did turn up. I made them play all those classic games you do when you start plus a couple of slightly harder ones which they all did with that spirit of fun that infuses much of improv.

Journey to the centre of the Earth.

You don’t really expect the first day of the festival to knock the ball out of the park, but there were a couple of moments where the ball got send way beyond the edge of the theatre and a metaphorical ballboy had to run off and get it.

The smoker takes it all... Gbgimpro sing "Smoking!" from the unmade musical "Smoking!"

Picnic Impro leave us speechless

In the first half, Each team got to show off what they do, that is what they will do in later shows. Well, kind of. The Swedes sang an amazing, stunningly-accurate high school musical song about smoking; the Dutch team (who actually don’t have their own show, but mix in with others) explored relationships at a typical Dutch celebration; the Portuguese performed a highly dramatic scene and then sang beautifully about it (in a classic Portuguese fado style); the Colombians told the story of 2 wrestlers coming together for a fight with no words, only phenomenal mime, clowning and acrobatics, aided by a sountrack. If I had to pick a highlight this would be it. Every now and again you see a set off skills on stage and you go to yourself, “I so wish I could do that.” This was such a moment for me.

Paul Dome reaches another
high point in his improv career

Team America are Big Bang (from Boston) who take the kinetic impulse and energy from the beginning of the universe and transfer it onto stage. They not only showcased their impressive brand of quick-fire, quick-change, energetic improv, but the also they threw in a rule whereby one of their players (Paul Dome) was not allowed to touch the floor for the entire set. What transpired was a hugely playful workout, not just for the other 2 players but also the audience who had to carry Paul all the way to the back of the room and back (to the front that is). In terms of committing whilst having fun with each other, they are a group hard to beat.

Because only half of the British duo was there, which is (2 multiplied by 1 over 2, carry the 1, round to the nearest decimal…) just 1; and Patti Stiles was there not with a team but with just herself (that's 1 minus 0 divided by 0, no that means there were an infinite number of Pattis); plus the Colombians had brought a Canadian to provide their soundtrack… these appeared together as The Commonwealth, which is the euphemistic title the British have for the collection of countries it obtained to enrich itself.

Patti and Charlotte get in deep.

Charlotte (UK) and Patti (CA/AU) played a scene inspired by music from Sarah Michaelson (aka DJ Mama Cutsworth, CA). This scene about a woman and her grown-up imaginary friend had that kind of genuine depth of exploration of what it is to be human you rarely find in an improv scene. Hell,you don't get it in movies enough. Again the poor ballboy had to run and fetch the ball.

IMPRO Amsterdam 2017: Introduction

This year I will be blogging (nearly) every day from IMPRO Amsterdam. For those of you who don’t know it, It’s one of the biggest and longest-running improvised comedy festivals in Europe. It’s also one of the best-organised and one that always has a great atmosphere (although I’m not sure which improv festivals don’t.) It runs for a week during the coldest part of the Amsterdam year and despite that attracts some top performers and teachers from all over this planet.

I’ll be attending shows, the odd workshop, and hanging out backstage and barside. I’ll be giving my opinion on what’s going on, mini reviews and I may even interview people. This in practice be more in the manner of getting drunk with people and asking them random questions.
[NOTE: this blog does not condone the use or abuse of alcohol or imply that its use has any relation to improvisation.] 

I’ll be posting here on my blog, the facebook page for that blog. Follow and like them to be kept up to the date.

And as well as me blogging during the festival there will be a podcast every day produced by the festival organisers interviewing (properly and soberly) members of the cast.

I’m already excited for this year’s festival. If you’re not, then you haven’t seen the list of people who are coming or are very jaded or are reading a blog about a subject totally alien to you.

If you don’t go, you can read all about it here. If you do, I’ll see you there. If I start slurring a random set of words at you in the small hours of the night, remember it probably means you’re being interviewed.
[NOTE: this blog really does not condone the use or abuse of alcohol or imply it should be used as a good technique for interviews.]

Ceci n'est pas un tour.

This blog is mostly my overly analytical thoughts on improv and occasionally opinions on shows I saw or workshops I took. Lately I've been doing a lot more travelling with improv and this side often doesn't get documented because they tend to be very busy times.

I've just spent the weekend in Brussels, the home of Eurocracy and a vibrant English-language performing scene. Certainly, theatre-wise, Brussels seems well served, and improv-wise, there is a growing scene with a couple of overlapping groups at the centre of it.

The first day was a typically, busy international travel day.

It started so early that the mist the Earth sprays over herself to keep from wrinkling was still there. It feels rude to move about the Earth before she's fully awake. The train I got on rolled out of Amsterdam and into the misty Dutch countryside at 7:13. Four trains later (it is usual to do it in less), we were in Brussels.

The fun thing about Brussels is that it is a bilingual city. French and Flemmish are the two tongues that dwell there. Flemmish is like Dutch but ironically using a lot less phlegm. Streets, buildings and maybe even people in Brussels have 2 names. Street signs often have a clever way of showing the name highlighting the common part that is the most important.

But there are also streets where the name is not so similar in both languages. A clear example that highlights some of the main differences in the languages, is Boulevard de l'Emperor or Keizerslaan.

Important buildings also have two names. And although people tend to be quite strongly divided by the language they speak, I do wonder if there are are some people who embrace the two-language nature of the land and have two names. eg: Jorgen van den Berg / Georges de la Montagne.

On the train with me was Sacha Hoedemaker, a terrific musical improviser and we were going so early because we had to teach workshops. Sacha on the art of musical improvising and me on movie and TV genres. This is one of my favourite workshops, where we get to grips with the genres the group is interested in or finds particularly difficult. It's a particular favourite because my knowledge of genres, through years of watching and over-analysing films and TV shows is (as the Belgians would put it) encyclopédique / nerdelijk.

After dinner, it was show-time. I was there with Dizzy and the Pit Kittens, a group formed during one of those gatherings in a bar where four people all realised they'd like to work with each other. We started out exploring allowing scenes to be absurd or abstract. Our original format, Whirlpool, allows scenes to be either of these or also realistic or at least rooted in the real world.

Abstract in improv, we found, often means that rather than accepting physical offers verbally by justifying them and tying them to a real-world activity or by the improv cliché of "oh, yes, you are doing that because..." you justify them by allowing them to be everyday actions of the characters. No matter how ridiculous. We don't explain why the characters are wriggling their arms in the air, we do whatever is necessary to ensure that it seems normal.

Dizzy and the Pit Kittens were in Brussels as guests of The Ghost Sheep, an English-language group, hence only having one name. They are not Les Moutons Fantômes / De Spookschapen. They haven't been together as a group for very long, but they perform quite regularly and are very good at attracting foreign guests to perform and teach, along with other local schemes such as Improv Barter.

They have a couple of theatres they use and seem very good at striking deals with them and other organisations. They are fun and supportive players who seem like a group that's been together much longer than they have.

For the show, some of my workshoppers showed off some of what they'd learned (in which they did a great job), and then The Ghost Sheep showed off what they'd learned, by performing a great mini improvised musical.

In the second half, Dizzy and the Pit Kittens did their thing. As well as the allowing scenes to be absurd or abstract if they want to be, we have a couple of other conventions. We dance at the beginning to give ourselves starting positions, never leave the stage to allow scenes to flow easily and end with a short recap. Music is quite important to the format and so we made sure we had a great musician with us.

Of course there are people out there who can go straight off to sleep just after a show. Those people don't count me in their number. So, in all, it was a long exhausting day. Fortunately the next one was more restful for me. Other Pit Kittens had to teach, I could lie in and then wander around town.

I've been to Brussels a couple of times before so I've seen the Grote Maarkt / Grand Place and Manneken Pis / Le Petit Julien and the other key things Brussels encourages tourists to see. So my plan was mostly to wonder around bits I hadn't seen, but it wasn't long before I bumped into a small gang of museums. I like museums, but I don't go as often as I like / should. I hadn't planned to go to a museum, but one of the gang members was a Magritte museum. I'm a big fan of René Magritte, or rather, I'd loved a few of the pictures I'd seen by him but knew nothing much about him. In fact I'd assumed he was French, but turns out he was Belgian. So if you like an artist and fate blocks your path with a museum about the him, I'm not sure there is any sort of decision to be made here. Fate says do, you should do.

The museum was, as museums tend to be because that's what they intend to be, educational. What I found very interesting was seeing the things Magritte was obsessed with at different stages. The objects, the ideas, the people. He seemed someone who was overly analytical at times, which is no bad thing, I reassure myself. I quite understood his quest to find the connection between objects, the depiction of those objects and the words which represent those objects. I love his playing with and subverting visual expectations and notions of realism, such as covering a the subject's face with an apple and having a night-time scene have a daytime sky.

What also fascinated me were how often he would repaint the same picture, with the same elements, but arranged differently, or framed differently and maybe even given a different title. It is also interesting to see how objects that recur in multiple pictures, such as a sphere cut in half, creates something that is not lacking imagination, but somehow fascinating. Like there is a bigger story outside the pictures.

There were a couple of key well-known pictures that didn't seem to be in the collection which was a little disappointing, but if you compare with what was there, it's a minor quibble. One of my favourite things on display were some small sheets of paper depicting strange alien forms entitled Cadaver Exquis. These were created each by 4 artists from one collective - René Magritte, Louis Scutenaire, Irène Hamoir and Paul Nougé - by playing the game many of us have played as children and adults, where a piece of paper is folded and each person draws different segments of the body without being able to see what the others have done. I was so happy that even world-respected artists can still engage in such playfulness and collaboration.

After dinner, there was another show. It started with a demonstration of the dance moves learned by Laura's class and then Dizzy and the Pit Kittens premièred their new format, Octopussy. It's very different to the Whirlpool format being completely about relationships and set very much in the real world. It sees eight characters who are all linked and then brings them all back for a big finale.

The second half was Dizzy and the Pit Kittens joining up with their good friends Les Moutons Fantômes for a good old Superscene, a format where 3 movie directors show you the start of their latest movie and the audience decides who gets to make the next part, with only one getting the chance to finish it.

It was sad to go home. It was good to practice my French, although often I would end up speaking a curious mixture of French and Dutch, but somehow that seemed right.

One day I will tell you why I think Brussels Zuid-Midi station is not really a station but a haunted office block in which the ghosts contrive to make you think it's a station. But that's for the next time. For now I can only once again say a huge "Thank you" everybody involved, in particular the organisers and our hosts, for making the weekend such a great trip and allowing us to get involved in their great scene.

Solo! Solo! Too Nakma Noya Solo!

At the end of this month, i.e. in a week, I’m taking part in a festival of solo improvisation called Remifestival. I’m very pleased to be a part of it. Someone asked me recently why do I do solo impro. It’s a good question. The simple answer is, “because it’s there.” Over the years, I’ve been in groups and shows ranging from 2 to about 50 people. It makes sense to try it with a group of one.

Before I talked a little about what it is that makes solo improv work for me, and how you fill the void left by other players and external ideas. Mostly it’s filled with paying attention to what you’ve set up, and to what you’re doing and saying, especially the things you didn’t intend to do or say.

I first tried a solo show a few years ago. It was a very nervous show that relied on monologues and improvised poems which were things I was good at. Since then I’ve worked a lot more on characterisation. So much so, it’s become one of the most important things in improv to me. With characters come relationships and with relationships you have the fuel that drives any scene and any story. Without relationships or characters that are affected by what’s going on, a story is just a bunch of stuff happening.

It can seem quite daunting going out on the stage alone. One of the nice things about gang improv is that there is always someone there to help you out when it goes wrong. Solo improv is almost in the world of stand-up, where you live or die by your own sword.

Fortunately, in improv you have the good fortune to not need a pre-prepared sword; but of course are free to conjure one up whenever needed. And you often also aren’t alone because, unlike a stand-up, you might well be working with a lighting and/or sound technician and/or musician. So there is someone there to help you. Plus improv audiences are way nicer than stand-up audiences. I don’t mean to be disparaging, but they are. I’ll talk about this more some time.

Even when you are performing with a gang, there are those moments when it’s just you on stage, and I have no problem with those moments. They make for a different dynamic and allow the audience to see a character when no one else is around. How often is that used in movies? Plenty.

The show I do now is intentionally ambitious. A whole film-like story created on stage but with the focus on the characters and relationships and using them to drive the narrative. But with the added lights and sounds, along with the audience’s willingness to come along with me, I’m never really alone.

The Remifestival is on 28th February and 1st March. It’s sure to be a lot of fun. I play on the 1st of March. Full details on the Remifestival website.

IMPRO Amsterdam 2014: Day 5

I am writing this stiff and tired. My brain is a grey, soggy mush. But I have on my face a smile.

My legs ache from having been put through my paces by two separate dancers at different ends of the day. In the early afternoon, I took an interesting workshop given by Amy of the Raving Jaynes where we explored movements and physical interaction as a way to generate character and start scenes.

It was too much of a rush to make the early show today, which was a presentation by the highest level of Dutch improv school, TVA. They’ve also been working on a lot of movement and dance-based stuff. But I didn’t see it. So the best I can do is explain that I didn’t see it. Actually the best thing I could do is save your time, my time and internet bandwidth by not mentioning it at all. That’s what I should have done.

Photo via IMPRO Amsterdam

The main show started with a format called Personal Stories. After a week of working together, the festival cast now feels like an ensemble. Personal Stories takes audience suggestions of personal details and events and creates scenes and things based on them. It’s hosted so the players only have to worry about playing, which can really help them relax. There was a huge sofa to enable that. The host, Anja Boorsma, did a great job of choosing the task for each story, which included a high preponderance of death. It meant I got the song by one of the Irish players that I’d wished for. it was by George, by George, (as well as Michiel from the Dutch contingent) and was hauntingly great.

Over the week, object work has been on the increase in both quantity and quality. I suspect the cast had a session from the Mexicans. There were lots of scenes where people came on and represented or indicated or became objects.

Photo via IMPRO Amsterdam

The second show featured everyone in the festival cast. Which was not so unwieldy a number as you might think. All the 4 foreign groups had 2 or 3 players each, no more. The Dutch team had a comparatively massive 6. It’s still 16 players, which normally is about twice as many as too many on stage. But because everyone gave each other space, and again plenty of people got to be objects, it worked pretty well. The most notable object was an ancient Ming vase depicting a sad woman. It was very enjoyable, and quite ambitious to try to tell a story with so many people who had only been working together for a week. There were holes in the story and some trampled-on opportunities, but the commitment and joy at playing made it good fun to watch and a great end to the festival performances.

For this show there was a whole band - four great musicians - who accompanied and lifted the performance. Whenever I speak to improv musicians they always understate what they do. Like they just tinkled a few keys under a scene. But good musicians can add so much to what is experienced by the audience and can make a singer of almost anyone. They are players, making and accepting offers like anyone else on the stage. And that goes for tech people as well.

Photo by Paul Strik

Paul Strik

Paul Strik

As ever, the festival ended with a big, old fancy dress party at which performers, organisers and anyone else in the vicinity celebrated the end of another enjoyable and successful festival. The party was roaring fun, with plenty of people going all out on the costume front. And here it was the turn of Jamie of the Raving Jaynes to put me through my paces as part of an interactive mass theatre piece using movement in space to the sounds of popular songs as a way to generate enjoyment and engender friendship.

My brain mush is starting to congeal; time for a coffee.

IMPRO Amsterdam 2014: Day 1

The festival kicked off last night with an introduction to all the groups taking part in a format called Pot Pourri. Pot Pourri, if you didn’t know, is the dried fruits and flowers used to make wooden bowls smell nice.

Firstly, individual challenges were set for each team with the intention to show off some of their individual strengths. At this stage of the festival, the full cast hasn’t really gelled. And the Dutch team, which was put together for the festival only, has barely had a head start. But it’s only the first day.

Photo by Richard Roling.

The Austrians (Rocket Sugar Factory), who are really North Americans, set the bar super high with a terrific creation of an epic story in a 5 mins. They are extraordinary good at picking up on each other’s suggestions, and really letting the story career ahead, jumping from one big scene to next, all logical and in the genre and all played with great commitment and a clarity in the characters that allowed the other actor to take them over seamlessly.

They were followed by the Americans (The Raving Jaynes), who are actually Americans. Their scenes are so rooted in movement, incorporating much from the world of dance, that when forced to do scenes in Dutch, of which they know only a handful of expressions, they still created a highly visual story driven by clear emotions.

Then a couple of group games to mix up the teams. At some points, these showed how improvisers from different backgrounds who don’t know each other so well can create something great using the simple process of listening and agreement, specifically in the scene about the lift that descends to Hell. And at other points they showed that without the knowing and trusting each other, the listening and agreeing can get lost.

After the break, we had the show of the Mexicans (ImproTOP), who are, well, Mexicans. And not afraid to show it. Their format was called Mariachi Stylo which is infused with Mexican music and folk storytelling. They are good at special effects, finding and playing games, as well adding detail, especially in their already wonderful physical work. My favourite game was probably the sending away and recalling of the horse.

The late night show was Double Feature, which featured myself and the charming Ryan Millar doing curtailed versions of our movie-based one man shows. I was given 60s Psychedelia by the enthusiastic audience which was a lot of fun. It meant I got to do 2 drug trip sequences, which I don’t get to do nearly enough of. Ryan got to tell the story of Earth Sally trying to get back to Earth and included one of my favourite visuals of the night: the classic hands pressing from different sides of a pane of glass, except one of them was all skeletal and oozing rotten flesh. See us both again soon at the Remi festival.

Thing I learnt during the show last night: If you turn up naked to a clothes shop, you’d think they’d be happy because they know you’re going to buy something.

IMPRO Amsterdam 2014: Ante festum

So next week is the 19th international IMPRO Amsterdam festival, the biggest event in the Dutch improv calendar. It’s always an education.

For me, as an audient, I am always most excited about seeing the groups from around the world and their differing approaches and styles. The mixer shows which serve as a warm-up before the main show are interesting, and it’s fun to see people from different cultures interact and surprise each other, but the groups doing their own thing, their own way is what rings my imaginary bell. As a performer at the festival, the shows where you mix it up with different players from different groups and places are very exciting.

I have a busy week next week, but I want to set myself the task of blogging every day about it. My thoughts and reports of what I’ve seen. This year I’m performing a solo thing as part of one of the late night extra shows (on Tuesday night), which is exciting.

So, you guys are my witness to the intention of daily blogging, but we’ll see if lady time will be gracious or not.

Details of the festival are here: http://impro-amsterdam.nl/

Man of 1000 Faces

I’ve been doing a spot of solo improv recently and getting my head around the fact that there’s something very different about improvising on your own as opposed to how it’s normally done, with an ensemble. Or at least one other player. Solo improv misses that one important factor that makes improv so exciting, that unpredictability due to you the input from other players. It’s a collaborative art form. How do you collaborate with just yourself?

Well, two main ways, as I see it.

One. By really listening to yourself and paying attention to what you’re doing. I think there are a lot of improvisers who say a lot of stuff but it’s just stuff to fill the space and don’t listen to what it is. I think because performers know what they are about to say, they don’t listen to it. But what we mean to say doesn’t always come out that. We pismronounce words; me get the emPHAsis wrong; we don’t portray the emotion we intended, dammit. In a multi-person scene, these things can be picked up by other players, but it’s good for you to be aware as well. But when on your own, you should definitely know what’s going on. The other reason to listen is because of another way you can collaborate and listen.

Two. If you are fully in your character and fully in the moment, you should be surprising yourself all the time. Clearly I mean surprising yourself with stuff the fits the characters, the story and the world you are creating, not because you are listing random things for no reason. This is the main thing about solo improv I find fascination: Being able to have a conversation with two (or more characters) that you have no idea where it’s going, even though it is you who are creating those characters.

Neither of these is only relevant to solo improv; both are core to any form of improv. I think my advice for improvisers (whether on their own or with others) that seems to come from this is as follows: Jump in with both feet, but allow yourself the time to observe what’s going on. Jumping in isn’t about rushing full speed ahead, it’s about making bold choices, inhabiting your characters and doing exactly what the character, the scene and the story requires. Usually the character, the scene and the story are alrealy telling you what they require; you just need to listen to them.

Dancing With Myself

A little time back, Take One had its premiere. It’s a solo show idea I’d had a good few moons ago. I explained it in an earlier post saying it was less of a format than a concept. Basically, to recreate a movie in a genre given by the audience. In essence it’s nothing new whatsoever. It’s pretty much what 3 For All (and others) have been doing for ages but with one person. In fact, the great Canadian improv nomad, Ryan Millar, came up with an idea which is remarkably similar which premiered the same week.

But although the broad idea is the same with all these groups, the execution of it – the unwritten rules of engagement that you find out during rehearsal and performance, what you ask from the audience, how you use that, how much emphasis you put on furthering the story versus exploring where you are, the devices you use for furthering the story, the archetypes, character types and story arcs you draw from – all these and more – will vary widely for each group and individual.

It’s somewhat like the concept that the singer and not the song that makes a song (actually it’s a combination, plus the band is a pretty big help and the producer often invaluable). It makes me think of a thought experiment – I would love to give exactly the same script to 3 wildly different directors and 3 different casts and see how different the films end up being. Very, very different, I’m certain.

For me it’s exciting to find a way of really using all the hours of my life I’ve spent watching movies and obsessing over genres. It’s justified those times I’d stop revising for exams in the middle of the night to watch some obscure classic from 1932 that was being shown at 3 am. (I guess you should expect my next format to be based on Angry Birds or Twitter.)

The first outing of Take One featured, as a warm-up, the orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally as it would be in an Irish gangster movie and the Ezekiel scene from Pulp Fiction as a Christian Family Cartoon. These worked with varying success but more than proved the concept.

And then the meat of the thing was a time travel disaster movie set in Victorian London with a request for Zombies. I hadn’t intended the genre to have so many elements but the audience was divided and you can’t argue with an audience once you’ve told them it’s up to them. But it worked pretty damn well, if I say so myself.

The next outing will be in January 2014 with a condensed version appearing at the IMPRO Amsterdam 2014 festival (in a double bill with Ryan's format, so you can compare and contrast).

I’ll definitely be doing a lot more of this. I and it are available for festivals, parades and conventions.