dayton intensive pictures

here are some photos from the dayton intensives that should jive with the journal entries below.














Row1: Klaus, Nenah, Kert, Ellison, Andreah, Toast, Jerome Row2: Sheryl, Kara, Vincensa, Devo, Sir Derd, FRED LEEDS, Joe
this is my adult group for the dayton intensive. i have protected their faces and changed their names so i don't get sued.
Me with my buddy Fred. He may be the oldest professional improviser in the world at 70 years young. And he's a great guy.

Here's a shot of my adult class doing a crossover double dance diamond. Highly difficult.


This is a picture I took of myself while driving the van.



Here is a group mirror moment.


The famous Mr. String Cheese, created by two students in the early teen class. They took turns drawing one line at a time including the letters for the title.



Here's the window that the younger kids painted with window markers to promote the show. Highlights are the presence of an evil monkey, Mr. String Cheese is of course somewhere on there, and Dogbert.

Here's another self-portrait shot through my glasses while driving and extremely bored.














well, that's all for the dayton workshops. soon, i'll have up the pictures from my florida vacation. doesn't really pertain to improv but there's a great picture of a dolphin...

bye for now,
b

plain

I'm on a plain to chicago.
Yes, a plain. Not a plane as you might imagine. I'm walknig across a flat piece of land hovering just above the earth. The woman next to me is reading this off my laptop. I wonder what she thinks about me writing about her. Maybe we'll exchange a knowing glance and a wink at the baggage claim once we get to the end of this plain. There's no beverage or snack service on this plain and it's quite warm with this lap top on my lap.
A baby screams in the distance.
A man nearby watches seinfeld dvds on his portable polaroid dvd player. Well, he was watching. Now he's asleep. A kid nearby where's a motley crue shirt. Looks pretty new, too. He couldn't be older than 16.
Does he really know what the crue is all about?
I'm going to eat some gummy worms. A man just tried to give me peanuts. I guess this plain has snacks after all.

Goodbye.
b

final class journal entry - LOVE IT

Saturday, June 18, 2005

So, the stage was set. All the parents and friends were there in the audience, biting their fingers off anxious to see what their kids had done all week. Was it worth the modest summer camp fee? The kids came out and did their little intro and everyone went nuts. We did our games and one cool exercise we sort of made up called dreamstations. It involved one kid on the microphone describing a dream they had had before while the other kids acted it out. It was pretty good stuff. We did some storytelling things that went over well. We did "what are you doing?" with the same two who had rehearsed earlier in the day. I could hear the kids whispering to them onstage to say "lying to a chimpanzee." They just love to hear jokes they've already heard. And sure enough eventually she said it and the other girl chimed in with, "I'm a snail." It got a huge response. The show ended and all the parent's went nuts again. It was really cool and nothing like anything I have ever done before. I learned a lot this week about what kids want from a theatre class/summer camp type atmosphere. Most importantly, I learned what they are easily bored by. But I also learned that there are some things they're better at than adults. They're more free, there are no prejudices, besides when you bring up politics, and they say what they're thinking, no matter what it is. It was refreshing for me to see that.
Group one of the adults took the stage for the 10 o'clock show, the first half going through their games set. In the second half they set out to perform for the first time a structure entitled "The Living Room." It was basically a harold with the opening and every fourth scene taking place in a static living room where topics would be discussed and ideas for the three scenes in between would come out. It was good stuff. The fact that it was scene based and good improv made me proud although I obviously can't take credit for it. They're a very talented bunch and they made some great calls and recalls. It made for a really good longform and I'm glad they were able to flex that muscle. I hope longform in the late shows sticks around here. I think it could be good for the vitality and versatility of the space. And also it's versimilitude. And it's vag. My four favorite v- words. But I'm keeping this clean. Beg pardons.
Today is my first day off since I started both workshops Monday. We went to do some publicity for my one-man show that's happening later tonight. Now I'm just chillin in the theatre and typing. I'm thinking of things in Austin. People in Austin. I'm starting to culture a dislike for Chicago and I don't like that. I want to like Chicago and I think deep down I really do, but it's kind of like the new girlfriend that doesn't do your laundry like the old one. And when she does do the laundry, she forgets the dryer sheets and your corduroy pants turn on TVs when you walk by. Butt seriously. I feel, in Dayton, in this theatre, the way I felt back in Austin before I moved. Like I have respect and a growing relationship with an audience that understands what I'm doing. It feels good here and I have Joey to thank for cultivating the space and the locals into buying into my crap and buying a record number of dvds. So far, more people in dayton have purchased Occ: FG than in any other municipality.
Must go. Will report back tomorrow.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Well, it's tomorrow and the day I'm heading back to Chicago. Last night I did some short form games with SmartyPants, the resident improv group,. I had a good time playing games with these guys. They're pretty sharp and short form is good to get the blood flowing faster. The second half of the early show was my one-man Bigly Huge format. It went pretty well except that I couldn't get an ending and it petered out a bit at its closing. But the interview was good and some of the comedy jokes early on and in the middle were solid. Everyone seemed to like it afterwards. I even sold a couple Cupholder t-shirts.
The late show was the second half of the adult class. They did a similar show format with games at the top and some longform later on. The games were good. One of them could have ended a bit earlier, but hey, nothing's perfect, eh? The longform bits had some great moments. It sagged at times but the first time to do longform in front of a crowd is always different than in rehearsal. They made me proud.
I talked with Joey about ways to improve the theatre and the group's dynamics (some of them bicker a bit with each other.) He said he wants to bring in the Cupholders out during the fall to help with his high school touring gigs around Dayton. I know we're already planning on shoting out that way for a couple shows so if we can string together some shows with some high school Dayton shows, we'll be doing real well. But I guess this doesn't belong in the class journal section of this here blog.
In summation, I had a great time teaching and performing this last week in Dayton and I wish I could make this kind of money teaching and performing all the time.
That is all.

Watch this blog later in the week for some fabulous photos of the workshop as well as some Florida pictures of a dolphin that could have eaten my arm if he wanted to.

bye
b

a peek at the future

where my looks are headed.

b

more saturday entry

Still Saturday, June 18, 2005 (backtracking)

Thursday's teen class was also good. They colored the flyers they had made the day before and decorated a window in the theatre as publicity. A couple things irked me from this class. Three of the six broke off and formed an exclusive club. The other three weren't allowed in. They called it the weird club and they wore smartypants (the resident improv company here at the theatre) stickers on their faces as proof of membership during class. I should have put a stop to it right away but I thought it might just fade and not become a big deal. Well, it never became a huge deal but I think the other three did feel a little left out at times. The other thing that irked me was we were playing a one-word-at-a-time game around here called "dr. know it all." I learned it as "oracle." But I've also heard it called "word at a time," "three headed expert" and "the sphinx." Anyway, three people sit in a line and answer questions about whatever topic one word at a time forming sentences in a chain. Each person saying one word at a time, naturally. So we were asking these three kids questions and I asked who their favorite president was. The first girl said "George W. Bush" really fast and I reminded her that she could only say one word at a time. Meanwhile a couple other kids booed her. So she said George and the second girl said Bush and the third boy on the end said sucks really loud. The first girl obviously took offence to this while the two booers from the audience cheered him. They started to get into a political debate and I had to shut them down. It got pretty heated really fast and I was a little heated myself wondering what these kids' parents had been telling them about politics at the dinner table. "George Bush is an evil satan-monger and don't you let anyone tell you different. They're lying. Do you understand me?" how ridiculous. They're 11 years old. Let them decide for themselves when they're 18 who to vote for. It should actually be none of your business. Just because you're their parent doesn't mean you’re their conscious. I'm sure that incident only served to fracture the group even further seeing as the club was on one side and the non-club kids were on the other. It's a nice little allegory for what happens to the country when you bring up politics. Everyone splits into two groups and screams at each other from across the room. Stupid. They're not even old enough to drive. Give them time to breathe and figure things out for themselves.
Other than that, the class was excellent. We rehearsed an opening and a closing for their thirty minute set which would be on Friday night before the Smartypants show.
The Thursday adult class was nice. The mother-daughter duo made a bit of a breakthrough as far as just getting out on stage and improvising having no idea what they were doing, but pretending they knew absolutely without a doubt what was happening. I think that is the basis of all good improv. The highest general rule. Get your ass out there and make it look scripted.
Beyond their breakthrough I don’t recall much except that the longrofm stuff we were doing was getting better. Timed out nicely as far as pacing. The edits were falling into place and the two groups were improvising nicely together. One thing we did Thursday that I had never done was two group mirrors at once in the same room. I had them break into their performance groups (the one's they would be doing their shows with this weekend) and circle up. They were instructed to mirror their entire circle. Pick up on everything and mirror it but DO NOT lead or bring any great ideas to the circle. The idea is that things will happen as long as everyone is paying attention to everyone else and everyone is FOLLOWING everyone else. Sometimes this exercise does not work at all and it's always a mystery to me as to why. All week long I've been experimenting with why a game works and especially how the game you do before it impacts its success. So before they even did any mirroring, I had them do a slow, focused counting exercise to get them to chill out and pay attention to each other. This seemed to work because the mirroring worked beautifully.
It was interesting to see how each circle behaved in its own environs and how some things crossed over from group to group, probably without them even knowing. One group was more vocal and repetitive, while the other was slower and more focused. Both groups did a great job of mirroring and not having any leaders. Some cool organic movements grew out of thin air and were made into group actions that everyone agreed upon. It was nice to watch.

The Friday teens class saw us decorating our t-shirts which were nicely provided by one of the students mom's. I'll have a picture of mine up soon. We rehearsed the show in its entirety. The class went great. The kids seemed pumped about the show and it looked they really cared about its quality. I was able to use that as a disciplinary tool. "If you guys want this show to be good you have to listen to me and circle up." Here's a sidebar for the whole week that spans both classes. Getting people into a circle is way too difficult. I have to say it several times before people do it. And I like a nice equidistant good full-bodied circle with no stupid, odd growths off to the side or sheepish people barnacling themselves to their friends nearby. Stand in your own ground. Own the space and make a circle. Maybe I'm just too anal about circles. There's a joke in there somewhere but I'll keep this clean. The adults and the kids especially had trouble making circles and its something that we do at least three or four times every class. If I had a dojo there would be a lot of sayings on the wall. Paramount among them would be to make a good circle. It is the most powerful shape in improv because everyone can see everyone and there is no weak point. A square has weaknesses. A good circle leads to good ensemble. And as we all know ensemble is the French word for bagel which is of course a circle. Therefore, everything I ever say makes perfect sense.
But back to the Friday teen class. We were rehearsing a game called "what are you doing?" which I have only just recently begun to understand. In it, two actors will portray various actions on stage. One begins an action like, for instance, driving a train. The other will then ask "what are you doing?" the first person who was driving the train must answer with an action that is anything except what they're actually doing. Let's say the train driver says snow skiing. The other actor must then take up the action of snow skiing while the train driver actor then asks "what are you doing?" the snow skiier must say anything except snow skiing. And it goes on like that until the end. Well, yesterday we were rehearsing that one and one of the kids said "I'm lying to a chimpanzee." As her action. The other actor kind of froze for a bit and said, "I'm a snail." Which got a huge laugh from me and the other kids. Ahh. If I ever have to lie to a chimpanzee, I'll definitely tell him I'm a snail. That was priceless and it came from a girl who maybe said twenty words all week long. It was the funniest thing and it came from the most introverted person. Good stuff.

that's all for now. the final journal entry is in the oven.
b

journal for last wednesday

more class journal for the week of June 10-18 [Dayton, OH] if you need help. scroll down to the first entry.

Wednesday, June 12, 2005 - 7:03pm

The adults last night (Tues.) went pretty well. I don't have my list of things we did once again but it went something like this. The opening twenty minutes was not as hyped as Monday nights. I think the excitement of a new teacher being in form out of town has already worn off and they were sluggish for personal reasons. That's two nights in a row where we went cold into a twenty minute set of unstructured improv. I think tonight we'll warm up before to demonstrate the importance of a good warm-up as it will most likely be a better twenty minutes afterwards.
Overall, for Tuesday nights adult class, I feel like less was accomplished. I'm not sure why. There was some wierd energy at the end due to everyone being tired and me running an exercise that tends to be riddled with notes and negative/constructive criticism. Some of you may know the King game. It has become my favorite game to teach in workshops because it really encompasses a lot of important principles and it's easy for the facilitator to demonstrate the goods and bads of what people do within it.
I'm realizing that what I teach in workshop does not always have a direct application to doing something in a show. The concepts I'm introducing are more vague and should be utilized at different points throughout one's improv endeavours. I need to be more practical about running exercises that translate directly to something you can do on a stage, especially since these groups are going to be performing this weekend. And I'm sure they'll be hoping to apply some of the stuff I teach. They'll want to see results. I wonder how I'm going to do that. Hmmmm.
Wednesday teen
The teen class today was pretty good. Somewhere in between Monday and Tuesday's classes. I really ran out of stuff for them to do today. We planned the intro and outro for their thirty minute show that they'll be doing Friday. And ran through it a couple times. We played freeze again. This time with a little more success. We played some other games that worked and a couple that didn't. The highlight of today's teen class was when we ventured outdoors into the beautiful Miami Valley weather to play some hide and seek. One kid was so intent on finding a good hiding spot that he climbed under a chain link fence that he didn't quite fit under. I came around the corner to see where he was but it was too late. He had already torn open the butt side of his shorts. Hiding behind a building to conceal the new gaping hole in his shorts. His sister, being the saint that she is, gave him a safety pin off her jeans so he could close it back up. I couldn't believe that she had a safety pin on her jeans. How perfect is that? He put it on but was still embarassed (which I think might be where that words comes from, embare-assed.) He's a real bright kid so it didn't seem to bother him too much. She offered to walk behind him back to the theatre to help shield him from onlookers. All the way back to the theatre she was talking about how it was no big deal and she had a sweatshirt inside that was really big that he could wear for the rest of the class. She's 11 and he's 9 and it's obvious that she really looks after him. It was cool to see especially considering all the rough housing and snide comments they throw at each other during the class normally. He put on the sweatshirt and we continued the class without incident.
Copies of their flyers came back from the xerox today and I will post pictures of them here on the blog once I am back in Chicago. I'm in Florida right now visiting my pops and step-moms.
But I digest some more… It's ironic that I have these guys for three hours a day for five days and I keep running out of things to do, yet I have the adults for two hours a night for four nights and not nearly enough time to do all of my stuff. But I guess that's the way of things.
Yesterday, in the adult class, we determined who would be performing in the Friday and who would be performing in the Saturday shows. Tonight I'll be letting loose each of the two groups to plan their sets. One of them wants to incorporate interpretive dance. I'm not sure how that's going to work, but I hope they can weave it in because it could be really sweet. As with many things and I know I say this a lot but we shall see.
Now planning time for the late class. Goodbye.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Well, as I figured I probably would, I have let this journaling slip to the backburner. So here I am on Saturday afternoon with a bit of time and I'll just give a brief overview of the last couple days of teaching leading up to last night's shows.
What I remember of Wednesday night's adult class is that it went very well. We warmed up instead of going straight into the opening twenty minutes of free form prov. Warm-ups were good. Then we did the twenty and it was pretty good, too. The previous two nights I had given a lot of notes about people not editing soon enough and things dragging on a bit. Well, Wednesday night after some frantic warm-ups that really got the energy pumping, the edits came a bit too early and there were more entrances than we had seen previously. It's amazing what a little warming up of the brain and body will do for improv. I was trying to demonstrate how important warm-ups were to make sure they always arrive to the theatre on time and put in some flight time doing warm-ups, but it didn't really work. I'll have to figure that one out for next time. The group I was mainly working with at the theatre generally has a call time of 45 minutes before the show and only warm up for about 5. I couldn't believe this when I heard it. 45 minute calls usually turn into 30 minute and then 5 minutes of warm-ups can scarcely be seen as enough to get on the same page and shake off the cobwebs of the day. In my day we arrived an hours before showtime and warmed up for 30 minutes. Interesting.
We did dance diamond which is one of my favorite rehearsal and training games if just for the paying attention factor associated with it. I had one diamond going well so I added another and then a third. They crossed over a bit and we had some crazy lights going, everyone lost in their own little dancing diamond. I'm sorry if this make no sense to you but in the interest of time and brain power I will not be explaining this exercise to you… here… now.
The rest of the class we went over some forms and I gave them some options for what they wanted their shows to contain. I was hoping they would make a leap to a full longform show as they only perform short form here on a regular basis. Four shows a week, 7 and 10 pm on Friday and Saturday, all short form and family friendly. I've been trying to convince Joey (the guys whose brains we ate on Monday that runs the place) that he needs to make the late show a pg-13ish longform show. He's reluctant because he knows short form is what people are used to. I can understand this from a business perspective. He's gots to pays some beeells up in heres.
But each group of roughly five or so students chose to do a combination of short form and longform. So, on Wednesday they first started to pick games and all that. The class ended on a high note although I can't remember exactly what it was.

Lots more journal on the way.
Stay Tuned.

b

mas journalia

Tuesday, June 11, 2005

Well, today I was a bit more prepared. I knew what better to expect from the group and how they were going to respond to what I threw at them. I also feel better today just not having traveled for seven hours to get here. I am refreshed and ready to teach. I could not be more optimistic about today's early class. Well, I have to go teach now. Be with you briefly.
Well, that couldn't have been more of a disaster.
Just joshin. For reals though the class went well today. We warmed up a little and I think they're getting used to me and my teaching style. They stand closer to me and when they talk to me they look at my face instead of off to the side or at their friends. I think they like me. My turtle student made a bit of progress today but it's awkward for her being the oldest and the shyest. That's a weird combination for an improv class full of kids. I'm trying to get her more involved but she's still reluctant. It may take her years before she comes out of her shell but from the looks of the stuff she does when she comes out momentarily, it could be some sweet work. Today was also less themed. There were the usual references to Spongebob and Star Wars but only one instance where they wanted to eat someone's brains. So we did that. We just had a lot more fun today as I was aware that it's not necessarily an improv class where they expect me to know everything and produce epiphanies in all of them as they work toward bettering their art. They just want to hang out.
We did some two person exquisite corpses. Of course, I couldn't call them that. We called them beautiful dead bodies. You know, the thing where you do a piece of art as a group sort of cooperatively. Actually, I think the term exquisite corpse comes from some artists back in the day who used to work on a painting without being able to see the other people's sections of the picture. In our case, we just got into groups of two and took turns drawing one line building one picture together. Something I have noticed through this workshop is that these kids are very geared for optimal success. They figure out how to cheat at everything and it's very important that they are the best at whatever they're doing. It's an unhealthy product probably of the public schools and overachieving, overbearing parents who demand that they are successful and do whatever they have to to get there. I wish there was some way for me to reverse that part of their brain just while I've got them for three hours a day. It screws a lot of improv to be that competitive and willing to take shortcuts. But there isn't. I just have to go with it. In the case of the exquisite corpses they would make their one line really long writing entire words in cursive or just driving the picture wherever they wanted it to go. The alphas would also tell their partner what to draw next. No good for the game.
We did an exercise where you're supposed to close your eyes and find a hidden bottle somewhere in the room. Not only were they cheating by opening their eyes a little bit to search for the bottle but they were terrible at making it look like they weren't. Again, the fun and purpose of this game demands that you keep your eyes closed. But to them it's more fun to be the winner at any cost. I hate it. This was also evident when we did poison arm samurai. A slo-motion combat exercise where you have poisonous swords for forearms and you attack the other people in the group in slow motion. This game is supposed to teach you that it's okay to lose, sometimes even more fun to lose (if you die in a fun and creative way.) I thought maybe I could communicate that through the game but they were more interested in not getting stabbed; speeding up to block an attack or even running at full speed to escape someone who was coming after them. And when I would say they were cheating and they needed to stay slow, they would say they only sped up because the other person sped up. Ahhh, classic American politics. "He started it."
Alright, I'm complaining a lot about this group. But today was really good. We also sat down for a bit and made flyers for their Friday show. They made some cool drawings and some of the exquisite corpses were really good like Mr. Stringcheese.(picture posted soon) I think that one will end up on one of the flyers.
They had a good time today and I'm just glad they all came back for the second day. I'm going to have to rack my brain to come up with some more games tonight for their class. Coming up with ones for the adults is like a huge cakewalk now. That velvety cake, too. Real nice, ya know. I should do that now. Walk on that cake and pick tonight's adult class epiphanies.

Goodbye. that's all.

b

more class journal

more of the dayton class journal with more on the way.

June 11, 2005

Adult evening class. Let's see. Well, I'm writing this the next day after my early teenage class so it may be a bit hazy. We started off just doing montage. Something we did in a second city class that I otherwise hated. So they just did twenty minutes with no warm-ups or anything. It was good to get a raw look at what everyone had to bring. And also what their strengths and weaknesses are. There were some classic miscues but some good editing instincts and a lot of agreement, just overall pretty good improv. Most everyone in the class is experienced with improv and in fact performs with the resident troupe here at the theatre. There are two that I think are completely inexperienced with improv, a mother daughter team who understandably were shy in the opening improv piece. I would hang back too if I had no clue what was going on. They slowly came out of their shells though and while they have a long way to go in their development I prefer to shoot over their heads and have it make sense to them later than dumb down the whole class. They seem intelligent and I'm sure they'll be able to keep up. It's not like being an astronaut. Just about anybody can jump in and be a good improviser. It all depends on the personality in the beginning. A sparkling, witty personality will however get you nowhere in aeronautics.
So, we did notes on the montage piece they had done at the top and during the notes I realized that I was doing really well and that they were paying absolute attention to what I was saying and I was making perfect sense. It hit me that I was going to enjoy doing this workshop very much as the week would go on.
My notes are shoddy as far as what we did last night and in what order. I know we really didn't do too much warming up though. Something that I'm starting to like in workshops. People are usually hyped about an intensive workshop so much they don't need that energy boost. Especially around here where there is a buttload of positive energy in the space. These guys are all pretty good friends and that shows in the way they hang out and the way they perform. They're pretty tight ad they have excellent leadership in Joey.
We played sexy, smelly, funny which went over pretty well. We did the photo album math thing and during an explanation afterwards to the mother of the mother-daughter combo I realized something about the game. Just so you, the reader, have some background, it's a game where three people sit side by side. The person in the middle is showing their friend (to their right) a photo album about the middle person's life. The person on the left asks simple mathematical questions to the center person. I think this is a Keith Johnstone thing but I'm not sure. Anyway, the person in the middle has to answer simple math questions all while answering the friend about the pictures they're looking at. So what I realized when someone asked me what the point was, is that the exercise works on running both sides of your brain. The left which I believe is the rational and therefore mathematical side and the right, which is the creative and story making side. Now I may have those switched but that's not the point. The point is its difficult to work both of those hemispheres at the same time. It's like a dual processor in a computer. They have to work independently of each other until it comes time to output the information be it, "o yeah, that's my uncle" or "5." [possible answers to the questions] a good exercise for having your brain work multiple tasks which is improv to the core.
Then we did one of Jon Benner's greatest contributions to improv mankind. Something well hung jury invented when I was out of the room before a show. As it was, and still is unfortunately, I would often have to leave the room during warm-ups to take care of show things. When I returned they had come up with something pretty brilliant. I don't know if it was all jon but he was the one who explained it to me so he gets the credit. It goes like this. Everyone stands where they only see maybe one or two people but not the rest of the group. The object is for everyone to fall down at exactly the same time. It's hard to do but really good for relaxed focus. It chills everyone out and teaches them to pay attention to small details. You can usually see who the inventive people are and who the followers are. The inventive people fall right away and you have to coach them to chill out a little. We did that last night. It looked cool from a distance with 13 people doing it.
Ah, we did an overaccepting exercise that I learned from Liz Allen at Improv Olympic where you just say yes constantly. So much so that it's difficult to carry on a scene. But the positive energy of dudes just going nuts and saying yes constantly is hilarious and teaches them that saying yes takes you places you wouldn't normally get to. It's great to see people saying yes to things that normally they would say no to as themselves out in the real world. But imagine the situation of two people in a kitchen with a boiling pot of water. In the real world when Dan asks Meg to put her hand in the boiling water she has to say no because she doesn't want to injure herself. But in the improv world, if he asks her to put her hand in the water, the sooner she does it, the funnier it is. Over yessing can lead to some amazing comedy and it doesn't even take the talent of a thinking comedian. It just takes being open-minded enough to give yourself up to the artform.
That's something I've been saying for years and it's something I'm trying to demonstrate in my All-In format. Anyone can and should do improv. It's not as hard as it looks. Now once you get into it and really delve into the intricacies of what to do when, ti gets complicated and more challenging. But right out of the box, it's one of the easiest hobbies to be good at right away. You just have to be willing.
I have to pee. Excuse me.
I'm back. I have nothing else to say.

Goodbye.
b

in the interest of time

here is the first portion of the improv class journal. enjoy.

June 10, 2005
day one - 10-15 yr olds. met all the kids for the class. six in all. pretty good number. Joey, the guy that runs the theatre, said to to one of the parents that 6 is a good size for a small class. i was thinking it was a terrible size for a big class. 35 would be a good size for a big class. but, way too big anyway. 6 is good for crazy pre-teens for me to try to handle.
So, my biggest problem right now is figuring out how to direct them. I learned pretty early that they don't want to hear a lot of direction and even feedback on things necessarily. They just want to hang out and have fun. A couple of them just want to be the center of attention. Which is great for theatre. That's the original idea behind theatre isn't it? "Look at me. Look what I can do." Or in some cases, look what I'm willing to do that you're not in front of all these strangers. I think this need for attention can stem from a lot of sources. in my experience, though, the people who get into comedy and acting are always the outcasts, the nerds or the introverts; the freaks nobody understands in school. These are the people that find they can regain the attention of people around and therefore regian some power and some influence by performing. Think about the nature of theatre itself or even film. Pay me so you can come into a dark room where I say what I want and you don't get to say what you want until you're in the car on the ride home. While you're in the theatre its all me and my thoughts, beliefs, social causes, whatever. So, ironically, the people who get all the attention in high school or in their home lives growing up turn out to be the most boring people. They all turn to the wierdos after high school and we recapture our power. We have your attention and in some cases, not mine of course, we "bloom late" and also become the object of our peers affections. I would bet there's not a lot of popular kids who have turned into giant movie stars.
But I digest. So, we started out with some stretching which didn't really seem to interest them at all. We quickly moved away from stretching and into some improv warm-ups. I tried to keep it simple early to figure out how willing they were to really get involved. They're a great bunch of kids. There are two girls who seem like good friends so they do a lot of exercises together and have a good time. There's a brother/sister duo that seem pretty into what we're doing. Then an older girl who is a bit shy. I'm struggling trying to figure out how to get her to let go and open up. She may just be at an age where that's difficult for a lot of girls. Maybe she was just not in the mood to muck in today. We'll see tomorrow. Then there's another guy about the same age as everyone else. He's wildly manic but in a positive way.
Another balance I'm trying to find beyond how much direction they're interested in is when to move on to a new exercise or activity. We were doing this one thing where I would yell out a location or situation and give them three seconds to get into a tableau or picture of that situation. They seemed to like it okay so I added that after the three seconds I would point to each of them and they would say one word about what was going on. We did this for a few minutes and I sensed that they were getting bored so I said we would move on to something else. But they all protested. I told them I was running out of things to yell out so they said a few. I got some paper and wrote down a bunch of locations. A bunch that were way better the ones I was saying. Like, under a hat, or inside the human body. I was saying stuff like bakery. That was cool. They liked that one.
Then we passed some juggling balls in patterns. They liked that for the most part but a couple of them starting sitting down which was annoying. Unlike adults, these kids will just sit down whenever they don't want to stand anymore. Really interesting. I guess we could follow some basic desires when we older folks get them, too. When you're tired of standing, sit down. Who cares that your boss is talking to you and there are no available chairs. I asked one of the girls who sat down what she was doing and she said she was dead. I told her we'd have to bring her back to life to finish the ball passing game. She didn't really like that. Now in my limited knowledge and experience hanging around kids I remembered that they do well with rewards. If you find something they want to do, you can get them to do something they don't want to if you tell them they can do that better thing when they're done. Makes sense, right? So I told her we could die when the exercise was over. She liked that. So when it was all over we died and turned into zombies and attacked Joey, the guy who runs this place who was in the offfice. Except that he escaped from the office so we had to hunt him down a bit. We ate his brains.
There was one point in the workshop when I went to get a drink from a fountain by the bathrooms. They started talking about their dreams and when I came back they were all sitting on the stage sharing dream stories. I hesitated to get the next exercise going and just watched for a second. Then I realized they were tired and just wanted to chill for a bit so I sat down and told the dream I had when I was little where robocop chased me through my neighborhood. Although I said it was a robot cuz I didn't want to have to explain who robocop was. It might be hard for them to grasp the griity story of a murdered cop who gets merged with a cyborg body and saves detroit from corrupt politicians and drug dealers. So I skipped that part. They liked that dream especially cuz I said I jumped into my friend's pool to escape him because I thought robots couldn't survive in a pool. But he did and as he went to grab my shoulder while I was going up the steps in the pool I woke up. All true. I actually had the same exact dream a few years later. Weird. But it was cool to just sit on the stage and talk about something that didn't seem to relate to improv. Although I was pretty sure I would spin it into some kind of exercise that did later in the week.
They were also good at repeating things that had been talked about. Or I guess bad about brining in new material. We had a lot of star wars, some spongebob, and some booger humor. Lots of eating brains and dying people. I have a feeling there will be a theme for each day this week. We played some other exercises and closed out the class with some classic freeze. They seemed to have a good time but it felt awkward for me most of the class. I'm always nervous when I first start a class but I couldn't settle down because I was second guessing myself most of time and unsure of what to do next. Most adults would have thought the workshop dragged on but these kids can do the same thing longer than adults. The attention span is different. It's not as simple as shorter or longer attention span either. It's just different. I'll have a better grasp on this by the end of the week I'm sure.
So my first day is half over. I still have to tackle the adults. Most of who are my size or smaller, so easy to tackle…

Later that day…
Teaching improv epiphany last night while talking to my aunt. People often ask how or even why do you rehearse improv. Or they ask how could you possibly teach something like that. I've always struggled with how to answer them but last night when talking to my aunt I came up with a pretty good analogy. Teaching someone how to do improv is like teaching someone how to paint. You can't teach them specifically what to do in all situations. It's not like algebra where there is one, maybe two ways to get your answer. With improv as with painting you have millions, in fact, an infinite amount of choices. Anything can happen. You can teach someone how to mix color or what type of brush to use in whichever situation. You can't teach them how to paint a great picture. Just like you can go over the rules of improv which are really just guidelines, not hardfast rules. But you can't really teach specifically what a person should do at all times. It's a tough balance between following the rules in your head and being spontaneous and willing to let anything happen. It's a beautiful and wildly complex artform that I have fallen in love with.

Unrelated entry of the day…
Michael Jackson, not guilty on all 74 (or however many counts it was)
Good for him. I guess. It's hard for me to be happy or upset. I feel I don't know the facts about the case. What I do know is that he's one of the greater entertainers of all time. And I guess it's nice to see his life less troubled. If that's even possible at this point. I hate to see famous people be misunderstood and have their private life invaded. They give us great art and our reward is screwing them over by sifting through their trash and hijacking their weddings. I've made it a rule to ignore famous people in public places. Why? Because I enjoy being able to do what I want without having a thousand pairs of eyes watching me. This all started when I was about twelve or so. We saw Clyde "The Glide" Drexler at a restaurant in Houston and my uncle said I could go talk to him if I wanted. I was nervous so I waited for a while. While I was sitting there and eating I watched him sign autographs for people and shake hands with whoever just felt they had the right to interrupt his dinner or the conversation he was having with his friend. It occurred to me I should let him enjoy his dinner just as I was doing WITH THE PEOPLE I CAME TO THE RESTAURANT WITH. Not a bunch of strangers. That being said, if I saw Michael Jackson I'd probably cry. I just wish comedians would leave the guy alone and stop telling the same lame child molester jokes about him. I don't think I've ever laughed at one of those. First of all, it's hack material from ten years ago, and secondly, give the guy a break. Make fun of the single white glove or the wearing of the mask in public, stuff he can control. Let him live his incredibly stressful life in peace. Maybe he'll start to create good music again if we leave him alone. Poor mike. MJ FUNERAL. Lest we forget.
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more on the way. that's all i've been able to edit and post. pictures soon. maybe.

goodbye for now,
b

back

back in chicago. getting ready to call my dads. when i get some time, i'll transfer my class journal from this past week's proceedings in dayton. t'shall be lengthy but interesting to those with patience and skipped over by those with none. this is fine.
see you soon,
b

old hat?

first of all what does that mean? secondly, here is the actual reason for this post:

i know this may be OLD HAT but its still fun to check out every once in a while.

terraserver

hat,
b

and Lo, it was done

Yes yes yes. the dvd is finally done. totally done. i don't have to figure out any more compression settings, transcode anything, or worry about timed out heap error messages. my life has become lighter.
which brings up a good question. what the hell am i going to do with all this upcoming free time? now that i'm not slaving over a hot computer and two burning hot external drives for 12 hours a day, what am i going to do?
well, it turns out that i'm going to dayton tomorrow to do an intensive improv workshop for a week. it's going to be a real nice chill change of pace. and i'm planning on doing a little journal thing everyday about how the classes are going. i'm teaching a 10-15 yr. old class in the afternoon and then an adult one in the evening. both will culminate in friday shows in the theatre where i'm teaching, which i really like. i'm planning on trying to cmoe up with an original form for the adult group and letting them premiere it friday. having a show at the end of a workshop is a good way to create closure on the learning experience. using improv skills in front of an audience especially new ones is the best way for them to become cemented. i'm a big fan of immediate feedback and the psychology of rewards and punishments for learning. seems to work well. i haven't had to put anyone in timeout yet. although i didn't get yelled at by a dude who disagreed with me during a workshop. that was interesting, and a story for another time.
i'll be staying with my grandparents in my parent's hometown (the house my dad grew up in.) yikes. talk about stability. my g-parents have been married for over 50 years i think. 50 YEARS! that's like, longer than... a lot.. of stuff. wow. so, the bonus is i get to hang out with my dad and uncle and aunt who all happen to be in dayton at the same time as me. dinner tomorrow should be cool with all the lambs from dayton and the only remaining third generation lamb who still bears the name. [no other male offspring on this side] the name must live on. i must have a son to bequeeth my lamby improv throne to. although, i hope never bequeeth anything to anyone. it sounds illegal to do that to your own family members. yuck.

ahhhhh, it feels nice to be finally done with this dvd. i'll admit there is one minor problem in the menus that i could fix but am unwilling. hardly anyone will notice. it took me a while to even notice and i've seen everything on that damn disc 12 hundred times. well, i must go. i have to pack and print some dvd labels for the discs i have been burning for the past 6 hours.

lots of improv talk on the way.

raise a glass to home dvd software and good old american hard work. they've taken me all the way to today and i like right now.

b

ketchup post

sorry to have left you, the faithful blogateer so alone and cold of recent. i aim to make up for it with this entry. my advice is to only read one sentence every hour or so to make sure you don't blow your wad too early. wow, that phrase looks much more disgusting when it's written down. sorry. do whatever you want with your wads and leave me out of it.

some pictures from the last couple months:


My year end gift to the cupholders was bulls tickets to the last home game of the season. the reason we're so dressed up is i rused them into thinking we were going to perform for a banquet and had to look nice. the reveal was pretty sweet. they attacked me. by the way, that's the greatest basketball player of all time behind us. see next picture for a clue as to who it is.


michael jordan balling on a man with an extra head on his torso.


we had courtside tickets. they put us in the upper mezzanine by accident. but we liked the perspective better anyway so we stayed. bird's eye view, you know.


here's mike and bill at a birthday bbq thing we had a while back.


some rain.


here's some of our friends right before a show they do in austin called start trekkin' it's a fully improvised star trek episode. pretty damn funny and not as geek fest as i thought it would be.


my nephew with a light saber. his fingers were reattached at the hospital later that afternoon but we couldn't find his nose anywhere.
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The shows we did in austin were stellar. we did a new format idea where bill plays the keyboard and improvs songs throughout and just chills behind the keyboard while the other four of us do the improv. the story was alright i guess. but bill's songs were insane and hilarious both in a good way. and the improv was pretty funny, too. the crowd was real hot. it was just a good night.
the next night we did a "formatless" longform. we had talked about doing shakespeare earlier but i'm glad we didn't. it was a really cool story and a change of pace for us. the suggestion was something like "before a fantastic safari." so it was this really sweet animal discovery narrative about finding roots in the sahara. it jsut worked out really nice. it felt like a kid's show part way through to me because we hadn't been cursing or talking about drugs or sex or robots or sex with drugged up robots. we broke out of our recent sci-fi tendencies and did a real good simple interesting story. and all it took was some pre-show discussion about our current pitfalls. mostly involving raising the stakes too high with cop-out scenarios like robots taking over instead of just one man's struggle within.
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somewhere in there i did a couple one-man shows with my new format all in. the idea is that everyone in the audience must improv with me going from right to left either in groups or one at a time. its a format i've been tinkering around with for about a year and works best with a sizable audience. the turnout was low for both of them due to very little publicity. but it gave me a chance to do a few good scenes with total strangers, mostly people who had never been on a stage and just about all of whom had never improvised before. i can't say that any of the scenes were failures although i had to work pretty hard in a couple of them. i figured out part way through the second show that when i bring someone i'm reading them trying to discover what it is they want to do. are they talking at all? are they really nervous? are they dressed like someone who does something obvious like skateboarding or something? so, once i get someone up, i read them with some quick questions and off we go. its making me a better improviser in a lot of ways but the biggest is that i have to go along with whatever stuff they produce and while it is not always what more experienced players would do, it always takes me to a place i wouldn't have gone (which is great.) it's like watching kids interact with adults. they say the darndest things don't they? but to them, it's logically what's next in the conversation. to an innocent, unchiseled audience member doing improv for the first time, the next thing to do might be a bit strange. great.
the format is practically foolproof as well. the audience is on my side and my partner's side from the beginning. they empathise with the curveballs an audience member could throw me and love to watch me struggle to make sense out of it and keep the scene together. but they're also feeling for the audience member because he/she is one of their own. an inexperienced person forced to do something in front of strangers. which they know they will also be very soon. so they are all highly supportive and i haven't yet had a nightmare scenario occur where someone flips out and just goes ballistic and i have t talk them down from some kind of ledge. that's my fear with this one. that someone will just give up on a scene and strat to cry or something. that would kill the show and obvious create a scar i have no right to produce on their psyche. hasn't happened yet. most people seem satisfied when its over. i like the format and i especially like demonstrating to people what its like to be in my shoes three nights a week. in front of strangers and scriptless. great stuff.
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sort of finished the dvd. i realized at the premiere that it needs to only be one hour with all the xtra stuff moved into an xtras section of the disc. i should be there in a couple days and ready to ship them out to the orders we've already got from across the country.
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i wrote an atheist country song but i'm not sure it'll make it onto the final album. i wouldn't want to turn off my legions of god-fearing fans with one little spiteful 2 and half minute song about my take on the whole thing. but i'm also thinking of coming up with an alias and introducing him as a friend of the record label or something. somebody they made me put on my record to help bolster his sales. we shall see. the country album is pretty far off in the making.
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the cupholder rap album is still in the can getting worked over and should be out sometime. eventually. not really my deal at this point.

i'm out of things to write. see you the day after tomorrow.
b