Tag Archives: ensemble

May 19

Ah, Horse Apples

Hi. Been a while.

Just performed with Horse Apples – Me, David, Nick, Matt, and Barry.

We want to keep doing this because it’s fun for us – we’re all dads and at least 40, so really this is the fun for us. But we’re very sensitive to holding up a space in a community we’re so glad to see growing. We want to deserve our spot, not just get to ride out our wake.

Solution 1 – Get the Young Hungrys to open the show. They’ll bring friends and family. An audience is often more family and friends than random entertainment seekers. Even in the bigger cities if you consider “students and hobbiests” who are “there to see their friends,” “there to see their friends.” Our families and friends are asleep in our/their children’s beds. The Young Hungrys’ friends and family would show up, not yet exhausted by either the invites or the improv.

Solution 2 – Cultivate Opener with TLC. Leveraging “The Lottery” approach, marry outstanding students with establishment players/teachers in a group committed to multiple rehearsals and shows. Barry coached. Casts have been great.

Solution 3 – Do better improv. Can’t coast. Gotta step up. We needed to rehearse. We needed coaching – one voice that could matter more than our opinions and align us. At The Second City, star players were going to First Cities for sitcoms they could think of you for. Think of times when you just laughed at something funny and those times you wanted the person eliciting laughter to know you were laughing so you laughed a little harder. Horse Apples are the guys who moved to Third City, Richmond VA, for family. No one in our audience is motivated to show up or laugh for us; we gotta make’em laugh.

Solution 4 – Gimmick? Tenure in improv is immaterial when a child is infinitely better at improvising than an adult. But, maybe one benefit of our beens-around-the-block is owning being a museum. We’ll fill a wheel with named improv formats written on each pie piece. An audience member would spin the wheel to determine our form for the night and give us our suggestion and the show would start.

Tonight we spun the wheel for the first time…

Continue reading →
Mar 1

Detective’s Hey Everybody video

Check out this fun, loose Hey Everybody game from The Coalition‘s Detective.

The team isn’t behold to the sequence of contributions – they allow their characters to react in-the-moment as inspired – but you can see the sequence is loosely maintained and it helps the overall flow. Improvisers clearly stick their character’s silos – Sarah’s corrections, Taylor’s obsession with killing Voldemort with a stick, etc. Improvisers play emotional characters – like Jesse’s gruff-voiced reactor. And the stage picture isn’t just a line or “bandshell of death.”

It’s a great example of a game that uses the tools of the Hey Everybody game but isn’t confined by them.  Continue reading →

Apr 24

“Tonight…” a warm up

Getting synced with your teammates is why we warm up. Give this activity a try!

Everyone in a circle.  One by one, in no particular order, we enter the circle.

“Tonight I’m…”

First we share our current mindset with the group. For example, “Tonight I’m feeling tired. I stayed up too late and woke up too early.”

“So, tonight I’m gonna…”

Second, we commit to bringing to stage a different energy than we’re currently feeling AND we make that energy incarnate with a character, sound, action, emotion, line of dialogue, etc. For example, “So, tonight I’m gonna go ape,” and I act like a gorilla, howl and beat my chest.

And “We’re with you!”

Third, everyone around the circle says, “We’re with you!” and mirrors your character, sound, action, etc. For example, we’re all acting like gorillas.

Then the next person goes. Repeat.

Simple. Easy. Quick. And it gives us a moment to let our fellow players into our heads and aware of our intentions. AND it gives us all a chance to show our commitment to enthusiastic agreement and collaboration. 

Try it!

Dec 6

The Johnsons’ 100% Organic Family Band Solution

300px-drfunke_1996_arrested_developmentI coach The Johnsons, so they’ve been steeped in a rich tea of group games. They know One Person Scenes. They know To The Ether Games.  They know Help Desk Games. And they know Hey Everybody Games.

And that knowledge makes them masters of the Organic Game.

And that unfortunately means sometimes they perform games that are hard for me to pick apart in a post in order to showcase the learnings. But this sucker’s a joyful exception.

Check it out.

Continue reading →

Jun 1

Invocation exercise

Mirroring/repeating language, details and rules heightens a group’s work while keeping it cohesive.

INVOCATION – Players stand in a half circle. On the count of three, a “god” appears before them that they will worship in three phases: First, they will describe it physically; “Oh, God, with your fowl beak.” Second, they will address its less tangible qualities; “Oh, God, who tastes like everything.” Third, they will ask it to do unto them; “Oh, God, henpeck my enemies.”
Lessons:
• Be clear about what “it” is – don’t be vague for artsy sake; the sooner everyone knows what “it” is the sooner everyone can dig deep into the details
• Unite behind an emotional perspective on “it” – “what we hate about Microsoft” will collaboratively heighten faster than “what we know about Microsoft”
• Simplify with mirrored language – switching between phases is clearest when there’s a defining cadence to phase one (“Oh, God”) and a new cadence to phase two (“Sweet, Jesus).
• Callback – What does a detail from phase one signify in phase two and can be used for in phase three?
• Establish rules of reaction – Y follows X: “…who is never afraid,” “You’re a chicken who’s not chicken;” “…who never stops going,” “You’re a chicken who’ll always win at chicken.”
• Establish Siloes – What can be the filter through which your contributions come? I’m the guy who: said, “Eyes as red as flames” so I’ll say, “Heart as black as coal.”
• There are no mistakes – seek to fold in everything; don’t drop things that seem out of place

Performers are Becki Heckman, Ian Johnson, Suzi Makarem, Robert Nickles and Jordan Walker Continue reading →