Author Archive

The DCM10 Wrap Up (finally!)

by Ben Whitehouse.

So what does an improviser write about a weekend full of improvisation after it’s all over and it’s months later? (seriously Ben, months?!) There is so much. (Ben, what the hell has taken you so long to write this up?) A weekend full of beer, fist fights, and an overwhelming amount of hilarity. (You can hear me Ben, I can see you wincing) This was by far the most intense DCM I have attended. (HEY BEN! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME) 3 days of non-stop improv, is a lot of improv, even for the heartiest of improv junkies. (Oh, it’s going to be like that huh?) This year, I’ll have to admit, I stayed largely to shows I knew most and while I did explore some of the other theaters, most of my time was spent at the UCB main stage. (Vagina) What? Come on, kids read this! Okay I’ve been really busy at work and haven’t had any time to write. I’m sorry! Okay? (okay)

3 Years of Del Closses

This was my third year of Del Close Marathons and from the 3 I have attended, this year seemed the most sober. Perhaps it was the deaths of both Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes, or the missing energy of Amy Poehler, or the introspective press conference, or the vastness of the Marathon now filling 4 theaters, but I got a definite sense of a community looking in on itself. Of course being that the marathon is now 4 theaters wide, I may have only seen one impression of a now huge pool of performances.

UCB is in a strange place at the moment. Their success as both a theater where the best and brightest comedians are trained, with Bobby Moynahan moving to SNL, and also the most successful improv training center in New York, if not the country, has left UCB trying to figure out how to deal with it’s unparalleled popularity. This showed itself during the Friday press conference as the UCB3 — Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts, and Matt Besser — took the stage outlining the UCBs revamped improv curriculum:

  1. “Game is fundamentally important and central to comedic improvisation”
  2. “There is nothing intrinsically better about doing a time-dash to the second beat of your game over analogous beats for your game”
  3. Organically derived scenes are no better than premise based scenes initiations
  4. Having your own “signature” opening is not important — “Bring back the organic opening”
  5. Dress Appropriately for the stage — not too sloppy, too sexy/aristocratic
  6. It screws up people to think about raising stakes when entering second beats — Think equally. “I want to find another scenario equally as funny or funnier than the first one. Thinking funnier will naturally raise the stakes. This will naturally create scenes with both heightening and exploration.”

These should be no shock to anyone who has spent time at the UCB training center. Most of these have been on the lips of instructors since I first started training, but the fact that the UCB is now defining it’s perspective publicly, on long form improvisation, is sign of their new found leadership roll in the improv community. Although, Matt Besser did make it quite clear that these may not be true of all schools, but they are what is true for the UCB.

Lessons Learned this Year

As most of you know each year I try to take away a few things which become apparent after watching hours and hours of improv. I trite them down in a notebook in the dark. I try not to edit them and write them down as I wrote them.

  • Respond to what is happening now
  • Repeating patterns is not game, just a piece of behavior
  • Start in the middle — Make assumptions about who, what, and where you are
  • Remember — not really sure what this meant, but I wrote it down so it’s got to be important
  • Relax — Try not to let your fear as a performer manifest itself in your character and initiations
  • Characters are important and should be used in service of the game — not for a cheap laugh
  • Gay characters don’t have to have campy cliche accents
  • Gay improvisers don’t always have to be a 1950’s housewife
  • Breaking your character to laugh, giggle, or remark about your performance is a cheap trick
  • The most important thing in the scene is your partner — try not to get sidetracked by inanimate objects, because they aren’t going to respond to you in the scene
  • Work with what you have, it’s brilliant — Let’s not add new information half way through
  • Fuck the form — do whatever honors the suggestion
  • Del close doesn’t look like that
  • Respect your audience — Don’t pimp your audience, because when they turn on you, you have nothing
  • Saying funny things will eventually fail you
  • It’s about what’s happening — not the details of what’s happening
  • There are still 10 minutes and 19 seconds — It’s never too late do do something
  • Look calm on the back line — the people on stage need you to yield focus
  • Confidence makes the audience feel like you know what you’re doing — lack of confidence makes the audience panic
  • Do NOT hang off the pipes — Fucking ever!

Performance Highlight

Out of all the performances of the marathon, I think the highlight was Code Duello’s saturday night performance off of the suggestion of “rabies.” The performance was based on Aaron Burr killing Hamelton’s cat and having to replace it with a sabertooth tiger. This however was nothing to the incredible playing of both Neil Reynolds and Matt Tucker, whose moves grounded the scenework so much that the idea of entire premise of a dead cat being replaced with a sabertooth tiger seemed totally justified. Out of the 4 times I’ve seen Code Duello, this was by far their most impressive show, so much so that they proved something that I had never seen prior.

We all Know how to get laughs from an audience. It isn’t hard. But I want us to get cheers.
– Del Close

They had cheers, laughs, and a standing ovation at the end of their set.

Other highlights

WeirDass at the FIT auditorium. As usual Stefanie Wier and Bob Dassie produced a show that was incredible to watch. Full of rich characters and incredible scenework their set again reminded me how important listening and responding is to improvisation. They have a bond that one can only imagine can only be made possible by being married to your scene partner. It was so inspiring to see the two of them on stage that the day after the marathon, I formed a 2 person improv group based very roughly on the Weirdass form. If imitation is the greatest form of flattery, WeirDass is reeeeeeeeally good.

The always impeccable Baby Wants Candy, performed an incredible set about a speakeasy that had points of shockingly sublime songwork that really highlighted what committing to every part of performance can do.

And so, that’s the wrap up. If you have any questions, or comments feel free to drop a line. I’ll be sure to respond to you early February.

Learning From Mother

by Ben Whitehouse.

Photograph courtesy Ari ScottPhotograph courtesy Ari Scott

Saturday night was Mothers last show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York. The 9 year run of the group at the theater is the longest a house team has performed at UCB. It was a great show to boot.

During the show, I thought about what made Mother such an amazing experience to watch in all the years they have played. A group of performers that had grown together, like a vine wrapping around itself, to become one seamless entity. A group of performers who were taught in the earlier incarnations of the UCB training center. What about this group can we, as improvisers, learn from? What can we steal?

Commitment

Anyone who has ever seen Mother knows that they committed to realities and characters unabashedly. Never were initiations judged and never did anyone on the group bail on an idea. Everything was embraced and everything nurtured in their scenes. I always felt that Mother’s scenes were like seeds planted in the ground and everyone watered each idea until they grew.

Emotion

What I always loved about Mother was their embrace of emotion in scenes. Love, hate, lust, happiness, sadness; Mother ran the gambit committing to these emotions truthfully and realizing their extraordinary power in scenes. These organic choices led to scenes with decidedly more intimate content which the cast never shied away from.

Physicality

Mother would often would start scenes touching, holding, or embracing one another. This is one of those decidedly Mother traits in that they were not shy about using their bodies with each other. They were as comfortable making out on stage as they were brawling into the audience or pirouetting around the stage. This is one thing that I have been thinking much more about in my performances, and something I definitely need to steal.

Love & Trust

Here is where Mother really stood apart. Sure groups love their parts, but Mother’s time together really cemented their incredible trust with one another. You could see the intense love and trust pouring out of their playing. All scenes were pushed that much farther because each cast member knew that behind them were a group of performers that would do anything for them. With that support, your risks in scenes can be limitless and they were.

And so ends almost a decade of performance, it has been fun watching. What’s next? Something amazing I’m sure. But for now, Bye Mother.

What are the lessons you pulled away from Mother?

Will Hines talks about his impressions of Mother

DCM 10 Notes — Are A-comin’

by Ben Whitehouse.

Hey how about that Del Close Marathon, right? Anyone? Crap.

So it’s been entirely too long and I haven’t updated improvoker. This is due to one unfortunate problem, those damn Del Close Marathon notes. See the thing is, I took notes in a dark theater in a little notebook and when I looked again at my notes, well, nothing made any sense. it was all scribbly “numer 4.5 — don’t wear slutty cloths on stag.”

Luckily I recorded the whole press conference on my iPhone, but I haven’t been able to copy the audio files over to listen to the pieces I need to finally post those notes. I feel terrible about this and I apologize profusely and hope we can still go to the sock-hop together.

Come on baby, where you going?

The good news I have not given up and will try, to make sense of what the UCB 3 said on that stage in the dark. Thanks for bearing with me while I flake a little — I’ll try to be better in future.

If you make a mistake, do it twice

by Ben Whitehouse.

If you make a mistake, do it twice.

Jazz Saying

This is one of those truths that finds it’s way into every art form. It’s true for Jazz and it’s true for improvisation.

Bobby Moynihan’s Face Joins Saturday Night Live

by Ben Whitehouse.

So as commenter The Gooch rightly noted, I have not written about Bobby Moynihan, of UCBs Stepfathers, being picked up by SNL. This is of course amazing news. Bobby had auditioned for SNL last year and was not added to the cast, but I think all of us expected if he auditioned again he would get the spot.

One of the many words of wisdom I got from Bobby was back in my UCB 401 improv class, Bobby was subbing for Billy Merritt, and he spoke about this face he does which always gets a laugh. He did the face, which is a magical shrug, and we all laughed. I then decided to create my own face which I could do and always get a laugh. Unfortunately Bobby was unavailable to coach me on the face and had to cobble together my own face from various sources, but at the end of a year — I had a face. It’s not Bobby’s face, by any stretch, but it’s good enough for government work.

All that is totally true.

Bobby is one of the nicest, most supportive, super talented people I have ever met. He’s been a staple at UCB since I started and I’m really sad to see him go, but at least it will give America a chance to see that lovely man’s face. (Oh, and America, I just danced with Bobby the other night and let me tell you, Bobby can dance too.)

Also totally true.

DCM10 Day 1 — Press Conference

by Ben Whitehouse.

This year started off to an exciting start as the DCM Press Conference was reserves to talking completely about the UCB concepts about improvisation. It was a unique look into UCBs brand of improvisation and what they feel makes good comedic improvisation.

Roberts, Walsh, and Besser laid out the UCBs “theses” on improvisation. Who h ranged from the expected “Game is fundamental” to more subtle “having your own opening isn’t important.” I will be sure to post my full notes once I’m near an accrual keyboard.

The UCB3 then played a few of Del’s earlier, less known recordings.

Shows

MySpace was as usual incredible, with some hilarious scenes about what sounded like the most bizzare workout system spx90, of something in that vain. Bassprov was as wonderful as I remember it and Horatio Sans, who has lost a considerable amount of weight, approached the stage with a poise I have not seen. The Stepfathers was by far the most stressful improv set with Shannon O’Neil and Chris Gethard getting into a slapping brawl on stage. For anyone at the theater, it was like watching your mom and dad start to fight — although very funny once everyone decided not to kill each other.

The highlight of the night, however, was Directors commentary live. The film was Universal Soldier and the commentary was by far the most inventive and hilarious I have seen to date. “I call ziss a Van Damn”, “no sleeves means you don’t have to pay for sleeves” and “That’s me, that’s not me” had people litterally rolling in the isles.