Was pretty excited to sign up for this class over at Magnet Theater and as there is still a spot available before Sunday’s class, I thought I would bring it to your attention, if you didn’t know about it already. Forsooth!
NEW!!!IMPROVISEDSHAKESPEARE with Blaine SwenONEDAYWORKSHOP!!!*
Take a risk! Learn how to create a fully improvised story using the language and themes of William Shakespeare! We’ll explore the use of heightened emotional responses, rich character subtext, finding the game within a scene, and developing a sense of play. Our class will be filled with power struggles, star-crossed lovers, sprites, kings, queens, princesses, sword-play, rhyming couplets, asides, insults, persons in disguise and all that we’ve come to expect from the pen of the Great Bard. One day workshop. Limit 16 students. Pre-requisite: Level One or equivalent experience.
Availability: OPEN
Instructor: Blaine Swen
Dates: January 25 (One Day Workshop)
Day: Sunday
Time: 3-6pm
Price: $50
Location: Pearl Studios 500 8th Avenue 4th Floor, between 35th/36th Sts
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.
Tonight is the final Rawhide Presents: The Raw Harold at UCB and instead of again giving my break down of last weeks’ show (which was hilarious) and urging you not to miss it (there is nothing more I can do), I thought I would look at a few facets of the show I have not mentioned up until now, these are the performers and the director Chris Gethard.
Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling?
– MC Escher
One of the reasons I feel so passionately about the Raw Harold is partly because, as a performer, seeing an experimental form such as the Raw Harold inspires me to experiment with my own improvisation and partly because most of the performers on stage are my contemporaries. I have worked with most of these performers, I have seen what they were capable of, and I have seen them fail in the past. This makes watching them excel that much more impressive. These are all talented performers, no doubt, but I have never seen them be so confident on stage.
So, I told you guys it was a worthwhile show, but now I’m going to lay it down. I have seen a lot of improv in my time at UCB and the Raw Harold continues to be the best thing I have seen in a long time. Last week’s show was exceptional and the improvisers, student improvisers mind you, surpassed their individual talents to create a truly inspirational show.
Yeah, Inspirational.
I walked away from last weeks performance saying “I want to improvise like that.” This is the same feeling I get when I watch 4 Square or Gravid Water. And not to say that I think Chris Gethard is trying to make any particular statement about what improv can be, but the fact of the matter is anyone could perform to the caliber of these performers if they risked and supported everything (like these performers do).
My last write-up I tried to break down the form of the raw Harold. I tried to equate the scenes I saw on stage to forms I had learned, tried to make jumps in logic, tried to find patterns. However, if there is a form, I can’t figure it out. I tried to keep track of scenes and for the most part this last performance did not follow any of the previous performance’s rules. Everything blended together; group games, scenes, meta, audience participation. I quickly forgot to write down the hierarchy of scenes, because I simply couldn’t keep track of them.
It’s like watching a con artist using slight of hand.
Now, while I’m saying there may be no discernible pattern, I do think there is a rhythm to the scenes. This rhythm I feel is not part of the form, if there is a form, but rather an indicator of the performers’ improv training. The scenes move in a quick succession, each performer taking focus and releasing it once it has been taken. Again it’s a bit of a magic trick the way the scenes work, each scene moving toward what each performer finds interesting and followed by the rest of the group unconditionally.
I could write further about the scenes last week; about Greg’s incredible ability to ground scenes, about Katie getting lovingly picked on by Jacob, about audience members replaced by improvisers, about one of the funniest references to Who’s Line is it Anyways’ Party Quirks, or my sister Amy getting pulled into the audience to reveal to the Raw Harold audience some incredibly personal information.
But in the end I think I’ll leave it as I began it — the Raw Harold continues to be the best thing I have seen in a long time. If you miss this show, you will be less of an improviser because of it. Take nap and see the show. Tonight at 11pm UCB Theatre.
I’m not often one for snarky comments on this site, but something has pushed me to post this article. That something is 40+ e-mails from various independent improv groups around NYC, all inviting me out to their shows this weekend. This, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, but when every single member of every single improv group e-mails me, it starts to wear my patience.
You have new mail! Ah, sorry looks like yet another invite to that Friday show you can’t make anyway.
You guys have got to get your advertising together into one, “group mind”/group e-mail system. I don’t mind an e-mail, but 12 for the same event is too much. So here is the Improvoker time and tested formula for successful e-mailing your fan base.
Make one person in the group responsible for e-mails - Give them your contacts you wish to e-mail. As a performing group, you should have an e-mail list anyway for people at shows to sign. That gives you one system and one one list to e-mail to.
BCC your addresses - My e-mail address is for you to tell me about the show, not for you to send to every person you have ever met. This is an important step, because addresses that aren’t BCCed have the distinct opportunity of falling into the hands of spammers through malicious spyware. Respect your audience’s privacy. Keep em secret, keep it safe Frodo.
Subject your e-mail something sensible, preferably with the group, date, and time clearly expressed — “I have a show!”,“weekend”, “I WRITEEVERYTHINGINCAPSLOCKANDEXCLAMATIONS!!!” These are three shows I really might want to see, but in my limited time and energy — I may not read further. I am not going to come to your show because of the hilarity of your subject line. Tell me what group you are representing, when your show is, what it is (improv or sketch), and where it is, so I can get a sense of if I’m available or not, before I go rooting through the e-mail for information. “Peppermint Captain — Improv Show Sat 11/3 8PM @ Gotham City”, now I don’t even really need to read the e-mail, I can make my decision based purely on the subject.
Do not send out an e-mail to let your list know you screwed up some non-critical information - “Sorry I didn’t BCC all of you on the last e-mail” is another e-mail that you are sending. Just don’t do it in the future and I’ll forgive you. “Oh Sandy’s name is spelled ‘Sandie’” is not reason to contact your entire fan base. By all means send an e-mail if you really screwed something up, but the less e-mails sent, the happier your recipients.
See if mailing list software is available to handle your mailing list - this allows your fan base to sign up for your shows at performances and allows you to e-mail them all from a central interface. This kind of stuff is available through most service providers, and is extremely valuable as you grow and expand. See the Improv Everywhere site.
Keep it short and sweet - I adore you, I can’t wait to see you on stage again, but let’s get this e-mail over with as quickly as possible — so I can get back to my funny.
I know this all might seem a little harsh, but I assure you if you are more focused with your promotion, you will keep fans happy in the long run. Most of all you keep me happy and keeping me happy is really what’s important isn’t it?
Lastly, I hope you all have great shows this weekend and I can’t wait to get your one e-mail next weekend.
My personal favorite scene of the evening was when Neuringer introduced her team to the Wizard of Oz yellow-brick-road exhibit, which each player cleverly tied into a historical metaphor. The scene culminated in a proclamation that the yellow-brick-road was a metaphor for the gold standard.
I couldn’t agree more, although my personal highlight was DC from Derrick and Ari’s really amazingly heightened analogous scenes about the savior and the eternally persecuted retailer. Really simple, really well played, and DC’s first Harold night scene.
Tomorrow night is the debut of Raynard who is a group of new players, some of which I have had the pleasure to play with. It’s not something you want to miss.
Remember: Your registration is not complete until you have paid.
