Downright Upright

Know Everything!

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:02:50 -0700

I get in trouble for saying that because I deliberately say it in a jerk manner. KNOW EVERYTHING. When someone says “I didn’t know the movie my partner was mentioning” I’ll sometimes say “Well, you don’t HAVE to know it but it would be easier if you knew it.”

And then people are like “Why do I have to like Star Wars?”

And I say “Who said anything about Star Wars?”

“All these improv nerd boys love Star Wars and can’t stop mentioning it. I hate that HAVE to know it.”

I know. It’s annoying.

Read More

Improv Coaching Etiquette

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:56:47 -0700

khealywu:

I’ve been thinking about making one of these for awhile. This first section is how I think indie teams and practice groups should interact with their coach.

24 hour notice for making any changes / cancellations. If you’re cancelling day of, you and your team owe your coach their standard fee.

2 hour minimum for 3+ people. I’ve done too many 1 hour coaching sessions lately, and I’m not sure where it started or why it’s suddenly accepted, but it shouldn’t be. An hour is not enough time.

Be on time. You’re paying for the time, get your money’s worth!

Do you have a coach you work with regularly? Email them once, 3-4 days before your regular rehearsing time to confirm. Confirm all the details, even if nothing’s changed. Just a good habit.

If the location has changed, include a street address so they can get directions straight from the email.

Don’t text to request a coach, unless it’s a last minute fill in.

Set the room up as soon as you can get in there. You are spending the money, chat while you set up the room. 4 chairs on the backline, mirrors covered and a chair for the coach. Put your stuff on the other side of the room from the backline so you don’t accidentally step on anybody’s stuff.

Etiquette for Coaches

Respond to emails promptly.

Provide your phone number so the group can get in touch with you.

Get there early, or at the very least on time. Do not be late. It’s the worst! This is your job, treat it like one!

Help set up the room, but don’t do it for them.

If you have time, stay behind to give feedback to anyone who wants it. I know you’re not technically getting paid for this time, but I think it’s important.

Bring a dedicated coaching notebook and two pens.

Put sessions in your calendar RIGHT AWAY.

If (heaven forbid) you miss a session without giving notice, you owe the group / team a free session.

If your schedule changes and you can’t coach when you had confirmed, offer to get a replacement for them.

If you’ve been coaching a performing team for awhile, and your schedule permits, go to some of their shows, and be ready to give them notes on their set. Audiences, and the adrenaline of live performances change the dynamic of a team, and having the consistency of getting notes from their coach is hugely valuable for a team.

So that’s what I think! What points of improv coaching etiquette have I missed?

UPDATED: Improv Reading List

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:01:00 -0700

Hey it’s that time again. It’s been 5 months since the last update to the Improv Reading List. For my new followers: the improv reading list is the greatest hits version of this blog and improv nerdery on the internet. I do my best to catalog all of my favorite things I read there.

But it’s getting pretty long, so if you check out the main page, you’ll see two new sections Class Notes (compiles class notes found on Tumblr) and Classes & Shows in LA (guide to classes and shows for LA locals).

Added to the reading list:

The Legacy of Heather & Miles by Sabrina London
[podcast] Dickie Copeland on Improv Obsession
[podcast] Matt Besser on Improv Nerd
You Will Never Figure this Out by Will Hines
Let’s All Go to Camp by Stephen Perlstein
[video] The SAG Foundation introduction to all of Los Angeles’ Improv schools, including The Miles Stroth Workshop, UCB, Groundlings, iO, and Second City.
[video] That time Snoop Dogg gave a shout out to the UCB NY Harold auditioners.
A Thing I Like About Improv by Hal Phillips
Groundlings and (but not vs.) UCB by Tim Stafford
Find the Thing You’re Most Passionate About & Do It On Nights and Weekends for the Rest of Your Life (from The Onion)
[video] 3 Step at the Improv Prize Fight Tournament

Check i t out.

louie4711: fastcompany: Improv emphasizes showing over...

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:04:48 -0700

louie4711:

fastcompany:

Improv emphasizes showing over telling, a principle that often manifests in a technique known as “the invisible game” on Key & Peele. The central joke of these scenes is ladled out, beat by beat, but never spoken of. “The audience loves to figure things out,” says Key, who has extensive professional acting experience and a unique physicality honed by emulating silent masters such as Chaplin and Keaton. “They love it when a performer leaves a trail of bread crumbs for them, and they get to participate in the comedy.”

Innovation through improvisation: How Key & Peele busted the forumla and created something new

This is one of the better comedy-process articles I’ve read in a while.

Shitty Jobs 5/13/2013

Mon, 13 May 2013 19:03:00 -0700

I love this. Last night Charlie Sanders took the suggestion. Someone meekly calls out “Heather Ledger,” and a brief moment passes before someone else YELLS out “Zebra.” Big laugh from the audience. Charlie says, “Okay, we’ll take both suggestions at the volume they were said, so you’ll get a lot of Zebra and a little bit of Heath Ledger.”

So the show starts and Charlie initiates off of Zebra, doing a preschool scene, where the students have to guess the animal in the picture. But the game becomes that the teacher painted the pictures, so “It seems like it’s less about how well we can guess the animal and more about how well you can paint.” Great move from Dominic. The set continues, they heighten and explore, heighten and explore, never swiping… about 20 minutes in, they’re at the point where they’re in a sitcom on an alien planet starring a bunch of aliens but mapping it over cliche sitcom specifics (classic Shitty Jobs)…. it’s pretty out there. Pretty Zebra, if you will.

The set finally comes back around to the first scene, in the classroom. The students still can’t guess Charlie’s drawings, so he can’t take it any more… and starts eating pills, by the handful. The kids start screaming at him, “Yeah go ahead!” “That won’t kill you!” “Take the easy way out!” Finally Charlie gurgles “Just like Heath Ledger!” and dies and I’m pretty sure the crowd lost their shit. Just a gigantic, “How did they do that?” laugh from the audience. What a great, great move. Just a little bit of Heather Ledger and a lot of Zebra.

avcnyc: improv-is-easy: Hoping I’ll cut this out with...

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:15:00 -0700

avcnyc:

improv-is-easy:

Hoping I’ll cut this out with experience, but is there a trick to help me stop thinking like this when I perform? Suggestion: “wife.” My mind: “Wife. Makes me think of a wedding, which makes me think of dancing. Should I just start dancing? No. Besides dancing, weddings make me think of… the movie Jaws. Wait. I don’t think there’s even a wedding in that movie…” and while teammates have started a scene I’m wondering if it’d be too weird to initiate a scene where I’m a shark attack victim

Go with your gut instinct! Your first idea is your best one.

Becky Drysdale said that the moment of hesitation between Suggestion and Inspiration is where improv dies, because you’re no longer improvising a scene, you’re writing one (and judging one) in your head.

Don’t kill your improv! Just start dancing.

Ask improv-is-easy a question!

“you’re no longer improvising a scene, you’re writing one (and judging one) in your head.”

Holy crap! That is what I do all the time!!!! THANK YOU KIRK FOR ARTICULATING MY BIGGEST PROBLEM!

Ian Roberts? Matt Walsh? Episodes on Demand!?!?

Sun, 12 May 2013 20:38:54 -0700

improvobsession:

Yup, that’s right. I’ve got episodes from those two available right now. But, there’s a catch. I know, I hate me too.

It’s a review’s drive. Go to the iTunes store go rate and review the show. Don’t give it one star because you hate to do this. I wont count it if you do. Write a review, and we’re one step closer to those episodes.

Once I get 100 reviews, Ian Robert’s episode will go online.

Once I get 200 reviews, Matt Walsh’s episode wil go online.

AND, if you’ve already donated to the show, if you’re an Improv Obsession Hero, you’re getting a link for those two episodes right now. If you wanna donate, I’ll send you the link. Any amount, I don’t want people giving me huge chunks of money anyway.

So there it is, you want those episode, you know what to do.

Read More

Come on everybody! Rate Improv Obsession on iTunes! Donate! We all listen so help out if you can.

What makes Good Meta Improv?

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:05:50 -0700

I’ve talked about how improv is inherently meta before, and all that means is that improv is, by nature, presentational, like Stand Up or late night shows, as opposed to self-contained and separated by a 4th wall like a play or sketch. People can obviously do stuff that’s very real and grounded or simply doesn’t break the 4th wall. However, my small point was that the very fact that it’s made up on the spot creates a meta-y self awareness in the audience, so much so that when a scene is good, we very very rarely say, “Wow, that character was so interesting.” Instead we say, “Wow, that performer is so great!”

Unfortunately, that’s very academic and not very practical, in terms of how you handle yourself onstage. So let’s talk about it a little more.

Going back to Mick Napier, as I am wont to do, I find myself re-reading that blog and asking myself, “Fine, so improv is kinda meta, who cares? What do I do?” I don’t have a complete answer for “What do I do?” but someone on my Tumblr feed today linked to an old Peter Gwinn interview. And lo and behold, greater minds than mine have thought through this very problem! (emphasis mine)

JF: What is ‘Meta’ improv? And what makes good or bad Meta improv?

Peter Gwinn: Meta improv is an improv show that acknowledges the fact that there is an audience watching the show and that we are performers. Good meta improv is improv that uses that fact to enhance the themes of that show. Bad meta improv is improv that uses those techniques as a cop out to excuse their poor technique.

An example of ‘bad’ meta improv would be someone who gets a laugh by saying something like ‘why don’t you walk into another scene,’ or ‘uh oh, here comes this guy we’ve seen before.’ My absolute favorite bad meta improv is someone will say something like ‘I don’t know. I thought we start started the second beat,’ which is an apology, a call-out of a mistake, and an inside term that half the audience doesn’t know. That’s all terrible. There was a Reuben Williams show where the whole show was about the fact that they didn’t clearly get the suggestion from the audience. It was kind of a nightmare. It was also kind of good actually, because it eventually went beyond that. Don’t start a game where you’re arguing over which suggestion to take. I think that was the hook.

An example of good meta improv was this team I worked with in Chicago, People of Earth, were really good at Meta improv. One of the shows I remember the suggestion was Communism. Two thirds of the way through the show, someone had started a scene and one of the guys on the side of the stage turned to the person next to him and started complaining really loudly that Danny was in more scenes than anybody else, and we should all be sharing equally in these scenes. That kind of led to a discussion. At the end of the show was they brought the house lights up and they were standing onstage, trying to get the audience to come onstage, because this is the people’s show and we all deserved an equal share in improvising it. That’s not calling out the show. It’s an improv game that is played with the 4th wall down, which I guess could be another definition of good Meta improv. It’s still an improv game. It still follows that structure, but it just acknowledges the fact that you’re performing in front of an audience.

JF: It seems like your approval or whatever of Meta comedy is tied to your more fundamental belief that improv should be organic and if something comes up Meta it should be explored.

PG: Absolutely, that’s definitely true. That’s kind of the other thing. If you’re in a place where you can respond to stuff that happens organically, as opposed to ‘right now we have to do beat 2 of scene B’ or whatever, that’s less inspired that ‘oh shit, this thing happened organically,’ lets make it into a game and see what happens.

I think what I really love about this is that in improv, I continually find that there are always less rules than I think there are. It always comes back to very simple things: listen and react, commit, heighten, listen, make and accept offers, find your position, create patterns, listen.

As Gwinn frames it, good meta improv is just an extension of those very basic improv principles, but ignoring the rule of “don’t go meta.” He’s saying listen, react, commit, etc… and if in doing so you find yourself doing meta improv, that’s okay.

You can read the entire interview with Peter Gwinn starting here.

-Sean London

Watch Me Perform | Follow me on Twitter! | Coaching

Finding the Rules of a Montage

Okay, that streaming thing I shared yesterday ended up being way...

Thu, 09 May 2013 09:40:00 -0700

Okay, that streaming thing I shared yesterday ended up being way cooler than I recognized. Basically, each of the major Los Angeles schools (The Miles Stroth Workshop, UCB, Groundlings, Second City, iO West) are represented and they each discuss their approach to improv in philosophy and training. I’ve only watched the first 25 minutes…. pretty great so far.

A must watch.

UPDATE: I just finished watching this, and when I get some free time I’ll pull some of the highlights for all the non-nerds who don’t want to watch an hour and 20 minute video on improv. That being said, I’m feeling pretty proud to have trained and performed with the Miles Stroth Workshop for the past year and a half. Miles always speaks in concrete terms and with the utmost clarity. Plus, he always has a great Del story in his back pocket.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to take a class with him, this video gives a taste, and I highly recommend checking it out and his school.

SAG Foundation: Improv & Sketch Comedy: Part One - Training

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:17:06 -0700

SAG Foundation: Improv & Sketch Comedy: Part One - Training:

Miles Stroth (The Family, Heather & Miles), Johnny Meeks (Sentimental Lady), and others are giving talk at the SAG Foundation later today at 7PM PST. You can watch it stream live at the above link, or you can see the video on YouTube after it airs. (I’ll update with the link after)

Fast play

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:41:00 -0700

I like playing fast. All my favorite teams play fast. I appreciate slow play, but I don’t seek it out. It’s not to my taste. I’m okay with that.

Miles Stroth told me something very important, when it comes to speed:

“Speed comes later.”

You may learn more. You may do more shows. You may read some life-altering blog on improv. And you grow your understanding.

But if you want to play fast, be patient. Because speed comes later. The only way you get faster is to get great habits and solid technique deeper and deeper into your bones until you don’t have to think about it. There’s no faking that. There’s no shortcut. One improv class won’t do that. Experience does that.

You may have experienced this with other things you’re good at. When you first start playing guitar, your fingers don’t do what you tell them to. They don’t move at the rate you want them to. You can’t implement ideas at the rate you can dream them up.

This is true also in improv. It’s certainly the frustration I face. “If only I had done this, instead of that!” But I don’t always think that quickly. Not yet.

Maybe that’s why I love fast teams so much. Heather & Miles. Shitty Jobs. Police Chief Rumble. Hot Sauce. When you watch someone play fast, rapidly making and accepting offers. Getting that beautiful second-line laugh every time. Making the bold character choice in the initiation. Exploring worlds instead of just playing games. When you see teams do these things, you’re watching expertise. You’re watching experience. You’re watching people play that way because they have a lot of ideas and the skill and desire to play them right now.

But you can’t move like that and still get laughs unless you’re great. Fast teams are great.

-Sean

Watch Me Perform | Follow me on Twitter! | Coaching

Related Posts:

Uncommon Improv Advice

Tag-outs

ucblove: UCB Harold callbacks love from Snoop and Cipha. Just...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:17:23 -0700

ucblove:

UCB Harold callbacks love from Snoop and Cipha.

Just Snoop Dogg wishing luck to Harold auditioners.

Audition Advice

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:24:36 -0700

iamachilles:

I

You

We

React

Repeat funny thing

Chill:

improvobsession: Dickie Copeland is on the show today! You know...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0700

improvobsession:

Dickie Copeland is on the show today! You know Dickie from Styx Martin, Bitty Schrim, D’artagnan, Heavy Goose, Bikini Tiger, her wonderful writing, more. Dickie and I talk a bit about improv, but even MORE about developing yourself as a professional comedy person. We talk about why I should have changed my name, how to focus on a path for writers, determining and going after your type for actors, and also, why is game so hard. Also, we spend the whole episode drinking whisky so you know it’s a good episode! Subscribe, rate, comment, enjoy, donate.

Click here to download/subscribe in iTunes

Click here to find the Improv Obsession Podcast on Facebook

Click here for my Twitter @Perlstein

Great episode! Just a treasure trove of simple, practical advice for navigating your comedy career when you’re just starting out.

iowest: Come get your daily dose of nonsense at iO west.

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:49:42 -0700

iowest:

Come get your daily dose of nonsense at iO west.

khealywu: liezlwashere: UCB-LA | Gravid Water | 04.07.13 Lucy...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:45:00 -0700

khealywu:

liezlwashere:

UCB-LA | Gravid Water | 04.07.13

Lucy Davis & Stephen Merchant

Hooooly shit.

!!!

Guys, I love doing Wednesday Night Riot. Riot’s the new...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:22:02 -0700

Guys, I love doing Wednesday Night Riot.

Riot’s the new show from the Miles Stroth Workshop, every Wednesday at 8:30. We put up shows from Private Street, Princess Cake, Soulmates, and bits and sketches and any craziness we dream up. Honestly, it’s the most fun I have all week.

This week’s particularly fun, because we’re debuting our new weekly headline show One Night Stand. Each week, Miles Stroth improvises with a new improviser for a special one-night-only, 2-person headline event. I love it, and it’s selected by raffle, which means if YOU show up this Wednesday then you could win a chance to perform in next week’s show. How cool is that?

Our first improviser to join Miles is the very funny Ryan Hitchcock, and I couldn’t be happier about it. What a way to kick things off!

Come check us out!

(Photos by Sabrina London)

david drinks too much: A TOUGH LOVE GUIDE TO HAVING BETTER INDIE SHOWS – PART ONE

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:57:44 -0700

david drinks too much: A TOUGH LOVE GUIDE TO HAVING BETTER INDIE SHOWS – PART ONE:

catbathchad:

Let me start off by saying that I’m strictly a student of improv. There are LA indie promoters who are at the instructor level and run great shows like Crashbar, Room 101, TNT and Shapeshift Improv. Many of them are available for (and really good at) coaching and can help make you better…

I love this and agree.

Ah shit! I just saw the LA Indie Improv festival post their flyer on their facebook page, so I guess...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:35:00 -0700

Ah shit! I just saw the LA Indie Improv festival post their flyer on their facebook page, so I guess that’s coming up soon.

This was an awesome event last year. Be sure to LIKE their Facebook page for updates:

http://www.facebook.com/TheLaIndieImprovFestival

This will be very funny. Private Street has been winning the UCB...

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:13:29 -0700

This will be very funny.

Private Street has been winning the UCB Cagematch and now they’re putting up their very own spank at UCB. I recommend seeing this so hard.

It’s this Wednesday at 6:30 at UCB LA. You can get rezzies here.