Hoopla

Spontaneity including Man with the Clipboard Metaphor!

2012-03-08T07:45:00.001-08:00

These are some notes from the Monday workshop at The Rag Factory a couple of weeks ago.

Spontaneity pops up as one of the overall points in impro with everything else we do, but it's good to do a workshop solely on it every now and again.

In 'real life' not being spontaneous is quite often a good strategy. It keeps us safe, it stops us getting into trouble, it stops us from saying the wrong thing. We learn to look before we leap, think first then act, and make the best decisions. Keith Johnstone tends to write about this as if it's an awful thing, but I don't think you have to change how you live your 'real life' just to make up some stuff in 'stage life'. When on stage improvising, being spontaneous becomes a very good idea. When negotiating a mortgage with your bank, being spontaneous is not such a good idea. You can have control over both types of behaviour, it's you afterall.

With improvisers on stage we seem to appreciate people who don't worry about danger (of the scene, we don't want to see actual physical danger), who get into trouble, who say the wrong thing, who look before they leap, who act first and think later (if at all), who just go with the first decision not the best decision. You can always go back to another way of behaving in real life, or be free to choose how you want to behave, but on stage it's fun to drop defences, open up and be spontaneous.

When getting people to be spontaneous in a workshop, or if you're directing a show, the first thing to do is create the right environment. An environment of safety, trust and support without judgement where people can feel secure and happy with being whoever they want to be without fear of retribution. John Cremer writes loads about this in is awesome book. Any threat to this environment and people will tend to snap back to the 'real world' method of behaviour where they are forced to defend themselves, judge themselves, edit themselves. The stage has to be a safe place.

I could spend 2 hours teaching people how to be spontaneous, or spend 2 minutes setting the right environment and they will just be spontaneous automatically.

Man With The Clipboard

This extended metaphor came out of workshop ages ago but it keeps coming back to me, so here it is in its full madness:

There's a massive party going on on a beach in the Caribbean. There are hundreds of gorgeous of people in swimsuits splashing around, flirting, drinking cocktails and playing steel drums. There's music playing, the sea is warm, the sun is out, everything is good. But there's a little man with a clipboard running around saying things like "it's 2:30pm, time for a game to Twister everybody! Stop doing that it's Twister time now. We're playing Twister now!!!!" The general consensus at the beach party is why doesn't this little man chill the fuck out and stop trying to control everything.

Your man with a clipboard (inner judge/editor/ whatever you want to call it, I'm not a psychologist) seems to be very good at organising things and getting you places, making to do lists and getting things done BUT this man with a clipboard is fucking rubbish at making up comedy on the spot. But the trouble is this man with the clipboard thinks he's bloody amazing at making up comedy on the spot! So at the exact moment a party on a beach starts to happen he pops up and starts to try and control everything.

He pops up to protect you, to save you, to help you. The second you feel any pressure, unsafe, or unsure, there he is. But he's rubbish at being funny. There's already a party on a beach going on, he just needs to get out of the way.

The good news is that he's really easy to distract. He likes small repeatable logical tasks and seems to think they are really important. Everyone else on the beach let's him think they are really important, so they can get on with having a party on a beach.

Give him a Rubik's cube and he's set. He'll happily play with that and suddenly everyone on the beach will start humping and he'll be all like "whatever man, I've got a Rubik's cube here, this is clearly the most important thing on the beach." Vikings will invade, dragons go water-skiing, Mr. Blobby makes cocktails, and he won't try and stop them because he's got all his attention on a Rubik's cube.

More good news is that a load of impro exercises seem to work by giving your man with the clipboard something to concentrate on, so that he stops trying to be funny and organise stuff and stop stuff and your beach party can come out. You've got all you need in your subconscious, there's so much in there waiting to come out. There's even the collective subconscious, which is a whole world of cool stuff. When you're improvising it can feel like at first that the Rubik's cube is important, and at first it is as it's that which let's you get out of the way. But eventually you realise there is a world of stuff going on. Basically, everything.

Bad news is that sometimes the man with the clipboard gets bored of the Rubik's Cube. Maybe he finishes it, or it becomes too easy, or too difficult. He looks up and sees a dragon and a Viking on his beach playing volleyball with three nuns and a camel and he suddenly stands bolt upright and shouts "STOPPPP! It's time to play Twister! NO! NO! NO! NO!"

Improvisers can be using the same performance techniques for months/years and then suddenly BLAM they are stuck on stage stuck in their heads thinking "she's said something now, everyone is looking at me, so I should say something". Their man with the clipboard has caught up with their techniques and taking over again.

The good news again though is that there is no end of different techniques and exercises to get through this. There is no right or wrong one, it's whatever one works for you in that time. It's a constantly changing fluid thing.

Sometimes it's just going line by line, adding a detail to what's just been said, or trying to name everything in the environment, or just saying the first thing that comes to your head, or going from character, or throwing yourself into a physical action before you know why, or having an emotional sound and response to everything that's said, or only talking when you touch, or being as serious as possible, or limiting your own words, or doing an A-Z game, or listing a load of random words, or doing great object work, opening your hand and seeing what's there, throwing yourself into the unknown.

They all help to make great scenes and stories, and they all can help distract the man (or woman) with the clipboard.

My own person man with a clipboard story was before I got into impro. I wasn't really going anywhere with jobs/career/life and then one week I started to learn to windsurf. I didn't want to be a windsurfer as such, but the opportunity had popped up to do it for free. So for seven hours a day seven days a week my man with a clipboard was completely engrossed in learning about windsurfing, and making me climb back on and pull the sail out the water every time I fell off. At the end of the week I suddenly walked back onto the beach and declared to everyone there "I know who I am and what I'm doing" and then fell onto the sand in a fit of giggles. There had clearly been something else going on all week I wasn't even conscious of. Everyone cheered, even though they didn't even really know me.

I should probably go windsurfing again.

Very Random Genre Notes

2012-03-08T06:50:00.000-08:00

There is an earlier blog post that covers our Saturday workshops in more detail, so these are very random additional notes.

Yet again Genre workshops never fail to amaze me. People totally new to impro end up improvising entire stories very rapidly when doing a genre. It's like a decent genre supplies some ready made lego blocks to play with in impro, and gets a group mind and understanding activated.

So here are the random notes, based on asking the workshop crowd what they would want to see in each genre, what the obvious thing to put in was, and what seemed to work well in the scenes (as always, turn up the volume on what's going well when directing!)

Sci-Fi

The Folly of Mankind
Taking something that exists now - a social situation, class, politics, technology, human nature, evolution and extrapolating it out over time and exagerating it
Aliens
Advanced technology (they had some fun making up lots of new technology and gizmos)
Time Travel
Abduction
Future
Mind Control
Space Travel
Buttons Levers Lights
Alien Things
Radiation
Scottish Engineers
Parallel Universe
Universe not dissimilar to ours
Aliens
Live long and prosper

I know a lot of that stuff sounds really obvious, but that's the point. If an audience ask for Sci Fi and they don't end up with things like Space, Aliens, Time Travel etc they will be disappointed. Putting on the additional bit that good Sci-Fi tends to reflect something in our own society seemed to go down well too. A couple of them pointed out that Sci-Fi is sometimes not seen as a genre at all, which I agree. Starship Troopers is actually a War Film that happens to be set in space, Star Wars (the original) is more like a Western in places (Han Solo is even dressed almost exactly like a cowboy), Star Trek quite often goes political, Alien is a Horror etc etc.

Little known fact about me by the way is that I totally believe in aliens, and think that they are widespread across the Universe. There's even increasing evidence and theory for alien microbes existing on Mars, the atmosphere of Venue, and some moons around Jupiter and Saturn. They are all writing blogs as we speak about their alien impro workshops.

Shakespeare

I got in trouble do doing this! Ooops! For some reason we could tuck into any other genre but Shakespeare seemed to be more sacred. I'm not an expert on Shakespeare so I just do my interpretation of it.

Kings/Servants
Status
Castles
Verse
Aspirations
Fool
Language
Morals
Soliloquies
Girls dressed as Boys
Mistaken Identity
Taking down the upper classes

I've got a theory that the use of rhythm and verse in Shakespeare actually helps to write it, as it can actually stop you thinking too much eventually and stuff pours out of you. I also love the way Shakespeare was so current, it used to really target the people at the top of society right there and then and investigate them and take them down. Nobody seems to do that so bravely now, apart from maybe Charlie Brooker in Black Mirror.

French New Wave

This was a fascinating one, as most of the class had no idea what it was including me so we kept playing and playing with it and eventually seemed to create a style of its own. It also served to highlight the hugely different styles within impro. Impro is a catch all term but actually there can be so many different things going on within it - clowning, dance, naturalism, panto, buffoon, melodrama. Sometimes I feel the gaps between impro groups/theories/workshops is just a lack of understanding that all people are trying to do is produce a different style, and naming the style can help people work together.

Emotional Genre - predominantly exploring patterns within various relationships
Limited and simple locations - giving focus to relationships
Tension between generations and class
Discussions of logic, philosophy
Motives
Themes
Cocky Young Man archetype
Older wiser man archetype
Lovers
Strangers meet
Realism
Metaphors
Believable

Farce

This is notoriously difficult as a genre but they nailed it. Many thanks to Matt Andrews for some awesome ideas on this one. One thing that popped up was that it was entirely game of the scene based. When a game stopped working another one had to be set up. Games had to be mercilessly escalated and escalated.

Multiple Rooms
Set in one stately home
Mistaken identity
People walking in and out
Raise the stakes
Spot the game, play it
Gradually more frantic
Timing timing timing

Matt mentioned that Kelsey Grammer wanted to write a Farce, it was notoriously difficult so they put it off, but eventually he convinced TV bosses and the result was Frasier.

I make it look really simple/2-D above but seeing it on stage it became apparent that the actors had to be really 'on it' and pick up on everything. Also the importance of timing.

1930s Gangster Films

Nicknames
Mobsters vs Mobsters
Italian Mother serving lasagne
Tragedy
Honour
The Hit
Shoot Out
Double Crossing/Squeal/Grass
Trying to get out the mob

Another classic case of being obvious. One scene ended up with the characters finding a balance and resolution, which would often be great in impro but this time the audience seemed disappointed. We asked them what they wanted and it turned out that with this genre they wanted blood. We repeated the ending with a big shoot out instead where everyone died, and the audience cheered.

Silent Movie

Repetition
Slapstick
Comedy Violence
Prat Falls
Duo
Bullying
Two low status people having a high status battle with each other, one bossing around the other
Face the audience
Commedia Dell Arte
React to the audience
Be confused

This was a great example of how different genres are. At firs the scene was getting a reaction from the audience as the actors were still acting within the limits of naturalism. Once they fully embraced the ridiculousness of slapstick they were funny, and we were all in hysterics. Similar to Farce I didn't realise how much this demanded of the actors - they had to fully commit to every move, reaction and play it big.

Buddy Cop Movie

Good Cop/Bad Cop
Buddies/Partners
Little in common
Hint to the home life of Good Cop
They have a history together
One is a maverick
Following the rules vs No Rules
Love/Hate relationship
Everything you believe it, I don't
Bonding together working on a case they have to

B-Movie

Teenagers in a relationship going on a prom
Normal everyday life in American town
A thing/monster comes and threatens it
What is it??

If the thing/monster is a metaphor for a problem born out of their relationship, or reflecting a problem in the town or society in general, then this quite often cross into 'Sci Fi'. When it's just a random thing, it's a B-Movie.

There were some more we did like Horror, Western, Mafia Film and more but I've lost the notes for them dammit.

So there go, random genre notes.

Lots of love,

Hoopla

Improv classes Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays in London
Different classes around the UK on Sundays
www.HooplaImpro.com

Exercises on focus and scenes with lots of people in

2012-03-07T01:03:00.000-08:00

These workshop notes are from a Thursday a few weeks ago, some interesting exercises on improvising with loads of people on stage.

Quite often multiple person scenes can descend into chaos, so I thought we'd do a whole workshop on them. Some of the important points that came out were:

1. Listen.
2. Be aware that you are part of the overall picture/scene/story, it's not just about you.
3. Increase, compliment or contrast what's already on stage.
4. Be aware where the focus is, are you receiving or giving focus.
5. You don't all have to have different points of view on stage, having only a couple points of view keeps things simpler.
6. Feel what the group wants.

Here are some exercises we did:

Simultaneous Jump/Walk

The entire group walks around the space at random. At any point anyone can jump, and the entire group jumps simultaneously. The idea is that eventually from the outside you couldn't tell who had lead the jump, it's a group decision.

At first this lead to people using all manner of tactics to signal to the group that they were about to jump - breathing in, raising their arms, jumping slowly, making a stomping sound first. So I pointed out that there actually didn't have to be a leader, the group should just spontaneously jump. If people are aware of the group they'll know whether it's in jumping or not jumping mode.

Eventually this lead to some spontaneous jumps, where the whole group left the floor at exactly the same time without anyone leading.

We then added in walking or not walking. The whole group could also now stop, and then walk again, as one.

We then added in that sometimes just one person could be walking, and if they stopped one person took over walking.

So now the group had a concept of focus and group mind with the physical, next step was the verbal.

Restaurant

This is a great game for teaching verbal focus.

The actors are scattered around sat in pairs at tables as if at a restaurant, maybe throw in a couple of waiters or waitresses too. They pre-decide who they are, get them to pick big characters and topics.

Only one of the couples talks at a time. Any other couple can then take over by repeating the last line they heard and using it in their different conversation. Also if a couple stop talking then another couple have to take over immediately, repeating the last thing they said.

Sometimes focus is given by a couple being quiet suddenly. Sometimes focus is taken by a couple just starting to talk.

Some conversations last a couple a lines, some longer. Sometimes there is a rapid change in focus, sometimes it's a more leisurely pace.

Encourage the actors to be bold - either they are in focus or they aren't, there must be an immediate change so don't hesitate. The worse that can happen is that there is a little bit of hub bub with a couple of people talking at once, which is fine.

As it goes on you might find patterns form in the conversations, even though they are talking about different topics.

Machines

Keith Johnstone mentions these in Impro for Storytellers as if they aren't that important, but I find they are great for teaching people how to improvise objects and props, and also how to improvise for the greater whole rather than as an individual.

The group improvise various machines of repeated sound and movement, where each person plays a small part of that machine.

Building a Multi-Person Location

We then put this all together with the group building an entire picture of a location and building a whole scene.

We gave a location and then two people came up and started something without words in that location. Then two by two improvisers came up and built upon that location, adding to the stage picture.

The stage picture became really important, I think that gets forgotten in impro sometimes. What does this look like on stage? Symmetry, balance, height, depth all became important.

Also it really became apparent how easy it was to accidentally steal focus. In the first one (a beach scene) there was so much movement on stage that it became a blur, and in fact the focus landed on one person in the middle who happened to just be laying down and having a sun bathe.

We also reminded people that you didn't have to add something new when coming on stage, you could increase and back up what's already there and this can sometimes look more beautiful.

Eventually really beautiful stage pictures were built using multiple people.

For instance when given spaceship as a location:

- Two people come on and sit at control panels driving the spaceship, either side of the stage.
- Captain comes on and sits between them and slightly back in commanding role.
- Robot comes on a twiddles nobs.
- Bored soldier comes on and sits at back.
- 5 more bored soldiers come on and sit at back.
- 1 improviser lays down on floor.
- 3 more lay down on floor.
- 1 monitors their breathing, establishing them as being in sleep mode.

They were then able to play a scene across the whole spaceship, aware when they were giving, receiving and taking focus both verbally and physically. With group awareness of focus every move meant something, and every line was heard.

At first this has to be directed a bit, with a director and audience pointing every now and again at where the focus is, or stopping it if it's become confusing. Full face masks are also very good at teaching focus.

We then played with this some more, with people becoming objects and basically supporting each other in various ways. This lead to some beautiful scenes like a hamster in a hamster wheel in a class room, and someone buying a hot dog where the entire stand, condiments, umbrella and hot dog was built by various improvisers.

Lots of love,

Hoopla

Improv classes every Monday, Thursday and Saturday in London
Additional improv workshops around the UK
www.HooplaImpro.com

New Short Form Games

2012-02-29T06:16:00.000-08:00

Sizzling Arthur show last night, we put loads of new games in and it turned out really fun. It looks like the group is going the way of putting on a totally new batch of games every month. There's quite a large repeat audience at The Miller so it's important to keep it fresh, and it's exciting coming up with new stuff.

Many thanks to Simon Veal, Richard Verrill and Rob Grundel for coming up with some of these, really appreciate it.

Comic Book - Get a made up name of a comic book from the audience. 3 actors immediately take a pose as if they are picture in the comic book. Another actor at the side says the narration (text at the top of comic picture). Another actor at other side provides the speech bubbles. Go through doing lots of pictures in the comic book, with actors in the middle taking a different pose each time. Also a good game for teaching justification, as the actors at the side have to justify all the different poses. Thanks again Rob for coming up with this one.

Deleted Scenes - Actors stand in a row across back of the stage. Host gets a suggestion for a movie from the audience. Actors jump forwards and do lots of mini-scenes that are 'deleted scenes' from that movie. Sometimes it's one actor by themselves, sometimes more. It's lots of different scenes, quite fast paced. Get a few new suggestions too. When playing it's good to think what's the essence of the movie, and then play with it and flip it on its head.

New Choice Each Other - Already quite a common short-form game but we've adapted it so the actors new choice each other. For instance:
Arthur: "Hello and welcome to my pub, would you like a pint of ale?"
Martha: "New choice."
Arthur: "Would you like a pint of lager?"
Martha: "New choice."
Arthur: "Would you like a pint of brandy?"
Martha: "Yes please, that would be great."
Arthur: "New choice."
Martha: "Yes please, pour it into my mouth!"

You can New Choice lines, actions, emotions, anything really. It's important they stay cheerful and upbeat when shouting New Choice.

Quantum Leap - We're currently working on this one, based on the TV series where Scott Bakula/Sam Beckett leaped into a different person's life at the start of each episode. There must be something in it!

The Shard - We're currently working on this one too. Multiple scenes take place on different floors of The Shard, with characters connecting by going up and down in lifts.

Relationship Time Jump - Simon got this from doing Spontaneity Shop courses, just so you know we didn't invent it, it's awesome. Two people start a scene with a relationship from the audience and with a starting age. Eg. two brothers with the youngest one being 8. The host then moves them upwards through multiple scenes at different ages, so we see them grow up together. It's great for practicing the game of relationship and status, as whatever relationship and status is established in the first scene can be played with for future situations in other scenes.

1 Minute Scene Challenge - Two pairs and one solo actor improvise a 1 minute scene each, based on a genre from the audience. Encourage them to play multiple characters and locations.

Deaf Replay - Two actors improvise a scene while two others look on with their fingers in their ears or with headphones on so they can't hear anything. The previously deaf improvisers then repeat the scenes with the exact same movements, but with their own lines.

Next Arthur show is on Tuesday 6th March at The Miller, alongside new group Fluffers.

Hoopla
Improv Classes and Shows
www.HooplaImpro.com

New Ways to Play Yes Let's

2012-02-27T08:33:00.000-08:00

Last Monday's workshop at The Rag Factory was on 'Saying Yes'. By just concentrating on 'Saying Yes' all night there was loads of fun and laughs, it really is one of the core things of impro. It also had the effect that scenes tended to have more action in, as people were pitched into the unknown and allowed themselves to get into situations we'd usually defend ourselves from. I also enjoyed watching the effect it had on people saying yes to their own ideas, not just their partners, and surprising themselves with their own offers.

One of the games we used Yes Let's. As impro games go, this is a real classic. It's the sort of game you learn when you're starting out and love, and then years later forget about when you're going through trials and tribulations with a performing group, and then rediscover it and think 'oh year, that's what this stuff is all about, we should have been doing this every week'. I really want to do it loads more now, can't believe I've been neglecting it recently!

So we made a few modifications to it, but here's how it goes:

Yes Let's In a Big Group

The whole group stood in a big circle.
Anyone starts with a simple ordinary boring offer. For instance "Let's do some washing up".
The whole group shouts "YES LET'S" with a panto style arm swing.
The whole group does the offer. (It's good to get them to do this quickly without hesitation)
Someone else shouts out the next obvious offer that continues from that first one. For instance "Let's feel the bubbles on our skin."
The whole group shouts "YES LET'S again.
The group continues with people shouting out the next obvious offers and the whole group shouting YES LET'S and carrying them out.
The idea is that the group ends up telling one big story all together.

Yes Let's Notes and Modifications

Encourage the group not to hesitate, there shouldn't be a gap between shouting Yes Let's, doing the action, and shouting out next thing. It's quite a quick moving game.

The panto style impro arm swing seemed important, one of the improvisers in a King/Queen Yes Let's got this to perfection, it seems to encourage a constant uplifting positive energy.

You can also start of the Yes Let's by someone shouting out a genre, and then someone shouting out a location. For instance: "Let's be in a Chicago gangster movie. YES LET'S. Let's be on the docks. YES LET'S."

If people aren't calling anything out remind them to be obvious or to just add the smallest possible offer they can. For instance if someone mentions a car, just say what colour it is. If someone picks up a flower, say what flower it is. Adding the smallest possible as an objective can unlock frozen improvisers, and often the smallest possible offer actually turns out to be really important.

Say Yes Let's positively and enthusiastically even if you think it's going wrong, in fact especially if you think it's going wrong and especially if you don't know what's happening next. This encourages people to pitch themselves into the unknown, incorporate mistakes, and makes it very exciting.

Yes Let's in a Small Group

Same as above, but with 4 people in a group. It's a way of ensuring that the quieter people in the group and new people to the exercise are still getting lots of practice.

Yes Let's in Pairs

As above but done in pairs, one pair at a time, in front of an audience. It generated scenes where lots happened, really fun.

Yes Let's Solo

I'm only thinking of this while I'm writing this blog. Why oh why didn't I think of this in the workshop? Next time gadget, next time.

Tonight's workshop at The Rag Factory is on Platforms and Environment, next Monday is on Reincorporation.

Lots of love,

Hoopla
Improv workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday in London
Improv classes also available around the UK on Sundays
www.HooplaImpro.com

Scenes Born Out Of Relationships and Emotions

2012-02-24T02:15:00.000-08:00

We did this exercise at the drop-in last night. Many thanks to Guy Fletcher for originally teaching it to me, I think he modified it after learning it at The Magnet Theatre in New York, and we modified it further last night, and so the impro feedback loop continues.

It takes a while to get but eventually leads to scenes that are born out of relationships and driven by emotion.

Here's how it goes:

Actor A: "You are [NAME EMOTION]"
Actor B: "I am [THAT EMOTION] and expand the concept of that emotion."
Actor A: "That makes me feel [THEIR EMOTION]"
Actor B: "I always feel like this at [NAME SITUATION, BORN OUT OF THEIR EMOTIONAL DESCRIPTION]"
Actor A: Yes And the situation/where etc
Actor B: We always feel like this when [NAME THE DEEPER RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO]
Actor A: We're not the only one's...[NAME A METAPHOR TO OTHER PEOPLE, REFLECT ALL HUMANITY]
Play the scene, with this relationship established and driven by these emotions.

For example:

Actor A: You are domineering
Actor B: I am domineering, I'm like a God walking among men
Actor A: That makes me feel nervous
Actor B: I always feel like this when I leave my palace and walk among my peasants
Actor A: Yes and thank you King Arthur for gracing us with your presence at my farm
Actor B: We always feel like this when a powerful being comes down among us
Actor A: We're not the only ones, people for centuries have feared the wrath of God
Actor B: Indeed, now get me some turnips, I demand turnips for the King's pot
Actor A: Of course sire, here are my prize turnips
Actor B: Whatttt?? Only six? Why I have 25 at my palace!
Actor A: I'm sorry sire, please don't hit me!
Actor B: I shall hit you, with this stick!
First Off Stage Actor: (booming) Stop right there King Arthur!
Actor B: Whattt? Who is this?
First Off Stage Actor: (booming) This is the wrath of God! Well, I am God, and this is my wrath!
Actor B: (nervous) But where are you?
First Off Stage Actor: (booming) I am down there with you. Do not hit your peasant with a stick.
Actor B: (nervous) Of course, you're down here, you're everywhere, your omnipotent. (hits himself with the stick). Ah! You hit me with a stick!
First Off Stage Actor: (booming) I am the stick! Now clear off!
Second Off Stage Actor: (shrieking) God!!!!
First Off Stage Actor: (nervous) Mother?
Second Off Stage Actor: (shrieking) Are you mucking about with them humans again?
First Off Stage Actor: (nervous) Sorry Mother!
Second Off Stage Actor: (shrieking) Take that you little bastard! (hits him)
Peasant looks on confused

So as you can see the setting, situation and game can be picked out of the relationship and emotions. The spotting and naming of other people's emotions is a very Meisner technique thing to do by the way.

Next workshop is on Status this Saturday at The Bedford in Balham, 11am - 5pm, 77 Bedford Hill, Balham, SW12 9BS.

Hoopla
Improv Classes every Monday, Thursday and Saturday in London
www.HooplaImpro.com

Don't just justify mistakes, Yes And the hell out of them!

2012-02-22T06:30:00.001-08:00

Maria Peters (Music Box, Arthur, 8 bit and more), a great improviser and friend of mine recently went to New York and saw loads of shows at The Upright Citizens Brigade. She thought they were awesome and said that people were queuing round the block to get in.

I asked her what it was the improvisers were doing that made the shows so awesome, and she said that they just had full confidence and just didn't give a shit (in a good way). The attitude was 'hell yeah, I meant to do that! And hell yeah, my scene partner meant to do that too!'

Absolutely everything that happened on stage was treated as if it was the best offer ever given, and jumped on and yes anded without any hesitation. So if a 'mistake' popped up instead of it creating an awkward silence or half-hearted attempt to justify before brushing off, it was instead jumped on by the cast as if it was the best offer ever made and yes anded and ended up being the point of the entire show.

I saw this myself in one of my favourite ever shows - One Night Stand the Improvised Musical. An improviser was on stage early in the show being a professor, with another improviser as a cat. We all thought he was in an office, but it hadn't be clearly stated. Halfway through the scene another improviser spent ages coming in on skis, shaking off snow, crawling through a tunnel, and then popping up next to the professor. All the way through this mime at the time the audience were thinking 'eh?' as we thought the professor was in an office, and it felt like a massive mistake. However the professor jumped on it, and immediately without hesitation his office was inside an igloo in Antarctica. Further more the next scene mentioned Antarctica, and then in fact the rest of the show become a huge adventure to Antarctica. At the end the whole audience were saying how cool it was that the show went to Antarctica, but it all came from a mistake that was jumped on and treated as if it was the best thing ever.

This was making me think that there is nothing to be scared of in impro. The worse thing that can happen is that you make me a mistake, but the mistake can create a new game, a new character, a new laugh, a new story, a new direction. So what feels like the worse thing, can actually be the best thing. Some feel before a show 'I don't want to make a fool of myself', but the beauty is that making a fool of yourself is the entire point, it's comedy and personally I don't care if people laugh with me or at me. In fact the only bad thing that can happen is actually looking scared in front of an audience, because then they think something is wrong. So don't be scared, there's no point in being scared in impro.

This discussion lead to Maria and I doing a new warm up game before an Arthur show. Some of you might be aware of 8 things:

1. Improvisers get into a circle.
2. One improviser jumps into circle and shout "hello everyone my name is..."
3. The circle shouts "Hello NAME"
4. Someone in the circle gives them a category.
5. They then have to list 8 things in that category as quickly as possible.
6. After each thing the circle shouts the number.
7. At the end they get a big round of applause.
8. Next person jumps in.

For instance:

"Hi everyone I'm Arthur."
"Hello Arthur!"
"8 types of cheese"
"Cheddar!"
"1!"
"Gorgonzola"
"2!"
Edam
"2!"
Roquefort
"3!"
Brie
"4!"
Bream
"5!"
Fish Cheese
"6!"
Snail Cheese
"7!"
Quail Cheese
"8!"

Encourage them to not have any fear of making mistakes. Also encourage them to stay bouncy and happy while they do it, make friendly eye contact with the circle, and not put pressure on themselves to be clever or funny. Having someone just go for it is a lot more fun than watching someone err and stutter and withdraw from the group while they think of something clever.

What we've added to this game now is that after someone has listed 8 things someone else jumps in and picks up on one of the offers that happened accidentally and makes something beautiful out of it.

So with the example above one of the actors might jump in immediately afterwards and say:

"Snail Cheese! It's my favourite type of cheese. It's garlic flavoured and it's made by milking snails in the Alpine region of France by tiny milk maids."

After that someone else jumps in and lists 8 things influenced by the person before, for instance '8 delicacies of the Alps' or '8 types of garlic'.

Soon people sense that there is nothing to fear in making mistakes as they trust that they will be supported and have them turned into something beautiful. Also people stop being hesitant and learn to jump on offers, whether they happened accidentally or deliberately, big or small.

Lots of love,

Hoopla

Improv Classes Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays
www.HooplaImpro.com

Pulling Back the Curtain of Discovery Exercise

2012-02-22T05:57:00.000-08:00

This exercises is from the Narrative workshop a few Saturdays ago. The aim of the day was naturally improvising exciting captivating stories that make sense without worrying about narrative.

Naturally - tends to come from improvisers being intuitive, playful and discovering rather than thinking or trying to get it 'right'.
Exciting - tends to come when improvisers boldly step into the unknown without hesitation or knowing where the story is going to go once they are there.
Captivating - tends to come from drawing the audience in, opening up to the audience, sharing believable real worlds and emotions with the audience.
Make Sense - tends to come from people reincorporating and justifying mistakes.
Without Worrying About Narrative - not planning ahead, yes and one offer at a time, playing with characters, objectives and having fun, looking backwards and present not planning.

The group entered a very realistic imaginary world for the entire day, because reading the notes is generating real memories of actual events for me, rather than just remembering a bunch of people in a room above a pub. As in, the stories told on the day I seem to be remembering as if they are real life.

One exercise that came out of it was a great method of teaching discovery in scenes and stories. So often improv feels a bit too intellectual, so I love exercises that are more intuitive and let people effortlessly discover things in the moment.

I adapted this exercise from Jonathan Kay and Adam Oliver.

1. A group of five people hold hands in a line.
2. Person at one end of the line holds up their free hand to an imaginary curtain.
3. When ready they pull back the curtain and then name what they see in front of them - it could be something from their own life, something new. It doesn't matter what it is, whatever their mind has given them they name, unless it's something they don't want to go into in which case just close the curtain and start again.
4. They name the location they've found and take the rest of the group into the location by hand.
5. They continue to look around and discover things, naming things as they go and touching them. Rather than thinking things up encourage them to open their eyes and see, or just point in different places. Also they can vary between looking low, high, close and far away.
6. The rest of the group don't ask questions, they are there to support and listen.
7. After a bit of time they close the curtain on that world, go to the other end, and someone else takes over.
8. Repeat for the whole group.
9. Repeat again asking them to also put in characters in the situation, or even themselves. Don't 'invent' characters, just discover.

Before starting it's good to get the room in the mood for gentle discovery. It's fun as they effortlessly populate a whole world.

Where this changed was when we involved the whole group in simultaneous discovery:

1. Five improvisers are all in a line, not holding hands this time.
2. They simultaneously pull back a shared curtain.
3. One of them names what they first see.
4. Everyone discovers together. They walk around the space touching and naming what they see together.
5. Encourage them to put in people.

Were then able to go one step further as group, and use this game to then pitch us into action. The group would pull back the curtain together, discover a world together, and then someone could shout 'Be It' or 'Do It' and some of the actors would have to inhabit the world as the characters and play the scene. What it effectively did was separate out the platform building, and make it a joint group discovery, so that when the players were in the scene they had a group mind understanding of their environment.

We then moved on further and found that at any point one of the improvisers could shout 'next scene' and the stage was cleared. They then started with the curtain again and discovered the next scene again, before shouting 'do it' or 'be it' and inhabiting that new scene.

This rapidly created captivating multi-scene stories, with each scene starting with the curtain pulled back and the actors sharing their discoveries with the audeince. When the stories became exciting sometimes the actors were tempted to skip the discovery section, but putting it in always lead to better scenes and a greater shared understanding between the actors and audience. In fact the discovery section was great at captivating the audience and drawing them in.

Overall lots of great stories told and played.

Lots of love,

Hoopla

Saturday 25th February's workshop is on Status
Hoopla workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday
www.HooplaImpro.com

Mask Workshop Notes

2012-01-30T05:37:00.000-08:00

Two blogs in one day, this has never happened before.

We did some full Mask work a couple of Saturdays ago at The Bedford. I was using full face masks from Trestle Theatre company. They're really excellent actually, I'd recommend buying some if you want a set to play with.

I teach Mask a little different from how it's written in Keith Johnstone's book, probably because I'm using silent full face Masks rather than the talking half masks.

So here's steps I take, largely influenced by things I learnt from Kevin Tomlinson:

1. Get an improviser up in front of the audience.
2. Get them just standing relaxed in front of the audience. Make sure the class has an expectant hush with focus on the stage.
3. Select a Mask for them. Don't show them the front of the Mask.
4. Improviser stands on back wall with back to audience, both hands on the wall.
5. Put the Mask on them, don't show them what it looks like, don't let them look in the mirror.
6. Retreat in line with audience, leaving improviser with back to them.
7. Mask removes one hand from wall, turns to look at audience. Return.
8. Repeat with other hand.
9. When ready Mask turns fully around and walks into space. Ask them to look at the audience, the whole of it and also one by one.
10. The improviser doesn't deliberately do anything at first, they just turn round as themselves and then look at the audience. They go with the audience, and also with how they feel. If the audience make them feel warm, they are warm.
11. Ask them questions (they can't talk, so they answer with movement). Also sometimes give them props (Masks love objects). Whatever they do they need to keep clocking and checking in with the audience, it's when we see their face that they become alive.

Some people playing the Mask were surprised that they could tell what Mask they were playing without actually seeing it, just from the reaction of the audience and the feelings it produced in them.

At first though some of the others weren't getting anything from the Mask, and felt they were faking it. This brought to light an interesting block that is perhaps summed up by this real conversation:

"I was frustrated, I felt like I was faking it."
"What were you frustrated with?"
"I was frustrated that I wasn't getting an emotions from the audience."
"The audience were giving you frustration."
"Oh, so I should play frustration?"
"You don't have to play it, just be it. If you're frustrated, be frustrated. If the audience are pissing you off, be pissed off with them. There doesn't have to be a gap between what you actually feel and what the Mask should feel."

Funny enough the Mask in question for this conversation is known to be a bit of a bastard, so playing it frustrated and pissed off with the audience would have been perfect and lots of fun.

Later on we moved on to multiple Masks on stage, with them interacting in set scenarios or around props. An important step in this became the use of focus and checking in with the audience. At first I had to shout from the back where the focus was, and eventually the actors intuitively understood where the focus was.

The beauty of Masks is that they give focus very clearly. If all the Masks look in one direction at one thing on stage the audience will tend to also look there. We also experimented with passing around focus to different Masks, and we found that having them look direct at audience as they got passed focus was very effective.

Also constant clocking and checking in with the audience was essential, as this is when we get to see what the Mask is feeling and when it comes alive.

When clocking they seem to take the steps of:

I'm about to do something/interact with someone
Hey look I'm doing something/interacting
This is what I feel about the thing I'm doing/interacting
I've done something/interacted
This is what I feel about the thing I've done/the other person

Next step I'm going to buy a load of half masks, or make some, as there's loads more I want to try.

Lots of love,

Hoopla

Improv classes and shows
www.HooplaImpro.com

New short-form games from last Saturday's workshop

2012-01-30T05:07:00.000-08:00

Saturday was lots of fun, thanks for everyone who came along. I had a really fun group of brave improvisers who seemed up for anything, which enabled the group to try out some new things and experiment.

It's really gratifying as a director to be able to say "I've got this idea, I've never seen it work, I don't think it's actually possible, can I have two volunteers?" and then have five people simultanously jump up.

So we took the approach of:

1. Do a game.
2. Learn the current way of doing it.
3. Do it some more.
4. Spot the things that people do 'accidentally' around the game.
5. Build a new game around those accidents.
6. Learn the new game.
7. Play it more.

This produced the following gems, which as far as I know are whole new games:

Mass Word at a Time

When we did the original word at a time stories with three people we found that sometimes they got the order muddled up. So instead of treating this as a mistake we decided to make it a point, that it's word at a time but at any point any actor can say any word.

This soon lead to 9 actors on stage at once, all playing one big fluid scene but where it was still word at a time. Any actor can then provide the dialogue from any other actor. Narration and dialogue is spread among the group.

I then encouraged movement with the direction "be a bit like the old fashioned black and white cartoons with the bounce" and it released a fluidity in the group.

Characters would pop up and suddenly they'd have three actors around them mirroring movement and all speaking word at a time, with another group being another character, while another was a tortoise on the floor.

It turned out to be an exceptionally good group mind workshop. All dialogue and narrative and character and movement is shared across the entire group at all times. It was also exhilarating to be in. So much so that I had to abandon teaching and jump in with them, yelling "this is fun!"

Surprise Entrance

I can't even remember how this comes about. I think it was just a casual mention that if you have an environment of support and trust where offer is accepted, incorporated, justified and built upon, you can enter a scene without fear. Also it was a training in people reacting to someone new entering.

So...one improviser leaves the room so they can't hear the suggestion or see or hear the scene, they count to 45 seconds. Meanwhile two improvisers in the room start a scene as ordinarily and boring as possible, based on a suggestion from the director. Suddenly the outside improviser burst in with a strong character, and delivers a strong offer before they've even seen what's happening. Everyone then carries on improvising, incorporating and being changed by this.

What was weird was how often these blind offers actually made sense to the scene, and rather than being a spanner in the works proved to be really helpful.

For instance two characters were playing at a casino, discussing cheating and generally talking about money. Suddenly an improviser burst in, with no idea what had been going on, and shouted 'it's a stick up' while holding two guns.

If the improvisers on stage accepted and built on the offer, as if it made perfect sense, then the scene took off.

New Choice Yourself / New Choice the other person

New Choice is a really well known short-form game, and a really fun one to play. Actors play out a scene but at any point the director can shout out New Choice and they have to repeat what they just said but change something.

We adapted this to then be 'New Choice Yourself', where the actors play out a scene but any point can shout out New Choice on their own lines. It was especially fun when they were encouraged to shout multiple New Choices, and to shout New Choice before they knew what they were about to say. It was quite effective at getting improvisers to push themselves into the unknown.

The next adaption was 'New Choice The Other Actor', where two actors play a scene but they can call New Choice on the other actor. This was done by two people who knew each other quite well so it was done in a really positive playful manner, and produced a giggling fit in them.

Simultaneous Dubbing

In this game two actors are on stage mouthing the words of a scene while two off stage actors provide their words, simultaneously matching their mouth movements. Nobody is leading - if someone opens their mouth, someone else must make their voice, and if their is a voice, then the corresponding actor must open their mouth.

I've seen this as a short-form game before but never gone into depth before, and found it a fascinating game to play.

We separated into pairs to practice simultaneous dubbing, to see how in synch we could be with each other. It turns out to be the ultimate listening a seeing exercise, a really core impro technique.

Repeated First Line

I've been playing with this in the pub with a lovely chap called Rob. We think it's hilarious but whenever we do it in front of a workshop audience it bombs, which makes us like it more!

Two improvisers start a scene, but whatever the first lines are have to be the only lines of the scene. They can use each others lines, chop up words, change emotion, play actions, but they are limited on the words.

At first they seemed stale and stuck, but we played and played and played and eventually they became really fun. With the words limited the improvisers started to release other things - changing emotions, physical play, relationships, story.

Also it had the great side effect that it makes a whole scene/story based entirely on the first two offers that come along, which is really good practice. Also it's slightly Meisner Technique in style with its release of emotion.

See you soon,

Hoopla

Improv workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday in London
More improv classes around the UK
Improv shows every Tuesday and Wednesday at The Miller in London Bridge.
www.HooplaImpro.com

Character Exercises to Play With

2012-01-25T06:43:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, these popped out of last Saturday's workshop.

Some of them were originally learnt from Katy Schutte, from The Mayday's, Music Box and Katy & Rach, so many thanks Katy. She's teaching some workshops in London soon with The Maydays.

I go into characters in various depths, but this time round it was mainly introducing a number of 'tools' to play with. I like to look at character exercises as bits of lego, that you can use however you want in shows to generate a character on the spot.

Also I'm keen to encourgae people to play with character. You don't have to wait until a director or teacher or other improviser tells you to do a character, just play with one anyway. This is really fun to watch, when people take a character on stage for no reason, and actually really giving as it gives the other improvisers and audience something to play with.

Stacking/Physically lead character

All stand in a circle. Change something physical about yourself. Anything at all, for instance maybe one arm is more relaxed, or you're slightly slanted, or one finger is straighter than the rest. Walk across the circle to a new place in the circle. Relax. Take a new physical position, and repeat.

You don't have to deliberately do anything, just feel how the physical change has altered you. On the first round do this in silence.

Then repeat, but this time allow sounds to come out, any sound. Don't think about the sound, but just let it come out.

Repeat again but this time the characters can interact as they cross. Also encourage people to try different styles of movement. If they go fast, they can go slow. If they are snappy, they are smooth. If they are big, be subtle. This is a little bit like fast-food Laban. Just experiment with how you move and how it affects how you feel.

Then repeat and now people can talk as they cross the circle, just whatever is on their mind. Encourage them to have obsessions. It doesn't matter what they say.

Changing the body can change how people feel which can change what people say which produces a character instantly on many different levels. I've found this in real life recently, since I've started doing Alexander Technique classes it's made me moody straight away afterwards!

Emotions

Two characters enter a scene at the height of an emotion. They don't have to know why they are feeling it yet, just feel it at it's height, they can find out and justify why later.

Great emotions to start with are Happy, Sad, Fearful, Angry as they are really core emotions.

Funny enough it doesn't seem to matter what emotions people pick or what combinations come in, it always produces something. So there's no such thing as a 'right' emotion for a scene, just coming in with one supercharges the scene and is very giving to the other actor.

Genre

Two actors come in playing a character from a specific genre, without making the scene that genre. I've found it's good to get actors to pick a specific character from the genre, and also keep reminding them that they can use it more subtly and not to make the scene that genre.

For instance the location could be a boardroom, and the actor could come in using the genre of 'French 18th century romantic poet' and it would generate an interesting character to have in that location. It's not as if the character is actually from the 18th century and wearing a frilly shirt, it's more that this modern day businessman is from France and happens to be more romantic.

Bad Impressions

Two actors come in to a scene doing a bad impression of someone famous, without revealing who or making the scene about this person. For example you could end up being 18% Kermit the Frog while playing the Prime Minister.

It's important to note that all these techniques are only really for the first inital impulse of getting on stage, to give inspiration, and then once you start you are in the scene and should be yes anding as normal. For instance even though you come in as Kermit the Frog, if you get endowed as Prime Minister then be Prime Minister, but keep some of Kermie.

Lots of love,

Hoopla

Improv Classes and Shows
http://www.hooplaimpro.com/

Long Form / Tall Tales Workshop Notes

2012-01-18T03:40:00.000-08:00

Long-form, long-blog.

Last Saturday's workshop was awesome. One of those sessions where impro gets described as 'magical'.

The session was on long-form techniques, but was called Tall Tales for some reason. I think because I don't like the term long-form. I like long-form, I just don't like using those words to describe it.

I can't remember who said it in one book, but impro seems to be the only art-form that is split by how 'long' it is. You don't get long-paintings, small-paintings. Composers don't decide whether to only make short music or long music.

But more than that I've found that 'long-form' has become a 'thing' over the years. And something becomes a 'thing' then there becomes a right and wrong way to do that thing, and before you know it there are rules on something that was never meant to have rules.

Furthermore long-form has become something that people have passionate opinions about, and before you know it there is less mindless play and more opinions on stage about what's being done wrong. But that's just my opinion.

So it was called Tall Tales, and the idea was to use long-form techniques but as if they've never been taught before and with a view to change and experiment with them and come up with something new. Not holding up techniques and methods on a pedestal to achieve, more using them as toys to fuck around with. Ridiculously over-ambitious thing for a drop-in workshop in one day with a bunch of people who don't know each other!

Looking back at the history of Chicago improv with Del Close and all it seems it was a time of vibrant experimentation and constant change, adapting to the ever evolving venues, improvisers and audience. I really don't think that when Del Close invented The Harold that it was supposed to be set in stone, it was more of a transient manifestation of the great man's colourful and varied life at that moment.

So on with workshop notes, I won't put them all down but here's what I found helpful:

- Chat at the start to set the scene. I find constantly re-enforcing an environment of safety, trust and support is essential. John Cremer's excellent book Improv talks about this extensively, thanks John!

- Reinforcing that this is a workshop where you will be constantly falling on your bum and getting back up again. I meant this metaphorically, but about 5 minutes later a chair broke and someone did actually fall on their bum, to a huge applause. Their bum was alright.

General warm ups. Word at a time in partners and What happens next in partners.

Three line scenes. I always do a couple of run-throughs without any direction or feedback, and with lots of wild applause from audience. Sometimes the first run-through will be really blocky, but that's fine and people spot it and correct themselves and warm up.

More three line scenes. This time the 2nd and 3rd line have to start with the person saying a positive "yes and" and then adding to the previous offer. I don't continue the workshop until everyone is able to do this, it takes quite a few attempts. As a director it's easy to direct, either people are saying "yes and" or they aren't, so just keep re-doing them until they do.

More three line scenes. First line names the other person, second line names the other person back, third line names where people are. It gets people used to putting in a platform together quickly, and also endowing. Again I don't move on until everyone has got it.

First Scene Krypton Factor.

This is a whole new exercise I think (wooo!). The Krypton Factor was a fiendishly difficult game show in the late 1980s and one of the many rounds was where the contestants were shown a film, and were then asked difficult questions about the film to test their observation and listening ("there was a fruit bowl behind the first character, how many satsumas were in the bowl?").

I've found before from doing either long-form or narrative shows, including one I'm rehearsing at the moment, that when the other scenes have come out of the first scene in some way (be that narrative, characters, game, patterns, emotions) it's really rewarding. But you sometimes end up in shows where people are stuck, they don't know what scene to do next, even though quite often the scene beforehand had given them so much information and things to play with. All I could think of is that people off-stage were thinking and planning what to do, instead of just picking up on the obvious cues from the scene that was actually happening on stage. So I made it an aim of the day for people to realise how much there was already on stage for them to play with and expand.

So the Krypton-Factor game. Two people went on stage, and were given the instructions to play a scene as ordinary and normal as possible, in fact they were to attempt to bore the audience. They were given the set-up of a married couple getting sandwiches ready for a picnic. They embarked on the scene and it probably helped the whole day that it turned out to be AWESOME! They did indeed play it straight but found themselves coming up with magical stuff in the moment, including mention of other characters, locations and more. Furthermore as they were relaxed they didn't miss a single offer.

The second it was finished I asked the workshop audience a barrage of questions:

- What was the name of the character they mentioned?
- Where was the holiday home?
- What's in the sandwiches?
- How many fridges have they got?
- What are these people like?
- How does she treat him?
- What else have you noticed?

As it was a challenge, the audience had engaged completely and actively with the scene and were passionate about their opinions on the characters.

I then discussed things that could be expanded from the scene into other scenes:

- Events that had been mentioned that hadn't happened yet (a picnic, a visit to a holiday home).
- Characters that have been mentioned that haven't been seen yet (kids, other couples).
- Games that are being played that could be exaggerated (class battles over numbers of fridges, people, things kids do to food when they aren't looking)
- Relationships that could be investigated
- Taking people out of context (husband at work being treated same way by secretary)
- Taking games out of context (scenes about class, high status people being low status around trivial things)
- Different points of view (other couples also getting ready for picnic and talking about them)

There was loads. Immediately there were so many scene ideas, that to play them all would have taken about two hours. And all that from one scene that lasted only 2 minutes. There's so much information in them that we miss, just in the first scene, let along everything else.

We then continued with everyone doing it in small groups of 5 simultaneously. Two people perform a straight scene, I honk a honker, the audience tell them what they saw, and then they go again. We did this continuously for quite a while, until the group had a great ability to both improvise naturally on stage and listen and observe from off stage.

Next Scenes

We carried on the same as above, but this time when I honked the hooter there was no discussion and instead the two on stage immediately sat down and another two jumped up and improvised a scene of the back of it.

Now the group was listening they had no problem setting up the next scene. Sometimes the scenes would be natural narrative flow scenes, sometimes we'd see something inspired by character, sometimes game.

We were still doing this simultaneously as groups of five around the room. The lack of outside observer or judgement seemed to open them up. The emphasis was on play. Play play play PLAY!

The next step was I kept honking the hooter so there were now multiple scenes following the first scene. The instructions were pretty vague ("you can put back in old characters and things if you want to") but the group really got it.

There was a beautiful bunch of scenes:

Scene 1 - a couple of technicians are getting the space shuttle ready for take-off. They flip switches and knobs. One casually mentions as an aside that his watch had stopped working. The shuttle takes off.

Scene 2 - A dodgy watch salesman is selling dodgy goods. The watches have tracking devices.

Scene 3 - The shuttle commander's daughter runs into mission control in a panic, she warns him over the intercom that his watch is going to explode and asks him to throw it out of the window.

All the watch scenes came out of a single throwaway line in the first scene, it was rewarding to see the improvisers pick up on it and make something of it.

Edits

The natural next step was rather than me just cutting scenes at random, the groups could edit their own scenes.

So I introduced to them the well-known impro technique of the sweep edit, where someone runs across the front of the stage and the actors on stage get off so the next scene can start.

When we first did this the actors on stage didn't notice the person editing, because the running across the front wasn't clear enough. So I asked the editor to make it clearer. The next time they edited they ran like a Victorian gentleman and tipped their top hat at the audience as they went. This was really fun and it was really obvious.

So for the rest of the day Victorian sweep edits were the thing! These were great as they made everyone have fun and not take it too seriously, which it isn't.

I also got them to be braver with edits by pointing out that if you edit too early you can always go back to another scene.

So we continued with the multiple scenes in groups, but this time with the Victorian sweep edits in action and the groups editing scenes right away.

I kept reminding them to be strong and obvious with their initiations at the start of the scene, and to spot various things like story, character, game, events that haven't happened yet etc.

Swarm Edits

Next step is the swarm edit, which is similar to the sweep edit but this time someone comes on with a sound and movement influenced by the scene and then everyone else jumps up and joins in including the actors on stage so that everyone swarms off stage as one.

I also added that if you're not sure if someone is initiating a swarm edit or not, just be brave and make it a swarm edit anyway.

This also lead to one of the best edits I've ever seen - the eject edit, where one of the improvisers pressed an eject button at the front of the stage and the actors immediately exited as if the DVD had been ejected.

Again once these were added we played played played played with these in groups doing multiple scenes together.

Tag Outs

When a scene is going on someone can come up and tag out characters by tapping them on the shoulder. They leave, and the new actor does a scene with the remaining characters. We can use it to see a character in a different part of the life, flash backs etc, and the actors tapped out can always tap back in again.

A couple of questions that popped up were "can I tap myself back in again?" "can I tap myself out again if I wanted to just do quick flashback?".

The answer to all these questions was yes.

Basically if you have an impulse to do something, do it, especially when you're learning.

Putting on Stage

I had people doing it in their own groups for a lot longer than normal. In fact they must have been improvising together non-stop for a couple of hours or so.

Only at the end did we put them on stage in front of people.

Three groups, and some of the best impro I've ever seen! We still started with a simple normal scene at the start based on a location, and from that all manner of characters, patterns and stories emerged. I think I'm going to make it one of our new shows next season.

They were doing stuff I hadn't seen before, using long-form techniques but more importantly making them their own in the moment. It was fluid, fast and fun.

See you soon,

Hoopla

Improv Classes and Shows

www.HooplaImpro.com

Improv books we can recommend

2012-01-16T06:36:00.000-08:00

We were chatting in the pub after a rehearsal of our new show (Imagine If You Will) and found that half the cast read loads of impro books, and half didn't read any, with nobody really in the middle.

Obviously the best way to learn impro is just to do it, but in the gaps in-between (especially on the tube) I find it helpful to read about it too. I think especially if you're running workshops or directing shows, you can always find a little nugget to use.

I also had a few people at workshops asking me about books, so thought I'd put together a list. There are loads more, but these are some that I've either read or had recommended.

Impro Books

Impro by Keith Johnstone: excellent book that goes beyond impro and into life, education and creativity in general. It's written more in an essay form so it's harder to extract exact exercises, but it's a great fundamental book.

Impro for Storytellers by Keith Johnstone: well structured with clear exercises and points that are very practical for performing groups or running impro workshops.

Improvise by Mick Napier: kinda flips everything on it's head, which is refreshing. People who've been improvising for a while love this book.

Improv by John Cremer: I'm re-reading this at the moment and it's excellent, especially the sections on setting up the right environment of safety, support and trust for a workshop.

Truth in Comedy by Charna Halpern, Del Close, Kim Johnson: One of the favourite long-form books by long-form master Del Close.

Improvisation for Theatre by Viola Spolin: Written around the same time as Keith Johnstone's early work, it's great to read both as they sometimes come from different directions. Lots of great exercises too for workshops.

Genius Now by Alan Marriott: I haven't read this yet but Alan founded the Crunchy Frog Collective and inspired loads of improvisers in the UK, pretty much kick-starting the UK impro scene. He's now in Vancouver.

The Improv Handbook by Tom Salinsky and Deborah Frances-White: I haven't read this yet but I've heard it's a really practical guide and really useful for performing groups. Tom and Deborah founded The Spontaneity Shop.

The Art of Chicago Improv by Rob Kozlowski: Not so much a learn improv book, more a history of improv book which is useful if you want to see how the Chicago improv scene grew. I read it and then apply it to stuff we do here.

Why is that so Funny? by John Wright: Refreshingly different angle on things. Various topics including impro, clowning, mask, buffoon and more. Lots of clearly described exercises too which are great for workshops.

Additional books, not improv as such but still helpful

Sanford Meisner on Acting by Dennis Longwell: I think Meisner is a really good skill for improv, so if you want an outside point of view this is a good one.

Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler: Great narrative book. Remember it's not the narrative structure, it's just a narrative structure.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell: The original book that Christopher Vogler based his book on. Harder to follow, but goes into greater depth. George Lucas was using this when he put together the orginal Star Wars. Fuck knows what he was reading when he put together the Prequels, go onto YouTube and type in 'Star Wars Red Letter Media' to find out what's wrong with those.

Commedia dell'Arte by John Rudlin: Best commedia book I've read and the most practical, with hints on how to play each character.

Presence by Patsy Rodenburg: Some impro warm ups seem to come from this.

Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal: Various fun exercises.

The Empty Space by Peter Brook: Great theatre theory book. The Friday Night Hoopla Impro party came out of reading the chapter on 'Rough Theatre' and is actually deliberately set up to be that way.

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander: Apparently one of the late Ken Campbell's favourite books. Makes you hate television.

Self-Reliance and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emmerson: Another Ken Campbell recommendation.

So You Want To Be A Theatre Producer? by James Seabright: So much useful and generous information from the producer of Showstopper and other shows.

Hoopla
Improv Classes and Shows
www.HooplaImpro.com

Yes And, new ways to play the exercise

2012-01-13T08:50:00.000-08:00

I love the Yes And exercise. It's such a core part of impro that I never regret doing it in a workshop and it's great to always go back to as an exercise with a performing team.

Yes And is at the heart of impro - I'm going to be on stage, listen and see the other person, accept what they are doing (Yes) AND add a detail/offer back to them. Two people Yes Anding is captivating to watch. Going line by line is great to go back to and is impro in it's purest form - don't worry where you are going, just pick up on what actually just happened, what the other person is actually doing, and add to that. It can take a while to get people to actually deal with what actually just got said, rather than what they think should have been said or where the scene should have been going.

Yes Anding has loads of positive outcomes - it generates content and the scene, it takes the pressure of the individual and puts the point of attention on the other person. But it's also deeper than that, as it creates a warm and supportive atmosphere. An improviser freezes up when they are fearful of being judged. So when we Yes And another improviser not only do we help the scene, but we give them confidence and support as their ideas are accepted and built upon.

In its original form the game of Yes Works by having two improvisers on stage, one starts with any offer (simple and obvious/boring is good) and then after that every line has to star with Yes And. For instance:

A: We're in a pub.

B: Yes And there's a beer pump.

A: Yes And let's get some beer.

B: Yes And here we go, have a pint.

A: Yes And thanks, down in one!

B: Yes And wow that feels good!

A: Yes And yeah I feel amazing!

B: Yes And let's sing about how amazing we're feeling

It looks simple but on the first round it can be really tricky. Funny enough people will think they are playing it but quite often they'll stop saying Yes And after the first line. Other responses to look out for as a teacher are...

.....Yessss............And

Yes.........And

Yes And?

Yes And No

Yes And But

Yes But

Yes No

Yes

Errrrrr...............Yesssss.........anddddd

The gaps we put in are thinking spaces we are using to judge/edit our own ideas, rather than having a spontaneous response.

So next round I get people to concentrate on just saying 'Yes And' quickly, cheerfully and enthusiastically right at the start, and not worry about what they are saying. Yes Anding first, thinking and justifying later. This can take quite a while with people. Don't worry if it generates crazy scenes, on this round it's more an exercise on listening and getting out of your head than on scene work. It seems really simple as an instruction 'just say yes and at the start' but if you listen as a teacher you'll see it's actually quite rare for someone to be able to do it straight away, so work on it and encourage it.

After that we also did a more fluid Yes And exercises. The one above is more frenetic in energy, which can be good to get people out of their heads, so this one is more fluid. The core idea being that just because you are playing a more gentle energy doesn't mean the rate of yes anding is slowed down. So in this version the actors literally sway like a little happy dance through the scene, and have big warm grins. Encourage them to feel the flow of energy as they fully receive an offer, add to it, and send an offer back in once constant dance. I got them doing a rhythmic clapping game beforehand as this seemed to help. I'd also like to try this where a ball is consistently thrown from one to the other in time with the offers, to keep the rhythm and flow.

Next one is Physical Yes And, which seems to be a whole new exercise, or at least I haven't heard of it before. Yes And can usually be a bit verbal, so we did one in near silence. First offer is someone saying the Where/Location of the scene, and after that they still say 'Yes And' but then do a physical offer that adds to the last offer without saying anything. For instance:

A: We're in a pub.

B: Yes And starts pouring a beer from beer pump, puts glass on bar.

A: Yes And picks up beer, hands over money

B: Yes And accepts money, puts it in till, gives back change

A: Yes And accepts change, has a sip, happens to look over B's shoulder

B: Yes And looks behind him, points

A: Yes And points to same thing, gasps

B: Yes And gasps

A: Yes And looks terrified

B: Yes And gets dun down from behind bar, points it at intruder.

Actually saying Yes And out loud before the physical action made it easier to really recognise each person's physical offers in the scene, and moved scenes quickly forward.

Lots of love,

Hoopla

www.HooplaImpro.com

Happy and Excited.

2012-01-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

It's 4:43am and I'm still awake from the Hoopla Impro Party/Impro Jam. It made me happy and excited, and made me laugh lots. I loved it, proper love.

Which got me thinking...

When performing it's probably best to pursue the things that make you happy and excited, 'cos if you don't feel happy and excited, then why the hell should the audience feel happy and excited? So either way you're not going to go very far without feeling happy and excited about things.

I'm currently planning all my to-dos on a massive notice board I have in my sitting room. One of the pieces of A4 is a meticulously planned career plan into stand-up comedy including a sequence of stand up comedy competitions, Edinburgh and awards.

I'm ripping it up. The piece of paper doesn't make me happy or excited. In fact it makes me feel bored and bored and fake.

I am going to at some point though do another show at The Miller involving no plan, a drum kit, and some cream cakes - that makes me happy and excited.

Random things learnt from new shows in development

2012-01-09T09:03:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

New Year has been really busy so far. Mainly because I'm now directing or producing a bunch of new shows, including Imagine If You Will (narrative impro inspired by The Hero's Journey), Arthur (new short-form) and Zorbo Ironheart (youtube sketch show).

Lots of random things being learned rapidly at the moment, in fact so much so that I haven't grouped them into any particular overall theme or anything. A lot of it has accidentally ended up sounding like management speak. So instead here's some things that I've learned recently that may be helpful if you're forming groups:

A team is a group of people working together for a common goal for which they share accountability. So you need everyone in the same place (the group), and you need to know what shared thing you are working towards (common goal) and then need to constantly track progress. So you need to constantly check in with he group, define the goal, and find out how everyone is doing.

The goal of 'we don't know what we want to do, we just want to play and find something' is still a goal, and a good one.

Stages of putting together a show:

Define – Rehearse – Perform – Learn – Adapt – Define – Rehearse – Perform - Repeat

I've found it essential to have an enforced 1 minute uninterrupted chat at start and end of each rehearsal, with everyone in the group having 1 minute to say anything at all - hopes, dreams, fears, concerns, likes, loves, improvements. Doing it right from the start and every time you are together keeps things out in the open and stops problems building up in secret.

Don’t give feedback or direction to actors unless they have a chance to act on it straight away. Actors learn through doing. For the same reason I tend to repeat each exercise with people in workshops, so they can get feedback but actually do something about it.

Imagine If You Will - Fluid changing of scenes can be achieved with the hero walking off one side of the stage to go forward into his story, and the other side to return to a previous bit of story. The other actors should be on stage already to give the hero something to walk into - they can be characters, props, anything.

Imagine If You Will - Experienced improvisers will learn more from just repeatedly doing the show over and over again than they will from me trying to teach them something. Do the show in rehearsal, honestly chat about what was working well for you all. Don't accidentally discuss content ("when you opened the door in the first scene and saw it was the antarctic, I thought it would have been better if it was the Grand Canyon because I was planning to come on as a cowboy"), just deal with what's actually on stage and technique, impro basics.

Imagine If You Will – We added the step 'flash to bad guy' to the hero's journey structure, so that the audience can see the special world and what threatens the hero. We also added the step 're-state want and dream clearly' just before the innermost cave, so that we remember why it's actually important to the hero.

Imagine If You Will - To improvise the hero's journey it's really objective driven, you're either helping or stopping the hero on their journey.

Imagine If You Will - Just do something and work out the story later. We're all adding to the story offer by offer, so just do something.

Zorbo Ironheart - open chat is essential.

Zorbo Ironheart - Sketches shoudl keep to the thread, one simple game.

Zorbo Ironheart - constant process of explorer, artist, judge, warrior.

Zorbo Ironheart - having a closed cast facebook group has been highly effective at coming up with lots of ideas. Any of the cast can go on it at any time, add an idea, and others can then comment and add to it. It means we have a massive ongoing brainstorm session going on, rather than having to wait until set rehearsal times.

Zorbo Ironheart - Put in a passenger/straight guy to react to anything that's weird.

Zorbo Ironheart - Sketches can have couple of simple beats at the start, establishing reality.

Zorbo Ironheart - Whenever I personally start something new (acting, stand-up, sketch) at first I end up reinventing the wheel, and then it always goes back to impro basics.

Arthur – it’s great working with actors who are willing to jump up and try new games and exercises, have them not work, try them again, and then jump again. It gives the director permission to introduce new things.

More to follow,

Hoopla

www.HooplaImpro.com

You know you're an improviser when...

2012-01-05T16:39:00.000-08:00

You’ve done a rehearsal in someone’s living room.

You’ve performed in a dusty cold room above a pub to an audience of 3, 2 of which left in the interval.

You’ve slept in a room with 4 other people in Edinburgh.

Edgar has forgotten your name at least 8 times, even though you’ve known him for two years.

You watch films and think ‘that would be a good improv scene’.

Something weird happens to you and you think ‘that would be a good scene’.

You do anything at all and you think ‘that would be a good scene’.

Your non-impro friends refer to impro as ‘that thing’, as in ‘we came to see you in that thing a year ago, do you still do it?’

You tried to learn lines for a play/film once and it annoyed you.

You’ve found yourself saying ‘that’s not how you do a Harold’.

You’ve corrected someone for saying impro or improv.

You’ve typed ‘Chicago improv summer school’ into google.

You know what the Crunchy Frog Collective is, and where the name comes from.

You’ve compiled a list of famous people and films that were born out of impro, and use this list to justify the large amount of time you spend doing impro.

When someone blocks you in real life you feel smug because you know what they're doing, like a God of imagination

You’ve watched the Robin Williams episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway on YouTube.

You’ve found yourself discussing minor points of impro techniques, and life in general, at midnight in a McDonalds after a show.

Everything you do in your spare time seems to be based in a room above a pub.

Your Amazon wish list is made up of obscure improv and drama books.

You see stand-ups on TV and think "if I had been doing stand-up rather than so much impro, I'd be there by now".

Improvisation My Dear Mark Watson made you cry. Everything about it, the title, the producer, even the fucking font. And you actually liked Mark Watson too, how dare they do that to them.

You've been dancing in the Arts Club bar until 4am on a tuesday night.

You always order number 26 at The Miller.

You meet someone new on facebook and find you've already got 46 friends in common.

You watch League of Gentleman and think 'I could improvise that'.

You've made Edinburgh plans in a pub with someone you've known for 5 minutes.

The first time you ever met someone was on stage where you played a goblin, they played a troll, and it ended with a kiss.

Your group has spent 60 quid on food and drink in a pub in order to get the room for free, rather than spend 50 quid renting a proper rehearsal room somewhere else.

You know the name of the bloke with the beard at The Rag Factory.

Hoopla

Improv Classes and Shows - now fully operational in 2012.

www.HooplaImpro.com

What makes you a fun person to improvise with?

2011-12-30T08:12:00.000-08:00

At the start of the last Thursday workshop before Christmas I asked the actors a really simple question:

"The people you enjoy performing with on stage - what is it that they do that makes you enjoy improvising with them?"

I thought there would be hesitation in answering this, but actually the class had some immediate responses to this. Some of the class were relatively new to impro, some had been doing it about a year, and some were experienced performers.

I was tempted to discuss these responses, but actually it's more interesting just to see them in their raw version. So here's what the class said, in order of what they said, unedited:

They are happy to be there, I love the way Conor always so happy about being on stage with me.

They want to be there.

High Energy.

I like people that make me do stuff I wouldn't usually do.

They make offers about me.

They draw me into their plot.

Shared experience.

They hurl themselves into ideas that aren't their own.

They involve others in their story.

I like it when people make great offers when I'm stuck.

They involve everyone in their scenes, sharing.

When I'm acting with them it feels like the story is telling itself.

Listening, incorporating, adding.

They listen to the audience, and give them more of what they enjoy.

Speaking clearly.

They have a natural ability to come up with ideas and don't stop themselves.

Coming on with strong ideas and not having a second thought.

They're having lots of fun.

Sometimes they are enjoying themselves so much that they are constantly holding back a laugh.

Acting with them feels like a game of volleyball, with the ball constantly passed from person to person.

The Negative Version

I then asked the opposite question:

"People that you don't enjoy improvising with - what is it that puts you off?"

At first there was hesitation in answering this, until I point out that if we just did the opposite of the following statements we'd have some really positive things to act on.

So they next answered the negative version, and here's what they came up with pretty much instantly:

They talk in a muffled voice that I can't hear.

They aren't really listening to me.

I find it hard to hear what they are saying.

They gag from the start and destroy the most obvious platform.

They don't do the obvious thing. They don't do 'the thing' that obviously should be happening.

They aren't physically free, the don't respond to light touches and won't move with the other actors.

They do little one liners at the expense of the scene.

They are always playing the same actor/character.

They show disappointment in being selected to go up with the other actor.

Not listening.

Forcing out their own ideas at all costs.

People taking it (impro) way to seriously.

Steamrolling - just being loud without letting other people's ideas come in.

Hitting, in or out of character it's not acceptable.

Being leechy/creepy with the other actors.

Giving up too easily.

I can't understand what they are saying or doing.

Negatively criticising the other actors.

Suggesting alternative content for scenes after they're done.

Trying to be funny by being overly layered.

Turning the Negatives into Positives

We then wrote down the opposite of the above statements, and they formed another batch of great positive aims for improvising. Here they are in order, the positive opposites of the negative statements:

Talk clearly and loud enough and slow enough for the actors and audience to hear.

Listen to the other actors.

Talk clearly and loud enough and slow enough for the actors and audience to hear.

Be obvious, start seriously at the start and build a believable realistic platform.

Be obvious. If something is obviously going to happen in a scene, do it. Do 'the thing'.

Be physically free. Allow yourself to move with the other actors. Everything on stage should be a light touch. Allow a light touch to move you far across stage.

Don't break the reality of the scene.

Play different characters.

Be thrilled, happy and excited to be with your fellow actors.

Listen.

Share. Put in your ideas, but also adapt and build on other people's ideas.

Don't take impro seriously. You can play a serious character and a serious scene, but in your heart be playful.

Share. Let other people alter you and build on their ideas. Leave gaps for other people.

Take physical care and have respect for the other actors at all times.

Be respectful of the other actors at all times.

Just keep playing and be determined, it's not that important anyway.

Be clear and obvious in your speech and movement.

Don't critisice the other actors, leave that to the director.

Don't discuss alternate content of scenes, only discuss technique and even then see above.

Be obvious.

We then improvised lots of scenes, with people picking one of the positive list things to play and me directing them so that they achieved the positive aims. The result was lots of fun scenes.

I love the way that the statements reflect underlying things that are in loads of impro theory, but use different language that is actually more common sense. It suggests most people already know what makes good improvisers, even if they haven't thought to put it into words yet. I also love that the priorities are a different order to most impro books, for instance 'being heard' and 'being happy to be there' were really high up and incredibly important to the whole cast.

I was really tempted to now categorise the responses and spot patterns, but that would probably make it way too serious and remove from the beauty of the exercise. I do think it's altered my Hoopla workshop aims/topics for next year though, I'm going to be carrying it around with me everywhere I go.

Hope you have a great New Year everyone!

Lots of love,

Hoopla

www.HooplaImpro.com
Classes and Shows for 2012 are now up to date and live on website. Workshops start up again next Thursday.

ADDITIONAL - Added after asking the same question to a bunch of improvisers at a Saturday workshop soon after the above

The improvisers including more people from an acting rather comedy background, which generated some interesting other responses. Some of them are contradictions of each other, but that's impro for you. Here are they are, written as they were said:

Don't Block.

Open

Gift Giving

Stuff they give you

Honesty

Transparency

Not outdoing each other

Not competition

Support

One turn at a time

Picking up the smallest of offers

Listen - whether you're in it or not

Not worrying what you are going to say

Quirky strange people / new choice

Unexpected things

Played very naturally

Don't be afraid of silence.

Don't expect, but accept everything.

Not rushing, slower pace.

Stuff inbetween the lines is important.

Moving in silence.

Setting up something in silence.

Improvise in different styles.

Games.

Physical.

Song.

Imaginary objects.

Strange things.

Physical interaction.

ADDITIONAL - From asking the same question to the cast of Imagine If You Will at the start of rehearsals

Again, there are contradictions, but that's impro whoop yeah!

You look, you feel, you are

High level of commitment

Commitment towards story and character

Commited to action

Obviousness of labelling characters and things

Sense of fun

Absurdity curve

Make em laugh and cry

Guy looks me direct in the eyes and makes a genuine emotional connection and physical connection, he's being a real person

Bounce of emotion between us

Focussing on each other

Eye contact - looking at other person

Trust each other

Get each other's back

Filling an empty stage

Commitment to each other

Fall in love with each other and mean it

Dead pan and committed to stillness

Long rants

Grumpy old men, two terrible old villains

Fun and incompetent partnership

Like it when people want to have fun

Eye contact

Impro as if high drama

Trust them and they trust you

Intuitively painting a scene

This scene is really important and matters

People that make things significant

People pick up on small offers, make it bigger

Reflect stuff back at me

Referencing characters back

They give you character

Open and honest in a scene

Dave keeps the game going without loosing the point of the scene

Casie enthusiastic and playful

Duncan gives emotional endowments - "why PC Bloggs you seem very happy today"

Make it about you

Engages with the same objects

Respect scene

Share space together

Commitment to object

Fun

Clowning

Having fun on stage

Playing with it

Not being frightened

Like being used as an object, if I'm playing a table it's nice if someone puts something on top of me

Friendliness, happy, easy going

Relaxed and secure

Staging, clear

Friendly

Listening, everything is full of 800 ideas

Focus on things

Involve and build and care

You must listen even if your character isn't

Physical safety

Offer at a time

Accept, build up, explore

Turn up

Support reality of scene

Be obvious at start from suggestion

Merry Hoopla Everyone! Impro highlights of the year.

2011-12-24T06:52:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

I've started compiling my impro highlights of the year. I've probably missed loads so feel free to add to them if you can, I'm just adding them in no particular order as they come to my head:

Edgar teaching 'be obvious' in workshops, always bringing me back to the right point. "NO, be obvious. If the suggestion is an operating theatre, what do I want to see? People operating and shit."
On the point of exhaustion after The Music Box Cabaret in Edinburgh, Ben Hamblin handing me two cans of Red Stripe and a Twix, a reincorporation from over a month.
Singing on the roof of C Venues with the cast of Do Not Adjust Your Stage.
Wally showing his pants.
A tent pole falling on George at The Wilheart Festival, but her doing the show anyway after the audience sang her Happy Birthday.
Performing in an Aquarium with Music Box and Shotgun.
Countless favourite Music Box shows like 'Escape from a penguin sanctuary', 'Giant Toy Shop', 'Casino' and 'Orient Express'.
Walking around with sandwich board on for the whole of Edinburgh.
Hysterical laughter with Jules Munns as torrential rain poured down our faces while putting up posters.
Meeting Mike Hutcherson and finding we had the same taste in impro and films, and the ability to make both of them. Ending the year filming Zorbo Ironheart, which was awesome.
Lots of shows that did a preview at The Miller going on to have major success in Edinburgh.
Working with The Miller, still love those guys, many thanks.
Random chats with Silus at The Rag Factory, a man of knowledge.
The Human Loire.
Do Not Adjust Your Stage rocking the Music Box cabaret. They were asked to do 15 minutes, but did their full show. Nobody cared 'cos it was good.
Rehearsal for new shows I'm starting next year. First rehearsal for the re-invention of short-form went so well I'm really excited about it.
Making more connections with Brighton, including The Maydays, Upstairs at Three and Ten, Nicola Tann and Chris Emmerson.
The RH Experience, in general just knowing these guys always picks me and Edgar up. They're always trying new things and pushing things in new directions.
Impro networking event - a hive of activity.
Friday night party - so much fun having 8 people doing their first ever show alongside some who have been doing it for years.
Theatre sports - loved performing with James, Maria and George in this.
Phil Lunn only just making it to the keyboard during a Music Box show just as I'd finished getting the suggestions and we starting the opening number.
The last aquarium show - nuts.
Meeting and working with a bunch of clowns in Exeter.
Meeting and working with the lovely Zsuzsi in Reading. Just having Hoopla somewhere else makes me immensly proud.
Working with Lindsey and her great enthusiasm for impro in Cambridge.
Jon Monkhouse for getting London Impro going, being so easy to work and play with, designing flyers for Music Box that actually allowed us to sell the show and make some money, patience, and silliness.
Paul and Cariad for one of my favourite shows of the year.
Singing with Becca on top of a hill at the start of Edinburgh, with such hits as "Nob balloon" and "they didn’t let us in".
Roderick pushing the boundaries of stand-up, and hitting gold with his art critic act.
Amazing stuff on Saturday workshops that seem to reivent impro on an almost weekly basis.
Seeing so many groups at Edinburgh.
Rob and Dave and Ryan from Marbles rapping on the Royal Mile.
Thursdays always being a really great fun atmosphere, and us lot swamping people in The Firefly afterwards. Big Christmas love to the Thursday regulars!
The start of Monday workshops. From a bunch of quiet people looking awkward at each other (me included) to some of the best stuff I've seen, within a couple of weeks. Watching some of them go from never having done anything, to being in shows for the first time is very rewarding.

Overall I'm grateful that people like that exist.

Whatever people think/teach/learn/read/talk about impro it really is as simple as a bunch of people working together to make up some stuff that hasn’t been made up before, in order to make another bunch of people laugh. And that’s why it’s beautiful.

Merry Christmas!

Hoopla

Hoopla Impro Workshops and Shows
2012 workshop and show listings now online at www.HooplaImpro.com

Objectives Workshop Notes

2011-12-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

I've been finding the Hoopla Friday Night show from a couple of weeks ago incredibly influential on the workshops I'm running at the moment, and there's some great stuff coming out of them. I think seeing performance impro in its purest form has made me concentrate on the most important stuff. I've found that just concentrating on whether people are talking loudly enough, not turning their back to the audience, and making sure they are saying yes and dealing with offers, is producing some great workshop content.

I've also found recently that giving a rough structure to scenes in workshops (using The Henry, Scene Whore, or Music Box structure) is also making it more fun and people are really playing with it and going for it.

Also today I did a whole workshop on a new topic for us: Objectives. What an amazing topic! What an effect on the actors! So much so I feel they are the missing thing from impro workshops.

They are also in the category of things I actually do on stage when performing, but forget to pass on in workshops. I think sometimes there is a gap between what people teach and what they actually do on stage, so it felt good getting this stuff out there.

Objectives are common things in scripted acting. When putting together the character the actor will go through finding the following for the character:

Super Objective - What the character wants deepest in their subconcious, perhaps connecting to the collective subconcious wants/needs of humanity, eternal absolute forms and values. Freedom, truth, beauty, justice, love, security, safety, happiness etc.
Life Objective - What the character wants over the course of their life/adult life. Perhaps something about how they were raised as a child affects what they want as an adult. Perhaps one event changes their whole life. For instance someone from a broken home seeks building a new family of their own around love.
Play/Story Objective - What the character wants over the course of the actual play/story/film/show. The play shows a section of their life. It will probably be served by the life objective. For instance in the above example the play objective could be marrying a certain person.
Scene Objective - What the character wants in each particular scene. For instance getting the other person to go on a date, or getting her Father to say yes to the proposed idea of marriage.
Line Objective - What they want from each line. Sometimes the lines will state it, sometimes there will be a greater subtext beneath them. This can be the difference between wooden acting and performance with real life behind it.
Actions/Dialogue - What the character does to achieve these objectives, or what they have to do.
Behaviour/Activities/Emotion/Mood/Status - How they do them.

In scripted acting you can attack the creation of characters from different angles. You can start reading the script in rehearsal and come up with a play objective and from that extrapolate a life and super objective. You don't have to even tell the director you are doing this, if it's not in the script, just do it anyway to give your character life.

Objectives may be revealed to the character as the story continues. The character at the start might not know that what they really seek is safety and security and love, they may find it later at the end of their journey.

Also the objectives for characters may shift. This happens in real life too, especially after traumatic events, other major life events, or after achieving a previous objective. This creates a momentary sense of loss and confusion in the character, and rather than shying away from this it can be good to actually play.

Another common occurrence is that the character pursues what they want but actually gets what they need. An alternative way of looking at this is that the character pursues a life or play objective, doesn't achieve it, but actually discovers their super objective along the way which is more beautiful and eternal - the greatest prize of all.

All characters in the story have objectives, not just the protagonist. Some of their objectives serve the protagonist's dream, some clash with it, some prevent it. Even the smallest character has something they want, even if it's something really subtle.

In improvisation the generation of character and objectives is effectively switched into reverse. When we go on stage first we don't know who we are or what we're doing, so we don't know what we want from the scene/play/life etc.

So in impro we are free to just do anything at the start. This is amazingly liberating. By just doing something, anything, we accidentally trigger other things inside us that gradually generates objectives and discovers deeper layers to our characters.

In impro we can start with 'how' we do things, before we even know what we're doing. It's like life switched inside out. So come on, have some behaviour, have an emotion, do an action, have an activity, play a status, and discover why later.

Once the improviser senses an objective, even if it comes as a quiet whisper, they can expand it, yes and it, grow it. They can take the stage, face the audience, and actually say their dream out loud. This signals to the audience and the rest of the cast what they are pursuing. It might feel odd performing this, but it's incredibly satisfying to the cast and audience.

Improvisers can also just pick an objective at random. It's more satisfying if it is grown from the small offers that come out of the scene, but just picking something and committing to it works well too. If you've been on stage for a few scenes already and don't have an objective, just pick one.

In impro you can also go on stage with objectives from your own life, to help give your character depth right from the start.

It's also great if your objective are connected to wanting the other characters to do things, as this adds depth and game. For instance the difference between playing 'I want to kiss someone' and 'I want that person to kiss me within 5 minutes' is vast, with the latter once generating loads of complicity between characters.

Sometimes in impro your objectives might have to shift, especially if you haven't named your objective out loud and then someone endows you with something else. This is fine, and with experience you can changing and merging objectives to suit the scene.

The great thing with playing objectives is that the comedy and narrative takes care of itself. You can be playing with a large group over one long story and objectives give all the direction you need. Keep sticking to your character.

Suddenly we had characters on stage pursuing goals.

Excellent stuff workshop team!

London workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday
Shows every Tuesday and Wednesday
Various additional workshops around the UK
www.HooplaImpro.com

Full Circle

2011-12-07T13:39:00.000-08:00

I've gone full circle again. This has happened a few times before.

I first got into drama/impro/comedy stuff (apart from early school things) doing John Cremer's drop-in nights in Brighton. I loved it and decided to explore all forms of drama, so did a two week course with A.C.T in Brighton to find what area I was most interested in. At the end of that course there was a feedback session and the head of the school said "there's this teacher I know who I think would be just perfect for." I was really excited, who could this apparent match made in heaven be? I opened the piece of paper - it said 'John Cremer'.

Few years later, I again felt the pull towards serious acting and away from impro. I was actually planning on auditioning for drama school, and signed up for an acting course and audition training with Act Up in London. I learnt serious modern pieces, and a selection of Shakespeare. When delivering the Shakespeare in the end of course mock audition I managed to get a laugh in the way I walked into the room, got addicted to it again, and kept pushing the button to make them laugh. It was more fun. In the end I said I couldn't complete the audition piece because the other actor had walked off stage (it was an imaginary character). They asked if I'd ever heard of improvised comedy, as I was probably better suited to that. I didn't audition for drama school in the end, which I'm actually happy about as I did loads of other stuff instead. So it was back to impro.

This Autumn I was pretty set on committing more to stand up. I even did the Amused Moose course with Logan Murray, which was great. I turned up having done written material in lessons, and it went down alright. I turned up one week having done nothing, and just ranted about carrier bags, and it went down really well. The next week I turned up and deliberately went on stage with no idea, and it went down best of all. Morale of the story - impro is my thing now and I can't avoid it.

Perform more

2011-12-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

I loved the Friday Night Impro Party, thanks for all who came. What was lovely was that for many people there it was there first ever time performing impro.

It struck me as how important it was to perform impro in order to learn it. You could do loads of courses and workshops with loads of people, but until you're actually performing in front of an audience it doesn't really come to life. Once people are performing the workshops suddenly have meaning.

I know I've been blogging lots about where to perform impro in London at the moment, but here's some more:

Check out our website, www.HooplaImpro.com
Check out Crunchy Frog Collective, www.thecrunchyfrogcollective.com
Check out Casting Call Pro website, they have loads of jobs, mix of unpaid and paid, popping up
Student Films, I just did one of these and was surprised at how much impro popped up in the physical stuff
Starting your own group
Stand up circuit
You Tube

Loads more, I just put them on as I think of them.

I'm also a big fan of using impro in other activities. I just did a scripted student film, but the impro stuff came into play lots and loved it.

Simplicity of what makes a good performer

2011-12-07T12:23:00.000-08:00

I was watching a few impro shows as an audience member recently. What stuck me was from their point of view it was just super simple things that stuck out when watching performers, namely:

1. Can I hear you?

2. Have you got your back to the audience?

3. Are you blocking the other actor?

Venues to perform improv in and shows that need improvisers in.

2011-11-30T09:14:00.000-08:00

Got an impro show? Here's some places to perform it.
Are an improviser? Here's some more groups/nights that might want you to perform with them.
I don't have all contact details but they should pop up on google.
This is an ever changing fluctuating list so please let me know if I've missed any.

Tuesdays: The Miller, London Bridge. Two different impro groups a night. Programmed by Steve Roe from Hoopla (www.HooplaImpro.com) in association with Jon Monkhouse (www.LondonImprov.co.uk). Next year it will generally be one show that's been directed/produced by Hoopla/Steve combined with one guest group. We're trying to support new shows, with most new shows getting at least one showing at Miller Tuesdays, so there is much variety as possible.

Wednesdays: The Miller, London Bridge. Two different groups a night. Programmed by Jon Monkhouse (LondonImprov.co.uk) in association with Hoopla.

Thursdays: Grand Theft Impro, The Wheatsheaf, they have guest performers that tend to be from the very experienced section of improvisers.

Sundays: Crack Comedy Improv Sundays with two different groups every single Sunday. Programmed by Luisa Omielan (www.iloveluisa.com)

Sundays: Wilmington Arms. Every Sunday with experienced Harold Players working together. Might be doing some jams too. http://www.thewilmingtonarms.co.uk. Gareth seems to be coordinating this, sorry don't have his full contact details to hand.

Every other Thursday: Fingers on Buzzards, The Horse. Sometimes has guest performers, Matt Andrews is the chapt. http://fingersonbuzzards.wordpress.com/
RH and Friends: The RH Experience Shows, with added different performers each time. www.therhexperience.co.uk

Hoopla Friday Night Impro Party: Open to all improv jam, turn up and perform, first Friday of the month, starting this Friday at The Miller.

The Horse - really good venue, free to hire if you're bringing in an audience, lots of impro groups performing ad hoc or regular shows here now. www.horsebar.co.uk

The Inflatables - Great short form show that sometimes has guest cast. Andrew Gentilli is your man.

Fat Kitten - don't think they are looking for cast at the moment but it's a crime to talk about impro in London and not mention them. James Ross runs awesome nights with them and other comedy acts including some mega big stuff.

Battle Acts - They do verses shows in Brixton and may be interested in some other teams to play against.

Catch 23 - Cool format directed by Paul Foxcroft that has different teams performing.

The Wheatsheaf, Rathbone Place - cheap to hire, good for ad hoc impro shows but probably won't do more regular shows than GTI.

The Round Table, Leicester Square - really small venue, Hoopla used to perform every Tuesday here, free to hire, right next to Leicester Square Station. Not great for big shows but fun atmospheric place to put on a cheeky test show.

Leicester Square Theatre - massive venue and also smaller cabaret venue. Heard good things about their marketing ability at bringing in their own audience, but heard it can be a bit pricey.

Canal Cafe Theatre, Hen & Chickens, The Pleasance, Camden Etc - haven't really worked with them but they've all had various workshops there.

Crunchy Frog Collective - www.thecrunchyfrogcollective.com - best website for staying up to date with impro casting calls etc.

Casting Call Pro - another good casting website. If you're looking to build up acting experience this is a good one.

Hoopla

www.HooplaImpro.com

New exercise on being altered by small offers

2011-11-30T05:48:00.000-08:00

Came up with a new exercise at our Monday night class this week. It was part of a 'Listening Workshop'.

I'd already done lots of listening exercises, similar to those mentioned in a previous blog (
http://hooplaimpro.blogspot.com/2011/09/listening-workshop-notes.html) when I got onto the topic of active listening.

It's not about just being on stage 'listening' and 'seeing' but doing nothing. That can create boring scenes that don't go anywhere, as two actors wait for the other to do something thinking that that's supportive.

It's true that listening and seeing are the first requirements of improvisation - otherwise how can you know what the other person is doing and improvise with them?

But on top of listening and seeing people must be ALTERED by what the other person does and take ACTION. It's when we are altered, emotionally, intellectually, physically by the other person's offers that we get a connection.

Everyone can react to big offers. Actually in fact even that's probably not true, we've probably all seen scenes like this:

- You're Brother has been shot on the front line
- I don't have a brother / do you want a cup of tea / good I didn't like him

The second actor is doing anything they can to not be altered by the news.

Also we've probably all seen scenes where someone was shot but didn't die (booo) etc etc.

So anyway, we therefore came up with an exercise where one person makes the SMALLEST possible offers they can, and the other is ALTERED in a big way by everything they do.

I don't normally name check people in blogs, but I got Nick Oram to do this and he was so awesome at it I just had to mention it.

So me and Nick were on stage. And I just casually moved my right hand in front of my by about 5 centimeters. He immediately went into panic and jumped away from me and shouted 'no! don't press it'. My little offer of 'moving my hand' had been turned into 'pressing a button to release a nuclear bomb' by his reactions alone.

We carried on with more, and funnily enough even if he tried to be over the top they didn't actually look over the top, as it just made the scene have higher stakes. I felt super supported as I could do even the slightest move and it had a big effect on Nick. We also tried it where he didn't react at all, and this resulted in me waving my arms like mad and being too 'big', and I felt like a bit of a dick. So when the other actor is not being altered, you tend to over do things and feel self-concious, as if you're not affecting the other people on stage how can you affect the audience?

We continued this game with the whole group, where one by one someone had to push an imaginary button very subtly, and then the whole group would react with the same reaction at once. This was crazy fun. I found it important to mention that they should be reacting to the build up to pushing the button, not just the action.

So you're being altered by the other actor all of the time, not just the big deliberate offers, but the accidental offers, the build up, the casual. Don't wait for an offer, act as if it has already happened. Make something they did important to you. Be altered.

Hoopla
Workshops in London Monday, Thursday, Saturday
Workshops around the UK starting in 2012
www.HooplaImpro.com

How to use improv to write sketch comedy

2011-11-23T06:03:00.000-08:00

Yeahhhhh! Finally cracked it. I've run this workshop a few times before but never felt like it reached it's full potential, but this Saturday there were some amazing sketches popping up one after another - blam blam blam! Here's a collection of things that we found helpful:

Explorer, Artist, Judge, Warrior

This is more of a concept than a technique, it comes from Roger von Oech's 'A whack on the side of the head' and is for any creative project. You basically have to take each of those roles as you go through the process. As applied to sketch comedy using improv and other techniques:

Explorer: Goes into the world. Reads about subjects. Absorbs information. Writes lists of things. Doesn't worry about what's funny and what's possible. Explore a subject before you know what's funny about it.

Artist: Plays with the information from the explorer, plays games, mucks around, haves fun, turns things on their head. Takes it to new dimension. Doesn't worry about what's funny and what's possible. Play with a subject before you know what's funny about it.

Judge: Picks out the funny bits, best bits. Decides what is going forward. Decides what could be done with being played with more. Any clown can tell you what's not working, the more experienced people will be able to spot what is working and build that up instead.

Warrior: Making it happen. Driving it through to a finished product. Getting scripts, props, actors, venues, audiences etc.

In reality they actually overlap more than that, but that's the general idea. The process freezes up when people accidentally act in one role too early - as in judging their first thoughts before they've done any exploring, or trying to be funny before they've actually explored a subject to be funny with, or being a warrior with a project that hasn't actually got any content yet.

So explore, play play play, spot what works, build that up, play play play, record, refine, rehearse, produce, perform, re-evaluate.

Writing Techniques

We employed a few different writing techniques throughout the day, even though the workshop was predominantly about the improv and using scripts as the inspiration for performance rather than the be all and end all.

Write a Sketch in 10 Minutes - did this right at the start of the day. No warm up, no guidelines, no help. I think writing is held under some kind of mystical reverence sometimes so I like to get rid of this right at the start and just get people doing it no matter what. Fastest way to learn is to do. Some people were in judge mode, even though it's an impossibly difficult task, and were then surprised that actually really good stuff came out. There's a hidden gem in all writing when you are improvising from it, and actually this technique produced one of the funniest sketches of the day. Do NOT judge or critisize these pieces, that's not the point of the exercise.

Break The Rules - write down at the top of the page a well known situation, occupation or location. Underneath write down all the rules that make up that thing. Social rules, legal rules, unsaid rules, etiquette, professional rules, whatever the concept means to you. What's the essence of that thing? What is the normality for that thing? Be obvious and write out loads, the more obvious the better. Now take the rules and write down in a line the breaking of each rule one be one. What's the opposite of that thing? How can that truth be reversed? Now go through the broken rules and exagerate and extrapolate, and then write down a sketch based on this.

Who What Where Relationship Attitude Objective Situation - making sure your sketches and characters have these things

Repeating and Escalating - start with a subtle pattern of behaviour, repeat and escalate

Reversal - what usually happens in this situation? What's the normal process? Reverse this, make a sketch out of it. For instance fireman usually get called out to put out fires with water that comes out of their hoses. Reversing generating a sketch about arsonists that get called out and have fire coming out of hoses.

Ridicule - ridicule someone famous who deserves it!

Switching - switch a well defined character to a different situation in life but keep the same behaviour from their normal situation. For example two doctors doing the washing up with the same care as an operation "spoon. Spoon. Sponge. Sponge. I need 50mg more fairy washing up liquid." You can also just switch the patterns of behaviour across characters.

Exaggerating - Exagerate a well known character, situation, relationship etc.

Role Reversal - take well known groups of characters and switch their normal roles. For instance parents start acting as children. Sitcoms do this all the time.

Improvising from the Scripts

We learnt this from The Penny Dreadfuls when they came to do a workshop. It feels like it shouldn't work but it actually works really well. Once some scripts are written it's tempting to sit down and go through them and re-write, but actually at this stage this is putting you into Judge mode way too early and it's better to just keep playing. The writing techniques are Explorer and a bit of artist, the improviser in charge is full Artist and loads more stuff comes out. Also surely it's best to see the sketch live on stage earlier rather than later? We can then play with real actors and laughter rather than intellectulising it.

So, actors get into pairs. One runs over to the piles of scripts and picks up one sketch that's been writen by someone else. DO NOT pick them or judge them or choose them, just pick one at random otherwise you slip into judge mood.

They then learn the lines without talking, don't even decide who is going to do what part, don't talk about the sketch, just learn the lines.

Then they go on stage and with 100% commitment just launch into the sketch. They probably don't know who will play who, or the lines, but by going for it with commitment the sketch idea jumps to life. Random ad hoc lines happen, characters form and suddenly we have a real thing we can play with! You can then later re-write, add bits, and play with it but the important thing is PLAY PLAY PLAY don't think think think. When you do see it pick up on what's working what is funny and expand that, picking up on what isn't working is easy and meaningless. So pick up on the bits that take off, what's behind those bits, is there a deeper game or concept, expand that stuff.

Game of the Scene

This was by far the most helpful and fun bit. I do whole day workshops on game of the scene but we just gate crashed it into an hour, it produced some awesome stuff.

1. Director gives the actor the situation so they don't have to worry about that. Where they are, who they are, what they're doing, locations, occupations etc.
2. Actors play that as dead obvious and normal as they can, just do the normal situation.
3. Stop after 4 lines or so. It's tempting to do more but with experience the game always presents itself accidentally within about 4 lines or so, and if you go past that in this exercise the actors end up putting little fake games in and it gets mushy.
4. Get the audience to state what already happened in the scene, be obvious. They'll tend to intellectulaise and come up with theories straight away, but really get them to just be obvious and stick to the facts. It's amazing that even with just 4 lines most people won't actually remember what got said.
5. Get them to then express this as a game:
    - What was the first unusual thing that happened?
    - What are the rules of interaction and behaviour that have popped up in this scene?
    - What repeats and escalates?
    - What do they want?
    - How are these games and rules connected?
    - If this person does this, what does the other person do, and vise versa?
6. Get the actors to do the scene playing the defined game hard, and let the game escalate.
7. Ask the audience what was working for them, simplify the game, and do it again.
8. Repeat. Play. Have fun.
9. Record and refine etc.

The ones that worked best were when:

    - The game was interactive and connected between the characters. One effected the other to do something, which made the other do something else. If the game was just in one direction it didn't feel as alive.
    - The game could be summed up and explained in one simple line. Simplifying became an important skill. Too many games and too much explanation and it becomes mushy, one simple line done well and expanded made captivating stuff.

Going to do more of it now, more workshops like it, and also use it in a YouTube sketch project I've got going on.

Hoopla
Workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday in London.
Additional workshops around the UK.
Improv Comedy Club every Tuesday and Wednesday in London.
www.HooplaImpro.com

Reality Workshop Notes

2011-11-15T03:28:00.000-08:00

This is one of my new favourite exercises. I seem to always start a blog like that, which I suppose makes sense because if they weren't my current favourites they wouldn't make it onto the blog.

So last night's Monday workshop was on reality. The idea being that having the mantra "it's real, it's real, it's real" in improvisation and treating everything on stage as if it's real, and believing that it's real, is helpful to improvisers for a few reasons:

1. If you believe it's real, the audience are more likely to believe it. In fact the audience aren't really going to suspend their disbelief unless you do first.

2. If you are in the real moment you don't have to 'act' or 'perform' as much as you will respond naturally and spontaneously. If you really believe you are in a pub having a quiet drink and a masked gun man walks in and shouts you won't have to act shocked, you just will be.

3. Believing it's real quite often takes care of the narrative. We found that the natural realistic reaction often provided the next step in the narrative, and really only a couple of narrative beats/tilts from the director were needed each scene. For instance when someone kicked off in a coffee shop the owner phoned the police, a good narrative move and also very real.

4. Treating everything like it's real makes the performer pay more attention to the other actors and listen more, as we need to know everything about them.

5. It stops performers going too weird too soon. If you are creating a reality together it will stop the random self destructive offers or gags that get laughs at the expense of the established reality.

Also treating like it's real doesn't have to mean boring. However boring the audience in the first scene is sometimes a good mantra to have as a performer (Keith Johnstone writes about this). But you don't have to base all scenes in a kitchen to be real, you can still find the reality in the situation of acting two aliens on planet Xarg constructing an inter galactic death ray. As Sanford Meisner said it's about "living truthfully under imaginary circumstances".

I found that starting the workshop with a large amount of trust exercises (the chair game) was really helpful as it made the performers respectful of each others offers.

Then the major reality exercise:

1. Volunteer performer goes on stage alone.
2. They explain to the class a place they routinely go to every day/week, showing us where things are on the stage (furniture) and explaining who they other people are in the scene (names, character traits, what they do).
3. Director asks them further questions and clarifies, and puts out items of furniture on stage. In this first case it was a coffee shop the actor went to most days.
4. Director then casts people from the rest of the group to be in the coffee shop, eg workers, dog in the corner, people sat around on lap tops.
5. Actor then comes into their real world and we play it straight, real, without adding any story. It's just the normal every day life.
6. Director corrects if people are taking focus away from the protagonist, or if they are over acting or over storytelling. We're looking for something that wouldn't look out of place in the real world.
7. Next day in the coffee shop. Director then whispers a 'tilt' to one of the actors. In this case one of the coffee shop workers was going to ask the actor out on a date. This made a lovely scene, where because they were all treating it like it was real it had all the cuteness and awkwardness you'd usually find in this situation.
8. Repeat for further scenes.

With everyone believing it was real only a couple of narrative beats/tilts were needed to generate long captivating pieces.

Well done all.

Hoopla London workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday.
Additional workshops around the UK.
www.HooplaImpro.com

Solo Improvisation Workshop Notes

2011-11-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

Really fun workshop this one, with a healthy mix of improvisers, stand ups and actors. Some really cool stuff came out of it.

The main tips that arose were when improvising with an audience were:

1. You are never really alone, the audience and room are always providing offers even when they are silent.
2. Commit. You are either improvising by yourself and the audience or you're not, so you might as well go for it.
3. Play. Keep playing, all the time, even if you think it's not going well just keep playing.
4. Have no expectations. Don't expect anything, then you'll be happy for any slight response.
5. The audience isn't there to cheer you up and give you energy, you are there to cheer them up and give them energy. You are the idiot in the room.

A big topic that came up from the stand ups and I really enjoyed taking on was how to work with a silent crowd, as they said this was even worse than a booing/heckling crowd.

We first tried this out playing the game 185 - where the performer has to improvise jokes in the format 185 somethings walk into a bar...punchline.

After doing it to applause I got some of the performers to do it and then receive enforced silence from the audience. It was AWKWARD!!! So we played with the awkwardness. At first we tried having the performer have an over enthusiastic response to their joke, which was contagious and sort of worked. But some of them pointed out that that would be a bit fake to do all the time. So we went deeper and found that core to that was PLAY. It didn't really matter what response the performer gave to the silence, as long as they were playing with it. Suddenly it was impossible for the audience to keep silent and cold, as the performers stayed cheerful and kept playing.

It's not pushing, or prodding, or forcing, it's playing. Playing can be physical (someone started doing a backward roll), verbal, intellectual, emotional, anything really.

Audiences have lots of minor moments of silence but if the performer accidentally treats one of these moments as permanent and stops playing then these moments spread and become and cold. By constant fluctuating play the performer remains alive and eventually so does the crowd. The performer has to be the life force in the room.

Some useful solo impro games:

185 - Improvise jokes in the format "185 somethings walk into a bar...punchline" Clap or boo them.

Big Mouth - Run out in front of the audience and talking as quickly as possible compliment as many of them as possible using poetry, metaphor, exageration.

All Characters - Improvise scenes where you play all characters. It's useful if the characters touch each other, and make eye contact.

One Character - Improvise scene where you play one character and the other characters are invisible to audience. Helpful if they touch you.

Fact, Fact, It's Like, I Feel, I Want, Do - Good semi-structure for getting content from an audience, even if they are silent and not responding at first. Good if it's down with big mouth like compliments. Name a fact about the person that is undeniably true (don't get trapped into opinion at first, save that for later, it's good to ground in hard fact to draw people in), name the fact again, extrapolate some it's likes/metaphors etc, say how that makes you feel, say what you want to do with that person, do it.

Example of this that came out of the workshop:

Wow you have really big muscles, you've got really big muscles, it's like you've got the body I've always wanted, I'm really jealous, I want your body, (starts climbing into the audience member's t-shirt) I'm going to get into your body, my hand is your hand etc.

It was very silly.

Hoopla workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday in London, with additional workshops around the UK.
www.HooplaImpro.com

List of most comedy fringe festivals ordered by start date

2011-11-07T17:04:00.000-08:00

Friend of mine asked for them, I happened to have a list, so thought it might be useful for all.

Exeter Comedy Festival   January
Leicester Comedy Festival   February
Sheffield Student Comedy Festival   February
Adelaide Fringe   February
Laughter Lines Comedy Festival, Leeds   March
Udderbelly Festival   April
Liverpool Festival   April
Bath Comedy Festival   April
Chicago Improv Festival   April
Bury Fringe   May
Brighton Fringe   May
Brighton Festival   May
Salisubury Arts Festival   May
Norwich Fringe Festival   May
Norfolk and Norwich Festival   May
Freerange Comedy Festival, Cumbria   May
Bath Fringe   May
Stratford upon Avon Fringe   May
St. Alban's Festival   June
National Student Drama Festival, Sheffield   June
Oxford Fringe   June
Exeter Fringe   June
Pulse Festival, Ipswich   June
Ludlow Festival   June
Glastonbury   July
Newbury Comedy Festival   July
Latitude Festival   July
Montreal Just for Laughs   July
Petworth Festival   July
Harrogate International Festival, North Yorkshire   July
Winchester Hat Fair   July
Kings Lynn Festival   July
Buxton Fringe   July
Buxton Festival    July
Stockton Weekender   August
Leicester Fringe   August
Worcester Festival   August
Edinburgh Fringe   August
Calgary Fringe   August
Camden Fringe   August
Leeds Fringe   August
Didsbury Arts Festival   September
Nottingham Comedy Festival   September
Dublin Theatre Festival   September
Vancouver International Improv Festival   September
Windsor Fringe   September
Jules Munns, Nursery   October
Brighton Comedy Festival   October
Harrogate Comedy Festival, North Yorkshire   October
Brighton Comedy Fringe   October
Belfast Festival   October
Reading Comedy Festival   October
Sheffield Comedy Festival   October
Birmingham Comedy Festival   October
Newport Comedy Festival   October
Melbourne Fringe   October
Cheltenham Comedy Festival   November

Hoopla
Improvised Comedy Shows and Classes
www.HooplaImpro.com

A brief history of rough theatre for improvisers

2011-11-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

In the 16th century bands of Commedia dell'Arte actors traveled Europe, performing in market places, outdoor festivals and carnivals. Their show was fun, fast and noisy and incorporated mask, music, singing, acting, acrobatics, improvisation, script, satire, impressions and comedy. The audience shouted out, interacted and were part of the show. If they didn't feel part of the show they just left. The topics, themes and characters were current.

Shakespeare then wrote rowdy plays featuring love, death, comedy, tragedy, clowns. He even used some Commedia scenarios. The audience would boo, hiss and clap as the show went along. They would talk during the performance (it's only recently that this became unusual), food and drink would be passed around. The 'groundlings' would pay a penny to stand in front, and would sometimes even heckle the actors. Again many of his themes, characters and targets were current. Moments of comedy would follow moments of tragedy, and there might even be a little dance at the end. It was smelly, rowdy, and fun.

In the 17th century Restoration comedy appeared, following a weird banning of all theatre by puritans. When theatre was allowed back it was rebellious, naughty and comedy. Everyone from aristocrats to servants would go and watch.

After some censorship from Victorians there was another rebellion, this time with Music Hall. Walking around London now it's hard to imagine what a major thing these were. They were everywhere, not just in some allocated 'TheatreLand' of the West End but they were across the whole town, in the suburbs and more. And they were massive. Huge halls full of people getting pissed and having a good time. Watching various acts - singing, comedy, sketches, juggling, people bouncing balls with precision. There was no fourth wall, the audience could laugh and boo to their heart's content. The same thing was happening in America with Vaudeville. Charlie Chaplin started in Music Hall, heavily influenced by his own form of improvisation and taking improvisation into the movies, where he would make up the entire script as he went along filming.

Also in America the carnivals were touring around all over the place, offering a mix of music, rides, freak shows, strip acts and various wonders of the world. With this theatre the people of the town would come down and walk around the strip, watching snippets of acts, before deciding what to pay and see. If it wasn't any good for the audience, nobody came to see it, simple as that. And your potential audience was right there walking on the sawdust floor outside your tent. (Read memoirs of sword swallower for all that).

Peter Brook's book The Empty Space defines all this as Rough Theatre - "Salt, sweat, noise, smell: the theatre that's not in a theatre, the theatre on carts, on wagons, on trestles, audiences standing, drinking, sitting round tables, audiences joining in, answering back: theatre in back rooms, upstairs rooms, barns: the one-night stands, the torn sheet pinned up across the hall."

Sound familiar improvisers?

David Shepherd, founder of Compass Players that went on to be Second City, had an ongoing dream of a rowdy working class theatre with all the crowd up on stage. At the same time Keith Johnstone was inspired to create theatre that had the same heat of wrestling.

When Film and TV came out it almost immediately killed of the Rough Theatre, with Music Halls and Vaudeville dying within a few years and just some of the stars making the transition. The audience for Rough Theatre are now captivated by The X Factor, watching in small units rather than the mass communities of Music Halls.

But now people are getting fed up of TV and Film. The mass channels means that entertainment is no longer centralized, and is going back to the decentralized and maybe even local model of before.

But in the meantime what has happened to the Rough Theatre of before?

For some reason we've severely classified stuff and separated our entertainment by genres. We have impro nights, stand up gigs, rock gigs, sketch gigs.

Shouldn't it all just be together? The Rough Theatre of old thrived on multi-skilled people working together to add variety.

Sometimes I wonder if we, David Shepherd and Kevin Johnstone think we want impro to take off, but deep down it's actually a more archetypal Rough Theatre that we long for - more of a feeling than a product. A kind of of direct human reaction to the removal of something that's been with us for generations. Is it a coincidence for instance that impro first took off at about the same time TV was becoming widespread, in the exact same countries that were the first to get TV?

Perhaps impro isn’t taking off because it’s called impro.Why classify something in terms of the process rather than the benefit? So why don’t we just do it, and embrace the essence ofimpro into other things, other forms, work to create a greater whole. Bands, dancing, stand up, impro, sketch, mask,impressions, ridicule, cabaret, spec acts, circus, all united in one aim - the human reaction.

Back in the day it was entertainment, to get peopleenjoying themselves.

Theatre to me isn’t the glossy program, expensive smalltub of ice cream, and sitting in neat rows looking at a film set. For me it’s cheap spotlits pluggedinto extension leads, primark black double bed sheets used as back drops, beerin GLASSES with tables to put them on, and people turning up late after work.

It's time to decentralise entertainment, and make it somethingconnected to and born out of life, and encouraging life, rather than a distraction from it.Claim entertainment for ourselves.

Hoopla
Improvisation Classes Monday, Thursday, Saturday
Improvisation Shows Tuesday, Wednesday
www.HooplaImpro.com

Presence Workshop Notes

2011-10-19T02:54:00.000-07:00

These are from this week's Monday night workshop on Presence. Largely influenced by a combination of Patsy Rodenburg's book Presence and Keith Johnstone's chapter on Being There, with a bit of John Wright's Why is that so Funny thrown in.

Patsy's book goes more into theory so I won't write about that much here, but very briefly she splits presence into three circles of energy:

1st Circle - energy is going inwards, withdrawn, wanting to retreat from the space. Defending by retreat.
3rd Circle - broadcast mode, energy is going outwards but with no connection back to the actor, they are defending themselves by controlling.

So she says to aim for 2nd Circle energy, where there is a constant flow of energy outwards and inwards, a connection, and the person is present in the space and with other actors and audience.

So on to the exercises:

Stretches. Unlocking the knees. Reaching up with hands. Flopping down from waist. Hanging with head and arms low and nice and relaxed. Rising from base of spine. This happens at the start of loads of workshops I go to and it actually originates from Patsy Rodenburg.

Sounds outside the room. Do straight after the stretches. The actors have their eyes closed and in silence listed for sounds coming from outside the room. It's amazing how many sounds there are. This is excellent at making people present in the space and is very relaxing. I do it just before a show I'm worried about.

Looking at things in the room. Actors open their eyes and just look at things in the room. Then they walk around naming them and touching them. It's amazing how many things we normally miss.

Mirroring. Actors are in pairs and act as if there is a mirror between them. One leads and the other follows as mirror image. Do in silence and remind them to unlock their ankles and knees so the whole body can follow. Swap roles. Then do it where no one in the pairs is leading, they both copy each other at the same time and build on what is already happening. This makes people very connected to each other.

We then did it where the whole group would copy each other if pairs were close, it seemed to create one big creature.

Stimulus and response. Keep the same set up and energy as mirroring, except this time people can have a reaction to the move rather than just coming. It doesn't matter what they do, just keep the connection. This is now the energy of 2nd circle, give and take of energy with constant flow between the two people.

We continued this but with the whole group doing it together, working together as machines creating whole devices, and then flowing from one machine to the other. Keith Johnstone actually belittles machines in his book but I find them the most useful physical impro game going.

Then something completely different, about being present with an audience. This game is either loved or hated. Some people do it and they don't see the point, some people do it really easily, some people find it the hardest most frightening thing ever.

You have to go up in front of the audience, by yourself, and without retreating just stand there nice and relaxed and repeatedly tell them "I'm not doing anything, I'm just stood here, I'm not doing anything, I'm just stood here, not doing anything." But the thing is you actually have to mean it, and not do anything, just be yourself.

Some people go up straight away and play it and there is a presence about them where we feel drawn into them, and feel like we know them even if this is the first time we've seen them.

Some people go up and it feels like they are lying, for some reason we can sense a shield of defense that has been put up. So we keep the game going uncomfortably long. At some point, usually at the point where they are thinking 'what's the fucking point in this?' they drop their defenses with a sigh or a giggle and suddenly we are momentarily let into their world and the audience laugh warmly. After that they hopefully stay there for a bit, and realise it's fine to just be and they are not in danger.

After that, quite an abstract game, I decided to do a more scene based Keith Johnstone game. I chose 3 words at a time from his Being There chapter. I don't usually like word restriction games. My least favourite impro game in the whole world is the alphabet game - I mean have you ever seen this work in a show, ever? Who actually likes the alphabet game?

Anyway, we started with the 3 word at a time game but I found it was actually making the actors un-present as they were just thinking about the words. So we switched to the 1 word at a time game and it was awesome, all the scenes were excellent. With only 1 word at a time there is less to worry about and the word that spurts out is usually summing up the overall feeling, or the most important stuff, or moving things on.

Saying 'keep the same energy and connection you had in the mirror game' seemed to be a useful direction, and it meant that inbetween speaking the actors were emotionally connected and also very physical.

Lots of fun scenes produced including a sailor desperately convincing a captain that an iceberg was coming, two teenagers on an awkward date on a farm, and a wife having an affair. All had platforms and action that were clear and fun, decreasing the words lead to really fun scenes that were easy to follow.

This bit is where a conclusion would go, but I haven't got one. Other than impro done well with people focussing on the deeper things is fun to watch and magical.

Hoopla. Workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Shows Tuesday and Wednesday. www.HooplaImpro.com

Impro or Improv? What's in a v?

2011-10-17T02:54:00.000-07:00

This could be the biggest impro (or improv) geek out known to man! I know at least 2 people who might find this interesting, so I'm going to write it.

Some people say Impro.
Some people say Improv.

In London it used to be largely Impro, but now there's a growing trend in the use of Improv.

Why?

I decided to conduct my own investigation using, errr, me as a case study. I was surprised to see so much meaning loaded into one letter, or lack of letter, and that it's actually all wrapped up in my own personal experience of impro/improv.

My first experience of anything like impro had been watching Whose Line Is It Anyway on TV in the early 1990s. Usually after I had got back from scouts on a Friday evening. I'd actually cycle back quickly in order not to miss it. I also had a massive crush on my babysitter who would also watch it, so impro was wrapped up in sexual desire for me right from the start! Unavoidably written into my subconscious. And no, I didn't have sex with my babysitter, you perverts!

But back then I don't think I called it impro, or improv or even use the word improvised. It was just a fun TV show in my eyes, not part of a larger overall movement or art form.

A few years later I was doing drama GCSE with Edgar and we'd do improvisation exercises in class. They would usually be war based and his would usually end up with him throwing chairs at people and attacking enemy lines head on, mine would usually end up with me mock crying and talking about war issues. Everyone would die in the end.

Again these were just standalone exercises to us, we didn't call it impro or improv and didn't think it was part of some bigger thing. Also strangely enough we didn't connect what we were doing to Whose Line is it Anyway or anything.

I didn't think about it again until years later, in about 2006.

I'd been taken to see The Maydays perform in Brighton, as a break from attempting to write sketch comedy. They were making up things on the spot that were far funnier than anything I was trying to write, so I became addicted.

I went to all the workshops I could, and became a massive impro addict. Back then John Cremer was calling it impro without the v, as they hadn't been to Chicago yet. So as far as I was concerned I was doing impro. He'll probably deny this, but I have flyers to prove it!

When I moved back to London I did some courses with Sprout Ideas and The Crunchy Frog, both of whom used the word Impro for their workshops and websites (Crunchy Frog has since added the v, Sprout is still impro).

Then when I got even more into it and started reading books, the first books I read were 'Impro' and 'Impro for Storytellers' by Keith Johnstone. So right from the start the word Impro was the word for me.

Well meaning but non-improvising university friends and family members would ask me "how's the improv coming along?" and I would correct them by saying "actually, it's impro" like a massive twat. I felt that people who used the word 'improv' were belittling something that was important to me. I really felt like I was part of something new, and those who weren't quite into it often used the v by 'mistake' and it was a badge of honour to use the word 'impro' instead, as it showed that the person had read the right books and was going to workshops.

However over the years the use of the 'v' appeared not just from outsiders and beginners, but from experienced improvisers. This seemed to first start when The Maydays went to Chicago for the summer, and then came back calling everything improv. This then continued with various other people going to America, and people reading more North American books.

Before I knew it there were people saying improv improv improv improv everywhere! At first I hated it, it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The 'v' that had meant one thing was now being used to show a greater understanding of improvisation, not less, and was indeed reflective of a new style of doing things.

But it's not just that, I find the actual letter 'v' such a nasty letter. It's so angular and harsh. Ending things with an 'o' is so much more polite, it's like a word that ends with a kiss rather than the sound of an insect. Also I'd already called my group Hoopla, which goes really well with Impro as there are lots of 'o's all making love to each other and having a kiss and a cuddle. I'd already built a website dammit!

But the v's kept coming. There was then a rapid increase of North American improvisers coming to the UK over the last year or so, and the London impro/improv scene was flourishing with new people and new ideas and new ompah. It seemed only polite to refer to improvisation as improv in their presence, even though they seemed to be doing the same and referred to it as impro in front of me. The use of a 'v' or an 'o' was becoming a matter of international relations.

Then, the crunch came for me. I read a book on Search Engine Optimization. I wanted to get Hoopla further up google for certain keywords. Within about five minutes of investigations I realised that the number of people typing 'impro' into google per month could be measured in hundreds, yet the numbers typing 'improv' into google was in the thousands. I'd been flying the flag of 'impro' for so long yet the public were looking for something else. I changed the website links immediately, without a moment's hesitation.

I felt like I'd betrayed an old friend.

So now I have improv splashed across my website, the actual url is impro because I'm too lazy to change it, if I'm speaking to an American or Canadian I use improv, if I'm talking to a class I'm leading I use impro, if it's someone I knew at Crunchy Frog four years ago I use impro, if it's a long form group doing Harolds I use improv.

But in the inside for me, I admit it, it's impro. That's right, no v. Impro for me is friendly, sunny, huggy, unknown, new.

Also for me impro is British. I look at impro borrowing things from improv, but not treating improv as a gold standard or glass ceiling. I think rather than being behind America, impro in the UK is more like the Japanese car industry of the 1970s - we can look and learn and then use our own culture, skills and methods to create something new.

So I don't regard impro and improv as being in competition, I think they both have things that the other could really do with.

What's in a v? A massively geeky impro/improv blog, that's what.

Workshops Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Shows every Tuesday and Wednesday. www.HooplaImpro.com

Circle of Expectation Workshop Notes

2011-10-13T03:49:00.000-07:00

These are from the Monday night 'Being Obvious' workshop from a few weeks ago.

I seem to be specialising at the moment in taking basic Keith Johnstone exercises and then expanding them and modifying them. At some point I'll tell him and he'll be like "WHATTTTTT??? HOW DARE YOU! YOU MUST DIE STEVE ROE, YOU MUST DIE!" I'm sure he wouldn't be like that.

So being obvious and circle of expectation.

In a nutshell 'being creative' in improvisation is not usually a very good creative strategy. When people try to be creative and original they end up putting in offers from a list of thought up creative ideas that actually turn out to be boring, distracting or blocking. When we're trying to hard to be creative the act of building up on each others offers and building a greater whole can full apart.

So often being obvious can actually be more helpful, as it builds up on other people's ideas and allows the improviser to be a proper human on stage.

Also for every offer that an improviser puts on, or every suggestion an audience gives, there is a 'circle of expectation' from the audience of what might happen from that offer or suggestion. It's not just a one track story, or pre-planned ideas, more a circle of possible things that might happen. Being obvious means allowing yourself to be in this circle and inhabiting this world so that everything is being discovered with the audience. Trying too hard to be creative can lead to be jumping outside of this circle, abandoning the gifts they had, and desperately clutching at straws.

For instance:

"Please can we get a location?"
"A bar"
"Hey look, I'm standing on a long metal bar. Please come and stand on my bar with me."
"Hello, I hope you don't mind but I've brought my pole"
"Sure, put it on my BAR! Ha ha ha ha"

Please just shut up and get off the stage, please. The people above are trying to be creative, but it's just idiotic, and nobody wants to act with them. The audience wanted to see a bar. It could have been a Wild West Bar, a Chicago Gangster Bar, a Charles Dickens novel bar, an American diner bar. There could have been policemen walking into the bar looking for a mob boss. There could have been a love affair between burger flipper and waitress. There could have been an orphan boy cleaning glasses out back. But instead the actors gave the audience two idiots balancing on a metal pole, the scene has lasted about a minute, one person laughed because they felt sorry for them and two people clapped once using one hand. It actually saddens me.

Teaching circle of expectation is really fun:

1. Get a massive circle of paper, I sellotape loads together so it covers a large chunk of floor.
2. Explain that the group is going to make up a story together.
3. Explain that the current circle of expectation is infinite, as it's made up of everyone's whole life experiences, all the media and education we've absorbed, our subconcious, the collective sub concious, everything.
4. Ask for a location.
5. The location immediately creates a circle of expectation. So draw and actual circle encompassing all the paper, and write the location.
6. Ask people to be obvious and name what they see at this location. Asking people to imagine is not helpful, asking people to see is better.
7. Write down all the offers within a smaller circle. For each bunch of offers draw concentric circles as the circle of expectation shrinks.
8. Ask helpful questions like When is it? Where exactly are we? What room are we in?
9. If it hasn't happened already put some characters in - who is there? Who are they? What do they look like? What are they doing?
10. Now go back and expand things. I call it zooming in. Let's zoom in on this character, what is there name. Etc Etc.
11. Zoom in on more things and connections happen already. The group can't help but tell stories.
12. When a story presents itself ask questions like 'What is the most obvious thing to happen?' etc. Get people to reincorporate details. If something happens it's because of this other thing that has already been said. If someone meets a character it's someone who has already popped up.

This always produces such colourful scenes. If some people aren't saying anything don't point them out directly but mention to the group that if you aren't saying much it's because you're putting too much pressure on each individual offer. Not every offer has to be ground breaking or move the story together. If you aren't saying much just take it easy, and add a small detail to each offer. If a door gets mentioned, say what colour it is, if a sandwich gets mentioned, say what's in it.

After a couple of rounds on paper you can then stand up as a group and play without writing it down, with the group remembering offers to reincorporate.

You can then play in pairs, with one person being obvious and the other asking helpful questions and encouraging.

You can then play solo, playing both roles out loud.

You can then play solo, just being obvious, and before you know it everyone is able to make up whole stories on the spot.

Well done!

Workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Shows Tuesday and Wednesday. www.HooplaImpro.com

Improv in one class

2011-10-10T04:54:00.000-07:00

Most of this popped out of my last Thursday and Saturday workshops. The Saturday theme was 'Making Things Happen', which I might change in the future to 'Letting Things Happen', and then actually defines most of what we do in improv. If I had only one class to teach to someone new to improv, it would be this one.

Improv in a nutshell:

Couple of people go on stage, they connect.

They define where they are, who they are, what they're doing. Together they expand these things by listening to what the other person says and does, and then adding a detail to this.

They continue one offer at a time defining their world together.

If 'mistakes' pop up they are justified and incorporated into the scene so that they aren't mistakes at all, and instead become important to the scene.

If something pops up that is going to happen then let it happen.

Reincorporate all the offers, right from the start, and keep reincorporating things that have been left behind, it will give you structure.

No need to be on stage 'thinking' what scene to play, just be there and listen to the other actor and expand where you are and who you are and what you're doing together and a scene/story will present itself before you know it.

Some exercises to do that teach this, especially useful for people new to impro:

Two actors on stage.
One gives the other a present, defining what it is.
The other says thank you, accepts it, and adds a detail to it.
First adds a detail to what they just said.
Swap roles and repeat with a new present.

For instance:

"Here's a CD"
"Thankyou. Wow it's Neil Diamond, my favourite"
"Yes, I knew you used to listen to it in the car when you were on holiday in America with your family."

Repeat exercise again, but this time without defining the present at the start so that the receiver defines it (open offers). You can adjust how you hold the thing etc.

For instance:

"Here you are"
"Wow thanks, a laptop."
"It's a MacBook, brand new."

Repeat both again, but let the offers continue more. You'll find that characters and locations pop up, that's fine but don't force it. Make sure they are picking up on what was last said, rather than what they think should have been said.

We start with an object/present as it's impersonal and so easier for beginners to focus on the concepts of accepting and building as they aren't emotionally connected.

Next step, same exercise but instead of giving a present you give a location. Together the two improvisers still add a detail at a time.

"Here we are at The Grand Canyon."
"Wow, what an amazing place. It's so hot and dusty."
"Yes there are dust clouds whirling along the canyon walls."
"And tumbleweeds caught up in it"

If they keep going they'll probably stumble upon finding characters and playing a scene, which is great as now they are discovering rather than forcing.

Next step, same exercise but giving relationships and expanding who they are, especially who they are to each other.

"You're my mother."
"Yes and I'm wearing hair curlers and a nylon nighty.."
"Your name is Norma Batty and you are holding a rolling pin."
"And you're my son and you're in trouble for coming home late."

Next step, same exercise but with what you are doing. One actor starts with an action (the 'present') and next actor comes and defines it, and then first adds detail.

First actor is miming opening a can of drink.
"Wow, 4th beer of the day."
"Gotta have a beer when you're watching the game."
"Yep, alcohol and sport, match made in heaven. Pass me one will you."

Playing any one of these - expanding object/where/who/what and you'll find people naturally start putting in the missing definitions. Which is great as it's a natural way to improvise, without having to worry about story but instead expanding things and letting yourself play the story that presents itself.

After this put it all together and get people playing scenes, experimenting with different ways of starting and focusing on building a scene together offer by offer. Remind people of the things they tend to miss out (relationship, where etc).

People put blocks in the way of letting stories happen when they are under too much pressure on each line, they think they have to be funny on every line, they fear the future, are too worried about their own performance, or are in a rush to make things happen. Remind them to concentrate on the other person and build something beautiful together.

Saying all that though I just taught a group in Reading and what really got them going was playing character over everything else and when they concentrated on this everything else happened by itself, so there you go there's no definite 'way'!

Hoopla. Improv workshops Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays. Improv Comedy Club Tuesdays.

www.HooplaImpro.com

Secret objectives make realistic scenes

2011-10-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

A few Saturdays ago I was running a workshop on 'Keeping it Real' - how to improvise scenes that were realistic featuring real humans on the stage.

One thing we found very helpful was the use of playing secret objectives in scenes, especially ones that were connected to the other actor. We found this made the scenes captivating and playful, and realistic.

Best to illustrate with an example from the day....

Two actors were going to play a scene together, set in the kitchen/break area of their workplace.

Before starting the scene I took the male actor to the side and whispered to him to play the following objective, so that nobody could hear:

Try and get her to agree to go on a date with you that evening, and end the scene with her voluntarily kissing you on the cheek.

I then took the female actress to the side and whispered to her to play the following objective:

You want to leave your job and go travelling. You want your friend to give you his whole hearted approval by the end of the scene.

When the scene played out it was very enjoyable to watch. There was a strong complicity between them as she talked about travelling while he attempted to support her dreams but also tried to suggest going on a date.

The clash of long-term dreams and short term plans, different objectives and different motivations lead to some really realistic stuff.

At the end the sight of the male actor trying to get a kiss on the cheek was hilarious, it was like clowning but within the realms of reality.

Interestingly enough we found over the day that having an objective attached to the other actor, and physical objectives, really brought improvisation to life.

We also found that just picking objectives at random worked really well, you didn't have to tell anyone else and it gave life to the characters early on. Sometimes objectives arise from the scene, sometimes you can inject them in and they come to life anyway.

We found it was also important to play the objectives hard and not give up on them. Striving for objectives at all costs and exaggerating their importance seemed to generate comedy. Having a massive clear objective outside of the scenes seems to generate epic tales. Having lots of mini objectives within the scene seemed to generate reality. Usually when we talk to people in real life we want something, consciously or subconsciously, be it love, sex, money, status, approval, friendship, contact, anything really.

It was also pointed out that in impro sometimes a truth from another actor can make your chosen objective meaningless. For instance you could be playing the objective "I want to get a hug from my Father" only to find in the scene that they aren't playing your Father, as they have endowed themselves before you have. In this case we found just sticking to the truth of the feeling and subtly shifting the basis of the objective to fit still worked. For instance now you want to get a hug from them, because your Father suddenly vanished a long time ago. Playing these micro objectives seemed to keep characters 'alive'.

In case you're wanting to know more about objectives they kinda get used more in scripted acting but I think they're very helpful in impro, especially in longer narrative pieces where if you have a strong objective it can carry you through a long story.

In scripted acting it's roughly like this, although I forget the exact terminology:

Life Objective - What do they want in life? What drives them? Might start off subconsciously and they only discover it during the play.

Play Objective - What do they want in this play? What drives them in this story?

Scene Objective - What do they want in this scene and why? How does getting something in this scene serve their overall objective?

Line Objective - What do they want in this line?

Action - What do they actually do and say to get it?

Obstacle - What's in their way? This is also on multiple levels.

Behaviour - How do they carry out their action and line?

In scripted acting actors often start at the deeper objectives/life/play objectives and build the character from their, from the inside out, until they fully understand each action in the scene.

Interestingly enough I find that impro is the other way round. In impro you don't know anything when you first go on stage. You don't know who you are, so you can't know your life objective or play objective as you don't even know who you are.

So in impro you can actually start with behaviour and actions. Just do something, anything. Kiss someone, hug someone, run out the room. You can find out why afterwards. What this workshop demonstrated though is that you can also make leaps and just pick scene objectives and go with them, and it'll still make sense.

Hoopla. Impro classes and shows.

www.HooplaImpro.com

The effect of approval and disapproval on improvisation.

2011-09-27T03:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking lots about the concepts of approval anddisapproval recently and their effect on improvisers. Inspired a bit by ViolaSpolin’s book.

At the start of the workshop I got everyone to go roundthe circle saying their name. It sounds simple but lots of people mutter it, orpass it as quickly as possible to the next person, or avoid eye contact at allcosts.

Even with the simple exercise of saying your name to thegroup there is a slight fear of disapproval, of getting it wrong, of making afool of yourself that results in people not revealing themselves.

So I made up a new game around it. We went around thecircle again with each person saying their name. This time however the rest ofthe group was to either loudly clap them or boo them. There was to be no middleground, the group has to clap or boo loudly all at once, with them all makingthe same collective decision. It was important too that the decision wasarbitary, so the audience response/approval was arbitary.

It was really interesting what happened. The first thingthat happened was there was a lot of laughter in the room. Really deep, fallingon the floor and rolling about belly laughs. Laughter often results fromcutting the tension in the room and this exercise seemed to already havespotted one of the biggest tensions in a workshop envioronment - the need forapproval and the fear of disapproval.

The people who got clapped looked relieved and cheerful.The people who got booed either found it hilarious (encouraging boos throughoutthe night) or looked a bit surprised. Even though the approval/disapproval wasnow arbitary and meaningless it affected people on an emotional level.

So we continued a few more times around the circle, sayingour names and then receiving a response.

As it went on other factors came in to play. Some spokewithout fear, without a care in the world, as they were no longer looking foror relying on approval and didn’t fear disapproval. Others seem to thrive ondisapproval and playfully seek it. Others seemed terrified of the possibleoutcome, and still anxious in saying their name, even though it was repeatedlysaid the response would be arbitary and meaningless.

Strangely enough some people got jealous of the peoplebooed, because it had come a little ‘in’ game.

But basically the concept of potential approval/disapprovalscrewed with the improviser in the most simple of games (saying names) even whenit was arbitary and meaningless.

I then applied the same responses to another exercise -three line scenes. Pairs of improvisers took it in turns to improvise threeline scenes which were then greeted with united claps or boos on an arbitarybasis. Same as before, some freeze up, some are thrilled, but all are affectedin some way.

The general point of the exercise became can youdisconnect your own self worth from the need for outside approval ordisapproval? Can you perform the same regardless of what kind of feedback youare going to get back. If I told the performers before the three line scenesthat they would get a massive boo whatever they did, they would freeze up orenter the stage half hearted. If I told them they would receive a massive cheerwhatever they did, they would enter with enjoyment and energy and relief.

As a teacher my job is often to provide approval andpositive affirmation. When I do this people open up and become confident. Butperhaps there is too much of this you can do. Some more experienced teachersprovide no approval or disapproval at all, so the student’s journey is moreabout themselves and less about attempting to fit in with someone else’spersonal taste. Jonathan Kay ends every single scene with a “thank you very much”with exactly the same energy and doesn’t comment on it at all. Relying onexternal approval for your own improvisation isn’t a good long term strategy.

A comment observation is that the improvisation thathappens in workshops is much better than the improvisation that is seen inshows (obviously not all the time, but you get the idea).

I think a large amount of this is, apart from warm uptime, due to approval/disapproval. In workshops there is constant approval froma coach and other students. In a show an audience is looking for a reason thatthey have given up time to watch, and only approve when it is deserved.

Sometimes actors blame an audience for a cold reception,but the energy is the other way round from a workshop. There is a littleinherent approval in a show, so the actors have to approve themselves and carryon performing and working and doing good impro until the audience catches up.The lack of initial approval should not lead to improvisers blocking andgagging in a panic, good impro should be carried out as that’s the only thingwe can share and rely on.

So if the external approval isn’t in the room, what shouldwe do? Give approval to our own ideas and more importantly to the other actor.

Saying yes and isn’t just a personal creative strategy, it’sa group philosophy. Caring less about you’re doing and giving more to approvingthe other actor and adding to what they say is an incredibly giving thing todo. As their ideas are approved by you they become more confident, morecreative, and the group as a whole becomes greater.

Whenever an improviser is worried about external approval,for instance from an audition, reviewer, influential people or peer group inaudience, they suddenly freeze up as they become concerned about themselves. Sotake the focus of yourself and put it onto your fellow actor, give themapproval and let the group grow.

www.HooplaImpro.com

New character excercise

2011-09-19T18:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I say new, it's from Viola Spolin's book which was from the 1950s or early 60s, but I found it really effective on Saturday and in fact one of the most complete character exercises I've led.

1. Get four actors up on stage, in a line facing the audience.

2. Point to one and they repeat an emotional or expressive statement, for instance "I'm really happy, I'm really happy, I'm really happy."

3. They stay relaxed as they are saying it. Pick up and point out their changes in body as they say it. For instance - "your eyebrows have raised, you hop up when you speak, you're smiling, you sway."

4. When they have received some physical pointers shout 'Hold It' and they keep that character. Whatever they do next their point of concentration is on holding the new physical characteristics.

5. Repeat for the other actors.

6. Put them through a series of five or so completely different scenes, with them keeping the original characteristics, physicality and attitudes. Give them complete where, who what in each scene so you can focus on the effect of character.

You can later repeat the whole thing but without pointing out the changes of physicality, so they can discover it themself.

It doesn't matter if the emotional statement is based on how they are actually feeling, or if it's come in from the outside, as either will change them and generate a character.

Doing a sequence of scenes rather than just one is excellent as it isolates character and demonstrates the effect of character on scenes.

It's a fascinating game as it strongly shows the connection between inner life and outer physicality. The actors were surprised how strongly they felt in the scene, and how much just saying a line of emotion changed their physicality. Sometime there is debate in impro about whether to act from 'the inside out' or the 'outside in', but actually doing both at almost once happens in this game and is highly effect.

Thanks to everyone for taking part.

How to take a show to Edinburgh - The Basics

2011-09-16T02:43:00.000-07:00

This is based on a chat I had with various people at The Miller a couple of weeks ago. There were some people from various Edinburgh shows, including me, Fat Kitten, Fingers on Buzzards, The Couch and Do Not Adjust Your Stage, and various people interested in taking shows up there next year.

This is only a summary of the chat, and this isn't the be all and end all guide to Edinburgh, more just an initial overview. I'm always open to chats about this stuff so feel free to get in touch.

Super Basics

You have a show in a venue in Edinburgh. It's either free, in which case people just turn up and pay by donation at the end, or it's in a paid venue, in which case people have to book and pay for tickets in advance either at the Fringe Box office, online, on phone, or at venue.

You raise awareness for your show through advertising, posters and press.

You persuade people to come to see your show through flyering.

You live in a house with lots of other people.

You apply to venues first to get a venue to perform in. They are selective. Once you have that sorted you sign up to the Fringe in general through www.edfringe.com. They are not selective, and will put you in the overall program.

Steps to take

1. Research www.edfringe.com. September and October.

There are various Edinburgh websites but this is the best one. It's run by the people who run The Edinburgh Fringe. Go to the participants section and there are some helpful guides, like How to Sell a Show, Venues etc. If you read through all of them you'll have a good understanding of how the fringe works.

2. Decide if you're going Free Fringe or Paid Fringe. October/November.

Free Fringe

On the Free Fringe you don't sell tickets, you perform for free, and then have a donations bucket at the end. The advantages of the Free Fringe are:

- Less initial costs to the performers, you don't have to pay a guarantee etc.
- Easier to get a large audience, especially if you're new to performing in Edinburgh.
- Increasingly respected by the industry at large.
- Can luck out with some really great venues.
- Can still make decent money on the donations.
- Easier to get in to.

Disadvantages of the Free Fringe are:

- Some of the venues aren't great (some are).
- You won't make a huge amount of profit (some people do thought).
- It's hard to do theatre or anything theatrical on the free fringe.
- The free fringe audience changes the style of show that's possible.
- Less likely to attract major publicity (some exceptions though, like Cariad Lloyd this year).

There are two organisations doing this:

PBH's Free Fringe, www.freefringe.org.uk, PBH stands for Peter Buckley Hill, the chap who runs it.

Laughing Horse, Free Festival, http://www.laughinghorsecomedy.co.uk/dynamic/festival.asp

You can apply to one but not the other, as they don't really get on. Read their websites thoroughly before getting in touch. Be aware that on the Free Fringe you are working to promote all Free Fringe shows, not just your own.

Paid Fringe

This means you are charging the public to see your show, and they have to buy tickets in advance from the fringe box office, half price hut, online, on phone or at your venue. You have to apply to each venue to get in, and the best ones can be competitive.

Advantages:

- Nicer venues.
- Professional support team.
- Higher profile.
- Easier to get press etc along.
- Able to do more theatrical shows.
- Possibility of making profit.

Disadvantages:

- Large financial investment required for paying guarantees (about 3000 quid at least).
- Larger financial risk.
- Harder to get large audience numbers, especially for a new group.

3. Research Venues. October/November.

Again on www.edfringe.com there is a list of all venues. Go through this and make a shortlist of suitable places. You're looking for venues with the right space, that do similar stuff, have a good reputation etc.

Each venue has its own requirements and timescales for applications, so it's good to be on top of this early so you know what you'll have to provide.

You can actually apply to all venues, to increase your chances of getting in somewhere. We did this and it seemed to work fine. It's good to have a perfect venue in mind, but you do want some back ups. Only exception to this is PBH Free Fringe, who prefer if you just apply to them if that's what you're doing.

Some major venues, not including Free Fringe:

Pleasance Courtyard: Place that makes comedians famous, seems to have become the place to be seen.

The Assembly Rooms: Place to go if you're already famous.

Pleasance Dome: Bit like the Pleasance Courtyard, but different.

C Venues: Student things, plays, independent stuff, lots of impro for some reason. We were there and liked it. Found it's proximity to the Royal Mile helpful for getting people in.

Zoo: Physical Theatre, dance.

Underbelly: Comedy, didn't go this year though so don't know much about it.

4. Initial Contact With Venues. November/December/January

This is an ongoing process. There is an initial batch of applications and then an ongoing communication with them. Timescales vary from venue to venue. We got bumped up into a nicer space when the graphics we sent off were good, so every communication is important.

5. Offer from venue. Feb/March

The timescale varies again, some leave it right up to the programme deadline. If you're paid fringe you might have to pay a hefty deposit around here too.

6. Programme Entry, www.edfringe.com. March/April

Once you have a venue confirmed you can submit your programme entry for the overall fringe programme. Don't miss the deadline, this is important, so keep checking the website and do it early if possible. Quite often though the delay is from venues waiting to confirm you.

People do indeed go and watch shows based on the programme entry, so make sure it's good and get some advice. The programme entry should attract attention, explain what the show actually is, why people should go and see it, and raise desire in the audience to see your show. It's good to right from the point of view of benefits to the audience, why should they see it? Also reviews and quotes are helpful to seal the deal. Also don't have a crap image, and don't sound like a dick, as that puts people of. So sort of like this....

Title - hints at the show put more importantly

Explain the show explain the show. Benefit to the audience benefit to the audience. Raise desire raise desire. "Quote to seal the deal, someone good thinks it's good" ***** - real publication.

7. Accommodation.

Biggest expense. People share rooms. No real advice here, sorry!

8. Advertising. March/April/May/June

This largely depends on your budget. We found some nifty advert opportunities for not much. It's all about the research and spotting the deals. Online can work well, and iphone apps.

You can also advertise in the fringe programme, separate from your programme entry.

Remember to keep on brand so your adverts/flyers/posters/programme entry are all delivering the same key message.

9. Press. May/June/July/August

The edfringe.com media team has a press contact sheet they can send out to you. It's good to get press releases and listings off before the programme comes out in June, so the press are aware of you before they look through the programme deciding who to review or promote. Some press are great, some are not. Getting listed in everything is a good idea as people find out about shows through loads of different sources.

10. Design and print flyers and posters. June/July.

This is sooooo important.

Again - this is very important! If you can't do graphic design, don't do your flyers. Get someone else to do it. Pay them. Maybe someone who isn't yet a full pro but good, pay them a bit, it's worth it.

The flyers are the single most important way of selling your show. I've never seen them work so well before this year. We had really nice flyers thanks to Jon Monkhouse, and I think this is the main reason we were able to sell out most days. If we flyered for 4 hours, we were full up. If we flyered for 2 hours, we were half full.

There is nothing worse than a shit flyer. A bad flyer will put people off seeing your show. So you will end up spending four hours a day in the rain, handing flyers to people that are making them not come. So some time spent before hand making sure they are good is well worth it.

A good flyer should have an eye catching image on the front that really captures attention and sells the show, capturing the mood of what you're trying to communicate to the audience. It shouldn't be too wordy. Also some short reviews, especially good star rating, are great, and the show title.

On the back should clearly be the core details of the show, where, when, how much, dates etc laid out so it's unconfusing.

Also there should be some blurb, similar to the programme entry, and again written from the point of view of benefit to the audience.

These flyers if kept are going to be read in the queue of the box office and other places, why should someone want to buy a ticket by the time they've got to the end?

Posters should look similar to the flyers. They might not sell tickets direct buy they serve as a reminder and raise awareness of the show.

I've used www.solopress.com for the last four years and have found them really reliable. They are a bit more expensive than others but the quality is good, they deliver anywhere in the country within a day or two, and they actually turn up. Every year there seems to be a load of messages from other companies offering Edinburgh deals, but they always seem to cock up loads of orders and leave people without flyers on the first week of the fringe. So I pay more and have someone reliable and good.

Other Fringes

We briefly mentioned other fringes. Brighton was seen as a good one to go and do a one off show, but no need for a full run. Buxton also got mentioned as a good one that more people seem to be doing now.

There's loads more but my keyboard is smoking now. Get in touch if you want to chat about more.