Improv Tweets for 10/29/08

Mochrie happiest doing improv (12:23 AM)
This is an article about one of my favoriate improvisors.

Improv Tweets for 10/25/08

• just arrived in San Diego and have about 30 minutes before Level 1 starts. improv (via Twitter) (2:55 PM)
• is done with Level 1. we learned 5 things. now dinner at Saffron. improv (via Twitter) (5:59 PM)
• is about ready to perform in the first show. We are joined by the Phoenix NCT Team. improv (via Twitter) (7:40 PM)
• finished the first show. Played WAYD, Pavlovian Response, Musical Comedy, 5 things, Blind freeze, 185. improv (via Twitter) (9:34 PM)
• finished 2nd show. Played Fresh Choice, Naive Replay, Animatronic, Laff out and World's worst. improv (via Twitter) (11:41 PM)
• couldn't figure out if first show was for or against Prop 8. improv (via Twitter) (12:05 AM)
• finally made it home and ready to sleep. Finally SNL is making fun of Democrats. They have take on Obama, though. improv (via Twitter) (1:52 AM)

National Comedy Theatre #1 Live Comedy in San Diego

For the second year in a row, my improv troupe was voted by San Diego Channel 10 viewers as the #1 Live Comedy show. We beat out the Comedy Store in La Jolla and the Mystery Café Dinner Theater.  It’s funny but our competition TheatreSports came in 5^th and they closed several months ago.  I’m not sure if we won because we have really loyal fans or our ballot stuffing campaign worked.  I will say that this year it was one e-mail, one vote, so I only got to vote 3 times this year.

http://kgtv.cityvoter.com/winners/10news-com-s-a-list/1997/arts-and-entertainment/live-comedy

Our owner is pretty proud of this honor and I am too.  Let me start by saying that I am just a part of a large group of performers. In fact, I only perform on Saturdays.  But what it does say is that we have a really great fan base and we produce a good product.

Not too brag, but our competition (other improv groups) is lucky to pull in 20 people per show. We average about 60 per show and it’s not unheard of to sell out once in a while. That’s 105 seats sold.  We are also the longest running show in San Diego. (Thank God, Triple Espresso closed a few months ago)

I’ve been with the theater for 7 years and I’ve seen the audiences come and go.  I was hear when we were sold out solid from January to June. I was also here when we were lucky to get 20 people per show.  For us, I truly can gauge the quality of the show based on the number of people in the audience.  When we were on our run of sold out shows, we were good.  Our improv was tight and we were funny.  When our numbers dropped, our show stunk. I was on the verge of quitting because I hated the show we were producing.

Now we have a nice group.  Sure there are improvements that need to be made, but it’s a quality show.  There’s a mistake that our competition has made when it comes to improv and I’ll blog about it on another day, but we are just not into what I call wacky improv, where we stand on stage and do weird things. Our style is very scene and story oriented. We are able to connect to the audience and make them laugh at the same time.

Enough of my bragging.  It’s an honor to be recognized in San Diego. Come see me for the next few Saturdays before the holidays start.

National Comedy Theatre, 3717 India St, San Diego. Friday and Saturdays 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m.

Improv Tweets for 10/21/08

• My improv group was voted #1 Live Comedy in San Diego on the KGTV reader poll. (via FriendFeed) (1:57 PM)

Improv Tweets for 10/18/08

• mypalal: is iin San Diego right now waiting for his level 1 workshop to start. improv (2:38 PM)
• mypalal: is done with level 1 workshop. Now getting dinner before setting up the theater. Oh, I'm PRIC tonight. improv (5:55 PM)
• mypalal: just finished the first show. We lost. Played dimestore novel, blind line, freeze tag, da doo, 185. improv (9:44 PM)
• mypalal: is driving home after a very political second show. Pray that I'll stay awake. improv (12:31 AM)

Improv Tweets for 10/11/08

• mypalal: getting my notes ready for today's first Level 1 Improv Workshop. Today is teamwork day. Soon I'll work on the garden. improv (7:23 AM)
• mypalal: is rushing to get everything ready before class 1. improv (11:10 AM)
• mypalal: just finished Level 1 improv week 1 - teamwork. 18 students. whew improv (6:11 PM)
• mypalal: having dinner at Saffron before show. improv (6:13 PM)
• mypalal: is waiting for the 2nd show. Played Laugh out and 185. Let my people go. improv (9:29 PM)
• mypalal: improv challenge. I must use the word Cogent into the second. improv (9:47 PM)
• mypalal: Just ended the 2nd show. We skipped intermission. Very low energy show. We had a very low energy crowd. We had a good Dinner at Joes improv (11:18 PM)

Improv Comedy Theory, Part 4 - Creating Characters

I’ll admit, I’m not the best at creating characters.  I’ve only got maybe 5 under my belt and I don’t really call them characters.  They are just people with specific mannerisms and physical characteristics.  The group I perform with, National Comedy Theatre in San Diego, actually has a few performers that are exceptionally good at creating interesting and quirky characters. I’m not a character guy. I’m a story guy.

So what credibility can I bring to this discussion?  I come from the perspective of someone who does not have the skill of characterization, but of someone who relies on creating characters on the fly.  Hopefully with this basic skill, you can hone it and perfect it.

One of the games that used to intimidate me in the past is the game, Dinner at Joe’s.  The game is simple, we interview a member of the audience and this person describes various members of his or her family.  We ask for minimal information such as occupation, personality traits/quirks, dreams and desires.  We probably get about 3 or 4 descriptive items about each person. The audience member then assigns each family member to a performer. The performers now perform a scene with each of these members interacting with one another and the audience member lets you know if you are acting like the person or not.

If you are having problems creating characters, this is a really good game to learn and perfect.  I’m not necessarily creative enough to create a character from scratch, so now I get to have a little help.

Here are a few examples of the suggestions I got.

 

April – 22, never went to college, lives with girlfriend in a nearby apartment, has no job.

Joy – 18, performs drama in high school, bad driver.

Mary, no Kristin – 21, college, probably drunk at the moment

 

One thing about this game… 80% of the time I play this game, I’m playing a woman. Not that I have a problem with it.

What you want to do is not imitate these people on stage, but what you are really doing is creating a caricature of a person.  You’re trying to latch on to some quirky element about the person and now exaggerating it.

Example of exaggeration – Mary, no Kristin. During the interview, I picked up on the fact that this person was probably drunk, she’s a college student and would never answer a question directly, but had to be evasive.  So I basically played her as a smart-ass, Girls-Gone-Wild drunk. She really hated me after the show. I felt bad but it was comedy gold.

Giving a character depth is also important. Its one thing to act drunk, but it’s another to have a reason for being drunk. Maybe she’s drunk because she’s trying to fit in with the college crowd, or maybe she’s trying to forget her past trauma, giving history creates dimension. It’s the difference between just acting silly on stage and having a story to tell.

April was a funny one. Aside from the fact that I got to play a lesbian, what I was able to pick up from the interview was that the person we interviewed was a high school senior, who was excited to go to college. Her father was in the audience and he was very proud of her. When she described her sister as having not gone to college, has no job and lives in an apartment with her girlfriend, I decided to put the pieces together and deduce that in her current situation she was living off her the college tuition that she never used. My contribution to the scene was simple, I came home wanting to get my college tuition money.  My line of the night was “You don’t understand. I have the right to have the college tuition money for an education that I’ll never get.”  Later I would end the scene a lesbian joke.

Joy was a practice in silliness. She’s a drama student and bad driver.  I basically knew that I’d be the last person on stage.  So I went to the rear of the stage and grabbed anything that could make noise. I grabbed a stool and a metal helmet. Just as the scene called for my entrance, I made a sound effect of a car, then I threw the stool and helmet on the ground and made an all too realistic car crash sound. I then dropped to the ground and in the best high school overacting I pretended to have survived the most horrible car accident in history. ACTING!!!

In conclusion, I find that creating character is more than having an accent and strange physical mannerisms. To give a character dimension, create a quick history for the character. Why does the person act that way?

Having said all this, I will admit my worst game is Good, Bad advice. This is a purely character driven game and I only have 3 that I feel comfortable bringing on stage.