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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Improv Rules Are Your Friends. No, Really.

I talk about the rules of improv all the time. Agreement, adding information, commitment, not asking questions, not being sarcastic, not bailing, you name it. Some of you know my improv-y pet peeves by now. And most of you know that I am BIG on playing by the rules... but you might not know why.

I'ma tell you. Cause, you know - that's how I do.

It's not because I'm so enamored of rules in general. I don't like being constrained by rules and regulations any more than the next person. But there is a time and a place to rebel, and smack dab in the middle of your improv scene is neither.

Unlike not swimming for 30 minutes after you eat, the rules of improv are not designed to keep you from having fun. To the contrary, they are designed to help you have MORE fun. That's because the rules (if we must call them that) define the structure of the game of improv, within which funny stuff is simply more likely to happen. To me, doing good improv is the goal and that's what I want to have happen - and the rules are there to assist in that endeavor. I can be a rebel and deny my scene partner, or choose not to add information, opt not to commit, ask questions, be sarcastic, bail when I don't like something... and what have I accomplished? I have created bad improv, which (unless you are doing bad improv on purpose at a party at my house) is not nearly as much fun as doing good improv.

When you roll your windows down and drive along PCH at 95 mph on a sunny day singing Life is a Highway at the top of your lungs, you get the rush of speed and the feeling of freedom - and breaking the rules makes sense. Or so I'm told. Not that I would ever break the law. Ahem.

But when you break the rules in improv, there's no rush. There's no feeling of freedom. There's just the blech feeling in the pit of your stomach when your scene tanks and there's no way to save it.

So try not to think of the rules as rules. Think of them as your friends. Your friends who really, really want you to succeed at this improv thing.

They're nice friends.

By Sonnjea Blackwell

Thursday, May 23, 2013

You Touch the Thermostat, You Die

In improv class, we frequently urge students to have a big ol' emotional reaction to something - anything - in order to keep the scene moving. In fact, we often tell students they can have the reaction first and then worry about the justification. In other words, freak out, laugh uproariously or sob uncontrollably at ANYTHING your scene partner says, even if it's just, "I'm going to turn on the air conditioner now." Having the emotion will almost always lead to a justification for the emotion.

Occasionally students will argue that this feels forced or unnatural, and that there's no reason for them to freak out about somebody turning on the A/C and, therefore, no reasonable justification could ensue.

Here's something to ponder... You know how sometimes you can be sitting around, say with your mom or your neighbor or your cellmate, and you can be having a perfectly awesome afternoon with them, playing Yahtzee and drinking white wine spritzers or whatever? And then the other person says, "I'm going to turn on the air conditioner now," and you're like, "OH FUCK NO, YOU ARE TOUCHING THAT THERMOSTAT OVER MY DEAD BODY!!!!" And then your afternoon is ruined because, for the past 22+ years this person has always kept the house/trailer/cell as cold as a friggin' meat locker and today is the day that you are just not going to freeze your ass off in order to keep the peace anymore, and you lose it.

That is honest. That's what happens sometimes in real life because of the history you share with others. If your scene is not about relationship, you may have trouble justifying and making sense of a seemingly out of the blue emotional change. But if it's about relationship, any outburst of emotion can be justified through your characters' shared history. That history may not have come out yet, but once you have your emotional outburst, it's an opportunity to get to that history, explain the "why" behind your outburst... and all of a sudden, you have a big what: Today is the day that I have had it up to HERE with your hotflashes and your selfishness when it comes to climate control.

Think about the ridiculously small things in real life that cause out-of-proportion reactions - it happens all the time (to other people, of course). Let those little things affect you in the same big, out-of-proportion way in improv!

By Sonnjea Blackwell

Monday, May 20, 2013

Barry the Guard

Good gravy, I've been bad about posting! It's not that I don't have anything to write about improv, it's just that I don't always know what it is you'd like to read about improv. Well, technically, I don't ever know what you'd like to read, but sometimes I don't let that stop me. And other times I let that get in my head, and then - as it is wont to do when there's a lot of stuff in there - my brain won't spit anything out.

But I digress.

My troupey Kendra and I saw an improv show recently, and we were both struck by how simple the players kept everything. One person threw out a short line of dialogue. Another person yes,anded that by adding another short line of dialogue. Nothing about aliens or weird second-cousin-twice removed relationships or outlandish scenarios. It was somebody's 40th birthday. The married couple had met in college. A kid down the street had a horrible mother. A lady whose husband was in prison was kinda slutty. Simple, relatable concepts, characters and relationships.

There's nothing wrong with more complex concepts. My point is simply that "funny" is not directly proportional to "complexity." And sometimes improv students think they have to over-complicate things in order to create something unique. Whatever YOU do is going to be unique because it's coming from your point of view, and nobody else has your unique way of looking at things.

The players in the show we saw didn't over think things when it came to justifications either. An unlikely event occurred in prison, and they justified it calmly and simply by saying that the guard was absent that day. That's actually hilarious because of absurd simplicity... as if a guard at a prison wouldn't have a backup or whatever. But they didn't get bogged down in the logic or convoluted explanations of the guard taking a break and the other one being distracted by something he saw on a security monitor or whatever. Just one line, "Well, Barry the guard wasn't there that day." Period.

Because I was a writer first and an improvisor second, I can get VERY wordy and descriptive sometimes... the way I would in a novel, for example. But this simplicity thing is really appealing to me and I'm going to work on simplifying my improv and trusting the audience to find the humor in situations they don't need me to explain for 10 minutes.

You can try it if you wanna.

By Sonnjea Blackwell

Monday, May 13, 2013

You're Such a ____________________!

It's super important to label everything in improv. That's because all the audience sees is a couple of ordinary folks on stage - there are no sets, no props, no costumes, no voice-over narrations... there's nothing to tell them who you are, what you're doing, where you're doing it or why they should even give a crap about this scene. That's your job.

It's a big job, I know. And sometimes you can get in a rut and not be able to think of interesting ways of labeling yourself or your scene partner. That's why I'm sharing this handy drawing that's been making the rounds on FB this week.



Except for "the one with bad memory," these are all labels that could totally work in an improv scene. If you label someone as "always getting hurt" or "swearing all the time" or "goodie two-shoes," those are really awesome gifts that help them know what kind of character they are. And you can label yourself, too, don't forget.

You're welcome.

By Sonnjea Blackwell

Monday, May 6, 2013

What Are These Troupe Thingies, Anyway?

I've gotten some questions lately about how exactly the Held2gether performing troupes are structured and how they "work," as well as at what point students get to perform. So, since I have to write something, I'll answer those questions here in case other people have been wondering as well.

Different improv schools handle performances differently; some have student showcases at the end of every session, some have no performances until you've reached a certain level, some have none at all. There are pros and cons to each, and reasons why schools would opt for one route over another.

At Held2gether, we don't do student showcases. We do, however, offer certain classes (referred to as "performance classes" on the website) that culminate with a performance for the public - all of these are intermediate to advanced level classes that require students to have completed some combination of H2G's Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, sketch writing, long form and/or sketch performing classes. All of the specific pre-requisites and performance opportunities for each class are listed on the website. We had the Short Form Performance Class graduation shows this past weekend, and they were super fun.

As far as the Held2gether troupes, here's the deal: We have two troupes called the Held2gether Main Company and the Held2gether Friday Company. The Main Company performs the 4th Saturday of (almost) every month, and whenever we perform we have a member of the Friday Company as our "special guest." The Friday Company performs the 1st Friday of (almost) every month, and whenever they perform, they have a special guest that Darren invites - usually somebody from one of the advanced/specialty classes.

We don't have open auditions for the troupes - they are set until somebody leaves, and then Darren makes a decision as to how to fill their spot based on the overall needs of the troupe at that point in time. It's not a matter of somebody having been in classes "long enough" to join the Friday Company or people in the Friday Company moving up to the Main Company based on seniority.

All that being said, those of us who have the honor of performing in either of the H2G troupes know what a special privilege that is, and we definitely don't take it for granted. We take classes continually to hone our skills and keep improving because we are determined to represent H2G to the best of our abilities and to be good role models for the concept of "improv for life."

Hope that answers your questions, peeps.

By Sonnjea Blackwell

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Entering the Danger Zone

I'm plumb tuckered out! It's not from the quantity of work I've done the past week or so; it's actually from the level of comfort I had with the work I did.

I decided a while back that I wasn't really putting 100% effort into things (which is a lifelong habit I'm working on breaking). While I agree that in certain situations "good enough" is good enough, in certain other situations there is absolutely no such thing as "good enough."

In terms of my own growth and development as an artist and a human being, I needed to push myself further out of my comfort zone. I needed to realize that there is no good enough. Because the thing is, whenever you become adept at a new skill, your comfort zone grows. Things that used to terrify you no longer do. That's awesome sauce. However, once an activity, skill or emotion ceases to challenge you, doing it ceases to improve you. You have to leave the comfort zone and venture into the danger zone.

I've been giving everything more of me the past couple of months, and this last week was a week of several firsts for me: first time teaching a sketch writing class, first time teaching an intermediate improv class, first time in a new improv school, first time being interviewed on TV, first speaking role in a film. A couple of those things affected only me, so screwing up wouldn't hurt anything for anybody else. But in several instances, other people were depending on me to do my job well. Doing something for the first time is scary as hell in any event; having others relying on you to do it well ups the ante considerably. In the past, I would have simply declined offers that put that much pressure on me; I would've avoided the danger zone at all costs. Now that improv is my middle name, I feel like I owe it to myself and everyone else to accept those challenges and rise to them.

That doesn't mean I'll never fail. But like we learn in improv class, commitment will get you very, very far - and so by giving each of these endeavors 100% of my attention and ability, I at least know that if I failed, I failed honestly and not through lack of effort.

And I also feel like I earned the lazy Sunday I'm currently enjoying. Yay!

By Sonnjea Blackwell