By Sonnjea Blackwell
We have an improv show in Long Beach coming up in a little over a week, in case you've somehow managed to miss my oh-so-subtle self promotions. It's called Held2gether presents: Trixie Keeps the Books and it's our newest long form extravaganza.
For those of you who haven't seen us do the long form thing, it goes like this: we do three short scenes based on your suggestions, and then we all jump in and out of the stories that those scenes have set up, going forward and backward in time and creating a whole cast of supporting characters to tell a big, intertwined 1/2-hour story. It's like a play with no script. And then... we do a whole second set! Whew!
If you think it sounds hard, you're right. It requires focus, memory, attention to details and the ability to keep the big picture in mind while focused on the minutiae. Oh, and a sense of humor. That's all.
Luckily, those are all skills that Darren Held teaches in Held2gether's Intro to Improv and Improv Level 2 classes. But he's sneaky - you learn all those things without realizing it because you think you're just playing hilarious games for a couple of hours a week. And then all of a sudden, you realize you've learned stuff. And whether you choose to apply your newfound ability to focus, remember stuff, pay attention to details and laugh your ass off to mundane things like getting everything you meant to get at Trader Joe's or calling your kids by their right names or even doing long form improv, at least you'll have the skills to fall back on. And Trixie would be pleased.
