April 1st, 2007

Attendance/Absence

If you are absent, and be it only for one moment, then you are like a dead man.
(Yantou Quanhuo - 9th centry)

April 2nd, 2007

Story Fetishism

A bad evening’s performance is usually blamed on the poor quality of the stories, whereas on a good night, the actors praise the good teamwork, good acting, etc. The story is often fetishized by both the audience and the actors. Story-oriented ensembles are often extremely boring, mainly because they are narrative-oriented and so tend to plan everything in advance.  The important thing is to set out the basic thread of the story and trust that it will tell itself.
The only thing I would additionally concede is that you practice advancing a story and ending it properly.

April 3rd, 2007

Teaching Contents?

At a recent workshop, a student expressed her desire to deal with more current political topics in improvisation. I responded by asking why she didn’t just do it! You don’t need an instruction manual to teach people to wake up; you just need a will to perceive the world around you. You can go to the park and listen to conversations, you can sit in a café, you can watch TV, go to the movies, read a book, read an e-mail – all of it is worthy of consideration.

April 4th, 2007

Professionals and Amateurs

I’ve always felt that the classification of improv groups into professionals and amateurs is impractical, because it combines two different factors: quality and financial success.
Just because one improv group performs for full houses and its members can make a living from acting alone, does not make them better than an improv troupe that performs excellent shows in a small theater and whose members have to keep their day jobs in order to survive.

April 5th, 2007

Frequency of Performances

“I asked Keith Johnstone: ‘How do we improve?’ and he responded, ‘How often do you perform?’ I said, ‘Once a month.’ He said, “‘That’s definitely not often enough.’”
Gunter Lösel in "Blinde Angebote. Fünf Interviews zum Improtheater" (“Blind offers. Five Interviews on Improvisational Theater.”)
It’s obviously important to practice in a private, closed setting. But we also need feedback from the audience more than groups that perform traditional written pieces of theater need it – how does the concept I’ve been practicing in private work when it’s presented to a real audience?

April 13th, 2007

Establishing Limits Through Censorship

Nachmanovitch says that restrictions help fuel the artistic process. It can be measure or a rhyme scheme in the lyrics that you put under the words. Or the length of the narrative structure of a novel, the restriction of color in the fine arts, or even the physical capabilities and limitations of a dancer’s body.
Interestingly enough, political censorship can also create limits that inspire art: a special kind of “read and write between the lines”-literary culture developed in the GDR.

April 14th, 2007

Acting Practice

Solo.
1. The actor acts out an emotional solo piece; for example, a man comes home after betraying his friend.
2. The same actor plays out a scene from his everyday life in minute detail; for example, he acts out scene about his daily trip home.
Evaluation for fellow actors in the audience (who don’t know the nature of the assignment):
- Strength of expression
- What is the audience thinking?
- Do we see possibilities for a story?
- Was it exaggerated/farcical?

April 15th, 2007

Quality

Too little evaluation creates shoddy work, and too much evaluation causes mental blocks. Johnstone teaches us that we should first switch off our internal judgments in order to create maximum artistic output. He then artfully (or maybe instinctively) reintroduces evaluation by challenging us to hold to certain “rules of the game”: acceptance, advancing, or just the rules of a silly little theater game.
Or you can simply save evaluation for after the game. Advanced groups often suffer from too much evaluation: they want to improve and focus entirely on improvement, but the flow suffers, and the result is, paradoxically, worse.

April 16th, 2007

Funny Games

When actors ask themselves: “Why am I playing this game?”, then they have already accomplished quite a lot. Many games actually have very positive effects or functions – for example:

·         A one-word story is excellent for clarifying basic principles of improvisation without a lot of explicit discussion: unpredictability, tempo, listening, etc. This makes it very well-suited for getting started, especially when there are a lot of improv novices in the audience.

·         Triple synchronization: When this game is fast-paced and played somewhere on the border between barely under control and out of control, it becomes an audience favorite. Has anyone ever wondered why? It’s because of this total loss of control – it has a certain comedic element to it. When the actors engage one another and make brave offers, the game is driven forwards.

·         Games where audience members write words, actions, or suggestions for the improv troupe on a slip of paper give the audience a sense of participation in determining the direction of the game. That in and of itself can be very satisfying. The actors should also take the initiative and incorporate audience suggestions quickly and without too much discussion or justification. The suggestions should both advance the story and influence it, so there is no need to justify any given choice (for obvious reasons, you shouldn’t play this game if half the audience is made up of drunken jokers).

Many games are better played for practice – especially replays (genre, emotions, etc.). You have to consider: would this game be something you’d want to watch as an audience member? If you would, then there’s no reason to hesitate in playing the particular game – when the actors are engaged and enjoying themselves, it rubs off on the audience.

You should avoid playing games just because they’re easy, or because you know you can throw in a few cheap gags, or because the audience asks for them. If you run out of ideas for games, you can always browse through lists of game possibilities, but it’s sometimes more interesting to come up with your own game. When you do this, it’s best to put yourself in the audience’s shoes (since you are technically part of the audience): what would I like to see? Which improv virtues do I think are so important that I’d like to act them out on the stage? That should help spark some ideas.

April 17th, 2007

No Compromises

The truth always lies in the middle.

April 23rd, 2007

Professionalism

When you’re talking about professionalism, you always have to consider which aspect you mean:

1.  that you’ve turned a job into your “profession,” that you can live from

2.  the quality of the performance

3.  the attitude towards the art and fellow actors/workers

You can’t take it for granted that these aspects will coincide – especially not in improv theater. In a big city, you can take the biggest pile of junk and turn it into something bigger, or dress it up for television – the only skill involved is keeping the audience interested.
On the other hand, there are lots of great artists who can’t even afford life’s basic necessities on the money they make from their art. Do I even need to mention Van Gogh? The big improv cities like New York and Chicago are overflowing with improv geniuses who perform without pay, simply for the joy of being on stage.
In non-artistic circles, the third aspect is usually emphasized: a good relationship with co-workers and customers. I only know a few people in the improv business who are in a position for this.

April 24th, 2007

Goethe’s Blind Spot

Even though the temptation was great – Goethe always made a concerted effort to forgo questions of inspiration, creativity, etc. (so everything we are dealing with here) in his philosophy. He was afraid that insight into these areas would detract him from being creative.

April 25th, 2007

Repetitions

There probably needs to be more review in improv classes. As teachers, we’re afraid of boring our students. But repetition reinforces learning.

April 28th, 2007

Initial Fascination

The initial fascination of reasonably good, relaxed improv theater is that the actors often reach the limits of their abilities, due to the external pressure of the game. When they are brave enough to test these limits and step into the unknown, we are impressed, even if the actors are raw beginners.

April 29th, 2007

Childishness

We think it’s difficult to regain the childishness of an open mind, of amazement, of unbiased observation from unfamiliar perspectives, of bizarre categorizations in creativity.
To combine this childishness with adult maturity, however, is an art.

April 30th, 2007

Shamans

Artists and shamans, astrologists, priests, and paranoiacs share the ability to combine existing things in a new way, to find sense where the average, untrained eye and ear sense only coincidence and chaos.
The paranoiac can’t stand the thought that anything could happen out of pure coincidence. And what’s more – everything relates to him. Everyone wants something from him, and they want the worst.
The astrologist (as well as astrology-followers and tarot card readers) can’t handle contingency any better: “It can’t be a coincidence that…”
The shaman and the priest attribute everything to the power of the gods, although they can never say which gods are behind these powers.
The artist (when he isn’t writing dime-store novels, shooting soap operas or producing some other form of redundant crap) can create an alternate reality for us without any need for explanation.

English version (excerpts)

2007

Apr	May	Jun
Jan	Feb	Mar
		2006
		Dec