Something Like A Chicken Sandwich

I went to go see Jaws last night at the Cerrito. They were showing it as part of their "Classics" series, and had a little trivia contest before the show. I knew the answer to the second question before he'd finished reading it, but rather than raise my hand to actually win the free nachos, I just said the answer under my breath with an air of satisfaction.

Why didn't I actually try to win? It hadn't occurred to me at all to actually raise my hand, and I puzzled over why.

The answer: I'm an improvisor.

As an improvisor, when I go see an improv show, I consider myself not really an audience member. Rarely do improvisors want to see the same things from a show that a regular audience does. So, I don't give suggestions or participate really because I don't want to push the show in a direction that my thrill me and the actors but not the rest of the crowd. I'm not representative of the audience, I don't feel.

So I've trained myself so well not to interact when interacted with, that I didn't raise my hand. And that cost me nachos.

You owe me nachos, improv.

Last fall I performed in Beer Theatre at Impact. Basically a grad student was working on his thesis and needed to do some research on how medieval plays were actually performed (i.e. drunk) and wanted to test how drinking at various levels changed the performance. (I learned that when you're drunk, it's not that you don't remember your lines--because you do--it's that you just don't care.) It was super fun and everyone wanted to do it again.

Since then the student has started his own theatre company and tonight Beer Theatre is happening again as essentially a fundraiser for Front Line Theatre and Impact. 8pm at La Val's. Get there early if you want tickets. It will sell-out fast.

I'm not performing this time. I was asked and agreed to do it, but then when I realized that it no longer had a research purpose, my enthusiasm waned. And then I realized how few weekends are left before the wedding and I started to hyperventilate.

Why did my enthusiasm wane? I'm something of a nerd and the academic angle appealed to my geeky nature. Without that, Beer Theatre becomes Bar-Prov-Sports. Now Bar-Prov-Sports can be a lot of fun for performers and audience alike, it's just not my thing. I mean, Un-Scripted basically exists for the sole purpose of not being Bar-Prov-Sports and we're constantly having to fight people's assumptions that all improv is Bar-Prov-Sports.

I think that was what made the first Beer Theatre so much fun for me. It was an excuse do to that sort of thing with an actual driving reason behind it other than "hey, that would be fun".

It is super-fun though, so if you're in Berkeley tonight, check it out.

In a World… opens in a few weeks. I’m not in it, as I’ve mentioned. That means by the time our holiday show starts rehearsing, I will have gone about 6 months without doing improv. Fortunately, Christian has started teaching classes again, and after several weeks being thwarted, I was finally able to attend on Monday.

I had a great time. It was a small class, which made for lots of personal attention. He’s using a very interesting narrative based approach in an effort to come up with exercises that actually translate to better performance skills. I don’t really want to go too in depth, because they’re his ideas and I wouldn’t do them justice. I just want to point out that he’s not spending a lot of time dwelling on protagonist work, at least not directly.

Now, I want to point out an interesting tidbit that I took a way from class. As usual, it’s something I knew already, but enjoyed hearing so concisely put. Basically, that the protagonist has to start in the middle. By that I mean, they must have hope of moving up towards their goals, while at the same time have room to move further away from them. If the protagonist starts at the bottom with no where to go but up, you’re not going to have a very interesting story.

You may have noticed I haven't been blogging about the rehearsal's for Un-Scripted's next show. That's because I'm not in it. I know, I know... tragic.

In the meantime, however, voting has started in the SF Bay Guardian's annual best of the bay poll. Lots of local papers have "best of" polls, but the Guardian's was the first and as such is the most prestigious. We actually won it back in 2008. Not too shabby huh?

Here is our "official" pitch, taken from our Facebook event page:

In 2008 the Un-Scripted Theater Company was voted best theater company by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 2009 ACT, the biggest theater company in San Francisco, took the title. The voting has started for 2010, and we're really going to need your help to overcome ACT's large subscriber base, not to mention every other theater company or comedy troupe pushing to take the highly competitive category of Best Theater Company.

http://www.sfbg.com/bestofthebay2010

But hey, we don't just want to win the title in name, we actively strive to create the best theater in San Francisco using improvisation as our medium. At the Un-Scripted Theater Company, we try to push the envelope of improvised theater with 2-hour improvised plays, movies, musicals, comedies, and dramas. If you've ever seen one of our shows, you know what I mean. Improv and theater is our lives, and creating amazing live productions worthy of being called the Best of the Bay has always been our goal ever since we started in 2002.

http://www.sfbg.com/bestofthebay2010

So please take a moment and vote for the Un-Scripted Theater Company as Best Theater Company located in category 3 on the ARTS & NIGHTLIFE page. And when you get to the end of the poll, please feel free to write the Un-Scripted Theater Company in as something you love in the 25 word or less write in category.

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