What I've Learned About Directing

From the Flickr Commons

I’m in the midst of tech week for the show I’m directing for Impact, or “hell week” as it is often called. Directing an improv show and a scripted show back-to-back has been a stark reminder to me about the differences in the two processes. Over all, both are easier and more difficult at the same time. There really is no equivalent to hell week for an improv show, or at least it’s not on the same scale.

I also learned a lot doing these two shows back-to-back, or perhaps I learned more from simply directing for the first time in 4 years or more. The main lesson I’ve learned about directing an improv show is that it’s more like teaching a class than putting a show together. As a result it requires a much more well thought out curriculum from the very beginning, well before the first rehearsal or even the auditions. Un-Scripted: unscripted, being a show that did not require an obvious set of specific skills to perform, in retrospect I should have picked a set of skills that I wanted to work on and constructed the rehearsals around that larger purpose. That seems so obvious now, I’m surprised I didn’t think of it originally, but alas I did not.

As for what I’ve learned about directing a scripted play, I’ve learned I need to communicate better with my designers, push them and the actors harder, and generally trust my instincts. Perhaps it’s less trusting my instincts and learning to recognize my instincts. If something doesn’t seem right, it’s probably wrong.

Un-Scripted: unscripted Wrap Up

Posting about our Bollywood show in Chicago made me realize I never really wrapped up the posts about Un-Scripted: unscripted.

As I mentioned, I was not at Rehearsal #9 because I had already started rehearsals for Impact Briefs: Puberty . Here though is the rehearsal in time-lapse:


I also missed all but 1 show closing weekend as I was on a business trip in Dallas. I did however catch closing night which featured the best last scene of a run ever:


All told, we upload 16 clips from the show, which you can watch here.

If you'd like to watch the entire rehearsal process in time lapse from beginning to end, here it is!

Rehearsal #8: Keep it Going

As we get deeper and deeper into a show, especially a show that’s going fairly well, there becomes less and less to work on in rehearsal. They become more or less an opportunity to connect and keep everyone on the same page. That’s mostly what we did this week. We worked on some games (Oompa Loompa Comentary, Genre Combo, Genre Slide, Genre Roller Coaster, State Trooper) and ended early. It was also St. Patrick’s Day, and I didn’t want to keep people too late in case they had plans or just wanted to beat the drunken traffic home.

The show runs for two more weekends, but this is actually my last. I’m directing Impact Briefs: Puberty which opens in May and needs to start rehearsals ASAP. All that is to say, I likely will not blog about next week’s rehearsal as I won’t be there.

Rehearsal #7: Everything at Once

After a very successful first weekend of shows, we had rehearsal on Tuesday night. We started with a warm-up that I had noticed the cast of Saturday night’s show playing before the show. It involves standing in a circle and playing every improv circle warm-up game all at once with no introductions or explanations. One second your playing bipity bipity bop and the next your playing kitty wants a corner or the Dukes of Hazard, or anything really. And it doesn’t matter if people don’t know the game you’ve just switched to because the whole point is to style match and fake it, or just change the game right away to something you know.

We had a great time and laughed ourselves quite silly.

Then I wanted to move into an exercise in “building scenes” and style matching. The idea was for one person to come out on stage and say a couple things to help establish the type of scene they’re doing and for other people to come in and add to the scene while matching the tenor and style. Unfortunately moving to an exercise started by a single person onstage killed a lot of the energy we had just built up in the warm-up. In the future I might not lead with this exercise.

Then did another round of the bell-game exercise we did in Rehearsal #3 in order to break out of the “new choice” rut we fall into whenever a bell rings on a scene. After that, we did another rapid-fire round of introducing scenes and getting suggestions without stopping the show.

I’ve realized a better way to describe this concept is that every interaction with the audience or scene set up has to be done as a scene itself (which then leads organically into another scene, meaning you can’t have a scene to get the suggestion and then a completely unrelated scene using it). That also means improvisors can’t reference theatrical terms like “scene” or “actor” and such with out first establishing a context wherein that’s allowable. (“Welcome to the Westfield Community Theater Players production of such-and-such” etc.)

I admit it is difficult to come up with these creative intros and even harder to segue them into scenes without always using “now let’s see that film” or “now the Westfield Community Players will act that out”, but that is the point and challenge of the show. Just because it’s hard to do, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.

Another way of looking at it is this, if you want to use the audience as an audience, you first have to establish that they’re not this audience in this theater watching Un-Scripted: unscripted. First you have to endow them as a different audience at a different show and then go from there.

Bryce was detained at work and arrived at rehearsal very late. When he arrived we ran him through the meat grinder by playing scene after scene with him until finally we were all ready to be done. We closed with another round of “every circle warm-up game at once” and that was the end! Watch it all in time-lapse:

Un-Scripted: unscripted Week 1

I had a moment in the show on Friday night that transcended being simply a “magic of improv” moment and became a “magic of storytelling” even a “magic of culture” moment.

I knew I wanted to do a scene with the bell (a little desktop bell-man’s bell frequently used in improv games), but I didn’t know what I wanted it to be. Because we’re not explaining many scenes in advance in this show, just about any scene might find itself “dinged” by the bell. Then it’s up to the improvisors in the scene to collectively and instantly decide what bell means, or what effect it has on the scene.

The default response tends to be New Choice, where the improvisor says or does something different from what they just said or did until the bell-ringer is satisfied with the new direction of the scene, but it could mean any number of things including Accent Switch, Genre Roller-coaster, Move-On, etc.

So I brought the bell out onstage and placed it on a chair, in a position of status, and then sat backwards in another chair looking at it intently. Mandy joined me onstage and as soon as the lights came up I said “I traded the beans for this bell.”

And that’s when it happened. A knowing chuckle rippled outwards through the audience as everyone in the theater and everyone in the cast knew that the bell was magic, without ever having to say the word “magic.”

That’s how I want to be able to tell stories, be they onstage or on paper.

**

We had a really solid opening weekend with three fun and well received shows. Saturday night was so sold-out that even I didn’t get a seat. So please buy your tickets in advance online. If you’d like to see some clips from last weekend’s shows, Clay has posted 6 scenes on the Un-Scripted YouTube Channel in High Definition (click the HD button for Hi-Def):

The Roman Empire Strikes Back - Parts 1, 2, and 3
Rap Battle: Chocolate vs. Crochet
Shrödinger’s Hepcat
Acting Class (with Joseph)

**

Here’s how I didn’t get a seat at Saturday’s show. As we were closing up the house, I took a quick glance at the audience and saw 1 free seat, which I assumed Bryce would take as he was taking notes that night. So I went out and headed up to the booth. A few seconds later Bryce came up to the booth saying there were no seats left. As the booth only holds two (Bryce and Joy who was running lights), I had no place from which to watch the show.

I heard parts of it.

Rehearsal #6: Final "Dress"

We had our last rehearsal before opening on Tuesday. After warming up we talked through a few business items related to the show and then launched into a quick tutorial on how to use puppets. We’ve worked with puppets a lot in Un-Scripted, and I’d love for them to make appearances in this show as well. We practiced with them a bit and then talked about how to interact with the audience (in general, not related to puppets).

Then we ran a couple mock first halves. I wouldn’t call them “dress rehearsals,” not only because we weren’t dressed for the show but because we were in a rehearsal space, not the theater and we did not have a keyboardist.

The first one went amazingly well. So well, in fact, I hope they can do as well tonight in the show! Highlights included:

Row Boat Cannibalism
Playbook Star Trek
and
Mamma I Don’t Wanna Learn Needlepoint or cut off my left breast to be an Amazon warrior.

The second one had a tough act to follow and was a little more shaky. Highlights included:

Australian/French/Japanese/Russian Children’s Shows
Silent Tea
and
Bryce’s beat poetry typewriter scene.

Tonight we open! Sweet. I don’t play until tomorrow. Tonight I take notes so I can help guide things in the right direction. Hope to see you there!

Load-In

We had load-in last night for the show. Although, as Mandy said, we didn’t load in so much as clean up. The previous tenants in the space left it a bit of a mess. I don’t really understand why groups do that. People are slobs.

In any case, we cleaned up, set up the cyc and the legs, arranged the lights. I figured out how to arrange the box office in a suitably aesthetically and functionally pleasing way. Clay and Joy made the concessions cart look pretty. Christian and Dave arranged the concessions and t-shirts. We were out of there by 9:30. Of course that makes it seem like a short load-in. Clay and Mandy started at 3:00 with the rest of us showing up closer to 6:00.

Watch all 6+ hours of it in time-lapse!

Play Schedule

Now, these are always somewhat subject to change, but here's when people are playing:


3/5/2009 8:00 Christian, Dave, Joy, Clay, Trish
3/6/2009 8:00 Alan, Scott, Jeff, Mandy, Trish
3/7/2009 8:00 Alan Christian, Jeff, Mandy, Scott, Trish
3/12/2009 8:00 Bryce, Clay, Dave, Joy, Trish
3/13/2009 8:00 Alan, Christian, Dave, Jeff, Trish
3/14/2009 3:00 Bryce, Christian Alan, Joy, Mandy, Scott
3/14/2009 8:00 Alan, Bryce, Joy, Mandy, Scott
3/19/2009 8:00 Alan, Bryce, Jeff, Joy, Mandy
3/20/2009 8:00 Alan, Clay, Jeff, Joy, Trish
3/21/2009 3:00 Alan, Bryce, Christian, Mandy, Scott
3/26/2009 8:00 Christian, Clay, Dave, Joy, Scott
3/27/2009 8:00 Clay, Dave, Jeff, Mandy, Trish
3/28/2009 3:00 Bryce, Christian, Joy, Scott, Trish
3/28/2009 8:00 Bryce, Christian, Clay, Dave, Mandy

Changes made 3/7/2009

Rehearsal #5: Birthday Rapping

We had David Norfleet at rehearsal last night so we could practice singing. After suitably warming up, we started by improvising some songs in the style of the Andrew’s Sisters. We do this by having one person stand in the middle with two other facing them. The middle singer sings a song, while the two on either side do their best to harmonize with the singer while singing the same words. It helps if they look directly at the singers mouth and learn to lip-read from profile.

Then we went over Mandy’s Barber Shop Quartet concept from last week. With some help from Mr. Norfleet, we were able to get this down into a fairly doable state. This basically involves a lead singer singing a song in 4 measure chunks, with the backup quartet repeating each line in harmony.

At this point, we took a break and had some lovely birthday cake in honor of Clay’s and Dave’s birthdays, both this week. Fully charged with our sugar rush, we moved into some point-of-view songs and scenes into songs before capping the evening off with me pimping people to sing songs I wanted to see them sing. Highlights included Scott & Jeff’s Beastie Boys style rap. Dave’s rap with Christian providing a “sample” chorus while Trish danced. And the Spring Break gang butt rape reunion song. Don’t ask.

Rehearsal #3 in Time-Lapse
Rehearsal #4 in Time-Lapse

And last night’s rehearsal:


You’ll notice the green background. We have a “Green Screen Challenge” going on right now for an as yet undetermined prize.

Rehearsal #4: Photo Mania

Tuesday's rehearsal was consumed by the photo shoot for the program and the flyer. It's always hard to get much done at a "photo shoot" rehearsal, but invariably they are necessary because they're the only time you know you'll have a chunk of the cast together at the same time.

To try and keep this one from being a complete wash, I told people to bring musical instruments. Then, anyone who wasn't onstage being photographed was in the back of the house jamming and improvising songs. I want music and song to be a big part of this show, and since this show really is about us having a good time, playing instruments we enjoy playing fits in perfectly. We will have a keyboardist at every show as well, but self-played instruments add so much (in a Sweeny Todd Revival sort of way).



As I was busy helping out with and occasionally art directing the photo shoot, I really have no idea how the jamming sessions went. Although I did hear a good song about a repo man and Scott sing a wonderful blues number.
The photo shoot itself went quite well and was tons of fun, as they usually are. Hopefully it resulted in some good shots and the overall concept for the flyer will actually work. I’ll post images here once we have it.

After we finished taking pictures, we broke down the photography equipment and worked on transitions into songs, either through scenes or in-character introductions. One of the highlights of this section of the rehearsal was a strange sort of interpretive dance. I’d love it if something like that happened in a show.

What sort of instruments did people bring that you might see played in a show if you came? Guitar, ukulele, two different kinds of drum, a squeeze box, a flute, and a harmonica (which I brought but really need to learn better how to play before I break it out in a show; my technique is good but I don’t know what notes I’m playing). And that doesn’t even include the acoustic base and mandolin that might also make its way to the shows.

We capped the evening off by experimenting with Mandy’s crazy idea on how to improvise Barbershop Quartet singing, which worked amazingly well. Once we’ve ironed out the kinks and I have a better grasp of what exactly we did, I’ll write more about it.

Only 2 more rehearsals left before we open! Ticket are on sale now. If you use the coupon code “special” when buying your tickets on Vendini between now and Tuesday 2/24, you get 25% off!

Also, see why Joy missed rehearsal.

Slide Show of the photo shoot:

Rehearsal #3: Just Have Fun

We were short handed at our third rehearsal. I knew Scott and Clay would be absent in advance due to previous conflicts, but then suddenly Trish and Bryce got sick. I’d originally planned on having the photo shoot for the flyer at rehearsal, but with so many people absent, I decided to reschedule it for next week.

This left me with a full three hours and 6 of the 10 cast members to kick around in. We got started with some warm-ups and got to know a couple of our new interns in the process. Then I wanted to move into working on games.

We started by going over spit-take. This is one of my favorite improv games and we ran a few practice scenes to show the people who had never seen it how it worked. For those of you unfamiliar with spit-take and the way we play it, this is spit-take: You play a scene wherein people are drinking water. When someone says something shocking, you spit out your water on them. This game is designed to teach having big reactions on stage. Over the years we’ve discovered a lot of finer points to the game (in the beginning it’s funnier not to spit) and find it best to practice it without water (miming the spitting).

After that I had people take turns playing a scene. At some point in the scene someone from off stage would “ding” it. Then the players had to decide for themselves what the ding meant. Were they playing new choice? Genere switch? Move on? Or, as we discovered, some new game? It was their choice. But of course they couldn’t talk about what game they were choosing to play, they each had to just start playing it, which made for some hysterical moments when players were playing different games from the same bell.

All this resulted in some fun new games. Things happened as a result of the bell ringing that I’d never seen before, such as inner monologue rapping, Upper Class Brit/Western Hick switch, and a food replicator gone haywire.

Then we ran the format for about an hour or so, or ran it as best we could without a musician or an audience. We had a lot of fun and discovered some more new games, such as Brecht Forward Reverse. That’s really the best part of this show, is discovering fun things in the moment. You can’t really do that if you’re locked into a set-list or if you have to set-up your scenes in advance. Just go do it and see what happens. It’s so much more fun.

**

We did shoot a time-lapse video of rehearsal, but it will have to wait until Clay returns from his Caribbean adventure to be posted to the intertubes.

Rehearsal #2: Dynamics

Rehearsal number TWO! Ah… it felt like slipping into a nice comfortable pair of shoes. Now I remember what directing feels like.

We were at the Dark Room, and we started (after suitable name-game warm-ups) with just practicing setting up scenes in character. In order to get over the initial inertia, I told people to start by setting up scenes and games while in Shakespearean characters. Then, once people had the hang of it and the creative juices started to flow, we expanded into more free-form styles.

Then we took a short break and moved into trying to establish a scene in a genre as quickly as possible without telling anyone which genre you were trying to establish. This exercise has the added bonus of developing style-matching skills without people really being aware of it. Shh… Don’t tell them.

THEN we did a status exercise that Tara developed at the Un-Scripted retreat a few years ago using a card game called Blink. The game has cards with various designs, but the key is that the design is repeated anywhere from 1 to 5 times. So it’s like having a whole deck of cards just 1 through 5.

Here’s how it works. Everyone in the scene pulls cards that represent their statuses to various elements of the scene. A card for their status to themselves, to each other character in the scene, and to the environment. Then you set people up in a scene. Setting people up in a scene is rather important for this exercise because the set up will imply certain status relationships that will either be in line with or opposite of the status cards they chose. The results are always very dynamic scenes.

Watch it all time-lapsed down to less than two minutes:

Rehearsal #1: Knocking Off the Rust

Boy am I rusty! I haven’t directed anything since The Short and the Long of It in 2005, almost 4 years ago. That’s hard to believe given that at one time directing was what I wanted to do, as a career. Of course I wanted to direct scripted plays, because, you know, that’s where the money is.

My directing muscles have all atrophied. I need to do some serious work to get them back up to speed. Fortunately Christian and Mandy were both at rehearsal last night to pick up the slack when I lost all ability to articulate. Of course it didn’t help matters much that I was in the midst of a full on seasonal allergy attack coupled with the fact that we were rehearsing at Stage Werx, a wonderful space mind you, but one that I appear to be allergic to regardless of the season. All this is to say that I was stuffed up, exhausted, and generally spacey. Not good things to be when dusting off the directorial parts of one’s brain after a long period of disuse.

Under the circumstances, I think I did remarkably well. To begin with, I have a great cast. Not only do I have a full 6 ensemble members in the show, but Scott, Trish, and Jeff are all Un-Scripted veterans, and Joy, the newcomer in the cast, did improv with Clay back in Boston. So already there’s chemistry there.

I wanted to ease into things for our first rehearsal, so we started with my favorite name game and then moved into scene work. I had everyone set up a game they wanted to play or see played. Then I had everyone set up a scene in a genre they wanted to see. By the time we finished with that it was already 9:30 and my brain had officially started shutting down for the evening. We finished off with a rousing round of The Dukes of Hazard game that Jeff taught us during Bollywood.

All-in-all a solid start. Now I just need to figure out what we’re doing for the rest of the rehearsals.

You can watch last night’s rehearsal in its entirety shrunk down to 2 minutes through the glories of time lapse photography, our new favorite toy:

Callbacks and Casting

Wow, that was hard. We had callbacks on Wednesday night. They went really well, but I was left with the difficult task of whittling down 10 people to 2-4. In the end I opted for 4:

Joy Begbie
Jeff England
Scott Keck
Trish Tillman

That's three people have been in our shows before and one newcomer. I'm excited. I think they'll stretch us in good directions and we'll stretch them likewise. Now I just have to decide what to do at these rehearsals that start Tuesday.

Audition Recap

I am directing our next show, Un-Scripted: unscripted, and we had auditions Monday and Tuesday night! We always try to make our auditions as low-stress and fun as possible, and it seems to work pretty well. Both nights we did essentially the same things, so here’s the breakdown.

We started by forming a big circle so I could introduce myself and the rest of the production team, explain the show, and explain what specifically I was looking for to get cast in the show. This show is really about ensemble, so the ability to make other people look good and have a good time is very important. We’re also looking for strong committed acting skills, because once this show starts, no one ever plays themselves on stage.

Then I ran my favorite name game. At Un-Scripted we tend to call it “Alan’s Name Game” even though I lay no claim on inventing it. (In fact I recently learned that improv musician Joshua Raoul Brody invented it.) I just like to play it and generally lead it when we do. It’s a name pattern game that I’ll explain in more detail someday.

Then I had everyone break up into pairs and tell some word at a time stories. Then in different pairs I had them play What Are You Doing. There are actually 2 ways of playing that game. I had Clay set it up and since he only knew the one way (the non-sequitor way), that’s how we did it. We’ll probably play it the other way at callbacks.

At this point I wanted to dive right into scene work. Both nights we had a lot of people, so the more I could see them the better. To start with I had 5 auditioners come up on stage with 2 members of the Un-Scripted ensemble and had them do 3 scenes in a row of anything they wanted. They could set up games. They could just do scenes. It didn’t matter. Cycling through this a few times was a good way to get everyone warmed up and to see how they do in short “laughy” scenes, scenes that are about finding the quick laugh and end as soon as they’ve peaked.

After a short break, I started setting people up in scenes. Or rather, I would select the people I wanted to see and Clay would give them a set up. Then I might side coach the scene or stop it to give direction and restart it, if I wanted to push people, test their range, or simply just see how they take direction.

And that was pretty much it.

One set-up that I particularly enjoyed was rediscovering an old setup that Tara, Christian, Dave, and the Fibbs used to use a lot in workouts called “Lost in a Tank”. Basically, you’re two people in the military in a tank, but you’re lost. Only in the auditions I set four people up in the scene. It was waaaay fun with four people.

Now I just have to decide who to call back. Fortunately we had a lot of really great people. Unfortunately we had a lot of really great people.

Auditions!

Auditions!

We’re looking for experienced improvisors for our upcoming show:
Un-Scripted: unscripted.

Show Description:
Our audiences loved it. We loved it. So we’re bringing it back! It’s the short form show with no set list and no format. What does that mean? We can do whatever we want! Short scenes, long scenes, games, songs, musical instrument jams, things we did long ago and want to bring back, things we've never ever tried before and always wanted to. It’s all about surprising your fellow improvisors and the audience. Once the show starts it never stops. All suggestions are gotten in character, and each scene flows seamlessly into the next without breaks for introductions, sweeping the improvisors and the audience on a ride of improvised possibility. Fun, huh?
We’re looking for improvisors with shortform experience and solid acting skills who are up for just about anything. Auditions will be Monday and Tuesday, January 12 & 13, 2009. They're group auditions, so you should plan to be there from about 7pm to 9:30pm. To sign up, email the assistant producer Bryce and let us know whether you prefer Monday or Tuesday. Bryce will send you a confirmation with your date, the location (still TBA), and your handy-dandy audition paperwork.

In order to give you the best opportunity to show us your improv skills, we try to keep our auditions as light and low-pressure as possible (more like a workout or improv jam than a normal theater audition). We'll even email you the audition paperwork ahead of time, so you can fill it out in the comfort of your own home and bring it with you. We want our auditions to be fun and stress-free, so you can just come and play with other improvisors who love improvising as much as you do.

If you'd like more information about the audition and rehearsal process, and what we might be looking for when casting, you can visit the auditions page of our website:
http://www.un-scripted.com We offer a stipend of $50 for the run of the show.

Rehearsals will begin around January 27th and continue on Tuesdays until the show is over. The show performs Thursday-Saturday, March 5 – 28 at 8pm, and Saturday matinees at 3pm, at the SF Playhouse Stage 2, 533 Sutter St. in San Francisco.

Alan Goy, Director
Clay Robeson, Assistant Director
Christian Utzman, Producer
Bryce Byerley, Assistant Producer