Rehearsal #11: Games and "Middle" Scenes

All Female-Cast this Thursday!

We had our last rehearsal for the show last night, and we made it count.

Lyn returned after two weeks in China, so we spent the beginning of rehearsal going over what we’d learned and worked on over the last couple weeks. Then we moved on to playing games.

In the shows we’ve gotten into something of a rut of playing the same handful games all the time (and even playing them at same points in the show). Our homework was to come in ready to introduce a game within the style of the show that we hadn’t really done yet. I set up the “audience word song” game by pretending to be Clive Anderson hosting a show like Who’s Line Is It Anyway. (I called it What’s My Line Anyway.) That’s an idea I had a few weeks ago, to try and set up a scene as a scene from a different improv show. Let’s see if I can do it in a show.

(Mandy said I did a good Clive Anderson impersonation. I also got good feedback on my George Lucas impersonation in the show last week. Who knew I could do impressions of arcane celebrities?)

After a heated debate on whether or not the game Oxygen Deprivation (a.k.a. Head in a Bucket) could be performed without a set up, we moved on. (Personally, while it could be done without a setup and the audience would catch on, I think it would be stronger with one. An example for the no-setup faction was Spit-Take which we play sans intro. My feeling is that spitting water at a shocking statement is something that could exist in reality. But putting your head in a bucket of water on the side of the stage doesn’t exist in any reality outside of an improv show, unless one is given to it. Another example given was Bell Games that are played without setups. I actually don’t like those either. I think they break from the reality we’re creating and are stronger when set up somehow.)

I took notes a couple times last weekend, once while I was also lighting. I noticed, perhaps only because as the lighting improvisor I was particularly focused on the scene’s endings, that scenes tended to fall into three categories: Sketch or Short-Form Scenes, Slice of a Long-Form Scenes, and Self-Contained “Middle” Scenes. I also noticed that we didn’t know how to end the latter of those. I could see the improvisors getting deep into a “Middle” scene, realize it needed to end, and then search for a Sketch ending, which wouldn’t end the scene.

We spent some time working on these and quantified some of the differences. A Sketch Scene riffs on an idea and ends when it peaks. It doesn’t really matter if the character change or not. They probably don’t. We don’t often know because the scenes are very surfacey.

A Slice of a Long-Form Scene has a lot of backstory. A lot has happened before this moment and a lot will happen after. It’s a tiny piece of a large arc, and as a result the scene’s arc itself is rather flat. The character’s probably don’t change unless this slice happens to be the change moment.

A Self-Contained “Middle” Scene has a beginning, middle, and end. It has a complete arc within itself. One character might go on that arc or all of them, but for the scene to end the arc needs to arc. For that to happen, a character generally needs to change.

That can be the key to saving a scene that’s not going anywhere. Simply allow your character to arc, build emotion and the release it, and that becomes what the scene is about.

Rehearsal #10: Dance and Play

We started off last night’s rehearsal by working on dancing. We end up singing a fair amount in this show and anytime there’s singing, there’s likely to be backup dancing. So we worked on movement and basic dance vocabulary a little. Then we took turns leading steps with a couple followers and finally had someone fake sing a lead vocal while three people danced behind them. The point was to be aware of stage picture and style matching so that the dancers all look like they belong from the same show.

One of the cast members of this show, Dave, is a social dancing instructor. He ran us through a quick 15-minute lesson in partner dancing, and I learned so much in that short period of time! About how to lead. About how to follow (in improv you never know when your character might be a woman). It was amazing!

Then Christian wanted to work on letting one scene inform the next, not necessarily overtly, but through taking some element of the first scene and using it in a different way in the second. Then we added on top of that the desire to perform more theatrical and play-like scenes. That’s accomplished by not looking at each other so much (improvisors are trained to make eye-contact a lot which is necessary for beginners but isn’t necessary in plays), speaking obliquely (characters in plays frequently don’t directly answer questions or they carry on separate conversations concurrently; the key for doing this in improv is to not let the offers drop even though you’re not immediately responding to them), allowing for small parts (you might be onstage the entire scene but only have one line), and only saying as little or as much as the playwright wrote (meaning, some lines can be incomplete thoughts and some lines can be monologues).

After we did that for a while, we added yet another layer: we played arms, moving bodies, audience lines, he said/she said, scene in reverse, etc. The point here was to not let the game’s hoop derail the scene. Instead use the hoop to inform the scene. You’re still doing a committed scene from a play, it just happens to be the forward/reverse version.

This weekend’s shows should be a lot of fun and feature some unique casts. Friday and Saturday’s casts are identical: Christian, Clay, Mandy, and Melissa. Ever wondered if it’s really improvised? Come see the same cast perform two nights in a row and find out!

Thursday’s show features an all-male cast: Alan, Christian, Clay, and Dave. Next Thursday’s show features an all-female cast: Lyn, Mandy, Melissa, Merrill. Come to this week’s show and you can get in to next week’s for just $10!

Rehearsal #9: Tenor Switch

Whoa, what happened? Suddenly it's Friday and I haven't blogged about Tuesday's rehearsal. (Well, our new dog is what happened.) The further away I get from rehearsal, the harder it always is to write about.

We do continue to rehearse throughout the run of the show. That allows us to spot issues during performance and then work on them in rehearsal. I don't know if the production team spotted any specific issues we needed to work on, but we did sit around and talk about our experiences in the shows.

The main thing I remember about rehearsal, aside from having yummy yummy key lime pie for Clay's birthday, was a new game we stumbled into called "Tenor Switch". It started out as a playwrights exercise. We took two similar playwrights with opposite tenors and played Genre Switch with them. We did Tennessee Williams & Beth Henley and Eugene O'Neil & Neil Simon. It was soooo much fun. We soon learned that it didn't really matter if you started with playwrights, what mattered was switching tenors from light to dark when the bell rang. I hope we break it out in the shows this weekend.

We have a couple of last minute discount offers for this weekend. You can still take advantage of them:
- Use the coupon code "CRAZY" when buying tickets online through our website and get 65% off! This offer is only good for this weekend's shows.
- Say "Wish Clay a 'Happy Birthday' for me" at the door and get tix for just $8! This weekend only.

Rehearsal #8: Run Through #2

We did another run-through last night, this time with the cast of Friday night’s show: Dave, Mandy, Merrill, and myself.

We were not in the theater itself, but the one across the hall. As always, tonight will be a storm of chaos before the show trying to get everything ready, but I’m trying not to think about that.

Let’s see if I can pull some takeaways from last night out of my sleep deprived mind:
- We mixed a few longer, slower-paced, scenes into the evening last night that felt like they came straight out of a play. The takeaway was that these scenes can exist side-by-side with shorter fast-paced “sketch-like” scenes, and we shouldn’t be afraid of them or their length. (And lighting improvisors should light them as if they’re from a long-form, not from a short-form show.)
- Commit, something, and something else. I can’t remember. Christian had some three word, three point note. It was brilliant.

Special side-note for Merrill who’s not reading this anyway: Don’t worry so much about getting things “right”. The point-of-view song didn’t falter until you started doubting yourself and worrying about doing it correctly.

Highlights:
- Living at Wonderland
- “Gladiolas” on the porch
- Who’s Afraid of Noel Coward
- Selling your script and getting laid
- Interviewing the great actress
- Everyone needs a secretary

Tonight we have an actual show. My voice seems to be holding out ok, but I’m exhausted. Tonight should be fun! Tomorrow should be even more fun, as long as I can stay awake through it.

Rehearsal #7: Run Through #1

We did a run-through last night at rehearsal with the cast of Thursday night’s show: Christian, Melissa, Lyn, and myself. I’m glad I got to play with Melissa, because I’m only in the 1 show with her (see the play schedule here).

We were in the actual theater where we’re doing the show, although we didn’t quite have the stage set up how it will be. We still need to put up the doors and wings on the sides of the stage. I’m not sure when that’s happening.

It’s an interesting space to perform in. The stage is larger than we’re used to and it’s raised, which also makes the ceiling shorter than we’re used to. The lights come at you pretty much from eye level, which is always fun.

The run itself went well. The takeaways were:

- Be wary of getting stuck in a “tone rut”.
- Work to vary the number and combination of performers in scenes. It’s easy to get stuck in “2 on / 2 off – 2 on / 2 off” and end up only doing scenes with one person all night (as evidence by the multitude of Christian/Alan scenes).
- Passenger more / fill out background characters.

Some of the highlights of the “show” included:
- “That’s how we did it in Wisconsin!” A Midwestern couple goes swinger speed dating with some cheese.
- Benjamin Franklin, Franz Ferdinand, and Francisco Franco teach children the word “fecundate”.
- Superhero House. The new reality show featuring a very drunk Batman arguing about kitchen cleanliness with Superman.
- “It’s a Meal” and “It’s a Mule”.
- Frankenmime
- Lesbian love in Shakespearean Iowa.
- Room-mate love and existentialist foreign films.

As usual, my “highlights” are probably skewed to scenes I was in, because those are the ones I remember the best. I’m sure other people did brilliant stuff I’m missing. Of course with such a small cast, there weren’t many scenes I wasn’t in.

Tonight we have another run through with Friday night’s cast, which also includes me. I’ll effectively be doing 4 shows this week. Which is great, as long as my voice holds out. Come see me Friday night. My brain should be good and fried by then.

Un-Scripted: unscripted Cast List!

Here is the play schedule for Un-Scripted: unscripted! Note the all-man show on March 4 and the all-woman show on March 11.

Full Cast:
Alan Goy
Merrill Gruver
Melissa Holman
Mandy Khoshnevisan
David Madison
Clay Robeson
Lyn Travis
Christian Utzman

Thursday, February 18: Alan, Christian, Melissa, and Lyn
Friday, February 19: Alan, Dave, Mandy, and Merrill
Saturday, February 20: Christian, Dave, Lyn, and Melissa

Thursday, February 25: Christian, Clay, Melissa, and Merril
Friday, February 26: Alan, Dave, Mandy, and Merrill
Saturday, February 27: Alan, Clay, Dave, and Merrill

Thursday, March 4: Alan, Christian, Clay, and Dave
Friday, March 5: Christian, Clay, Mandy, and Melissa
Saturday, March 6: Christian, Clay, Mandy, and Melissa

Thursday, March 11: Lyn, Mandy, Melissa, and Merrill
Friday, March 12: Alan, Dave, Lyn, and MelissaMerrill*
Saturday, March 13: Alan, Christian, Clay and Mandy

*Transcription error in the original list

Rehearsal #5 and #6: Song and Match

Two more rehearsals, two more to go. After rehearsals Tuesday, I had the strange realization that normally at the point in the process (with 3 rehearsals left at that time) we’d have more than 3 weeks until opening night. Instead, we had a little more than 1.

Tuesday we sang. We had a new musician we’d never worked with come in to play so we could get to know each other. Like a first date at a coffee shop that couples argue about later as to whether or not it counted as a date. I suspect you’ll see him play some shows for this run. His name was Jacob.

What did we sing? Well, we warmed up a lot with scales and a Dona Nobis Pacem. We did some simple Chorus/Verse songs and Verse/Chorus songs in a semi-circle. We did the Un-Scripted Theater Company version of a point-of-view song in groups. This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Three people start a scene, then they each take turns singing a verse about their inner thoughts on the topic at hand, then they all sing at once. When they sing together they’re singing “chorii”, or rather each is singing a simple chorus to the song they sung without trying to unify the choruses or really be heard. When three people sing their own thing all at once:

A. The audience can’t really follow content.
B. It sounds really powerful.

Then generally everyone gets another solo verse and you end on another round of chorii. Ideally the person with the most to say will sing the last solo verse.



Typically in short-form improv shows, a point-of-view song goes like this: One person starts and sings “I love cheese”. The next person, forced to take a different point of view sings “I hate cheese”. The third person also forced to choose a different point of view and feeling pressured by the rule of “Comedy Comes in Threes” to be funny, sings “I am cheese.” We try to avoid this way of playing the game because it’s a lazy shortcut.

Then we did three scenes with songs as if they were snippets from a full-length musical, with an eye towards making out musical scenes more nuanced. The tendency in short-form is to cram an entire story of plot into one 4-minute scene. We’d rather the scene feel like a slice out of a larger work.

We performed one series of these in the time period of “Viking”, which I had never seen before. I wish we’d get that as a suggestion more.

We finished with the “Audience Word Song” Game, wherein you get a list of words from the audience while the singer is out of the room, they start a song and are then shown the words one at a time having to work them into their song as immediately as possible. This does not require singing a brilliant song. The game is impossible. The audience knows it, and roots for you the whole time. As long as the song isn’t a non-sequitorial mess, the audience loves it.



Wednesday. Wednesday. Wednesday. We did more of what we did the Wednesday before, running every cast member through 6 scenes focused on playing with them. We did not finish everyone, but moved on after a while to an exercise in style matching. One person would leave the room. The other three would decide on a genre/playwright/time period/film director to do the scene in. Then the one who doesn’t know just has to follow along and style match as best they can.

The distinction I think, with this exercise, is that it is not a guessing game. You’re not trying to get the other person to guess the genre right. If you know the genre, it’s not your exercise. You just play it as committed as you can and give the other person something to match. That’s their exercise: matching and letting go the need to get it right.

We performed one of these in the genre of “Bronte”, which I’ve also never really seen before. I wish we’d get that one more too.

Rehearsal #3 and #4: Doors, Games, & Ensemble

Ah, yes… We had two rehearsals this week, and as they’ve both blended together in my mind, you’re going to get them in one post.

We continued our work on space-objects by working on space-object doors. We had a couple of epiphanies. For one, no one holds on to a door knob the entire time they open and close a door, yet improvisors seem to do that universally for space-object doors. Generally we use the knob to unlatch the door and then swing it open. We grab on to the side of the door to open it further or guide it closed, or we catch it behind us. (I also noticed today that, depending on how heavy the door is, we don’t just use our arm muscles but throw our whole body weight into it.)

And then there’s the twirl.

When opening a door that pulls towards us, we often open it and then do a little twirl as we spin around to pull the door closed. Try it and see.

We also did some work on games and playing games without setting them up. Now, in this format, at any time during any scene someone off stage or on might ring a bell. It could be any bell game in the world or it could just be a bell. The actors in the scene just have to decide how to react to the bell, and that’s the game you’re playing. We discovered that not every actor has to be playing the same bell game at the same time. Oh the possibilities…



I also made some people do an alphabet scene as a half-life scene.

A large part of the success of this show hinges on us building a good ensemble. Part of that involves learning what everyone likes to do. To that end we spent some time talking about what we like to do in shows and what excites us about improv. This is something we’ll probably do at several rehearsals because I already know I forgot stuff I meant to say. There are so many aspects to consider.



Then we started an exercise that will continue through at least one other rehearsal because we didn’t get through everybody. One person is on the “hot seat” and is in every scene for about 6 scenes and every one else rotates in and out getting a chance to play with them and learn what makes them tick. We got through Merrill, Dave, and Lynn last night.

Things are going well, I think. And quickly too. Tickets are on sale now!

Rehearsal #2: Walk Like a Man

We started off our second rehearsal with the photoshoot for the program and flyer. Normally this might not happen so soon, but considering we open three weeks from yesterday, we needed to get it done.

Then we moved into space-object work, which somehow lead us into a discussion about playing cross-gender characters and the difficulties therein. We spent a lot of time walking around trying to look like men or women. Or more specifically, attractive men & women and then unattractive men & women.

The primary difference between the way the sexes walk is how we counter balance. Men, who generally are wider on top and have a higher center of gravity, counter balance with their shoulders. Women, who have lower centers of gravity, counter balance with their hips. A woman's arms swing differently too, as their breasts are in the way.

Attractive men tend to stand up straighter, throw their shoulders back a little, raise their elbows slightly as if they had muscular arms, and lead with their abdomen as if they had a six-pack. The also walk with a little bit a jaunt or swagger.

Attractive women do the same thing, essentially, only they tend to highlight their chest or butt depending on which part they feel looks better.

Unattractive people are more slouchy. They protect themselves by covering up their front sections and tend to walk flat-footed, landing on the middle of their feet. They never look comfortable, even when they're trying to look casual.

Of course those are sweeping generalities and intended to inform the physicality of the characters you're playing, but useful nonetheless.

We also learned that Clay, Christian, and I have all dated at various times in our lives a twin.

Rehearsal #1: We're already behind

We had our first rehearsal for our first show of 2010. It’s official: we’re kicking off our 8th season with Un-Scripted: unscripted!

This will be the third year in a row we’ve done this show, each time with a different director. I was at the helm of the previous iteration. I confess it was not a show that played to my strong suits as a director. I’m glad Christian’s in charge this year (and hopefully I’ll come up with a show that fits me better to direct in 2011).

It’s going to be a small cast version of the show. I believe we had 5 people per show last year. This year we will have 4, which will make for a hectic, high energy, no time to stop and think show that should be very fun and challenging to perform. The total ensemble for the show is 8 people large, 4 of whom are regular Un-Scripted members (me, Christian, Mandy, and Clay) and 4 non-members. We have one returning player (Merrill) and three first-timers (Lynn, David, and Melissa), making for a nicely gender balanced cast.

We spent a lot of time last night getting to know each other, which is extremely important for such an ensemble based show. We need to know each other well and know how to make each other happy by the time the show roles around. We need to learn to really play together and have fun.

We worked a lot on the “everything warm-up” which is an extension of Jeff England’s Duke’s of Hazard warm-up that just devolves into playing every circle warm-up game all at once. Then we moved into doing genre based scenes without setting up the genre first. After all, this show is all about starting scenes without explaining them.

I’m not sure what we’ll work on tonight. That’s right: we have rehearsal again tonight. Why? Because the show opens in 3 weeks! We had a bit of a space kurfuggal, so this run which was originally supposed to open in March and run through April is now opening in February and running through March. And we’re not in our usual space at the SF Playhouse. Instead we’ll be returning to Off-Market where we once performed Love at First Sight (only we’ll be in the larger theater across the hall).

So fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a fast ride!

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

So Long Farewell

Un-Scripted: unscripted closed last weekend. I was in all three shows. In fact Tara, Max, Mike, and I were each in every show, with Christian doing 2 and Dave the other to round out the cast.

We had a lot of fun, but it was bittersweet not only for the typical end-of-the-run reasons, but because Tara is moving to Maine, making these her last shows with us for a while if not forever.



Sigh. She will be missed.

That said, the shows themselves were quite fun. Of course, a week later, I can hardly remember what any of the scenes were. I’ve put off writing the last post about this show because I didn’t want it to be over yet. But it is.

Tonight we have our first production meeting for The Great Puppet Bollywood Extravaganza! In addition to being in it, I will also be the show’s producer. I intend to blog about the production process as well as the rehearsal process. We’ll see how successful I am.

Stuck!

Saturday night we stuck the landing.

While I had a great time in all of the shows this last weekend, Saturday’s show was by far the most fun. To be honest I can’t even remember how we ended the show, but every scene in the second half was strong enough to have been the end of the show. The first half was none too shabby either.

Mandy brought an audience member up on stage to read lines from Ibsen for a Playbook scene. Audience member Brian overacted fabulously resulting in probably the best Playbook scene I’ve ever witnessed. Having an audience member do it makes that game so much better. It should always be played that way.

I had a lot of fun singing in the show, which, if you’re a frequent reader, you’ll know isn’t my strong suit. From the “Monster Sex Machine” song as puppets to both songs from “Columbus! The Rock Opera”, I never felt like I was in over my head. Bringing back the chorus from “There’s a New World On the Horizon” during the song “We Were Here First” will go down as one of my fondest improv memories.

That and the subtle feeling of everyone else in the cast and everyone in the audience seeing Christian and I loading our muskets without ever having to say what we were doing. The cast developed a wonderful group mind that grew to include the audience itself. That feeling makes improv so special for performers and audiences alike.

Come this weekend! We’ve got almost the same cast every night this weekend, which should lead to some great ensemble work.

**

More Un-Scripted on the Web: This guy saw our show a couple weeks ago and blogged about it.

Stick Your Landings

I've been somewhat remiss in my blogging about this show, mostly because I went to Japan and missed two weekends. Then I got busy at work this week and didn't have time to blog about rehearsal on Tuesday.

We did genre work on Tuesday. We like to do genre scenes at the Un-Scripted Theater Company. We practiced Genre Switch (which I hadn't played in years) where you switch back and forth between two genres. Genre Slide, where you start in one genre and slowly transition the scene into another genre by the end. Genre Roller Coaster, where you do a scene and keep changing the genres throughout. And Genre Combo, where you take two genres and combine them into one scene. That's probably my favorite.

In the show tonight, we played some genre roller-coaster, using a "magic bell" that would transform the scenes. It was fun.

The show tonight was a lot of fun. It was a very solid, good show. It would have been a spectacular show, but we didn't stick the landing. The damned show just wouldn't end. The last 15 minutes or so were hell, not only because the show wouldn't end, but because it was about a million degrees in the theater by then. The show finally ended with a prolonged whimper at 10:07. Jesus god, shoot me now.

Why wouldn't it end? We couldn't find it. We couldn't find the button. The capper. The tag. What's more, we all had ideas on how to end it and kept fighting each other for control of the scene so we could push our idea. We just needed to let it go and let it end and stop trying to force it.

Had we not performed the third half of the show, it would have been amazing. As it was, it was a good solid show.

Opening Night!

Wow, the show last night was so much fun! I’m not sure if I was wrong and shouldn’t have been worried at all about opening night, or if I was right and being worried kept us all engaged and made for a great show. Either way, we had a really solid show for the first night of a run.

Yes, we learned some things to make the show better. Christian was really single entendre with his transitions last night, but he took that note well. What do I mean by that? Well, instead of taking an element from the previous scene and using it in a different way in the next scene, he was taking an element from the previous scene and using it literally in the next scene, which led to some confusion about whether or not we were in the same world.

I think we also would have been better served doing “second scenes” later in the show rather than immediately after the first scene. We got some feedback from people in the audience that they either wanted us to use the themes we developed more or less (such that they weren’t themes). From inside the show, I really enjoyed that no theme overly dominated the show. I’m not sure I’d like doing it that way. A big part of the success of this show is going to be the cast enjoying themselves, so I’ll have to watch that carefully.

I did some fun characters that I’ve never really done before. I played one to introduce a scene that even while I was doing it I was thinking “This is someone new. I really like him though.” Unfortunately, as soon as the show was over, I could not remember the character at all. I’m not sure I could recreate him. D’oh.

Dress Rehearsal!!

Wow, now we've got the added pressure of being the Best Theater Company in the Bay Area on top of opening Thursday. In many ways it's unfortunate that we win Best Theater Company right before opening the most traditional improv show we've done in years. The timing would have been so much better to win it right before Three or Theater: The Musical.

I was suffering from generalized nausea inducing stomach bug which left me extremely low energy because I hadn't really eaten much all day. So I didn't really do much. The dress rehearsal section I was in... well... Let' just hope this is a moment of "in like a lion out like a lamb." The second dress rehearsal section that I watched was much better.

I think this show will come together, but it might take a show or two for it to find it's legs. Come! Definitely come! Just realize we're still working out the kinks. Or maybe that's just the nerves talking. When I used to direct shows, I never wanted my cast feeling perfectly comfortable going into opening night. I always wanted them a little worried. That kept them engaged.

Finding the Game, Literally

You’ll often hear improvisors talking about “finding the game” of a scene. We took that concept a little further last night by actually playing improv games within scenes without setting them up or even agreeing amongst ourselves before the scene what game we were playing.

This made for some interesting scenes and some funny moments. People would go out on stage with the intent of playing one game, only to have it morph into another. Max, for instance, wanted to start a silent scene, which Tara then turned into Standing, Sitting, Kneeling, and Laying Down. Unfortunately Max never really caught on to the fact that that was the game.

The scene was funny on its own, but anyone in the audience familiar with the game would have enjoyed it on a second level as well. I wouldn’t want to do a whole show this way. I’m a big believer in not hiding anything from the audience, but doing it this way allows for some wonderfully playful discovery leading to scenes you would get no other way.

I knew as soon as we started the exercise that I wanted to start a spit-take scene internally. I kept my water bottle with me at all times, slipping it my pocket when I’d go onstage, not only so that it would be handy, but so that my fellow improvisors wouldn’t suspect anything like they would if I suddenly grabbed a water bottle before heading out. I casually took a drink of water every time I was about to out and start a scene, just in case. The first several times I did that, the scene moved off immediately in another direction so I just swallowed my water and played whatever game had come up, but one time…

I went out with Christian and sat for a long time with out speaking, while he stood for a long time without speaking. When he finally said something, I spit in shock and surprise and then pulled my water bottle out of my pocket. Ah, the effect was beautiful and launched us into a fun spit-take scene.

My other highlight of the night was Mandy and I playing “The Feables”. I’m sure Dave intended for us to sing (did I mention we had David Norfleet at rehearsal and sang a bunch?) when he went out onstage and said “Ladies and Gentlemen, I now present to you The Feables”. Instead we played really old people telling an inane joke as if we were on a seventies variety show. So fun.

Only one more rehearsal left and then we open! Woohoo!

Rehearsal #5: Acting

Last night we worked on our acting skills by doing some scenes in the style of playwrights. Actually that’s not entirely true. We started by practicing scenes wherein the characters follow along their own trains of thought rather than reacting specifically to what someone just said. This is hard to do, but produces scenes that feel like they’ve come from a play rather than improvised. We’re taught to Yes And so much and listen so attentively that scenes are way more linear than real life. To do it well though, following your train of thought requires a lot of Yes And-ing and listening.

Then we moved on to scenes in the style of Woody Allen and then onto Neil Simon. I did a really fun Neil Simon scene with Tara, Christian, and Dave as bumbling bank robbers.

Next, we practiced scenes that let into duets. We’ve been singing in rehearsal to a guitar, and it’s really interesting the difference between improvising to a guitar and improvising to a keyboard. I think I like the guitar better, but I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s that the chord progressions are more predictable. Maybe it just fits my range better. Not sure.

Finally, in the remaining time, we practiced the format, doing a series of short scenes and games. Not sure what we’re doing tonight, but I’m sure it will be fun!

Intros and Transitions

Dave’s vision for this show is for it to be seamless in such a way that it doesn’t seem like an “improv show.” To accomplish that, we had to develop ways to get suggestions and set up scenes without just coming out on stage as an imporvisor to do them.

So, last night, we worked on ways that characters can interact with the audience organically in order to get their suggestions or participation and set up scenes. I’ll admit, when Dave first said were just going to spend some time just doing scene intros, I had a hard time envisioning how this would be helpful, but once we started I dove right it. We had such a fun time coming up with new and inventive ways to seamlessly interact with the audience. I can’t wait to try it out in a show.

Then we worked on transitions, or really, we worked on running little chunks of the show to see how each scene could flow from the next, using what we’d just done with intros. It worked really well. The show is shaping up quite nicely.

Rehearsals #2 and #3

Rehearsal #3 was last night, but I wasn’t there.

Rehearsal #2 was last week, and I can’t really remember anything specific about what happened. That’s me falling down on the job. I remember doing scenes and singing and having a really good time.

Rehearsal #4 is next week and I will be there. I’ll also blog about it! Crazy, I know.

Rehearsal #1: Getting to know you

We had our first rehearsal for Un-Scripted Un-Scripted last night. The exact punctuation of the title is still up in the air, so until it gets set, I’ll refer to it that way. I like the title. It reminds me of “pizza pizza” from the old Little Caesars ads, or the Circus Circus casino.

It’s a short form show, which we as a company haven’t done in over a year and I personally haven’t done in almost 2 years. I’m really looking forward to stretching those muscles again, especially with the cast Dave’s assembled. Unfortunately it looks like Derek might not be able to do the show after all, but even without him I think it’s a strong group.

Last night we worked mostly on basic exercises, word-at-a-time stories, I am a tree and genre freeze tag. Then we moved on to playing some moving bodies. That game really does show you all the different physical things you could be doing in any scene if you weren’t so focused on the words.

Many improvisors don’t realize this, but most games where developed to help build skills for regular scene work, but they were so enjoyable in their own right, they became used in performance. Moving bodies lets one person focus entirely on talking and another focus entirely on movement. The result is very eye opening for both. One thing we noticed, for instance, was the scenes had more head petting than we’ve ever seen in a regular scene, but there’s no reason not to do that in regular scenes.

Then we moved on to 4-way dubbing, which builds your listening skills as well as teaches you to have reactions to things. Since you can’t speak for yourself, you have to react and hope the person doing your voice gets it. Or, you have to react to justify what they just had you say.

Rehearsal #2 is tonight. I think we had a solid beginning.

Auditions!

The Un-Scripted Theater Company is looking for experienced improvisors for our upcoming improvised show: Un-Scripted: unscripted.

Show Description:
To heck with formats! This August, Un-Scripted breaks down the walls between us and the audience, bringing you . . . whatever we want! Short scenes, songs, musical instruments, things we did long ago and want to bring back, things we've never ever tried before and always wanted to. It's a shortform show that will seamlessly flow along without breaks for introduction, sweeping the improvisors and the audience on a ride of improvised possibility. Fun, huh?

Auditions will be Monday and Tuesday, June 16 & 17, 2008. They're group auditions, so you should plan to be there from about 7pm to 9:30pm. To sign up, email the producer Mandy (rhymes with Gandhi) and let us know whether you prefer Monday or Tuesday. Mandy 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. We offer a stipend of $50 for the run of the show.

Rehearsals will begin around June 24th and continue on Tuesdays until the show is over. The show performs Thursday-Saturday, August 2 - 30 at 8pm, at the SF Playhouse Stage 2, 533 Sutter St. in San Francisco.