Great Puppet Bollywood in the Blogosphere

Tim Bauer, cast member in last year's Great Puppet Musical, writes about seeing the show.

As does General Fuzz.

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Clay has been busy posting video clips to Un-Scripted's YouTube Channel. Like this one, where part of the set comes crashing down at the end.

But -- that's what Un-Scripted MEANS . . . !

OK, this is the weirdest thing.

Maybe not THE weirdest. But still weird.

Sitting at the show tonight in the audience, taking notes, I started talking to the people next to me. Someone in front of me overheard and turned around with an expectant look and, may I say, a challenging grin. "You're the director?" she said. "I have a question."

"Sure thing!"
"How much of this show is really un-scripted?" This question comes up a lot. In fact, it came up at the talkback last week, too.
"All of it!" I proceeded to explain how the show stemmed merely from the suggestions, and how we rehearse the individual skills, but not show stuff.
"How about the storylines?" she asked skeptically.
"Nope! It's all improvised! In rehearsals, we do stories, but once we do them, we can't do them again."
She looked displeased. "Why, then, do you think that we all" gesturing to her two companions "have the same question?"
As the lights went down for the second act, I said, "Hey, I don't know! I'd love to talk more about it, though. I could talk forever!"

OK, so I've been asked before about whether we're really REALLY improvising (YES! we ARE! it's MADE UP!) -- but never ACCUSED. Accused! She seemed extremely annoyed!

And Christian said that after the show she "backed him up against the wall" and questioned him about the same thing, "until she got frustrated and left."

Seriously? I mean, for one thing, tonight's show wasn't the best show we've ever done (sorry guys! :o) it's true! sometimes you're hot, sometimes you're off! happens to everyone)--so why exactly would we 1. Write the show to be just like that, and 2. LIE about it?

It's not like magicians, who just won't tell you. Improvisors are happy to tell you just what we do! It's not magic -- and we're not gonna lie! I'm a terrible liar, for one thing.

Hence, the reason for the blog. Really, nice vaguely German-accented lady sitting in front of me. We're improvising. It's made up. You helped. And if it's a good show (or a bad show), does it really matter when it was written -- either six months ago or six milliseconds ago?

Comments?

On You Tube

You can now see some clips from last weekend's shows on YouTube. Check out the Un-Scripted Channel or watch the embedded clips below:

From Friday Night's Show:


From Saturday Night's Show:

Play Schedule

Time to make your plans to see your favorite performers! Here's the play schedule for the show. As always, there may be last minute substitutions, but this is a fairly accurate picture of who will be performing when.

Friday, November 28th:
Alan, Bryce, Clay, Jenny, Larry, Pepper
Musician: Daniel Walling

Saturday, November 29th Matinee:
Bryce, Christian, Jeff C, Mandy, Pepper
Musician: David Norfleet

Saturday, November 29th Evening:
Alan, Christian, Clay, Jeff C, Jeff E, Jenny
Musician: Daniel Walling

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Thursday, December 4th:
Christian, Clay, Dave, Jeff E, Jenny, Larry
Musician: David Norfleet

Friday, December 5th:
Alan, Bryce, Jeff C, Jeff E, Mandy
Musician: David Norfleet

Saturday, December 6th Matinee:
Alan, Bryce, Dave, Pepper, Jeff C, Jenny
Musician: David Norfleet

Saturday, December 6th Evening:
Alan, Bryce, Jeff E, Larry, Mandy, Pepper
Musician: David Norfleet

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Thursday, December 11th:
Clay, Dave, Jeff C, Jenny, Mandy, Pepper
Musician: David Norfleet

Friday, December 12th:
Dave, Christian, Bryce, Larry, Jeff C, Jeff E
Musician: We need one. You know one? Email me.

Saturday, December 13th Matinee:
Alan, Christian, Jenny, Larry, Mandy, Pepper
Musician: David Norfleet

Saturday December 13th Evening:
NO SHOW

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Thursday, December 18th:
Bryce, Christian, Dave, Jeff C, Jenny, Pepper
Musician: David Norfleet

Friday, December 19th:
Alan, Clay, Jeff C, Jeff E, Larry, Mandy
Musician: David Norfleet

Saturday, December 20th Matinee:
Christian, Clay, Dave, Jeff E, Jenny, Larry
Musician: David Norfleet

Saturday, December 20th Evening:
Alan, Bryce, Christian, Clay, Dave, Mandy
Musician: We need one. You know one? Email me.

Is Bond Bollywood?

When Monty Norman wrote the James Bond Theme, he re-worked a song he had written called "Good Sing, Bad Sing" for a stage musical adaptation of the Indian Novel A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul.

Bond is Bollywood!

Observation About Improv

Onetime Un-Scripted cast member Molly wrote this in her blog the other day. I found it a very eloquent description of a sliver of improv I'd never heard expressed quite this way:

One of the basic concepts of improv theatre is pattern recognition. What is funny in a scene is when a specific action or theme returns and is played out in a parallel fashion. This is a skill improvisors must work to develop with the understanding that the more they are able to perceive what is unusual or funny about a scene, the better they are able to portray it to the audience. Those improvisors who are seen has being very perceptive, sharp, and funny are the ones who see the patterns easily and are able to play them.

Some New Friends

Lookie lookie! I maded 2 new puppets! A new genre means we need some new kinds of puppets—plus, since we're guy-heavy for this show, we need some new girls to represent. And making some look more on the human side will balance out all of the adorable monsters that we also have.

I hereby introduce you to Rita:

And Nila (Nila means blue in Hindi. At least, according to the online dictionary. I hope it doesn't also mean something horrible. Translation can be tricky. Anyone know?):

Look! Puppet cleavage!

Thanks Clay, This Week's Rehearsals, and Bah-Hum-Puppet

Thanks Clay for posting that video. You and your cursed iPhone. Now everyone’s seen my best dance moves. I guess I’ll have to come up with some new ones before the show.

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I posted about this week’s rehearsals to my blog:
Rehearsal #7: Solo Songs
Rehearsal #8: Opening Numbers

**

A group in Indiana called Another Bloomin’ Puppet Company is doing a mixed puppet and human production of A Christmas Carol, but it’s scripted.

Smile! You're on Candid iPhone!

Having been allowed to participate in The Great Puppet Musical last year, I was really excited to join the cast of The Great Puppet Bollywood Extravaganza. I mean, more of the same, great puppety goodness, but now with the added bonus of Bollywood. Seriously... two great tastes that go great together, right?

The added bonus of expanding the original show with a new, cultural seasoning is that it becomes new to those of us who have done this before. We've got new challenges to face, and we get to learn whole new sets of skills.

One thing that we've been focusing on ALOT more with TGPBE than we did with TGPM is the dancing. Sure, there was dancing in TGPM, but with TGPBE, we've got a more distinctly stylized type of dance, and it's a style that none of us is all that familliar with, so we have to work it a little bit more.

Luckily for all of YOU, I pulled out the trusty iPhone during rehearsal last week, and captured a little bit of dance rehearsal. We were focusing on doing two person dance. Not just straight up dancing, though... more like 'scene as interpreted by dance.' So there's more communication between the dancers THROUGH dance, than just two dancers doing the same or complimentary things. Dance as a form of communication is actually really cool, especially when one of the dancers is a puppet.

But enough of my telling, let's have Jeff and Alan show you...



And don't worry, we're not laughing AT them, we're laughing at how awesome this whole process is, and at how much fun we're having doing it.

Last Night's Reheasal

I posted about last night's rehearsal to my very own Un-Scripted Blog. Read it here.

File Under: Creative Uses of Puppets

Apparently Germany’s traffic camera’s must record the plate number and an image of the driver in order to issue a ticket against the offender. Someone with a UK drive car has been having fun with them by placing a puppet in its passenger seat (what would be the driver’s seat in your average German car.) Boing Boing Link