Something Like a Chicken Sandwich

Rehearsal #6: Exit Pursued by a Bear

2009-11-04T19:00:00.000-08:00

Last night’s rehearsal was all about improv! We’ve spent a lot of time working on singing and dancing, and it was finally time to focus on some scene work.

We warmed up by playing “Bitty Bitty Hop”, which is similar to “Bippity Bippity Bop” only you have to physically hop before the person in the middle says “hop”. The game then proceeds as usual.

Then we split up into groups of three and did a “coloring” exercise. For the first iteration, one person flipped through an imaginary Town Annual (like a town yearbook) while the other people asked detailed questions about the items discovered in the book. Then who was being asked the questions rotated and the imaginary record became a time capsule and then an actual high school yearbook for the final iteration.

Next, we split up into pairs and talked about our improv goals for the show, what we’re working on, etc. I want to play more characters that aren’t in control of their situations. My characters tend to have an answer for everything, and I’d like to explore playing some that get in trouble and don’t know how to get out of it. I’d also like to improve my space object work and push the show into new and interesting locations. Of course there are other things too, but those are the big ones.

After that we did some quick protagonist work. We just had 3 or 4 people start a scene and everyone watching raised their hand once they thought they knew who the scene was about. Once most people had raised their hand the scene was stopped and we found out if we all agreed. Generally we did. In the past we’ve spent entire rehearsals on protagonist work, but everyone seemed to have a handle on what made someone the protagonist (being likable, the most normal, effected by what was happening, set apart from the other characters somehow, etc).

Then, we moved into some large group scenes. Six people would go up to perform (we’re planning casts of six people every night) and do two scenes. One a public scene with lots of people and then a second private scene between just two. Somehow we naturally fell into doing these two scenes seamlessly without any sort of blackout or hard ending between the scenes. We’d have a group scene and then eventually the side characters would leave two people alone for the private scene. It felt very “play like" as if the actors had scripted entrances and exits.

We capped things off by doing two 15 minute long forms, figuring in an actual show we’ll only have time for about 15 minutes of plot anyway. The first one involved a pair of identical twin teenagers struggling to date and find their own identities. The second involved a group of co-workers. The twin story reminded us all that, like in Shakespeare, even if the actors playing the twins look nothing alike, the other characters can find them so identical that they can’t tell them apart. The co-worker story reminded us that a workplace can be an even smaller small town within a small town.

We finished off by splitting up into groups once more to discus the main takeaways from rehearsal. I think one of the biggest was “listen, listen, listen”. We had a lot of missing offers, multiple names, confusing family relationships, etc. Name people. Repeat names. Be obvious about the environments you’re creating. Things of that nature.

We also learned that Bryce can wrestle a bear.

Rehearsal #5: Dancing with the Improvisors

2009-10-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

We rehearsed last night in a mirrored dance studio at ACT, largely because our regular space was booked but also so we could do some serious dance work. We started with the standard dance warm-up, made all the more interesting by the option of looking at yourself in a mirror doing it. Then we went into the choreography teaching exercise.

Alyssa took a small group of 4 people out on to the ACT balcony and taught them a wonderfully simple dance that involved standing in a straight line while bouncing and leaning in different directions. Of course, I do not do it justice. It was wonderful. Karen took the rest of the group (one of the assigned choreographers had thought they were on the schedule for next week) and put us into a long sequence of stepping around and crossing each other. Again, I do not do it justice, but large group numbers are very effective.

From there we moved into some couples dancing. We always work on couples dancing in Let It Snow rehearsals, but so rarely do we do it in shows. I’m not sure why. I’d love to see it and do it in a show. I think one hurdle is that it’s hard to do in groups because everyone has such a tenuous grasp of the footwork that they can only do it over one span of distance. With every couple traveling at different rates, traffic jams become problematic and messy. But maybe one couple doing some dancing behind someone singing a solo would be easier to work into a show? I don’t know. I’ll have to hunt for ideas.

Then we warmed up our singing voices with some Dona Nobis Pacem and did a Color/Advance exercise. We did it once telling a story and then we did it again singing a song. It was amazing how much more natural coloring is while singing. We often talk about not putting plot elements into our songs, and I think that exercise really drove home how little plot you need in a song. I think I even learned more from directing the other person’s song than I did singing my own.

Then we moved into some faux opening numbers. “Faux” because we didn’t focus on the words at all. We mostly sang gibberish. The focus was on the backup dancing. We worked on developing movement to go along with our choruses and on crisping up the background dancing during verses.

I think the biggest thing we learned from all this was “Commitment”. Commit to your movement, and it’s ok to put all of your energy into one gesture rather than having lots of extraneous movement. As clay said “have a moment, not a seizure.”

We also learned that having a “leader” during the backup dancing behind verses makes them so much easier. So, commit to being the leader. Either take control or if you sense that you’re in charge, go all the way with it. And, perhaps more importantly, don’t be afraid to say what you’re doing. Tell everyone in plain English what attitude you want them to affect or what dance move you want them to do or what direction you want them to go. It’s easy to forget you can direct movement with your voice, but it’s so helpful when people do it.

Then we closed by singing some solos (or rather having everyone sing their own solo simultaneously) with the focus being on dancing during the song, either while singing or during a clearly defined dance break. Frankly, in terms of my own work, I’m discovering that I like exploring footwork more than arm or torso movement. But I also discovered that the more footwork I did, the more natural arm and torso movement became. I’ll have to push that further.

(Sunset from the ACT balcony last night)

Rehearsal #4: Oops, I missed it

2009-10-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

I did not go to rehearsal this week as I was recovering from some strange non-flu virus that had me sleeping 24 hours a day. Here's Clay's picture from rehearsal:

As I understand it, they started with this week's choreographers teaching their dances:

Clay -- aggressive poppy hip-hop
Trish -- tense contemporary conflict (Massive Attack!)
Merrill -- flirty girl pop

Then they did some singing and finally some show starts.

Rehearsal #3: Formations

2009-10-14T19:00:00.000-07:00

Last night at rehearsal we started a little late due to the crazy rain storm we had yesterday. We moved pretty quickly into Mandy’s dance warm-up, which you can see in all of its glory here. And then split up into three groups so that three more cast members could teach us choreography. Susan taught her group a Fosse-esque tap routine. Dave (the group I was in) taught some zombie dancing, and Michael led some sexy partner dancing. The big take a ways were: 1. moving towards or away form the audience looks cool. 2. looking like you’re having a good time is way more important than being spot on with the dance moves.

From there we went over some group dance formations. Things like circles, lines, columns. And ways to move around in those formations. In previous shows we’ve tended to get locked into one or two formations. We’re trying break out of that and make things more textured.

Then we warmed up our singing voices and practiced some Verse/Chorus songs in a circle before attempting some actual opening numbers.

The opening number of Let It Snow has always been very structured. It’s a good way to kick the show off right and set the tone for the rest of the night. Mandy & Susan are mixing it up in several ways. First off, instead of one person going out to set the chorus, everyone is going to go out and “inhabit an environment”. Mill around, interact. Be somewhere that suggests the town. Then one person will emerge to sing the song’s first verse, while everyone’s still inhabiting the world. Then a second person will start singing the chorus. Everyone will notice them. Then when everyone repeats the chorus along with them, they’ll assume a formation. We’ll return to that formation for every chorus, but assume new formations during the verses. That will hopefully spur some more movement. Fortunately so many people in the cast have done this show before and everyone can handle all this complexity.

We did three opening numbers last night. The three towns we did escape me at the moment, but the details weren’t important. The important thing was seeing that structure in action and seeing that it can work and look good. We also learned to “mill” with purpose and energy, to really grab the moment when you want to sing the next verse or set the chorus. The new structure makes it less apparent who’s going to sing next.

Next week we focus more on improv and the week after on dance. The shows coming up fast! Did you know that ticket are already on sale? From now until November 1, you can use the coupon code “SPECIAL” to get 25% off when you buy tickets through our website. Buy Ticket Here.

Every Day Improv

2009-10-09T07:30:00.000-07:00

Susan's teaching a class in the East Bay in October:

Every Day Improv with Susan Snyder
Enjoy exploring the world of improvisation in a low pressure, playful environment.
Increase your confidence, improve your public speaking skills, and enjoy the experience along the way. This class is for adults wanting their first taste of improv, and those returning to deepen their range of improvisational expression. Shy people welcome.

Dates: Sundays, October 18 & 25
Time: 12:30-3:30pm
Location: Temescal Arts Center, Oakland, CA
(street parking, walking distance from MacArthur BART)
Cost: $40 single class/ sign up for 2 or more $30 a class

Contact Susan

Rehearsal #2: A Little Bit of Everything

2009-10-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

For our second rehearsal for Let It Snow we did a little bit of dancing, a little bit of singing, and a little bit of improv. Sort of an overview of the entire show.

I got lead my favorite name-game warm-up exercise for the firs time with this cast. Since we didn’t do the exercise during the auditions, this was several cast members first time playing. Even so, it went very smoothly. We made it all the way up to four patterns. It went so smoothly in fact, I kept thinking I was doing something wrong in leading it.

Mandy and Susan want everyone in the cast to experience being a choreographer. At every rehearsal three people have to teach a group of 3-4 other cast members some sort of choreographed dance. I was one of the choreographers this week. We had to choreograph a minimum of 16 counts, so that’s what I did. It was mostly stepping and jazz hands with one complicated turn. In any case, it took me the entire 10 minutes to teach it.

Then as we watched the other groups perform their dances, I was astounded to see how complicated and long other people’s pieces were. I should have done more, but at the same time I showed all you really needed to do was 16 counts. Still, good to see how far people are willing to push things.

Then we worked on the Verse/Chorus song structure we’ve been experimenting with. Instead of starting a song with a chorus, we start a song with a verse. Then the second person to sing sets the chorus. It’s more like regular songs, but can be tricky. Still, it went well. We followed that up by singing duets. Mandy and Susan had everyone pair up and sing a duet all at the same time. That way everyone got to sing 3 songs.

Finally we did two show-starts. Susan had printed out some brief info on small towns that we used as suggestions and then dove into the first three scenes of a show. We did Genoa, NV and Cranbury, NJ. I was in the Cranbury one and played a not-so-swift hardware store employee who confused “asphalt” for “screws”. There was some good word play in that scene including Susan saying “I think you’re screwed” and Dave singing a song about it not being his “fault” they were out of “asphalt”.

The take-aways, I think, were to look for themes to develop (“Nevada started here in Genoa, so we’re going to start something”) and to remember small towns do have upper to upper-middle class residents (we tend to only ever play working-class folk). We also saw perhaps the first scene in a Let It Snow rehearsal or show ever to take place in someone’s garage. Lisa also did some kick-ass space object work establishing the hardware store.

Rehearsal #1: Dancing and Group Scenes

2009-09-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

We had our first rehearsal for Let It Snow! 2009 last night. We’ve done this show three times previously (2004, 2005, and 2007) making it our first quadruple threat show! (I think we did only did You Bet Your Improvisor and The Short and the Long of It three times each, but the complete list of all Un-Scripted shows seems to have not survived the new web redesign. Hopefully it will be reappearing soon.) But we’ve never done Let It Snow! like this before. For the first time ever, someone other than Tara is directing it.

Tara developed the show based largely on her experiences growing up in a small town in Maine. In fact, she was so committed to her vision of the show that she has moved back to a small town in Maine. This regrettably makes her unavailable to direct the show. This year the show is being directed by Mandy with a healthy dose of assisting from Susan. Now, while audience members frequently confuse Mandy for Tara or Susan for Tara, technically speaking Mandy & Susan are not Tara. Rather than wondering “What Would Tara Do?” Mandy & Susan are going to just going to do what they would do within the same framework. Thus the show will inherently be different, because, as previously stated Mandy & Susan are not Tara.

This show marks a number of other firsts. It will be the first time ensemble member Clay has ever performed in Let It Snow! It will also be the first show Trish performs in as an ensemble member. We also have a nice mix of returning and new cast members. The full list is:

Bryce Byerley - ensemble
Dave Dyson - ensemble
Michael Fleming – previously in Shakespeare the Musical
Alan Goy - ensemble
Merrill Gruver – previously in Shakespeare the Musical
Alyssa Harvey – previously in Fear
Karen Hirst – previously in Theater the Musical and Let It Snow!
Scott Keck – previously in… many shows.
Mandy Khoshnevisan - ensemble
Clay Robeson - ensemble
Jodi Skeris – new!
Susan Snyder - ensemble
Trish Tillman - ensemble
Christian Utzman - ensemble
Lisa Wang – new!

And we got off to a fine start last night. We opened with some ice-breaking exercises so we could all get to know each other and then launched right into dancing. Mandy ran us through a series of moves and then made everyone lead the group in some dancing to different styles. It was a workout, fortunately I’ve been hitting the gym in recent months to prepare.

We capped off the day with some improv! We worked on group scenes where several characters ganged up on another for some reason. Why? Because those scenes generally give the audience the sense that the characters all know each other very well. As Keith Johnstone says (paraphrased) “friends play with each other’s status while strangers leave each other’s status alone.” But these scenes are often difficult to improvise, as they can easily devolve into everyone talking over each other.

All-in-all we did a reasonably good job. We learned to focus on nuance and relationships as opposed to activities. I was in one scene the set up for which was a group of people waiting outside for the fishing license shop to open for the season. Quickly it became endowed as ice-fishing season and Scott and Karen launched in with Northern Minnesotan “Fargo” accents. I was amazed at how much fun I had doing the Fargo accent and how easily I was able to do it. Within the scene I was actually aware of how I wasn’t thinking about the accent at all. It was just coming out. I love doing accents and I’d forgotten how much I love doing Fargo.

Mostly though we all did a good job of talking over each other just enough to look like friends, while still being able to hear what was going on. A promising start!

Fear 2004

2009-09-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

This poster was framed and at the bottom of the stairs leading into La Val's when we did Fear in 2004

At Last Night's Audition

2009-09-16T11:20:00.001-07:00

Let It Snow! - Auditions

2009-09-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

Improvisors Wanted!

The Un-Scripted Theater Company is holding auditions for its next show, Let It Snow!, an improvised musical for the holidays, filled with good old-fashioned Broadway singing and dancing. (Think The Music Man.) The show is set every night in the hometown of an audience member, and over the three seasons that we've performed the show, we've visited small towns from North Pole AK to Manunka Chunk NJ to Wailua HI, and lots of places in between. It's a really fun show to perform, and always an audience (and improvisor) favorite.

We're looking for improvisors who ideally have longform experience as well as an enthusiasm for singing/dance.

** Auditions will be in the evening, on Monday, Sept. 14th, and Tuesday, Sept. 15th.
Rehearsals will be on Tuesdays, starting Sept. 29th; the show runs
Nov. 19th - Dec. 19th.
All of the above in downtown SF near Union Square.

If you're interested in auditioning, email Susan (click here) for more information or to reserve yourself a slot -- make sure to mention which date you'd prefer. Our auditions are conducted more like a rehearsal or class, so be prepared to stay for at least an hour. If you're wondering whether you should audition, the answer is almost always yes! We pride ourselves on our fun, low-pressure auditions, and we always love meeting improvisors, so come on down and give it a shot!

www.un-scripted.com

Ensemble Rehearsal #7: Genre Combo

2009-08-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

This week we multitasked by having a business meeting first and then rehearsal. Fortunately we were able to plow through our meeting agenda fairly quickly and still have time for a reasonable rehearsal.

As per usual, we sang some Verse/Chorus songs. Then we practiced the format we’ve accidentally performed at our last two shows (the SF Theater Fest and the Temporary Improv Fest). That being getting 3-4 genres from the audience and doing them all at the same time. Let’s see if I can remember what we did:

70’s Detective TV Show, Jane Austen, Brecht
Slasher, Mark Twain, Shakespeare
80’s B-Movie Sci-Fi, Caveman, Checkov

It’s really impossible to process all of them at once. Generally you have to use one genre mostly as setting and another for character or plot elements. At any given time your just focusing on one or two hoping someone else is picking up the others. It works fairly well. We also think they work better when at least one of the genres is more general (like “tragedy” or “horror”).

That was pretty much it. Again, a short rehearsal.

The Toiletries That Ate San Francisco

2009-08-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

In 2006, the Un-Scripted Theater Company did a show called the Impossible Film Project. The show worked something like this:

A team of improvisors and a director wih a camera get a suggestion from a live audience and then take to the streets of San Francisco to shoot a movie guerrilla style. As they finish a tape, it's run back to the theater where the audience sees it almost live.

I was fortunate enough to be in a few of these and serve as the director/camera man on a few as well. This was one of my favorites. We had a lot of fun making it and I have never actually seen the entire thing before. (The nature of the show meant you didn't get to see the film you were shooting screened.) Now it's all up on YouTube and I can present to you The Toiletries That Ate San Francisco!

For this film the suggestion was an actual object, a bag of toiletries an audience member had with them. The improvisors had no pre-planned script. All they knew was the style of the movie: 1950's B-Movie.

Featuring:
Kimberley MacLean as Buffy
Maggie Farril as Bambi
Christian Utzman as Dick Moondoggie
and in an uncredited role:
Brian McBride as The Mad Scientist

and countless extras from the streets of San Francisco

Directed by Alan Goy

Ensemble Rehearsal #6: Steady Going

2009-08-13T16:02:00.000-07:00

I don’t have too too much to report about Tuesday’s ensemble rehearsal. We leapt right into more of the Verse Chorus Verse songs I mentioned in Rehearsal 4 with similarly strong results. Then we went back to the exercises we did in Rehearsal 2 that resulted in the inadvertent one-acts. Again they were really solid.

We told a story about some distracted bank robbers that turned into a game of “torture Bryce’s character”. There was an epic futuristic war story that veered too cinematic in style and didn’t feel as much like a play. Then we had Pinter meets Albee meets Becket in a story about gambling and rent payments. That one was fun. Finally we told an upper British love tragedy about a butler pining for his mistress.

We experimented with ways to make the characters more diverse while still style matching with some success. In the “gambling” one I consciously tried to style match while playing a completely different pace than the other characters. It was hard, but I think it worked.

Improv For Everyone

2009-08-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

Susan's teaching a class in the East Bay in September:

Improv for Everyone with Susan Snyder
Enjoy exploring the world of improvisation in a low pressure, playful environment. Increase your confidence, improve your public speaking skills, and enjoy the experience along the way. This class is for people wanting their first taste of improv, and those returning to deepen their range of improvisational expression. Shy people welcome.

Dates: Sunday, Sept 13th & Sunday Sept 26th
Time: 12:30-3:30pm
Location: Temescal Arts Center, Oakland, CA
(street parking, walking distance from MacArthur BART)
Cost: $40 single class or sign up for both for $60

Contact Susan

Ensemble Rehearsal #4: The Best

2009-07-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

After starting rehearsal learning some Bollywood dance choreography as a warm up, we spent some time discussing, among other things, what we wanted to be working on. We realized that we often spend a lot of time focusing on our faults as improvisors and how we can improve them. Of course, because of the nature of the art form, we have to do this so we are all capable of juggling any and all balls that might get thrown at us. As an example: I need to be able to play the hero, villain, love interest, or side characters depending on what the show needs.

But what we don’t do is push ourselves to get better at the things we’re already good at. Bryce is really good at playing villains. How can we push him to get better at playing villains? If we start giving each other notes on what we’re good at and challenging each other to get even better, we’ll find out what we’re good at, grow in new ways, and learn new things that everyone can benefit form. Very exciting.

It all reminded me of something I had heard August Wilson say in a master class. Every time he sat down to write a play he set out to write the best play that had ever been written. Otherwise, what was the point? Why bother? I tried to research an actual cited version of that quote and what I found was even better:

For years I sat in that chair and tried to best my predecessors, to write the best play that’s ever been written. That was my goal until I ran across a quote by Frank Lloyd Wright, who said he didn’t want to be the best architect who ever lived. He wanted to be the best architect who was ever going to live. That added fuel to the fire and raised the stakes, so to speak. Now you’re not only doing battle with your predecessors but with your successors as well. It drives you to write above your talent. And I know that’s possible to do because you can write beneath it.

That’s how I want to write. That’s how I want to improvise.

Then we moved on to singing. Typically when we sing songs in rehearsal we do a “Chorus/Verse” song, where one person starts by setting a chorus, we all repeat it, and then we all take turns doing verses. Except we never end up singing songs like that in shows, and really, very songs are like that to begin with.

During the last Shakespeare show, they worked on “Verse/Chorus” songs. The idea was to start with a verse, like most songs do, then the next person sets the chorus (but we do not repeat it together yet). The next person does a verse and then everyone sings the chorus together. Then everyone takes turns singing verses. The result is much more like an actual song, and hopefully more likely to happen I a show (with practice).

We took this a step further though and tried to merge with the exercise the work we had done on acting in other people’s styles. The idea was to mimic the person’s singing style. Not the notes, but the tamber, cadence, vowel structure, etc. This pushed people outside of their normal vocal patterns and pointed out patterns and habits that we people had. All very useful.

Ensemble Rehearsal #2: Inadvertant One-Acts

2009-07-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

For the first time ever, the Un-Scripted Theater Company has been having ensemble rehearsals where we get together and play without preparing for any specific show. Last night we had the second one of these and did some really interesting work that was simultaneously unlike anything we usually do while still being stereotypical of our work.

We started by doing a character movement exercise lead by Mandy. There’s a name for it, but I can’t remember what it is. It involves moving around the room and taking on different physical characteristics as a way to experiment with different physicalities and movement styles. We wanted to work with how movement influences character and break out of the movement ruts we individually typically fall into to.

To move this idea into scene work, we did a variation on an exercise Christian often uses in his classes. One person started a scene as a character they wanted to see inhabit a world. Then other people came in not exactly mimicking that character (because we didn’t want scenes with 5 of the same character) but mimicking that person’s acting style, as if everyone in the scene had graduated from the same 8 year acting school. Similar speech and movement but not identical. Coming from the same place, but not the same.

The resulting scenes were more like one-act plays than any scenes I’ve ever seen trying to be one-act plays. We theorized a number of reasons for this. One being that because every character in a play is written by the same person, all of the characters have a similarity that this mimicking recreated in our scenes. Another was that we weren’t entering the scenes at the next plot point but at the next character point. We didn’t enter once we knew what should happen next, but we entered once we had the next character that should be in the world. As a result the scenes didn’t have strong protagonists, yet felt like every character was the protagonist at one moment or another. (Something we had worked on more directly and less successfully during Theater The Musical.)

No one ever felt pressured in these scenes to come up with what should happen next. Even when something was happening in the scenes, the scenes weren’t about that. They were about the characters and their relationships, which are what stories should be about but often aren’t.

Every scene we did could have been fleshed out into an entire play (or I suppose a sketch if that’s how your mind works) or could have been a brilliant improv scene in performance. Here’s a brief list of the scenes with hopefully just enough detail to jog my memory down the line:

- A disgruntled teacher’s lounge with a gay yoga instructor and a classic porn stash.
- A “black widow” haunted by her murdered husbands and a “black widower” haunted by his murdered wives go on a date and decide to join forces: Blithe Spirit meets Arsenic and Old Lace meets The Brady Bunch.
- A cowardly deputy saves the town in spite of himself. Tarrantino meets Deadwood meets Blazing Saddles.
- Two strangers finally speak to each other on a subway train after countless train rides together.

And many others. I wish we’d taped the rehearsal.

BOB Voting

2009-06-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

Voting for Best of the Bay 2009 ends TODAY at 5pm. So while you’re voting on PAGE 2 for the “Un-Scripted Theater Company” for the BEST THEATER COMPANY category, here are some of my picks (ok, they're actually Christian's and I copied them from his Facebook) that I think you should consider for your vote as well. Remember, you can vote from anywhere in the world, so tell your parents to get out the vote for the things you love in the Bay Area too.
http://www.sfbg.com/bobpoll2009/

Best Dessert – Bi-Rite Creamery
Best Bakery – Tartine
Best Theater Company – Un-Scripted Theater Company
Best Emerging Artist – Uriah Duffy
Best Dive Bar – Zeitgeist
Best Burlesque Act – Tit 4 Tat
Best Place to Buy Bikes and Gear – Manifesto
Best Place to Buy Vinyl – 1-2-3-4 Go
Best Local Designer – Wild Card
Best Quirky Specialty Store – 5 and Diamond
Best Place to Meet Someone – Baxtalo Drom The Lucky Road
Best First Date Spot – Paxton Gate
Best Local Web Site – un-scripted.com
Best Bicycle Mechanics – Freewheel Bike Shop
Best Arts Organization – Half Priced Ticket Booth in Union Square
Best Classic Artist – Dave Warnke

Let your voice be heard! In 50 words or less - This is a great place to tell the world how much you love the Un-Scripted Theater Company.

What I've Learned About Directing

2009-04-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

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!

Bollywood in Chicago

2009-04-21T15:39:00.000-07:00

“Sold out weeks ago” I believe was the statement I had heard weeks ago, and yet there was a notable contingent of empty seats in the house Saturday night for our performance of The Great Puppet Bollywood Extravaganza at the Chicago Improv Festival. (I’m fairly certain we had a larger crowd for our show at the festival back in 2005.) Hmm… I am told the marketing material for the festival contained a very poor description of our show (a “90 minute puppet show” or some such) which just goes to show you should always pitch the show you’re actually doing not the one you think your audiences want to see.

In any case, we still put on a fun and solid show for the folks who braved an unseasonably warm and drizzly Chicago night for the 11:30pm show. Fortunately the good folks of the festival gave us a full 2 hour time-slot in an actual theater to do our show. (Most improv in Chicago is an hour long which we learned is partially because theaters rent space by the hour for about the same amount we get space for an entire evening.) Unfortunately this meant our show didn't end until almost 1:30. You haven't lived until you've taken an intermission at 12:15am.

I’m sure eventually we will get some footage up on our YouTube channel, but for the time being, here’s the show summary that will appear in this week’s email:

Pooja, Sagar, & Raja's Excellent Adventure or A Revolution in Time

Sagar (Christian) and Raja (Alan as puppet George) take a job with the eccentric village plumber (Dave as puppet Andy) so they can court his daughter Pooja (Mandy). But Pooja is betrothed to the evil Rajiv (Clay as puppet Dungeon) whose father, the mad Dr. Chowdhury (Jenny as a finger puppet) wants to take over the village with his inhuman ideas about science. Instead of working on her father's wind-powered indoor plumbing device, Pooja, Sagar, and Raja build a time machine that takes them on an adventure across time and space and pirates. Will their travels save Pooja from her arranged marriage, the town from destruction, and Raja from certain death?

I managed to work in the phrase “What the fish?” many times, and helped shape a time travel plot that actually made sense, complete with my character from the future showing up in the present and dying at the top of the second half. This made for some really interesting scenes between my character in the present and the characters who knew I was going to die. Then of course came the highly satisfying scene near the end when my character finally got stabbed.

Drama you can only have with time travel really.

I think my singing was even halfway decent too, as I continue my quest to actually sing in my range. Much harder to do than it sounds.

Rehearsal #8: Keep it Going

2009-03-19T18:27:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

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: Time-Lapsed

2009-03-07T23:10:00.000-08:00

Rehearsal #6: Final "Dress"

2009-03-05T15:27:00.000-08:00

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!