Improv Class 3 December 2008

I like the way this picture captures the energy of a Tag Out Story. Roberta is about to tap out Zoe, with Molly, Nancy, and Brian anxious to take their turn. You can see the other photos from this night at our album. We had 15 players for the night, and we did the Tag Out Story exercise right after our warm-ups. Then we did some character work with Animal Transform scenes. I thought that exercise went extremely well.

Then came Irish Drinking Song, and we finished with 3-Line Drill To Full Scene. Although it takes quite a bit of time, I like that exercise because the strong starts from the 3-Line Drill and the well established wants for both players, makes the scenes really interesting to watch and a lot of fun to play. I thought these were great.

Improv Class November 2008

I want to thank Victoria and Mike for filling during the month of November. Even though I was on vacation all month, the workshop still met every week, and by all reports the classes were fantastic. I even got back in time to see the last Wed. night class. Mike was teaching and I had a blast.

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures from those classes. And so, this is a short entry.

Improv Class October 2008

I got a bit behind in postings, so I'm going to do a quick month's summary to catch up. Here are the links to our albums for the month of October, 2008. October 1, 2008

I knew this was the picture to represent the class: Victoria completely committing to her role. There are a lot more pictures in the album from this week.

We had a big class (25 players) and besides our warm-ups we did Slow Motion Commentary, Opera Translator, Irish Drinking Song, and World's Worst.

October 8, 2009

I was out of town for this week, and Victoria took over the class. Unfortunately, that means there were no pictures from this class, so we're left with ephemeral memories.

October 15, 2008

A big group of 115 photos in the album from this class, although it was a smaller group of players (16 seems like a small group nowadays)

We also got in games of Mutant, Playbook, Irish Drinking Song, and some 3-Line Drills.

October 22, 2008

This is one of the photos from our Art Museum game. All the photos can be found at this week's album. I have a large group of 25 players recorded for the night (including Li-At's brother!)

We also played the Repeating Scene Changing Genre game and the Irish Drinking Song. Unfortunately, I'm missing notes on how we ended the night (3-Line Drill?)

October 29, 2008

We played a game of Knots, which is one of those great non-competitive games from the 1970's (okay, I'm old). The other photo's from the night can be found at the album. We also played Who Am I? and the Irish Drinking Song. Once again, though, I'm missing notes on the other games we played.

Hmm. The problem with not getting the class notes posted right away is that they are often incomplete, and my memory doesn't last much more than a week. I'll get caught up over this next week.

Improv Class 24 September 2008

Okay, we hit some kind of record. There were 465 photos taken during this class. I wittled that down to 159 photos in the album, and out of all that, I chose this photo for the album cover. I loved the expressions on all three of them (Lillia, Roberta, and Li-At). After our standard warm-ups, we did a full round of Reason For Being Late. We followed that up with Last Letter Scenes, and then 185. A lot of folks hadn't had the...opportunity to paticipate in a 185 exercise before, and as I mentioned at the time, you just need to get out and do it. Volume is more important that quality.

We sang a set of Irish Drinking Songs, and then ended the night with a couple of sets of Bus Stop.

Improv Class 17 September 2008

This wasn't a 3-Headed Expert scene - just 3 guys (Andre, James, and Patrick - with Nacy looking on) who made a touching connection in this scene. This and other pictures are available in the album for this class. After our warm-ups, we started our scene work with a full rotation of Gift Giving. We followed that with a series of Phone Bank scenes. I like that exercise because it's good practice at taking and giving focus, and I think everyone did pretty well.

Then came Continuing Scene Changing Genre. There were some great scenes the made fantastic use of the given genres. A lot of very fun work.

We had a round of Irish Drinking Songs, but this time we did them as Day In The Life stories. Each group got to listen as I interviewed someone in the audience about their day. Then, the song had to incorporate what they heard, retelling that person's experiences in the course of the day. A nice challenge around pacing and listening for the beats in a story. Some great moments ("I only have 2 seconds").

We finished with a 3-Line Drill exercise, which we haven't done for a bit. I want to keep focusing on open scene work as a way to sharpen everyone's performance skills, so expect to see more of this exercise.

Improv Class 10 September 2008

No pictures from this class due to a problem with my camera (no batteries!). It was another big class with 26 people, but we got quite a bit of work in. After our usual warm-up exercises (Character Intros, Whoosh Bang Pow, 1-Word Story), we started out with a Yes And...Story exercise. This was new for everyone, and it's a good beginning exercise.

We also got a round of Create Objects To Speak scenes, which was a good challenge for everyone. We'll need to do more physical/pantomime work.

After a round of Irish Drinking Song, we did the Bus Stop scene for our advanced scene work. I thought that went pretty well, but I can see we need to also get back to working on our open scenes.

It's so boring without pictures.

Improv Class 3 September 2008

I don't say often enough how much you all crack me up. I enjoy the amazing complete pieces with interesting relationships and magic between the experienced players as well as the struggles and raw insights of the new players. I don't remember what happened during this 3-Headed Expert scene, but I remember being completely out of control with laughter. Thanks to you all for keeping me enthusiastic about showing up each week for this time together. You will find more pictures from the class in this weeks album. It was a big class with 25 players, and we spent some time going over more performance pieces. After our usual warm-ups, everyone got in a Counting Words scene, and we had a complete set of 3-Headed Expert scenes.

We sang the Irish Drinking Song and then worked on Scenes From A Hat for some more advanced scene work. Since everthing went so well, we included all of these pieces in the show on the 6th.

It was a good day to improvise.

Improv Class 27 August 2008

You know, I can't always articulate why a particular photo tickles my fancy. Ever since I started using the albums as a way to make a lot more of the photos from each workshop available, I try to pick out my one favorite photo as a representative of the night. There's something about these two grown men mugging for the camera that just summarizes my continued enthusiasm for improv. In some ways, it's a public service. Would really want these two out on the streets every Wednesday night? We were at another new location while our regular digs are going through their final primping. The Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center was gracious enough to let us use their training room for the workshop this week, and it was a great space. We had 16 players for the night. None were brand new, although we had one player there for her second night.

Our warm ups included a large group 1 Person Move exercise and a couple of 1 Word Story groups. After that, I wanted to make sure that we worked on some games that are typical performance pieces rather than just exercise pieces.

We got in a full rotation of Pillars, where everyone got a chance to play both a pillar and a performer. Then we did a series of Sound Effects scenes before singing the Irish Drinking Song. We ended the night with a set of Expert Panel scenes.

A good night, especially since it was a slightly smaller workshop than usual. Next week we will be back in our usual location, Jefferson Hall - 1525 Santa Barbara Street.

Temporary Location for Improv Class

This week (27 August 2008) we will be in a new location. Our regular site is undergoing some renovation and isn't available (but we will be back there next week). We will be a few blocks away at the Training Room of the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center, 433 E. Canon Perdido Street (you can click on the picture or the street address to get a Google map). It's a nice space and there's loads of off-street parking. The building is located near the intersection with Olive Road, and the parking lot is right across where Vine Ave dead ends into Canon Perdido (the entrance to the parking lot is shown in the photo). I'll have signs posted up, but we will be downstair where the back door comes out onto the parking lot (far left in the photo).

I'll see you all there!

Improv Class 20 August 2008

We were in a new location this last week as our usual space was getting a face lift. Just a short flight up some stairs, we had more couches than folding chairs in use. And, as you can see in this picture, one of our 1-Word Story groups got a chance to work outside. More photos can be found in the album. Our warm-ups included Character Intro, Whoosh-Bang-Pow, and 1-Word Story. Then we moved into Tag Out Story, and then 5 Letter Word. And with the large group this week (21 players), we did a few rotations of Family Gathering to work on some group pantomime skills.

We continued working on the 50's Do-Wop Song this week. Andy again brought his guitar, which helped everyone stay on rhythm and pitch. It's still a challenging piece, but I think folks are getting the swing of it.

We ended the night with Switch Dubbing, which gave everyone the chance to practice their ... rusty (and often varying) accents.

Finally, I know we will not be in our usual location next week (it's still being upgraded), and the temporary location from this week will NOT be available. I'll post the new location once it has been finalized.

Improv Class 13 August 2008

Here's a group shot with everyone doing the Mirror exercise. Also in this week's class album, there are quite a few shots from the scenes using hats and costume props. The camera died early, but the pictures we did get are a lot of fun. We had 24 people in class this week, and we started with the Mirror exercise along with 1-Word Story. I brought a couple of bins worth of hats and props, and out first exercise using them was Video Dating. Lots of great characters were created, and I really liked the times there were two character scenes. Nice work.

We got in a set of Standing Sitting Bending scenes before our next big challenge, which was a new song (or at least one we haven't done in a very long time). For the 50's Do Wop song, Andy was gracious enough to bring his guitar and keep us all on-beat and on-key. And I think everyone was excited to be working on a new song, even if the pattern is a bit more difficult. We did pretty well for the 5(!) rotations.

We ended the night with a Character Pass scene. It was another chance to use the hats and create bold characters. It was pretty challenging to be changing characters throughout the scene, but it was a lot of fun.

Improv Class 6 August 2008

Stanley stands victorious over his fellow improvisers after defeating them in a round of Story Story Die. There were 21 people who participated in this and a variety of other improv games. You can see them all in the photos collected in the album. Story Story Die was the first bit of stage work we did after our usual warm-ups. We followed that with a series of ABC scenes.

The Irish Drinking Song came next, and everyone seemed to belt out particularly good songs that night.

We ended with a series of Typewriter scenes, an appropriately more difficult exercise to keep everyone on their toes.

Improv Class July 30, 2008

This is a scene from a TV Clicker game in which Patrick, Mike, Alphonse, and Tom are all holding guns on each other. We had 20 people in class on this night, and it just happened that no one was brand new. All were returning players. You can see the rest of the pictures in the album. After our Character Intros and 1-Word Story warm-ups, we did some Transprov and then History of an Object. We haven't done History of an Object in quite awhile, and I think we all got a pretty good historical perspective on the egg-beater, the zipper, and lipstick.

Our scene work started with rounds of 5-Letter Word. But that was just a warm-up for the real challenge I had in mind for the night. Everyone participated in Speaks for Other scenes, sometime called A Speaks for B Speaks for C Speaks for A (which is why I prefer the shorter name). It's a very difficult scene, with each player having to keep several characterizations active in their head. But I think everyone stood up to the challenge and performed it well.

The Irish Drinking Song was restful after that. And we ended the night with TV Clicker.

Instructor Substitution

Howdy Folks! I'll be out of town most of next week, and so Mike will be teaching the July 23 class. Mike's one of those substitute instructors for whom I get nothing but good reports (damn...)

I'll see you all the following week, July 30!

Improv Class July 16, 2008

It was another big class with 25 players participating, 5 of whom were brand new to the Santa Barbara Improv Workshop. Pictured here are Karla, Sienna, Addison with Andy's Jazz Hands coming out of her head, and Tracy. They're in the middle of a Machine exercise. You can see the rest of the pictures from this night at our album.

After our standard set of warm-ups (Character Intro, Whoosh Bang Pow, Relay, and One Word Story), we began our stage work with a full set of Yes And exercises. Then came Machine. We got to do some scene work with Continuing Scene Changing Genre.

Then we all participated in a set of Irish Drinking Songs and moved on to Entrances and Exits. We ended the night with a big Freeze Tag group.

Thanks to all the new players for getting up on stage and joining in!

Improv Class July 9, 2008

From the pieces of paper pictured in this week's album cover, you can see that we had a round of Surprise Lines scenes during class on Wednesday. Mark, Megan, and Andy were in this particular scene taking place at a bookstore. We had 24 players in class this week, including a couple of brand new players to our group, as well as a few returning from the improv noir of last week. Thanks for coming back!

We warmed up with Whoosh Bang Pow, getting through all 6 actions, and then broke up into 3 groups for One Word Story. Back on stage, we did a full rotation of Hitchhiker followed by Surprise Lines. We also got in Party Quirks, a game we haven't played in quite awhile.

We had a full five sets of the ever popular Irish Drinking Song and then ended the night with several World's Worst performances. Everyone had a chance to portray three or four different professions.

And that's a quick thumbnail review of the night (posted before the next class!)

Improv Class July 2, 2008

Don't adjust your screen; that is a big black image. There aren't any pictures from this class because Santa Barbara was in the middle of a blackout from the Gap fire. About 15 minutes before class began, the power went out all through the city. We decided to proceed anyway, since we assumed power would come on shortly. We ended up spending the entire class without power, and the last hour in total darkness. And the challenges kept mounting as we found out the bathrooms were unavailable due to construction at the site. We eventually found the key to a porta-potty set up by the construction people.

And, we just happened to have a large number of new folks show up this night. There were over 20 people in the class. I don't have an accurate count because I couldn't tell when folks were coming & going.

And, we were also getting ready for a recital the next Saturday, so there was a fair amount of preparation and review for everyone who was in the show.

However, the night was fabulous! I don't know if it was the anonymity of the darkness, the adrenaline of the fires, nerves around the recital, or everyone just having the right attitude to overcome all the adversities, but we had a wonderful class.

I don't have a complete list of the exercises from that night (it was DARK!) but I know we did an Emotional List set and Alliterations. Of course we did the Irish Drinking Song. And because it was so dark, we ended the night with Spoon River.

Thank you everyone for really pulling together on what could have been a difficult night!

Classes, June 2008

Next up are the four workshops conducted in June 2008. We had a big class on 6/4/08. 25 players by my count, with photographic evidence stored in the album.

With that big a group, my notes suffered a bit. I show that we did a Yes & exercise (Advertising), Story Story (without the Die), Entrances and Exits, and (of course) the Irish Drinking Song.

The 6/11/08 workshop was down to only (!) 20 people. I picked this album cover because it's such a flattering shot of Karla. And Tom, on his first night at Improv, looks properly intimidated.

We got quite a few exercises in after our usual warm ups. We did a full round of Tag Out Story, then Build A Scene. Next was Switch Dubbing followed by the Irish Drinking Song. We ended the night on a set of Survivor scenes.

For the workshop on 6/18/08, we had to find a new location. Our usual practice space at Jefferson Hall was unavailable as they began some major remodeling of the facility. Luckily, Nancy was able to provide a fabulous space at the Jewish Community Center. We were surrounded by beautiful artwork, and you can see all the pictures in the album.

I also want to thank everyone who followed the signs to our new location for the night. Especially all the new players!

Once again, my notes were not very good from that night, but I've recorded 18 people participating in our 5 Letter Word scenes. I know we also did Story Story Die and TV Clicker. And, of course, the Irish Drinking Song.

The last workshop in June (6/25/08) had us back in Jefferson Hall with 16 players. For some reason the photographers went nuts and we have a LOT of photos in the album. Enjoy!

After warm-ups, the night consisted of Pillars, Expert Panel, and the Irish Drinking Song. For the advanced part of the night, we did the long form exercise Assigned Professions. We got quite a few rounds in, and I think everyone got a chance to see their characters evolve over several scenes and interacting with other characters.

And that's the summary of the June workshops. Let's see if we (okay I) can get back to a weekly update schedule.

Classes, May 2008

I'm on a bit of a roll catching up, so next is the summary for May 2008. The class on 5/7/08 had 19 players including some brand new players and one returning player who's been sorely missed. You can see it all in the album.

We tried out a new exercise called By The Numbers which went pretty well, and then did a round of Quirks to practice character work. We also got in Entrances and Exits as well as an Irish Drinking Song and then Who Am I.

On 5/14/08 we had a smaller class of 13 people, and the pictures are in the album.

We did 5 Letter Word scenes, and then a new exercise called One Syllable Words (and yeah, the name says it all). We did a long round of Puppets where everyone got the chance to be a puppet as well as a puppeteer. After the Irish Drinking Song, we did some open scene work with Assigned Professions.

The 5/21/08 class again saw the return of some familiar faces that have been missed the last few months. See them in the album for that night.

We did a few new exercises starting with the 9 Line Scene and then the X Word Scene. Everyone did quite well with both exercises. We also did Playbook and the Irish Drinking Song. We ended the night with the 3 line Drill.

The last class of May (5/28/08) had 15 players, and you can see the photos in the album for the night.

In addition to the warm-ups, we did a set of Art Museum exercises. We went on to Decreasing Time Scenes and Irish Drinking Song. For the advanced part of the night, we did 3 Line Drills and Assigned Professions.

And those are the classes we had in May 2008.

Classes, April 2008

We had five classes in April, so let's get right to the links and a quick summary of each night. Only a few pictures made it out of the 4/2/08 class alive. Those that did can be seen at the album. We had 11 players there for the night,all of whom were repeat players.

In addition to our usual warm-ups, we got in a round of Mutant, a round of No P, and a round of Repeating Scene Changing Genre. Then came an Irish Drinking Song. For the last part of the night, we got a full set of 3-Line Drills and then had a chance to work on some One Acts.

I have no idea what this picture is about, but I like the physical pose. I know it occurred at the 4/9/08 class because it's one of the photos in the album (and there are quite a few pictures from this class).

We did a little bit of status work with a Pecking Order scene. Next came Sound Effects in which everyone had a chance to give sound effects as well as play against them. Our standard Irish Drinking Song was next, and then we ended the night with a 3-Line Drill.

I normally try to downplay pictures of myself teaching, but I made an exception for the 4/16/08 class. I unveiled the new, sleeker look on that night, as you can see in the album.

The 16 players got a chance to play 5 Letter Word scenes and Standing Sitting Bending scenes. Then came the ever popular Irish Drinking Song, followed by 3 Line Drills and then the night ended with some One Act work.

The 4/23/08 class was a big one with 21 players. You can see them all in the album for the night.

After the warm-ups, we started with a Class Picture To Scene exercise. Then we did a rotation of Pillars scenes where everyone got a chance to be the pillars as well as playing with the pillars. After the song, we then did a round of Entrances and Exits since we had such a large number of new players.

Once again, I don't think I need to explain the album cover for the night of 4/30/08. You just need to appreciate the stage positions.

After warm-ups, the 16 players did a full set of Machine exercises. Then came Decreasing Scene and Progressive Freeze Tag. An Irish Drinking Song was followed by a 3 Line Drill, which ended the night.

And that wraps up April of 2008.