Lessons Learned… Performing & Collaborating

Seeing a show in a new theater in Chicago was a great refresher. It’s really important for a serious improviser to get out and see what other people are doing, and it’s especially helpful if you can check out the scene in another city. Chicago, of course, has the most going on in improv, so there’s a lot to see. I was reminded me of several things that I had forgotten, or schooled me in things that I didn’t previously know. I’m going to split this into parts, as I learned a lot, and am also longwinded. Part I of that list follows:

A. Part of learning is performing: Very few things will change your behavior faster than doing something that is supposed to be comedy, and then getting no laughs. That’s good education… the kind that’s really tough to get in a workshop. I know performers who started out going for the quick easy joke, or by using quotes from television shows… to say the jokes and quotes fell flat would be an understatement. It’s funny when you’re in the context of a Simpsons episode… but not recycled coming from stage. I’ve told people this before, and they said they didn’t really believe it until they tried it in front of a crowd, and they felt people rolling their eyes without even looking.

On the other hand, nothing will reinforce your good habits faster than getting appreciation from an audience. Crafting a scene involving two characters with names that know each other and then exploring that relationship within the parameters of the scene seems like an interesting exercise during workshop. When the crowd goes nuts during a show because they can’t believe you just made up that entire scene, keeping them captivated and invested… well… there ain’t no better feelin’.

B. Different groups together: Nearly all the true Chicago-style longform shows are three-team events. It’s this way for the Harold teams at i.o., and for the teams I saw at the Playground.  Here in KC, this isn’t the norm, and it’s easy to forget that our way is not the only way. I feel like we’ve just recently figured this out, not only here at the Roving Imp (where we’re slowly phasing in multi-group nights), but also with multi-group nights that have been hosted at the Westport Coffee House. I know that the Trip 5s, Babelfish, Makeshift Militia, and several other groups have “split the rent” at WCH… I think as there get to be more and more improv groups in our city, this is going to be the way to go.

With more groups, there’s more competition for talent, venues, and audience… performing together could solve all those problems, and get your face out in front of people that wouldn’t normally come see you.  At RI, we’ve traditionally (in the past year) had one group do two shows back-to-back. That works well sometimes, but through some experimentation lately, I’ve found that presenting more than one group and allowing a little discount for seeing both really increases audience for both groups. For a theater owner, that’s important. We’ll be doing a lot more of this as I create or work out deals with more improv groups.

Part II to come…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 14:24 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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