Shakespeare had it right

The importance of a group’s name… it can be summed up in one really old quote:

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

To me, a troupe’s name is one of the least important things to worry about. With so many other considerations to think about during the formation period of a group, putting a great deal of energy into a troupe’s name isn’t that efficient. It is however, a little important, and worthy of at least a little thought. Gotta call it something, after all. I think that the groups I’m currently in would be just as successful with any number of different names, but a group name does help clue in your audience of what kind of experience they might expect.

Aside from my personal aversion to having a number as part of the group’s name*, any group name is on the table for me. When I look to name a new group, I try to get something either fun, badass, historical, descriptive, or some combination of said descriptors. Which of these I choose depends on the circumstances that surround the group.

Evidence the groups I have personally named, and reasons for such names:

Better Than Fair Players - my original theater group, so named as a group of us were sitting around at our original venue, the Wyandotte County Fair, wondering what name we should give ourselves. Fun, Historical, and Descriptive… just in case we had a less-than-stellar show (which only happened once in eight years, to my recollection).

Roving Imp - the current theater group and improv troupe, which came from a huge list of about 150 possible names. This was the only one my wife and I could agree on… and she wasn’t that big of a fan of it at first. We settled on this one for not only Unusual, Fun, and Subtly Descriptive reasons (since improvising is the main activity, which some people call “improving,” it’s a small leap to separate into two parts - imp roving - and then reverse - roving imp), but also because there were a lot of possibilities for marketing and logo creation (which has been described by journalistic professionals as “badass”).

Game Show - This one is completely Descriptive. Maybe I would have had better luck with a better name, but I doubt it. It seemed important to me to distinguish this from an actual improv show, which make up the majority of the rest of the RI schedule.

Movie Prov - Also completely Descriptive. Since it’s not an improv show per se, I owe it to my audiences to let them know.

Trivial Prov-suit - a little Fun, but mostly Descriptive. The play on words spoke to me.

Omega Directive - The newest group at RI, I chose this one mainly for Badass reasons. However, it’s also Subtly Descriptive. OD will use the one-sentence episode synopsis as the basis for its shows, and Omega Directive is the title of a particular episode of one of my favorite series.

Red Rubber Ball - Another RI group that will premier soon, RRB was basically chosen for its Fun connotations. The name implies energy and good times, which would be great for an audience to expect.

Others might have different ideas, but to me, it’s much more important to put on a good show, regardless of name. It doesn’t matter if you have the coolest name on the planet… if you suck, it won’t matter.

* - not to say I shudder when I see groups with numbers in their names… but if I had a group called, for example, Omega 6, I would tire of people asking things like, “If you’re Omega 6, why do you only have five people?” or “Are you part of the Omega 8s?” There’s a group from Washington called onesixtyone… I think. They might be oneeightyone or oneseventyone or something.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 13:47 and is filed under General, Background. 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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