Monday, April 27, 2009 by John Robison.

The shows we saw in Chicago ranged from mind-blowing to blood boiling. As a showcase of top talent across the country (and world), I had an expectation that the shows at the Chicago Improv Festival would be tours de force, helping inspire ideas in me and give me a standard of quality to shoot for. That wasn’t truly the case, however.

Out of the 14 shows I saw, I would consider three to be really great, two to be above average, five average, one below average, and three to be terrible. I’ll start with the top half. You should see these ensembles if you get the chance:

1. Mustache Rangers, Minneapolis, MN

Somehow the two men with fake mustaches managed to create a dynamic relationship and weave a fantastic story without ever moving from their chairs, or indeed, even turning their heads. The Rangers were so sharp and detail-specific that I found myself picturing their described scenarios in my head, no matter how impossible they might have been. Clever wordplay and brilliant relationship work showed us all exactly how great improv should be done. Go see the Rangers if you get the chance. You’ll be glad you did. Takeaways: Details are fabulous. I am a little jealous I didn’t think of this format first.

2. The DK & Morgan Show, Bellingham, WA

Great improv always has clearly defined, compelling relationships at its foundation, and this show was no exception. The two men (DK and Morgan) hopped around in a series of scenes, creating each relationship quickly - hunter & rabbit, lifeguards, business owner & employee, father & video game playing son… each scene had an interesting dynamic and found a game quickly. It sucked me right in. As with most sets, certain times found the men with a moment of waning energy, but the clever duo also had a pianist with them to help cover transitions, pick up energy, set mood, and enhance scenes. In the scene with the video game, the theme from “Super Mario Brothers” played softly in the background while the duo talked. The whole crowd applauded when the actor pushed the pause button, and the piano chimed in with the clipped ring identical to the pause music in the game.  Takeaways: Establishing definite relationships right out of the gate saves time. A good improv pianist is worth his/her weight in gold.

3. Late Night Tit Bits, Chicago, IL

This show was not part of the festival itself, but went on directly before my show. I would have seen whatever show happened right before mine - I’m glad I saw this one. It was advertised as “burlesque improv,” and it was… kinda. It was definitely a burlesque show. The smarmy male host did his job really well, keeping a great pace and keeping the crowd engaged between the scripted monologues of the six women, which were funny stories about how each got involved in burlesque performing (each actor kept the same character throughout); and each woman’s dance, each of which was energetic, fun, and sexy. In particular, my favorite was the real estate agent that just danced on the side… her dance was full of verve and joy, which made her amazing. On the improv side of the coin… it was there. The host took my suggestion of “burned out light bulbs” as the problem facing the house that evening, a suggestion which did indeed pop up from time to time during pre-determined “improv segments,” which featured some one-line jokes about the problem and some brainstorming about how to solve it. Improv only made up about 5-10% of the whole show… and the improv itself wasn’t terribly stellar, but it didn’t need to be, as the rest of the show was full of life and energy. I genuinely enjoyed myself…and would have been just as entertained if the improv had been absent altogether. Takeaways: Energy, commitment to a character, and fun count for a lot. A little skin doesn’t hurt either.

4. Imp’ers, Martha’s Vineyard, MA

This group was one of the apprentice teams, were really young, and had one of the best shows I saw at the whole festival. The five women and two men in this troupe performed “FarmProv,” in which each scene happened at a farm, and all the characters were animals. The strength of this troupe was that the great characters had believable relationships, and when they found the games in each scene, they played the hell out of them. In particular, a scene in which the chickens and lizards went to war against each other was hilarious. This troupe had its problems, sure (like lack of detail in scene painting)… but problems are so very easy to overlook when you have good basic improv skills combined with this much joy and exuberance. Great show. Takeaways: I already knew animal characters can be really funny - I have a lot of stock recurring animal characters that routinely bring the house down - but when you have an entire stage full of anthropromorphic animals, you’re freed from human constraints, and magic can happen. I may adapt this concept into a longform of my own.

5. Psychic Improv, Boston, MA

Again, great relationships and fun games combine to make a show worth seeing. Ths group’s schtick is that they are both psychics, and they prove it by having an audience member write down a phrase on a sheet of paper before the show. They seal this paper inside an envelope, which they rub on their foreheads (a la Johnny Carson) between each scene. At the end of the set, they open the envelope, reveal the phrase, and use the old improv maxim “you can justify anything” to apply that phrase to each scene in the entire set.  Good fun! Takeaways: It doesn’t matter what happens in any given scene… you can justify anything.

6. Moving Walkways, Baltimore, MD

Another apprentice team, two women and two men were this time performing a format that is really similar to the one Omega Directive does in the first half of its show. MW started by putting an iPod on shuffle, skipping past a certain number of songs, then using that song as inspiration for all the scenes that followed. The song turned out to be from “Jesus Christ Superstar,” so the scenes were religion, church, and sin based, including classes on how to be a deity and how to fornicate properly. The characters were all quite good and compelling, and the only thing that stopped this group from being higher on the list is that nothing really ever happened to them. Takeaways: Characters and relationships are so very important, and are a great way to start a scene.

7. Three-Hole Punch, Boston, MA

The third group from Massachusetts in my top 7 makes me wonder what’s in the water up there. This group of four women had a series of three-person scenes that recurred throughout the set. The relationships were fine, and the games were fun. It was a great show to watch, and even though there was never a specific point when they really sunk their improv hooks into me, I still enjoyed myself. Takeaways: Three-person scenes aren’t necessarily too crowded right up top.

Still to come… the bottom 7, and the horrors contained within.

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 by John Robison.

We just got back from the Chicago Improv Festival… and it was a great time! Though I personally was performing with Babelfish (along with Joe and Nathan), Julie, Nifer and Carl decided they’d like to have some fun at the festival as well. It was the four of us that made the trip up in the Prius.

We left at about 10:15pm last Thursday, directly following Roving Imp rehearsal. It had been one heck of a day, but we still managed to leave on time. Julie and I switched off turns behind the wheel every two hours, to make sure we didn’t get too fatigued… Friday was going to be another really huge day. It was a fun drive, and most of us managed to get at least two hours of sleep. When we arrived in Chicago mid-morning, we stopped in Lincoln Park to stretch the legs and enjoy the scenery. We walked and hung out along the shore of Lake Michigan for an hour, and then came inland for some frisbee. (If you don’t know, I’m a huge frisbee fan… I’ve played in four countries, on the rolling hills of England, in the courtyards of monasteries, city streets, and tons of other places… so relaxing and so fun!)

Our first appointment in Chicago wasn’t until 3pm, so we found our hotel, explored the city a little to make sure we knew exactly where train stops were, and had a lunch of stuffed pizza at a famous pizzaria. One piece apiece was plenty. Yummy, yes… but holy moly… the only way you could have more cheese would be to shower in it.

The workshops in Chicago were given by famous improv actors of note, but unfortunately, they were a little pricy. I was lucky enough to be able to arrange a private workshop for just Julie, Nifer and I… a highly targeted workshop on improv puppetry, a subject I’ve talked about here on the blog before. We’ve had terrible problems with it - problems which I suspect are now on their way out. Our workshop was with one of the actresses behind “Felt,” a longrunning puppet improv show in Chicago - and one of my personal favorite groups. (I don’t mention her name here since Felt’s actual actors are a pretty well-kept secret, as they don’t see themselves as being in the cast. The puppets themselves are the stars.)

She gave us a lot of great tips, showed us the construction of their stage, worked with our puppets a little, and gave us some insight into how Felt works. The three most valuable bits of advice she gave us were to have more human characters (as opposed to the crazy monsters that dominate our ensemble now), make our puppets have longer arms than they currently have, and to nearly destroy the cardboard in the puppets’ mouths, so that they are almost like a worn-in baseball glove. I’d always been sort of protective of the mouths, as I didn’t want to break my puppet. When I saw the results of the baseball glove effect, I was an instant convert, however. What was I so worried about anyway? It’s cardboard, for crying out loud, which is currently plentiful.

After a half hour nap, it was off to Donny’s Skybox for the evening’s shows. (For show reviews and insights, stay tuned for Part 2!) We got a little lost on the way, so were going to be late for the 8:00 show, until we arrived at the Skybox and found that the show began at 8:30. We saw four groups there, and then headed north, faced with two options: attend the after party at the Annoyance or catch up on sleeping at the hotel. I waffled for a large portion of the train ride… then decided to go to the party. Why not, right? I was still mostly coherent. Joe and Julie came too, and we hung out at the bar in the front of the Annoyance while we waited for the party to kick into full gear. We got to talking with a couple people from Boston, who were waiting to see the midnight festival show, happening in the same theater. It didn’t take me long to decide to see that show rather than stay for the party. Connections and networking are fine, but shows are better. We saw two groups in that show, and at the end, I realized that I was almost too tired to continue living. Julie and I managed to lumber, zombie-like, back to the hotel, where I slept the sleep of the dead.

I woke earlier than I really wanted to the next morning, although I didn’t necessarily want to spend my trip getting the right amount of sleep. Plenty of time to catch up on that later, right? Julie, Carl, Nifer and I got up, ate breakfast, and headed over to the beach (we were right next to the lake) for 90 minutes of walking on the beach and frisbee. The three of them headed off for a visit to Navy Pier while I went back to the Annoyance for a workshop that had been announced at the last minute: a workshop on directing technique given by Mick Napier (whose book I reviewed earlier in the history of this blog).

He knows what he’s doing, and he’s spent time actually quantifying qualities which I’ve always kind of considered to be intangible. I’ve personally been directing shows for 15 years or so, and I had a fantastic high school director that gave me a great example to follow, so the amount of actual new, helpful information I gleaned was small but important, especially in the arena of coping with improvisers with bad or destructive habits. Many of the questions coming from the other directors in the room floored me… I remember thinking that I’d probably have trouble trusting these directors as well, and I wasn’t really surprised that they were having problems with their troupes. But then again, we’ve all got to start somewhere, right? Good directors aren’t usually born.

The workshop also gave me a new confidence. Knowing that the techniques the Great Mick Napier uses aren’t all that different from the techniques that John Robison of the Small Potatoes also uses… well that’s cool. Coming back, I have a renewed sense of clarity, and those improvisers I work with that have issues… I feel like I have the tools to mitigate those problems.

Afterwards, Mr. Napier casually tossed out a quiet and unassuming invitation to the crowd that he had reserved a table at his favorite gay restaurant/bar, and whomever wanted could join him. To my surprise, only about eight people decided to join him. I did… how could I pass it up? Out of the nine people there, five of them were theater owners, which was cool for me. Being a regular man, Mick sat at the other end of the table and talked quietly with the folks down there while casually watching some sporting event. I was a bit disappointed to not get to talk to him more, but still had a wonderful time talking to folks from New York, Chicago and Austin down at my side of the table - all three are big cities for improv, and it was great to get to hear about the scene there. You know something - most of those theaters aren’t doing things much differently than we’re doing here in Bonner Springs.

Toward the end of the meal, Mick switched sides and sat at our end of the table to talk to us for awhile. At that point, a strange realization came upon me. What do I have to say that would be interesting to Mick Napier? I’ve read his book, heard stories about him, visited his theater… it’s an imbalanced relationship right from the start. I ended up talking a little about my theater, a little about his book, and (prodded along by the guy from Chicago), a little about some of my own improv theory that was partially influenced by Mick’s book. All in all, I just hope I didn’t come off looking like a jackass.

My show was that night. All along, I had been saying that whatever shows were playing at the Annoyance that night, I’d see. I just feel a little more at ease playing in a room if I have a little history with it. As we sat in the bar before the shows, Mick Napier recognized me and waved, then came over to our table, and I introduced him to the other three. He was a charming host, giving us a little artwork tour of his lobby.

Before our set, I was relaxed, excited, and ready to go. It was the most normal I’ve felt in any Chicago show I’ve done to date. Ostensibly, my role in the Godot format is to come on with odd and interesting characters inspired by the conversation between Joe and Nathan. This time, however, there was no need. Joe was crazy. He played a lot with the door and window on the stage, and at one point got stuck underneath the audience. He was a robotic fan, did cartwheels, and was artwork. As you might imagine, with a bundle of energy like that, Nathan and I were the straightmen for Joe, which kept the energy balanced and scenes grounded. Having that sort of crazy energy on stage isn’t too common, and it’s fun to play with, even if playing with it often consisted of Nathan and I standing there, watching Joe bounce off the walls, and commenting how strange life could be, and gently poking fun at his behavior. It’s a role I haven’t gotten to take with this format yet, and it was fun to do. I think it went well. People seemed to laugh a lot. Overall, I was happy with the show and with my performance.

I got to hang out at the Annoyance bar afterward, and talked a lot with Nathan and his girlfriend Tara, their friend, the wife of a Mustache Ranger (who thought maybe I was a little bit gay), and Corey Rittmaster, a super talented performer originally from KC that now lives in Chicago. He performed a show at the Roving Imp last summer, and was amazing. I was really excited to hear that he wants to come do another show at the Imp this year… how cool would that be?

Sunday we checked out of our hotel and had breakfast at one of my very favorite vegetarian restaurants - The Handlebar - with my sister-in-law, also a talented actor (who actually started me back on the path to opening a theater, way back when), before we headed over to the Gorilla Tango Theater for the apprentice showcase, where Improv-Abilities performed during last year’s festival. Again… show analysis coming soon.

We packed so very much into these two and a half days. Exhausting and amazing, and it gave me a lot to think about, and some new formats were inspired. I’m glad we went. Let’s see if we can get in again next year, eh?

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Wednesday, April 8, 2009 by John Robison.

ImpFest ‘09 at the Roving Imp Theater, Bonner Springs, KS - just west of Kansas City!
An Improv Festival Extraordinaire to be held October 21-24, 2009

Now accepting submissions of 20-30 minute improv shows recorded in front of a live audience
To enter your group for consideration, send:
an electronic, CD or DVD copy of your show
a hi-res promotional photo of your group
a brief description of your group’s format
a $12 submission fee

by July 10, 2009

Festival highlights:
Two chances to perform
Rockin’ After-Parties
Optional Group Activities during the day
A relaxed, fun & creative atmosphere

send submissions to:
John Robison
115 Oak St.
Bonner Springs, KS 66012

or electronically:
john@rovingimp.com

Questions? 913-441-2309

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Tuesday, April 7, 2009 by John Robison.

Remember a while back when I was updating on all that has been going on? Here’s part two!

Great Shows: Something is starting to happen, as some really mind-blowing shows have occurred lately. In particular, Omega Directive has really come to life. This group has never done a bad show, but the past three or four shows have been amazing. Now that Trish has joined the group, the quality has gone up even more. This group is definitely going to be the next big thing in the area. I’m investigating the possibility of doing some OD shows in other venues to help expand audience faster. Dictionary Soup has been awesome as well. Keith and I seem to have found our place with each other - and it’s a place that is more serious and thoughtful than with any other scene partner I perform with. That doesn’t mean we ignore the wacky… there’s still plenty of that… but the wider array of emotion, energy, and subject matter tend to make the shows more memorable, interesting, and funny. We’re also hitting some great strides with Biblioclast, which has absolutely come alive since we did our format tweak nearly three months ago. Our characters are more interesting, and bigger things are happening. This is the group I expect the most growth from in the coming months.

Anniversary Show: I’ve got a whole post coming soon about the 2nd anniversary night. Keep watching this blog.

Concessions: Despite my attempts to find a company to supply a wider and cheaper variety of concessions, so far I’ve been unable to find one that fills that need as well as the need of decent customer service. The last company I tried not only wanted bank account numbers, social security numbers, credit card numbers, personal mortgage info, and other personal information, but also had sub-par communication. As I told them in a note, right now I get concessions from Wal-Mart. I give them money, they give me product, and they don’t ask any questions. They clearly state prices and have knowledgeable staff standing by. A lot of people have bad things to say about Wal-Mart, but when their products, service, and price is clearly better, well… the free market tends to take care of competitors. The hunt continues. If you know of a place that supplies snacks, I’m all ears.

Classes & IA: Classes here at the Roving Imp have been going really well. They’ve been going so well that we added a Monday class about six weeks ago… which is now nearly full as well. It continually amazes me how even people new to improv can be tremendously successful with just a little guidance. These additions are definitely good news, but with the addition of the new class and associated show, I needed to give something up, and Improv-Abilities was that something. I was with IA for nearly three years, and love the people in that group. We had a lot of great times, and learned a lot together. My performing with them has been limited for awhile, since RI shows happen every Saturday, and most IA shows also happen on Saturdays. I’m lucky to work with many of the people in that group in other capacities - Aron & Magie in Omega Directive, Keith in Dictionary Soup, Joe & Nathan in Babelfish… it helped cushion the blow. I’m sure we’ll find ways for me to play with the rest of them again, too.

Fridays: Last August (or so) we started to have one show a month on Friday. It’s a natural evolution. As audiences grow and we get more groups, it’s only natural we have more nights of shows.The final Friday in March, we expanded that one Friday to two shows. Now in April we’ve expanded to another Friday, also with two shows. This means we’ve now expanded to 13 shows during a normal month, from eight at this time last year. Now we have shows every Saturday at 7pm & 9pm; first Thursdays at 7:30pm; and second and final Fridays at 7pm & 9pm. Fun times more often!

Libraries: In addition to those extra shows, we’ve been very lucky to be asked to perform this summer at various libraries around this area of Kansas. So far, we have 10 shows/workshops lined up, and I expect at least a couple more this month. This should really help spread awareness of the Roving Imp around the area, as some of the libraries are expecting crowds of 200-300 people. More on this as we do the shows!

Scripted Show: I may be crazy. I’m fairly sure I am. However, depending on how sleep-deprived I am, I have tentative plans to do a scripted musical sometime toward the end of August. It’ll have flexible rehearsals, very minimal set/costume/prop levels, and high level of fun. I want to try to marry the musical with an improv attitude. We’ll see what happens. Again… stay tuned.

Festival: The most exciting news for last is something I’ve been contemplating for nearly a year, and I’m ready to give it a go - The Roving Imp will host an improv festival at the end of October. There are tons of reasons to do it. It gives us a great opportunity to have some guest groups all mingling together in our theater. It gives us a chance to perform for those groups as well. We’ll choose groups from those that submit… we’re not expecting to get a huge number of groups, or even groups that anyone has heard of, necessarily. But I know that there are groups out there that this festival will appeal to. There are groups that would love to take part. Even if we get just a small number of submissions, I will be happy - you’ve got to start somewhere, right? I plan to have an optional activity itinerary for the groups that attend… as most of them will probably be flummoxed as to what to do here in Bonner Springs. I’ll pay the groups a door split, which won’t be much, but it’ll be something. We don’t do this for the money anyway, right? This will be great fun, and a great gathering of amazing people getting together in a relaxed way - in true Roving Imp style.

The timing of this is good for the Imp, as it’s about six months from our anniversary, so we’ll have a big event at each end of the calendar. The festival is six weeks after the Kansas City festival - although the KC festival and the RI festival have drastically different methods of operating, goals, and ways of inviting groups and attracting audience, I want to make sure we’re far enough away to not affect each other, as I’m hoping local KC groups will want to come perform here as well. As with about six other projects… stay tuned for more information. I’ve been working on the basics for a couple months, and plan to have my first publicity materials ready by the middle of next week. If you’d be interested in getting more info, e-mail me and let me know, or leave a comment on this post.

Thus endeth the updates for now. As you can see, though, everything is a work in progress. I’m beginning to think I like it that way.

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Thursday, April 2, 2009 by John Robison.

This is it. I always knew we would last this long, but it also is thrilling. As an independent improv theater in a small town, we have lasted two whole years. And even more exciting than that is the fact that we seem to be stable enough that we can keep going as long as we want. It’s been a combination of luck, guile, planning, and wisdom.

I am thrilled with the level of art and the quality of entertainment we’re able to provide. We’re at a point where we haven’t put on a bad show in a good long time. Even our lowest quality shows at this point are still funny and watchable. Our training center has recently more than doubled in size, and is getting nothing but fantastic feedback. We’ve managed to book so far nine private shows in the months of June and July. And I’ve still got tons of great ideas… so many that I force myself to not write anything down unless the goal is closer than about six months out.

Our show this Saturday marks the two year mark. At that point we will have presented over 225 shows. We’ve called 24 different actors Imps, and we’ll have nearly half of them on stage with us for this anniversary show, including two actors from our very first show who have since moved on - Lauren and Tim, both of whom I’m thrilled to have back for this show.

I am completely thrilled with most aspects of the Roving Imp at this point, with the exception of drawing an audience. Audiences seem to be unpredictable… they run hot and cold… and even though they are for sure better than they used to be, I would still really enjoy being able to fill up the theater for my actors on a more regular basis. I know we’ve got the goods… and when people come, they enjoy themselves, even if some of the humor goes over their heads. I talked with my friend Trish, who is also insane in that she ran a theater for several years, and she said that her sellouts didn’t start consistently happening until after about five years. That made me feel better, but I’d still be awfully happy if that happened sooner.

A quick look at some of my 15 favorite shows of the past two years:
Grand Opening, April 7, 2007 - A terrible show with mediocre improv, but you never forget the first time, especially the game of Complaint Department that wouldn’t die.

Karaoke Night, April 21, 2007 - Our second show… we decided it would be cool to fill in with karaoke between games. Even in the middle of the show I realized what a terrible idea that was.

The Complete History of America, Abridged, Aug. 24-25, 2007 - The only scripted show we’ve presented (until later this month, when Martha Maggio presents her awesome show, “Fat.”) received fabulous reviews, was six tons of fun, and received the combined audience of an antique tractor show at KKK headquarters on the 4th of July.

Full Frontal Comedy, Oct. 13, 2007 - The first troupe I ever joined played at my theater, and were great. It was the first night the theater ever looked full, and I’ll never forget it!

Giving Thanks, Nov. 17, 2007 - Two words: Goat Goat. It’s like Turducken, but with only goat.

High School Improv Showdown, Jan-May 2008 - A great, fun, stressful time in which we did improv in between cajoling high schoolers to attend rehearsal. I will give it another go one day.

Imp Wars, April 5, 2008 - Our first anniversary Star Wars show - we debuted new games, a new longform, and set ourselves an anniversary pattern to follow.

Trivial Prov-suit, May 10, 2008 - I knew right away this show was going to be great.

Teenagers from Outer Space Movie Prov, June 21, 2008 - MovieProv would never be this good again. It was the perfect storm of audience and campy movie, and was a truly good time.

ABBA/Improv Jam, July 19, 2008 - The first time we had two shows in one place. Some of us went to do a scripted ABBA tribute I wrote, and some of us stayed behind to run the Improv Jam - Nifer’s first time hosting!

Omega Directive, Sept. 13, 2008 - The second OD show featured just three of us, and for the first time showed us the power of taking on someone else’s character.

Post-Holiday Headache, Jan. 3 & 17, 2009 - I didn’t think the audience could get better than our first show, until the 17th rolled around. For the first time ever, I didn’t think we were going to have enough seats. We did, but just barely.

Biblioclast: Revelations, Feb. 14, 2009 - We finally got the bugs worked out of the format, and ended up with an awesome show where I got to play The Beast.

Dictionary Soup, Feb. 21, 2009 - My favorite DS ever, where Keith and I played serious relationship work, weaving in the funny, all while going back in time, though Keith wasn’t really aware of it.

Omega Directive, March 28, 2009 - The most recent show we’ve done is also one of my favorites. Fun, fast, and completely uninhibited by conscious thought. This is how improv should be done.

I had to edit, because there have been so many highlights. Hey… since you’ve read this far, why not share a couple favorites of your own. I’d love to hear them!!

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