Updates Part 2

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.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 09:58 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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