Tuesday, August 5, 2008 by John Robison.

The Imp Creation Story, Part 2:

I searched for an appropriate building for a long time. I looked in all parts of the city. My target area at the time was somewhere around 75th & 1-35. However, it soon became apparent that any type of commercial property in that area was going to be WAY out of my price range. I found a building I really liked that was just on the Kansas side of Westport. I loved the building. It was perfect. It was $400,000.  The only building I was able to find that both had potential and was in my price range was on the main street of Bonner Springs, about 20-30 minutes west of Kansas City. However, I wasn’t able to reach a deal with the owner that we were both happy with.

So I decided to chill out for awhile. It was the beginning of November. My thinking was that if I waited until after the first of the year, the market would have changed enough that more buildings might be available for better prices. After a month, just after Thanksgiving, I got a call from the owner of the building in Bonner Springs, a man in his mid-60s originally from Italy. He said, “I haven’t heard from you… what’s going on, you don’t like foreigners?” I shot back, “Foreigners I’m OK with. It’s the Italians I’ve got problems with.” Within another two weeks we’d hammered out a deal. It turned out that time had done a lot of the negotiating for me, and it was a lot easier this time. The only real consideration at that point was that the building wasn’t in the center city. However, it did have two apartments connected, with potential space down below, so there was a guarantee of income. I decided to go ahead, reasoning that if you have a quality product, people will come to see it no matter where it is located. Also, Bonner Springs was something of a cultural void… ready for the planting of cultural seeds that will one day be ready for harvest. (By the way, so far, the “build it and they will come” approach has worked out OK…)

We were scheduled to close on March 1, 2007. I was super freaked at this point, as everything that had before been a pie-in-the-sky fantasy was suddenly terrifying stark reality. It was all going down, and I was the one in charge of it. At that point, my thinking was that we needed to get up and running as soon as humanly possible. We would have the building, and we needed to start the operation of the business so we could start revenue streams. (or at least revenue trickles.) I set the completely insane “what the hell are you thinking” deadline opening date of April 7, 2007. That’s right. One month. One month to remodel the inside of the building, do marketing, assemble a performance team, advertise for classes, and implement the business plan. It was the most thrilling, frightening, exhausting, exhilarating month I have ever lived. It was terrible, hard work, as we had to completely gut the interior and rebuild it in our chosen image. Once we decided on the final layout (we chose our third option), we started working in earnest. I’ll never be able to repay my two brothers, sister, or wife for that month. Two walls came down. Three walls went up. Two bathrooms materialized. A new ceiling went up. The seats got moved in and attached, despite the guy at the U-Haul threatening to burn my house down in the middle of the night because I had the gaul to complain that he’d overcharged me. (Yes, that really happened.) A big complex light box went up into the ceiling. The stage got built. The sound system went in. Advertisements went into newspapers and online. I talked to everyone I knew. Some really kind people came in and helped construct and paint. Rehearsals happened. I remember a few of those early rehearsals when we rehearsed in a small corner of the room because it was the only space that was clean enough in which to exist.

On some level I must have known that it was possible to do. Because we did it. There were a ton of weird city-specific regulations that nearly hung us up at the last minute (it was boring enough living it… no need to re-create it here), but we opened with three mini-shows followed by snacks and chatting. It was a great night all around. Were the shows great? Probably not. But they happened. Everyone has to start somewhere. Not bad for a group that had virtually no experience doing improv. The original group of six included me, my sister, two people I’d met doing a musical the previous summer, a friend that I’d met doing a show, and he later performed in something like four improv shows, and some random teenager that happened to wander in. That first show was fun and energetic, if not the most artistic thing to ever hit the world. The important thing is that we have gotten better since then, by several magnitudes.

I’ve learned a lot about everything since then, not just about the art of improvisation. For example, I’ve found that newspaper advertisements for me are just as useless as posting flyers. Both are activities I really pursued with gusto in those early three months. Neither produced as much as a single audience member. I’ve learned that I need to not indulge my artistic temperament… just because I’m excited about something doesn’t mean I should immediately devote all resources towards that goal. Nowadays I put forth the idea, sit on it for a couple weeks, and then make plans to implement it two or three months down the line. This is the reason that I plan all my shows and activities at least three months in advance. It prevents me from getting excited and jumping into some foolish and fun notion.

I’m sure there’s a ton more for me to learn. As long as they aren’t painful lessons, I welcome them. Even though it was a really tough time, there’s nothing like watching a dream come true to feed your soul. Even when my soul was covered in drywall dust, paint, sweat, and more blood than I care to remember, it was still smiling. Even though financially I will certainly never be the same, one day when this theater is rolling along at an acceptably successful level, I’d consider opening another one - at a much slower, more careful, better planned and better funded pace. Don’t tell my wife. She’d leave me.

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Monday, July 7, 2008 by John Robison.

In most respects, the creation story of the Roving Imp is unspectacular and unimportant. Boiled down, the whole story is “I was tired of scrounging for space and being hasseled by the man, so I bought a theater.” As with most things, however, if you dig down, there’s more just beneath the surface story.

I’ve written before about the community theater group I created just out of high school, the Better Than Fair Players. This group was together for eight years, performing all over Bonner Springs, Basehor, and Shawnee, in churches, schools, rec centers, and even outside. Toward the middle and end, we were doing five shows a year without an official permanent home. Each show was another negotiation for space. Each rehearsal represented another day of completely setting up the stage from scratch, rehearsing, and then completely breaking everything down and loading props back in cars and stowing sets in an out-of-the-way place. It was during this four-or-more-times weekly exercise in frustration that the seeds were planted. Yes, like 50% of all actors, I got the completely original idea, “We should have a theater of our own.”

Unlike most, however, I began to do some research, and I began to look for an appropriate space. After about a year of looking, I found a place I really liked. I put an offer on the building… and it fell through for various reasons which may or may not have to do with the fact that the seller had just emerged from prison. After another six weeks, I found another place. It wasn’t as ideal, but I thought I could probably make it work. I put in an offer, but the deal fell through, as it had problems with sewers… mainly the fact that it wasn’t connected to any.

At that point, my personal life sort of imploded for awhile, and to say that the theater search took a backseat would be a gross understatement. My main focus in life at that point was to try to save my marriage (which didn’t work, by the way). After that little disintegration occurred, I decided to expand my horizons by doing some shows in the big city of Kansas City for awhile. It had been eight years, after all, since I had done a show for someone else… I’d been directing my own shows since I was 19 years old, and I thought it might be a good idea to go learn from other directors.

I did a couple shows, and quickly found out that those other directors should really be learning from ME. The directors I worked with were great people, but did not live up to my own standards. I wanted specific feedback and a consistent, coherent vision for a show. This is not too much to ask, but I didn’t get it. (This is not uncommon, from what I have heard, unless you work with certain specific directors.)

Though this foray into “big city theater” was disappointing in certain ways, it really opened up my world in other ways. First, it got me known as a person that knew what he was doing. I quickly got hired to direct shows in town, and found that my directing skills transferred very well from the small town to the big(ger). Second, it introduced me to the world of improv.

I had done improv before. I had even taught improv before. However, I had never before been plugged in to the “world” of improv. I had always before been the one that had known the most about improv in the room (which was not much, FYI). But when Full Frontal Comedy took a chance on me (due completely, I think, to a funky made up dance I came up with in a show), I found a group of really talented, funny people that I didn’t teach and that I wasn’t responsible for. I learned a lot from that group, and made a lot of great friends that I have to this day.

At about the same time I found FFC, I also went back to school to get my master’s degree. The combination of FFC, a very special moment in an entrepreneurship class, and a pivotal conversation with my (new) wife’s sister resparked this idea in my head: I can open a theater now. Not only that: I MUST open a theater.

I quickly mapped out the pros, cons, and things I would need to do before it would be possible. The main thing I needed: a true pedigree from a respected place of improv. So I signed up for classes at i.o. in Chicago. i.o. has the style of improv that is most like the style I like best. Yes, Second City is better known, but has the philosophy that improv should be used as a tool, whereas i.o. founder Del Close always maintained that improv is an artform by itself.

Chicago was fantastic. It helped me in ways that I could never have imagined. I am now a completely different kind of improviser than before I went: a good one. I consider the majority of scenes I do now to be successful… because now I have the experience to recognize why things go awry. Maybe that’s a different post.

Anyway… now I had the experience, knowhow, and the credentials. Now for the hard part… making the theater happen.

To be continued…

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Thursday, June 26, 2008 by John Robison.

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.

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Monday, June 23, 2008 by John Robison.

This started as a response to a blog Trish posted about opening a theater.  (see http://kcimprovgeek.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-it-takes.html )

My response got to be too lengthy… and that’s why I have a blog, right? Seriously, though, read hers before you read mine.

Just so you know, this post is somewhat less optimistic than my personality usually likes… but it’s real.

From someone else that’s been there… there’s nothing on Trish’s list I disagree with. My experiences (so far) are of course a little different, but it caused my eye to twitch a little when I saw my week laid out before me on this blog - because not only do you have to do each and every thing on the list… but you have to do them WELL.

I did purchase my building, but did it primarily as a real estate investment. If I didn’t have the rent coming in, and if I didn’t live in the basement, then there’s no way in hell this whole theater thing would pay for itself. The only way I could figure to make it work (at least in the short term) was to make sure I didn’t count on ANY income from the theater. Thank God I have a wife with a good corporate job that is completely understanding about following a dream and contributing to the art of the world.

And even though I have an MBA, which helped me figure out how to do all this non-creative crap, I still made a bunch of mistakes due to the fact that this was my first ever business venture. Those mistakes (and the cost of starting a business) led me to the edge of financial ruin, but through luck and personal grit, the edge is getting a little farther away all the time. As I’ve said on a number of occasions, it seems that there is a reason that most business owners are old white guys. They’re the only ones with the money to be able to start something. This is why my theater might lack the spit and polish of your average million-dollar performing arts venue. No cash for chrome, but plenty of heart and plenty of good entertainment.

Trish… you’re correct. People that want to do this are truly insane… I never claimed mental stability myself. This whole “starting a theater” thing has caused or exacerbated a number of the most fierce non-death issues you can face in society: problems in my marriage, bankruptcy, foreclosure of my previous home, the near evaporation of a social life, and owing money to my family which I swear I will pay back one day.

And I can predict the responses, because I know how I would have responded. I would have said, “Well, those things won’t happen to me. I’m smart enough to avoid those problems.” Maybe you are… but what about all those problems I managed to avoid? There were lots. Zoning… Water meters… the pouring of concrete… insurance… remodeling… the list could go on. These were all areas which could have easily derailed me, but I was smart and/or lucky enough to be able to sail through.

I don’t want to sound like a naysayer, but this gig isn’t for everyone. However, if you’ve read these horror stories and Trish’s, and still have starry eyes, then do it. If you’re got it in your head, then nothing will stop you. I was the same way, and kind of still am, even after everything. How can I resist helping a kindred soul? After all, I think I’d still do it again, because the final product fulfills me in ways that nothing else could do. (OK… one other thing, but you can’t do that all the time, in front of a crowd of paying guests.)

The thing I was the most unprepared for - You’re going to need at least $10,000 in the bank, depending on what you want to do. It took me about that much to get my space ready… from transportation of the seats I got for free to the purchase of the lights & sound to materials to build walls, the stage, the green room, the lobby, the restrooms, etc. I had to have more since I was purchasing a building, but you might not be doing that. You also have to have a strong, yet extremely flexible personality, to be able to make the tough choices, stick by them, and then completely change them when circumstances change, which they do nearly every other day, especially in the beginning.

Unless you’re a lot richer than I am, you’ll need to either possess or know someone that possesses good construction knowledge. Contractors are hugely expensive, and I saved a ton by having a wonderful family with great knowledge. If you look at my hands, you’ll see that they’re lined with scars, some of which came from the demolition/construction process. I had none of those skills, and am now trying to forget the ones I gained. There’s no stress like it. It changed me… I’m more cautious than I was. I don’t jump willy-nilly into projects like I used to. There have been many nights spent awake figuring out a problem, and other nights spent alone with tear-stained cheeks in a room, surrounded by past due notices.

Sound bleak? I think most of the population would be utterly mentally destroyed by this process. It was tough for me, but the whole time, my light at the end of the tunnel was in sight… the dream of a theater… the dream I’d had for over a decade. Each show, event, class, or workshop I host here in my little theater helps make the trouble worth it. Each dollar that comes in the door is one less dollar I have to scrounge for. Each laugh and each smile helps heal the mental strain I remember so well. The year I opened the theater - last year- was the worst year of my life. But I’m glad it happened, because though this year is only halfway through, it just might be the best year… thanks in part to the ol’ Imp upstairs.

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Monday, June 2, 2008 by John Robison.

I have two new groups of high schoolers that are excited about learning some improv over the summer. This is my second batch, and second batches are notoriously better than first batches, simply because the teacher has been seasoned properly. (I must be hungry for cookies.)

When I look back on my first year teaching high schoolers, I often feel sorry that they didn’t get the Mr. Robison that I became in the following years. I gained a great understanding of how to create a balance between being fun, presenting necessary information, discipline, and dealing with administrative pressures. I didn’t have that understanding my first year. I imagine I was exactly the kind of boring teacher that I never wanted to become. Thankfully, with experience, I was able to overcome that shortcoming, at least according to student reviews.

Though I’ve got even more experience now, there’s still plenty of room to learn.  This year, I wanted to really get off on a fun foot, and we played lots of games. Mission accomplished in one sense… they had a lot of fun, and so did the audiences. In another sense, they kind of got the short end of the stick. My first group of high schoolers this past year had a great time, but I feel like I didn’t quite give them a proper grounding in the improv that they did. I really didn’t help them develop their fundamentals as much as I should have. There are plenty of fun games that help develop those basics… so why didn’t I use them?

It’s all about experience. The students are definitely better than when they started with me, but if I had had a bit more focus, they could have been even better, and still had just as much fun. So starting with these summer classes, I’ve expanded the time by a half hour, to make sure we can have tons of fun as well as get those fundamentals down. This way, they not only have fun, but I also get my semi-selfish dream of creating a huge army of young improvisers to help transform the city into one that matches my image of an ideal artsy community. Long ways off, yes, but mighty oaks grow from small bits of squirrel food.

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008 by John Robison.

Like any self-respecting extrovert that loves the sound of his own writing and thinks he’s an expert on something, I’m tossing my virtual hat into the ring of paragraph-smithing.

I’ll be talking mostly about improv, as that’s my passion and area of expertise. I won’t be writing every day… no need to put that kind of pressure on myself. But, whenever something improv-like happens to me, I’ll endeavor to post. Even if nobody ever reads it, at least I’ll have it to look back on, stroking my own ego and rolling around in my own wordy filth. (See, that’s a sentence that I’ll really appreciate a year from now.)

That said, I feel I’ve got a good perspective on this whole improv-y scene, and a good, open mind from which my thoughts can flow. What gives me the right? Well, like everyone, I’ve got access to the Internet and I’ve got a website. There ya go.

What sets me apart?

I actually know what I’m talking about. I first found the thrill of performing 23 years ago, when I was a bit player in a community theater show. It wasn’t much, but they charged admission. The next year I got the lead in a children’s theater production of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” as the evil mayor, and from there, no looking back occurred. After dancing through the typical person’s childhood and teenage school plays and musicals, I emerged from high school in my small town of Linwood, Kansas to find out that there was no theater to be had.

Being lazy (?), I decided that instead of driving to Kansas City, I’d create a performance group in the nearby town of Bonner Springs, where I worked. I worked with a group of friends and family, and we started performing all around town. Before long, I got a reputation as a guy that put on an entertaining show. I was the Woody Allen of Bonner Springs, directing, starring, and sometimes writing my own shows. That went on for eight years. Toward the end, in about 1998, I discovered improv comedy, which I used at that time to help develop the acting skills of my troupe, and those of my middle school actors (I had founded a Drama Club at the school where I was employed).

As time went by, I got the appeal of improv, which gave all the satisfaction of acting, but without any of those messy lines to memorize or props and sets to organize. Don’t get me wrong… I still love plays and musicals, but I can do 16 improv shows in the time it takes to do one scripted show, at a fraction of the cost.

Eventually I gave up the community group… I turned it over to another of the members so that I could move on and grow my skills in Kansas City. Once there, I discovered that my skills were pretty well grown. I quickly was hired to start directing shows.

I also joined my first “professional” troupe. (professional in that there is pay… but not much of it, as all improv here in the KC area currently is.) I fell in love.

More on all this in future posts, I’m sure.

Eventually, my dream to open my own theater started occupying more and more of my thoughts. (Tons of folks have the dream, but few have the opportunity or cojones to actually do it.) I had the background. I had the skills. I had the devotion. I did not have the pedigree. All my training had come in the field.

So, it was time to go to Improv Olympic. I spent six weeks in Chicago doing improv over 30 hours a week, in front of expert instructors that boosted my talents and knowledge by a huge degree. It was huge for me, and really knocked me to a new level of performing.

Came back, opened the theater, and now host two shows a week, and perform for others during the rest of the week… (more on these later as well!)

So, that’s the skeleton of the “creation story” of the Roving Imp, for anyone that cares. Please feel free to comment, ask questions, challenge my authority, or otherwise pick apart anything I’ve written.

Holy hell… I’m longwinded.

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