RI: The First Two Years

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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Random updates

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 by John Robison.

Hello all,

I haven’t blogged in way more time than I’m comfy with, but for good reason - there’s been so much going on that time has been scarce. So, here’s a big sample of some of the random events/ideas that have kept me from writing:

Puppet Nation: As many of you may have seen, Puppet Nation isn’t on the schedule. We got to the week of the show, had a powwow, and concluded that we did not yet have the show ready to go. We weren’t confident in our ability to entertain the audience, so we pulled the show. I still have it on the back burner, and it’ll stay there until we are able to improve our puppetry. I am going to try to schedule something with members of my favorite puppet troupe in Chicago… more about this below!

Improv Survivor: The postponement of Puppet Nation left a hole in the schedule during the last week of January - a hole that had to be filled in less than a week. During that week, I came up with a brand new format based on the reality show “Survivor,” which I had never seen before, but knew enough about to know I wanted to do it. We cancelled PN on Monday, and on Tuesday, I started scrambling. During that week, I watched an entire season and a half of Survivor, using my handy-dandy Internet connection. I sculpted the entire format, we workshopped it on Thursday, and performed it on Friday.

I’m sure a dozen people have done Survivor shows before, but this one is really unique. Basically, it’s a giant longform in which the six players and host draw personality characteristics out of the audience suggestion hat, and assume characters that they play for the entire time. They then alternate between “challenges,” which are short form games, and “camp,” which is the longform portion, where the characters interact in whatever ways they want. Camp is also where the special audience-provided useless rewards come into play. This format still is not quite at the stellar level I’d like it to be, but it’s entertaining and it’s interesting. I look forward to tweaking it as we go forward.

One: Our group Omega Directive has been so successful that I’ve begun recruiting for a brand new elite group. Out of the eight spots, I’ve got two full right now… I am confident I could have the other six full by the end of the day, but I’m really trying to get some folks that might not come to the Imp otherwise. I’m also trying to balance the group as far as men & women go… which is super tough. Right now, I plan to start rehearsals for this group at the start of June (a rough time of year for me… more later) and start performing in July. Quick turnaround, but if it’s cast well, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Baby: My wife and I are expecting a girl at the end of May… which is tough. There aren’t that many improvisers in Kansas City with children, but all of them can tell you how tough it is to balance family with a craft that demands evening and weekend hours. Plus, when you own a theater, you can’t really just shut down for two months and put yourself on parental leave. So instead of shutting down over Memorial Day weekend, as we normally do, we’ll be taking the last weekend off, because a fella has to give himself at least a week to adjust to a screaming uncontrollable bundle of joy. Insane to start a new group the week after that? Yes. But I’ve been accused of being insane many times before. It’s temporary… but the art that springs from insanity persists long beyond.

Thunderdome: James and I will be taking our Trivial Prov-suit show to the Kansas City Improv Thunderdome on Saturday - March 14. We have absolutely no chance of winning, as it’s an audience-based voting process and we’re a two-man group who is splitting audience between Thunderdome and the Roving Imp, which will still be open. James and I had one of our best shows last weekend, and I’m looking forward to playing in front of a whole group of people that has never seen the show before. Hopefully it will inspire some of them to see our show more regularly. That’s really the point of competing - just getting our name, unique show, and brand of fun out there. We actually did TP in the mini-Thunderdome last August and advanced to the finals, despite doing what were in my opinion two of the worst TP shows we’ve ever presented. I think if James and I are on our game this Saturday, we can really amaze some folks, which would be great - people that don’t come out to the Imp’s more advanced shows have no idea the kind of quality that happens.

On that same note, James only has two more regular TProvs left before he moves to Chicago. After that, my partner will be Jeremy Danner, and possibly one other person… who hasn’t said yes yet.

Chicago Festival: Though the Imp didn’t have its video recording system perfected in time to be able to have any shows to submit to festivals, I am lucky to have performed with a group that did… and sure enough, that video earned Babelfish a spot as a performing group in the Chicago Improv Festival. I have performed with Babelfish twice… it’s basically a group of Joe Henley and Nathan Stewart and whomever else happens to be there. In this particular format, Joe and Nathan sit around talking to each other about random stuff, and I wait offstage, listen, and pull themes from the conversation, then initiate scenes. It’s incredibly difficult and rewarding, as the person in my spot has to initiate every scene, as well as have a wide variety of characters to contrast the two characters who are in conversation. In a way, Joe and Nathan are the college professors forced to interact with me, the LSD hallucination with form. Good times.

This is what happens when you don’t blog for such a long time. We’re already super long, and I’ve only managed to get halfway through my topics. Perhaps I’ll wait on the other ones until later. It’s feast or famine around here. Thanks for reading - I really do appreciate it!

Since you made it this far… why not come out to the Imp? I’ll even give you a dollar off if you mention this blog (offer good until I’ve posted two more blogs after this one). If you can’t make it to the Imp, leave a comment. I love reading those comments… even the ones that say I’m an arrogant jackass.

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New excitement

Friday, January 23, 2009 by John Robison.

One of the double-edged swords of being constantly exposed to creative people in a creative environment is unbridled creativity of your own. For me, this manifests itself by creating new groups. I’m trying not to go completely nuts, because there are limits… you don’t want to overload your audiences with a whole bunch of new stuff… you don’t want to completely freak out your wife, who is about 20% freaked out at all times just because you own a business… and you don’t want to overtax performers.

So for this year, instead of having the grand change-splosion like in 2008, change will be a little more tempered. I can afford to do this since we’ve got such a great base of wonderful shows happening. Right now, there are three new projects… some are nearly here, and some are still on the horizon.

Project the First: Puppet Nation

Originally hatched last October after my sister Julie saw some puppet show on television and talked to me about it… and it reminded me of the really good puppet improv I’ve seen. We’ve made our puppets and have been rehearsing, and are set to debut this new show a week from tonight. I must admit… I’m more nervous about this show than I’ve ever been about any improv group I’ve created yet. First off, there’s infrastructure. One of the reasons I love improv so much is that it doesn’t require a set or props. This does. You have to have a puppet theater on the stage to hide the actors. The puppets themselves are props… and with multiple puppets per person, it gets crowded back there really fast.

Secondly, it seems that doing this puppet stuff is tough. Right now we’ve got four improvisers doing this show… and even the more experienced ones are having a tough time - they’re having to actually ‘do work’ at the same time as doing improv. Syncing a puppet’s mouth, arms, and body to fit the action is a lot tougher than any of us thought it would be. I have a ton more respect for good puppeteers now than I had before. Comedy is such a delicate animal… so far this puppeteering stuff has been throwing a wrench in our funny chi. Don’t get me wrong - I expect the show will have a respectable start… but we’re going to have to work our collective puppet butts off in the next week to make sure we don’t disappoint ourselves. Don’t be surprised if you come see the show, and none of the puppets have butts.

Project the Second: Expanded Classes

Roving Imp Saturday classes have proved popular enough now that we’re ready to expand to a second class. Hooray! I have a limit of 10 people, as more than that doesn’t play quite enough for my taste.The class format seems to work well, mixing absolute newbies, those with a solid grasp on improv, and people with over a decade of improvising. Everyone has things to work on, even if they just need to be reminded of things that they have forgotten about for the last four years. And there’s no better way for a newbie to get good really fast than to play with folks that are on fire. (that’s not literal, by the way. actual fire isn’t good for anyone’s performance). Actually getting to perform in front of an audience is also the kind of experience that no amount of rehearsals will ever prepare you for… and it’s good for people learning to have that.

The new class will likely take place on a weeknight (Monday or Wednesday), and have its monthly performance during our Final Friday at 7pm… to accommodate folks who just aren’t available on the weekends. I have two people that fit this category, and have told me they’ll sign up as soon as I get the class going. If there are two, that means there are more… I just have to find them and get them to sign up. I expect this class will start around the start of March… which means I’d better get my butt in gear and start telling folks. Next time you see me, don’t be surprised if I’m stuck in third and look a wee bit uncomfortable.

On a related note, our newest Imp, Denton, has expressed interest in teaching a non-performance class solely for beginners. We’re going to give it a try, and see if it’s something folks are interested in. I tried this when I first opened, but didn’t have any street cred at that time. Maybe now. Denton’s the guy to do it, too. He’s got good training, great enthusiasm, and experience. No timeline on this yet… maybe we’ll shoot for March as well.

Project the Third: Working Name: One

This new performance group will follow the same formula as Omega Directive. Omega Directive is a different kind of Imp troupe, made up mainly of improvisers that perform with other non-Imp groups, and who are really crackerjack. We’ve had such great, high-quality shows and so much fun & success with Omega Directive, that this similar project is almost a no-brainer.

Despite my apparently genetic aversion to having numbers in the name of my groups, “One” is speaking to me right now. We’ve spent some time the last two weeks of Roving Imp rehearsal tweaking the formats (both variations of longforms we’ve developed here at the Imp), to both make sure it would work and also to help get the actors as excited as I am about the group.

The new show will open in April, and will feature two halves of long form. The first being “One Location,” where each scene takes place in the same location, throughout time, back and forth. I love this format (which I brought back from my time at i.o. in Chicago) because it allows a great variety of scenes to happen, but also allows popular characters and scenes to come back in a completely natural and expected way.

The second format is one sprouted from a couple places… the first was during last year’s Chicago Improv Festival, when legendary group JTS Brown reunited for a talk about the old days. I’d never heard of this group before, but several of their members are rather famous nowadays. The idea came from something they mentioned about basing a longform around a character who gave a monologue at the beginning of their set. Each person played this character, bringing something different to the character, yet keeping the essence of that character. My non-Imp group, Improv-Abilities, developed a really cool game from this called “Group Monologue,” appropriately enough.

I toyed around with expanding that game into a longform, but as I thought about it, it became clear that having six mini monologues at the start of the show would box in the actors too much. There would be too much precedent, and everyone would be in their heads, trying to make sure they were keeping true to what had been established. Instead, it occurred to me to combine this idea with a longform in our arsenal called “Timeline,” in which we follow one character throughout their lifetime. In this new combined format, we follow one character in their lifetime, but that character is played by everyone in the cast at some point. Guaranteed interesting characters, because you have to make them unique enough that everyone can pick up on voice, body, and behaviors. It worked really well in workshop.

The formats are developed and the show is on the schedule. Now all that’s left is to cast it. I’ll talk to a bunch of actors, hopefully a bunch will talk to me, and I’ll develop a list of interested actors, and then choose the six from the list that complement each other the best. Sometimes I think I won’t be completely satisfied until I have every improviser in Kansas City working here at the Imp. There are worse places to be…

So there you go… more from my occasional series on what is exciting to me at the moment. Between new projects, ten other performance groups and family time, I no longer wonder why I can’t seem to blog more often. Besides… one of my blogs is worth at least six of most other peoples’ length-wise. Except Trish. God bless the long-winded, as we need it more, for we have weakened our fingers with typing and our butts with sitting.

Third butt reference. Time to wrap it up.

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The Bottom 10 of 2008

Wednesday, December 31, 2008 by John Robison.

On a whim, I decided it might also be helpful for me to figure out which shows of the year were the least successful. Nobody really likes to look at this side of life, but it’s necessary in order to improve. While earning my master’s degree, I heard about managers that fire 10% of their employees each year, no matter what - the bottom 10% performing employees. It’s a tough policy, but I can understand several reasons why, logically, it makes sense - it motivates everyone to improve, and if you’re always eliminating your bottom performers, your overall performance will go up over time. Not a very nice thing to do, necessarily, but I guess that’s business for you. Not a philosophy I personally will ever subscribe to, but it’s interesting to think about on a theoretical level.

The thing I noticed right away about these bottom performing shows is that for the most part, I have already taken steps to correct the reasons for their poor performance. Will those steps work? For some, absolutely. For some… who knows?  Please enjoy the bottom 10, from the top of the bottom to the number one, our worst showing of the year.

10.  RI’s Implympics, 8-29-08

As I look back, there was nothing inherently wrong with the show itself… it was a matter of scheduling. This was our second Friday show that we’d ever done. In July, we expanded to one Friday evening per month as a test. This second one proved that the audience as a whole hadn’t yet caught on to the fact that Friday shows were happening. Also, this show had the misfortune to be scheduled on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. This, as I have discovered, ain’t a great time to have a show.

9. RI’s Halloween & Scary Election Show,  10-31-08

Same deal here… Friday show when people aren’t yet terrifically excited about Friday shows, and it fell on a holiday - Halloween. I think if I had done a better job of promoting this show, it could have done better. Live and learn.

8. Omega Directive Premiere & Hypothetical 7, 8-9-08

Although Omega Directive has proven to be one of my absolute favorite groups to perform with and to watch on video later on, at this time, the group had done no shows. Brand new, untested groups do not usually generate any audience interest.  Attendence for OD shows has picked up since this first one, so people must be enjoying it as much as I do. Then there’s the H7 problem. This group has tremendous troubles attracting audience… their first show here at the Imp was well attended, and has never regained that level. After talks with a few of the H7, I’ve discovered this isn’t necessarily a venue problem… several other H7 shows have had similar problems. However, frequency may be an issue. Different audiences have different rates of audience fatigue. The H7 audience may not be one that can handle a monthly show. So, in 2009 we’ll be cutting back to five H7 shows at the Imp, and they’ll be exploring other venues as well. It doesn’t hurt my feelings that that’s happening - if something’s not working, you have to do what you can to fix it.

7. Game Show: Card Sharks & Makeshift Militia, 5-31-08

As much fun as the Game Show format was, it never caught on with audiences. Maybe not everyone is as big a game show fan as I am. I talked to people, and many of them said they thought it was a cool idea they’d like to be a part of, but those talks didn’t translate into butts in seats. So, we stopped producing the Game Show in May. Problem solved. As far as Makeshift goes, this show happened right after the end of the semester, and their audience had scattered, as had most of their performers.

6. Red Rubber Ball & Trivial Prov-suit, 9-6-08

This one’s easy. This show happened the exact same weekend as the KC Improv Festival. Audiences here were terribly small. It’s tough for the small theater with shows every weekend to compete with a large special event with a great big budget and celebrity power. Good thing it’s only once a year.

5. RI’s Coronation Day, 4-19-08

2008, in my mind, is split into two sections - Jan.-April and May-Dec. (like the romance). In the first few months of the year, I saw that attendance at Roving Imp shows was not at the point where it really should be, so I planned a complete RI lineup shakeup to begin in May. This is the point where we began expanding the number of performance groups and changing the weekends so that the 7pm and 9pm shows were different groups. This has proven to be the best decision of 2008. Attendance since May has been noticeably higher, and I’m 90% sure it’s because of the difference from 7pm to 9pm. This particular April RI show suffered from not only this “previous to May” designation, but also from a really stupid theme. Coronation Day? Really? That’s going to attract people? My bad.

4.  Dictionary Soup, Biblioclast Premiere & the Hypothetical 7, 10-11-08

Again, we have the premiere of a brand new show, which seems to be a pattern, and H7, with the audience problem. That’s more than Dictionary Soup could overcome, which despite a great turnout the previous month, was still a fledgling show - this was only its third appearance in an 18-month period.

3. RI’s Revenge of the Angry Groundhog, 2-2-08

Sure, this one fell on a holiday, but I can’t imagine that that’s the reason for the turnout. This one suffered from the same problem plaguing RI shows in the Jan.-April period, despite what I thought was a fantastic theme.

2.  RI’s Implympics/MovieProv, 8-16-08

I’ll first address MovieProv… which I thought was a really neat idea with a lot of promise. I personally never got into MST3K, which maybe should have told me something. If I, the rock star nerd, didn’t like it, what were the chances that people less nerdy than me would like it? This show was universally hated, and it didn’t take long for us to stop doing it. Conceptually, I still like it, and it produced some fun moments, but most audiences were the opposite of interested. So… that didn’t help. Most audience members like coming to two different shows that they’ll enjoy, which didn’t help the RI show at 7pm. Also, did anyone else notice that THREE of the shows on this list are from August? I don’t remember exactly what was happening in the world as a whole in August, but there may have been external factors at work as well.

And now… our least attended show of 2008… the show that makes me shudder to look back upon…

1. MovieProv & the Hypothetical 7, 7-12-08

The double death knell. We’ve already talked about the problems with both of these shows, and we don’t need to rehash that here. As I recall, this was the only show of the entire year where we had the casts of both shows, and maybe one or two others. I do recall that we made absolutely no money this weekend. Let’s never have another weekend like this, OK?

Lessons learned from the bottom 10:

1. My instincts are correct - when I feel like a show is tanking, I give it another month or two, and then make changes. I did this with each and every show on this list, without knowing they would eventually turn out to be the lowest performers. I knew it by feel, which makes me feel good about my innate business sense.

2. It’s important to know when something can be saved and when it needs to die. We didn’t cut the bottom 10% of shows, but we did cut maybe 5%. The Roving Imps could be saved, and I’m glad they were. Game Show needed to die. MovieProv needed to die. I understand that there’s another group in town that is having a lot of success with the MST3K style, but they’re not improvising it on the spot, having never seen the movie before. I’m not bitter… that’s just not something I’m interested in. I’m never bitter that a performance group has success. Success in one area benefits us all.

3.  Don’t expect miracles from brand new, untested formats, no matter how good you think they are. Nobody else knows what I know, and so nobody knows how good or bad this new group is. I wish there were a way around this, but I don’t think that’s possible. Every group has to have a first show.

4. Be flexible, and be ready to change things. Somebody wise probably said something at one time like, “If you are rigid and inflexible, you’ll break when a stiff wind comes along.” They probably said it in a more eloquent way. That’s one of the great things about having your own theater, and not caring about being extremely rich… you have the freedom to experiment. I’ll try almost anything once or twice to see if it works. You never know what might happen.

Happy New Year, all, and thanks for all your support for the Roving Imp Theater. I couldn’t create any of this kind of wonderful art without you, and at the start of shows when I say that I appreciate each and every one of you, I truly mean it. See you in 2009!

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The top 10 of ‘08

Tuesday, December 30, 2008 by John Robison.

As we approach the end of 2008, I’ve been doing a lot of looking back… after all, it’s been the first full calendar year that the Roving Imp has been operating. We had shows on 57 nights, and a total of 117 different 45-90 minute shows. That pans out to just over one night a week, and to about two and a quarter shows per week. I always keep track of our top shows, because that’s really cool to be able to replace your top yearly and overall shows as time goes by. It’s quantifiable progress in an artsy unquantifiable environment. It’s also good to see if my instincts as an artist and businessman are backed up by ticket sales.

Our top 10 nights of 2008:

10. ABBA Musical, 7-19-08 - I was commissioned to develop a short musical based on the songs of ABBA and the lives of a couple obsessed with the musical “Mamma Mia.” This night was RI’s first experience with having two shows simulntaneously. Some of us went off to perform the ABBA tribute while others stuck around to run an Improv Jam. It paid off.

9. High School Improv Showdown & Makeshift Militia, 2-9-08 - The High School Improv Showdown was the most difficult show to produce this year, mainly due to the inherent flightiness of high schoolers and to the fact that this was a brand new program. However, the few high schoolers that consistently made it to rehearsals and were able to perform put on really good quality shows that left their huge audiences rolling in the aisles. As you’ll see in the next few, it didn’t matter what the 9pm show was… the 7pm show carried it along in its wake.

8. High School Improv Showdown & Game Show: Trivial Pursuit, 3-8-08 - Again, the high schoolers helped boost ticket sales with their huge numbers of supportive friends and family members, despite being partnered with the completely unpopular Game Show.

7. High School Improv Showdown & Game Show: Deal or No Deal, 4-12-08 - Plans for a 2009 HSIS are in the works. Once again, there are huge difficulties with #1 - getting the message out to high schoolers, whose drama teachers have generally not been too supportive; and #2 - once the high schoolers are interested, getting them to commit a tiny regular portion of their busy lives to do some improv. When they’re here, they love it… but many of them don’t love it enough to commit. Hmmm….

6. The Harold, Dictionary Soup & Makeshift Militia, 8-23-08 - A huge show that was bolstered by the fact that a photographer from the KC Star was attending, Dictionary Soup was having its first show in over a year, the KC Improv Festival was coming the following week, and the new Harold class show was really starting to get into gear. Buzz around this show was higher than usual, and it showed in the audience.

5. RI’s Ho-Ho-Holiday Show & Trivial Prov-suit, 12-6-08 - Having a December show make the top 5 was a real relief to me, after having snow put a damper on each and every Saturday show in 2007, and having various holiday activities put a damper on December shows throughout the theater world every single year since Macy’s opened. A Bonner Springs area club got a group together and saw this show, and several former members of the HSIS came home from college to see their favorite show, TrivProv, making it a happy December at the Imp.

4. The Harold & Omega Directive, 10-25-08 - Once again, having the students of the Harold perform for their friends and family made this show one of the highest attended in 2008.

3. High School Improv Showdown & Antiprov, 1-12-08 - The first HSIS to have both teams participate (remember that December snowstorm?), their families and friends were hungry to see them perform, and turned out in droves. This was the second or third truly huge audience we’d ever had, and I remember wondering if the floor would hold. It did, with no problem.

2. RI’s Talkin’ Turkey & Improv Jam, 11-15-08 - The convergence of two large groups coming to see the show made for a great night, and having most of them stay to try their hand at improv was icing on the cake. I love it when a whole bunch of people new to improv come in to a great big crowd and have a great time. It pumps up everyone’s energy, and the show is better for it.

The #1 attended show of 2008, as if you couldn’t guess:

1. High School Improv Showdown Finals & Trivial Prov-suit Premier, 5-10-08 - A deadly combo of a scholarship winner being named, bragging rights being awarded, and the introduction of a heavily-hyped new format made this show the best-attended show in the history of the Roving Imp, and was the first show to have attendance higher than opening night, over a year earlier.

Things I’ve learned from the top 10 shows:

1. If you can get some high schoolers that really enjoy improv, they’re not only great for attendance, but they also infuse life into the whole atmosphere (two former members of HSIS are currently members of the Imps).

2. The same formula can work with adults, too. That’s what the Harold is all about. It won’t work quite as well, because seriously, what adult has 30 BFFs that will come see them?

3. Regularity pays off - when people know to expect the same show on the same weekend every month (or every other month), they go ahead and mark it on the calendar. The Improv Jams are an example of this. There’s a group of fantastic folks that come to every single one. Predictability is everyone’s friend from a scheduling standpoint. Leave the randomness for the stage.

4. The Cheers/Seinfeld/Friends formula works. Follow a popular format with a new one that you think will take off, and some of the fans will follow.  I think TrivProv wouldn’t be the success it is right now if it hadn’t had a start following HSIS. Omega Directive is just as good a show, but hasn’t yet caught on… yet. It’s recently been moved, and follows the Harold show.

That’s the top 10… as always, I’d love to hear feedback. And in a half-assed effort to appear to be a professional blogger, look out very soon for the yang to this particular post - the bottom 10 shows. It’s a darker alley, filled with some mistakes in marketing and production values. Stay tuned.

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A Short Form Love-fest

Wednesday, December 3, 2008 by John Robison.

I’m like a lot of folks - when I first found out about improvisation, it was through the magic of short form. It was quick, delightful, and fun. I’m also unlike a lot of folks, who fell out of love with short form. They say it’s repetitive, predictable, and unfun. This seems to be the predominant opinion of serious improvisers, to show just how serious they are. This opinion shows that they’ve evolved beyond the need for a quick, cheap laugh; that they’ve moved on to long form - the epitome of spontaneous performance art. I agree with them that quick, cheap laughs are something you should probably steer away from… but I think there’s a definite place for short form, right alongside long form. Please take this journey with me, exploring several observations I’ve had at the Roving Imp, and the actions I’m taking.
Observation #1: Kids like Short Form

I think it’s a product of shorter attention spans, but it’s very evident to me that when kids are in the audience, they pay a lot more attention to the short form. This generally applies to people in the 15 & under demographic… all the way down to my own son, who is almost three and attended his first show last month. He was enthralled by the pasty white rhythms of “Beastie Rap.”  Television has trained our minds from a young age to pay attention to things in 2-to 10 minute segments, and short form plays right into that. There’s also a variety of movment, talking, rhyming, guessing, etc. that happens during short form, and that appeals to the younger folks. Action item #1: Put short form in shows that kids come to.
Observation #2: Adults like Short Form, Too

For all the same reasons that kids like short form, the adults like it, too. My own mother, who is my biggest supporter (she comes every week and always insists on paying), enjoys it all, but always has liked the short form better. Action Item #2: Put short form in shows that adults come to.

Observation #3: Guessing Games Make People Laugh

With our audiences, the exact right move lately has been to wrap up our first half with a guessing game. The spectators seem to absolutely love watching an improviser frustrated by his or her inability to guess that they’re getting drunk because they accidentally ate a dolphin for Thanksgiving dinner, especially when you add some great, grounded characters into the mix. This also explains the appeal of Chain Murder, my aforementioned mother’s absolute favorite game. Action Item #3: Without overdoing it, end the first half of short form with a guessing game.

Observation #4: End the show on a high note

Our typical Roving Imp show includes a short form first half and a long form (or medium form) second half. This works well… we’ve been doing it almost since the start, and people seem to enjoy the variety. However, long forms do not always end with a bang. Sometimes they end with a whisper, and sometimes they end before they’re all wrapped up. To avoid a sense of “we saw an incomplete show,” when this happens, I have on deck a “freeze game” or a rhyming game, depending on how much time we’ve got. It might be Doo Ron Ron, and it might be Dear Diary. Either way, it helps us end on a high note. I recently read that people remember the best thing about their experience as well as the last thing that happened. Giving them some quick laughs right before they go home might help return business.Action Item #4: Have a freeze game or rhyming game ready to go just in case.

Observation #5: Short Form helps Long Form

We’ve done shows with both halves being long form, and those shows are really great, but sometimes tend to be more “talky” than the shows that start with a first half of short form. Shows that start with short or medium form are more energetic and more entertaining, especially when you don’t have a lot of time to warm up together as a group. Action Item #5: Starting in 2009, we’re transitioning all our completely long form shows to have a first half that has scenes that are quicker and not necessarily connected.

Observation #6: To the Haters

A lot of people out there (mostly intermediate & upper level improvisers) have said that they can no longer stand to do short form. I cannot understand why this might be. If you’re getting a good diet of long form in your improv, short form can still be completely fun if you do it correctly. When it comes down to it, all improv is the same. The only difference between short form and long form is that short form has more restrictions (yes, a shorter time frame is one of them). So why not play your short form with the same good skill that you use for your long form? Would it really be that bad if you end up telling a story during Doo Ron Run? What if you end up having a really fun 15-minute long Conducted Story? Would that really be so bad? All you have to do is apply your skills. See what happens.
If you’re in a space where you aren’t loving the SF, maybe you’re being formulaic, predictable, and/or unimaginative. Give yourself some gifts. Try out some new characters. It’s short form… if they’re not your favorite, you’re not stuck with them for the whole show. If it’s appropriate, break some of the rules of the game you’re playing. See what happens. It’s improv, right? It’s impossible to be wrong.
Or… give yourself MORE restrictions than the game calls for. Just last night I was hosting a short form game of Emotional Party, where one person (me) hosted a theme party, and as each guest comes in, everyone in the room adopts the emotional state of the entering person. At face value, this game is one that could get old really fast. But here’s how we did it: the audience suggested that we were having a voodoo party, so I set up the party scene by attempting to gather my zombie ingredients and by preparing voodoo dolls of each guest, remarking that I’d have to gather hair or body pieces from each of my guests to complete the dolls. I did myself a huge favor, because now I was not only reacting to things happening around me, but I also had a goal: get pieces of the guests.That’s a great trick in your long form: have a secret (or not so secret) goal. It works great in short form too.
As the first person came in, he was depressed. I had him go ahead and cut himself and collect his blood into a bucket. Done. The second person came in, and was homicidally angry. He ended up cutting off my nose, but I got his ear. Sample collected. The third person was unexplainably amorous. There ended up being a giant writhing mass of actors in the center of the stage, and I seem to recall there was someone crawling up my back… but I took advantage of the situation and conspicuously cut a lock of hair off the latest guest.
In short, I made another secret game to play at the very same time I was playing the first game. Audiences love this, because it gives them something extra to enjoy. I loved it because I got to play two games at once.
Action Item #6: This one’s homework. Play short form like it’s long form. Find games. Be positive. Be artsy. And for God’s sake - Have Fun!

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Repost: Pricing

Friday, November 7, 2008 by John Robison.

A question arose on the city3 boards about pricing… it was interesting, and I posted the following. I repost it here in hopes that you will find it interesting, and perhaps throw your two cents into the discussion.

A lot of the pricing I do at the Imp has to do with the number of people in my cast… for a full show with six or seven folks, I usually charge $7.50, which has come down from the $10 we used to charge. I had a few audience members comment that perhaps $10 was a little high. I agreed… so prices came down a little, but they’re still enough that my players get a semi-decent payday. Exception: if it’s a group with a low amount of experience, I don’t charge as much.

For my other shows, I admit that I’ve been influenced heavily by ticket prices at i.o. We just had our first free Thursday show tonight… i.o. has a free show every Wednesday. You can see T.J. & Dave for $5… it seems wrong to think I should charge more for my two-person show than they charge. I might one day, but not now. Because they are fabulous.

I’m also currently trying to hook in a lot of families, who have really responded to a $5 per person price. They can afford to bring kids, and still end up spending quite a bit more in concessions. This is really working for our “Harold” and “Trivial Prov-suit” family shows. We’ve had kick-butt crowds for these shows lately. I also hope that this kind of pricing will help balance out the KC audience member’s thought that RI is a little farther away… which is also helping out. I have one audience member that drives out every weekend from Lee’s Summit. I’m not sure she’d do it if she had to pay $10-$15.

At this point, I’m not depending on ticket price to tell the audience what kind of show they’ll be seeing. Instead, I’m relying more on the Roving Imp brand… people are starting to know that whatever show happens under the RI banner will be a quality, fun show. I’m also making a semi-futile attempt to use kcstage.com to help folks figure out what kind of show they’re going to see. I don’t have to worry much about comparisons between groups and group prices… about 90-95% of my audience sees only RI shows, or has never seen an improv show before…

There you go. My whole pricing thought. What do you think, and who’s next?

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Kiss me, you fool!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008 by John Robison.

Kissing on stage…

I’d like to throw my two cents at this topic. It’s been brought up on the KC Improv blog as well as city3.org. It hasn’t created as much talk as I thought it might, so I’ll go ahead and be long-winded on my own.

I posted a blog a few months ago about my personal problems with physical contact, which I’m still working on, and I still have not had an improvised stage kiss… just putting that out there, so that you’ll know that what follows is a purely theoretical and intellectual discussion.

Some people are worried about emotional weird feelings once the actors leave the stage. I think there can be emotional repercussion (we’re only human, after all), but usually only if there were some sort of emotions floating around anyway. Two actors should be able to kiss one another at any moment, and it means nothing. I’ve done it tons of times on the scripted stage, with folks half my age, underage, 10 years older than me, people I couldn’t really stand, and even one that matched my gender. Were there crushes occasionally? Sure… but none that didn’t already exist. I believe that if you’re really there for the art, and aren’t using improv as some really ineffective dating service, you should be able to kiss anybody at anytime.

That’s one of the things about working with your family… it’s bound to happen one day… and you’d better hope the rest of your troupe is paying attention to help you avoid it. My sister, Julie,  routinely is onstage with me in the role of my girlfriend or wife, and we have (thank goodness) not managed to get even close. Except for once.   Nifer and Julie were playing a game of Stunt Double, with me as the stunt double. About a third of the way through the game, Nifer says, “Why don’t we just make out?” and then calls for a stunt double. Of course, she didn’t realize what she had done. The entire audience was rolling with laughter as they saw me slowly eke towards my own sister on stage, both of us completely out of character, but still completely playing the game. Somehow, out of some stroke of genius, as I was only a foot from here, she called out “STUNT DOUBLE!!” and ran off the stage, leaving me to make out with myself. Nifer still feels bad about it.

Now for the statement that lets you know how serious I am about this issue. In the case above, it was WAY funnier NOT to kiss. If it had somehow been funnier to do it, I would have kissed her. Not because I wanted to, or not because I enjoy inflicting mental anguish on my family members, but because the scene needed it. I think you have to be prepared to do whatever the scene needs at any given moment, with no consequences later. Let the scene happen, and go along for the ride. See where it takes you. Just because you play a pedophile in a scene on stage does not mean that you actually are. Just because you’ve kissed someone on stage doesn’t mean that you would do it in real life.

I haven’t found that it’s any easier to kiss men than it is women. Just recently, I was doing a Trivial Prov-suit show with the very talented and funny James Nelson. A scene came up where we were playing an odd musical instrument that in my mind was a single pipe with a hole at the top. Both of us were playing it, and our mouths were so very close that I suddenly felt a wee bit uncomfortable. The audience loved it, of course, and it turned out to be funnier to simply be uncomfortable than it would have been to break the tension by actually kissing him.

I guess in the end, that’s the whole deal… many times an actual kiss represents the dissolution of sexual tension or aggression, and tension is interesting to see on stage. So unless you’re at the very end of the set, showing an actual kiss may threaten to derail the energy you’ve got flowing… that’s why in so many old movies, the very last thing that happens is the two main characters finally kiss before fading to black. Where do you go from there in a scene? It’s resolution.

Unless it’s not… maybe that kiss actually is contributing to the energy build. Maybe that kiss is not the end of the sexual tension at all, but merely a suggestion of things to come. In that case, boy howdy, have you got some heightening to do. If you were a little leary about kissing someone, how do you feel about taking that kiss to the next level? Be prepared!

I think that there’s a definite time for on-stage improvised kissing, and you just have to feel it in the moment, just like anything else. To be funny, sometimes it’s appropriate to float across the stage in an out-of-control hot air balloon. Sometimes you have to become a basement gnome that eats potatoes. And sometimes to be funny you have to kiss your scene partner. The same thing goes for a more dramatic scene. If you’re in a tender moment with the person playing your spouse, it’s unnatural not to do it. If you don’t, you yank the audience out of the scene with your uncomfortableness, and destroy what you’ve worked so hard to create. If it’s a dramatic scene, make it look real. If it’s comedic, make it funny. Just do it, and don’t wuss out.

Agree? Disagree? Have cool stories of your own? I’d love to hear!

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The Reviews are In!

Monday, September 29, 2008 by John Robison.

Performing improv is one of those hobbies that takes you out of your private world and thrusts you into the public realm. This is the same public realm that in its extreme has led hordes of photographers to harangue people, sometimes to death.

Luckily, those of us in Kansas City improv are far, far away from that end of the spectrum. It does, however, lead to some recognition, for better or worse, especially when you’re doing big improv in a small town. Most of the time the only public effect of my hobby is when people say, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Occasionally I get a “Hey, you’re that funny guy that does the plays!” when I’m out grocery shopping or something. I always get a bunch of people that call me right after the newspaper quotes me or runs a picture, and it’s always really great. That’s the good thing about low-level celebrity. (Forget D-List… this is more like R-list.)

As improv in town grows, its professionalism increases, and its popularity goes up, this kind of thing is going to continue.  And it’s going to get less nice. And that’s great. As stakes go up, so does the heat.

I can’t wait for the heat to get turned up on improv a little bit. That’s when we’ll know we’re starting to get attention. Sure, we’re starting to get some publicity now, but very little actual analysis or insightful comment.  In all the time I’ve been doing improv, my performing groups have been reviewed only three times that I can recall.

My very first was a one-line review of Improv Abilities’ performance at the 7th KC Improv Festival. It said something along the lines of “They were ballsier than usual, but not as funny.”

The second and third both came in the form of reviews on city3, and were speaking of the performance of Babelfish at the first Thunderdome. I recall both reviews being generally complimentary of the group’s performance… especially the Pitch reviewer, who still has a special place in my heart thanks to that review. The reviews were definitely more complimentary than I was of my own performance.

We need more reviews. More reviews lead to more buzz, and buzz will eventually lead to more audience - even if the reviews aren’t immediately great.

Reviews will fall somewhere along the scale of positive to negative, and can be used as a handy tool for introspection. Ask yourself some questions when you read them, no matter if the comments are positive or negative. Who is the source? Do they have an agenda? Do they know what they’re talking about?  Are they correct in whatever they say, in your opinion? If you think their opinion isn’t necessarily valid, still keep in mind that oftentimes, perception is reality. Maybe you really weren’t as good as you thought… or maybe you didn’t suck as badly as you thought.

Even really short, spoken feedback can sometimes be helpful. If you’re walking past someone, and make eye contact, and they say something like, “Great show,” I thank them and move along. This kind of comment is the theater version of “How are you?” Polite, and not necessarily requiring additional clarification. They’ll let you know if they want to say more. Same thing if they don’t say anything at all, or nod. For me, the body language counts as neutral feedback.

If you’re hanging out, and someone seeks you out to tell you “Great show,” I generally chalk that in the “Genuinely Satisfied” column.

The best kind of feedback, which I try to give whenever possible, is when someone tells you you had a great show, and then gives you a specific example of what they enjoyed. I love people like this. They tell you the one thing that spoke to them. If you listen carefully, sometimes they also tell you more… in the subjects they don’t talk about.

The kind of feedback that’s even more valuable to me is the kind that nobody talks about. It’s the kind of feedback that’s not appropriate to talk about out loud 99% of the time. It’s the kind that’s not even appropriate to write about 90% of the time.

Negative feedback. Ooh. That’s tricky. You have to have huge balls of steel to even attempt to do it. You have to be either a master wordsmith or an unfeeling bastard. You have to be an expert in the field to avoid massive backlash, which will probably happen anyway.  You can give completely untrue compliments until the cows come home… but if you give one piece of negative feedback, you’re an ass. If you have any doubt about this, join the kcstage.com e-mail list. Every couple months, a huge firestorm gets ignited by someone posting a negative review.

I personally enjoy a certain amount of negative feedback (aka constructive criticisms) just as much as positive feedback IF: 1. it is completely supported with examples; 2. it offers a possible alternative; 3. it’s well-balanced, and is not only an anti-show rant; 4. it comes from a knowledgeable source; 5. it’s true.

A well worded review helps my audience know what kind of show they can expect. If my shows are getting consistently rave reviews, it will help attract audiences.  If they’re consistenly negative, I’d better fix something, and I’d better do it pretty damned quick.

Nothing is as unhelpful and unkind as “That sucked,” or “That wasn’t funny,” or “I could do better.” I’ve heard audience members say all of these things about productions I’ve attended, after the show, but before the cast came out. The emotion is true, and is just as helpful as “Good show,” but definitely requires some explanation, in my book.

I have a couple trusted friends/family members that I trust to give me unbiased feedback, both positive and negative, and most of the time I use that feedback to verify that my own instincts are correct.  Many times, however, they point out something that I completely missed. I then evaluate and decide if it’s appropriate to act on that comment. I consider negative feedback an essential tool to improvement. If you don’t have an expert on the outside that you trust to give you advice as a director, you need to get one.

As important as I consider feedback to be, any comments, like the improv itself, should be considered, then moved on from. As soon as you decide to act or not act on any comment, you have changed yourself in some subtle way, and the comment no longer necessarily applies. Hopefully you’re better for it. Maybe you’ll find out when your next review comes in.

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Troupe Goal Updates

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 by John Robison.

Back in May/June, I started planning for the “Grand Proliferation” of Roving Imp troupes. I even posted about it back in June. Now it’s mid-September, and the realization of that planning and dreaming has materialized. Some of those ideas didn’t work out so well. Those ideas are some of the reason I’ve been a bit remiss on creating new blog entries. Excuses, excuses. At that point, I wanted to have eight different RI ensembles by April 2009. Here’s an update on the expansion I first mentioned on June 19.

Troupe 1: Trivial Prov-suit

At that time we’d already started Trivial Prov-suit, and it was just starting. We knew it was fun, and we knew it was probably going to be popular. What we didn’t foresee is just how fun and how popular it was going to be. The format lends itself to some of the most fun times I have ever had on stage in my entire life. As a sort of cerebral improviser most of the time, this is a great gift - the gift of play. It works from the other side, too. Audiences tell me they laugh so hard they cry. This show isn’t going anywhere until James decides to move away.

Troupe 2: The Roving Imps

We’ve scaled back on RI shows - down to two shows a month from four. The shows are fun, but haven’t drawn the audiences that the more targeted shows have drawn. Reducing the number of shows also makes each show more special and scarce… audiences have to wait longer to see their favorite short form games.

Troupe 3: High School Improv Showdown

High school shows will come back in November, after the high schoolers are trained enough to put on a good show. The high school shows have brought some of the largest audiences we’ve had, and I can’t wait to start working with the students again.  As last year, it’s difficult to gain a foothold in schools, and therefore difficult to reach students that might want to participate in this free program. The students I’ve managed to reach have had a great time, and I can’t wait to see what this program looks like in five years.

Troupe 4: Movie Prov

In June, we were set to do the very first Movie Prov the week of my blog post. That first show was really great, and the audience and cast really enjoyed themselves, but it also exposed several issues with the format. We tweaked things in the two following shows, and things improved… but in the end, an improvised, audience-participation movie MST3K-type event wasn’t much of an audience draw… so we’ve discontinued this one. It’s possible it might return one day - after we figure out how to draw people in.

Troupe 5: Omega Directive

In June, I was in the process of casting this group. We’ve now performed twice, and have had four really fun long forms based on television episode plots. It’s got good production values, and six of the most talented folks in the city. I was a little nervous when OD’s second show conflicted with the KC Improv Festival, taking half the cast and risking a show without an audience, but the three people that were left really rocked the house, which was surprisingly large. I see this group really becoming one of our star groups, and I see it functioning like the Reckoning from Chicago… we perform with however many of the group are available at any one time, whether it’s three or six. Any of these folks can handle it.

Troupe 6: Dictionary Soup

I had just started talking about reviving this group, and now we’ve done our revival show, been in the Kansas City Star, and surprised everyone (even ourselves) with a really interesting four character scene in our first show. I can’t wait to see what else we do with this group. It’s got a ton of potential, and is already entertaining.

Troupe 7: Red Rubber Ball

This group is made up of random folks from any of the other groups, and performs the same two longforms each time: The Living Room and Plus Ronde, a format I adapted from the traditional La Ronde. Both formats are pretty old school, and audiences have really responded well. RRB is at the moment a fill-in show, plugged into the schedule whenever there are holes. It’s the one of the new shows without a regularly scheduled show, so there’s a little randomness that’s appealing. It also creates a little sense of urgency for audience members that really enjoy the show… because you never know when the next RRB show might be (unless you look at the online calendar)…

Troupe 8: The Harold

This group is made up of the students from my adult improv classes on Saturdays. Most of the people in the classes are folks from my other troupes that want to improve faster and get a little more performing time, but there are new folks popping in and out all the time. This class does a traditional Harold, as well as occasional short form games. I would really like to get some more folks involved with this, as it’s a great deal for everyone, but I haven’t focused much marketing on it, so it remains a group of five to eight.

Troupe 9: working name: Happily Ever After

An absolutely brand new two-person troupe set for its first show Oct. 11. At the moment, it looks like this long-form format will involve showing what happens after the conclusion of popular books or movies.  However, until the first show, anything can change.

There are others rolling around in my head as well, but eight living groups is probably enough for one person to manage… at least for now. (It makes my Improv-Abilities nights that much more important… it’s a group I can just participate in, and not run!) It’s also a great coup that when Oct. 12 rolls around, I will have met my stated goal of eight groups… six months earlier than my original goal. Even better: quality is really good across the board (with occasional exceptions, of course), and we’re giving audiences a really good time at inexpensive prices.

What’s the next goal? Offering catered meals before the 7:00 Saturday and 8:00 Friday shows. Know a good caterer? Maybe you can help me beat the timeline on this goal, too.

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