Second City Improv Class

Beginning Program
Level A

Class	Students
Week 1	18
Week 2	15
Week 3	13
Week 4	12
Week 5	14
Week 6	11
Week 7	14
Week 8	14

Beginning Program
Level B

Class	Students
Week 1	13
Week 2	12
Week 3	13
Week 4	14
Week 5	14
Week 6	11
Week 7	?
Week 8	14

Beginning Program
Level C

Class	Students
Week 3	9
Week 3b	7
Week 4	11
Week 5	12
Week 6b	4
Intermission	80+
Week 6a	10
Week 7	12
Week 8	11
Performance	12

Acting for Improvisers

Class	Students
Week 1	10
Week 2	9
Week 3	9
Week 4	9

Beginning Program
Level D

Class	Students
Week 1	15
Week 2	12
Week 3	11
Week 4	11
Week 5	13
Week 6	13
Week 7	12
Week 8	14
Performance	14

Beginning Program
Level E

Class	Students
Week 1	??
Week 2	12
Week 3	12
Week 4	11
Week 5	13
Week 6	13
Week 7	14
Week 8	14
Performance	14

Conservatory Program
Level 1

Class	Students
Week 1	9
Week 2	9
Week 3	8
Week 4	7
Week 5	9
Week 6	8
Week 7	?
Week 8	7

Conservatory Program
Level 1a

Class	Students
Week 1	7
Week 2	7
Week 3	6
Week 4	5
Week 5	7
Week 6	7
Week 7	7
Week 8	7

Conservatory Program
Level 2

Class	Students
Week 1	4
Week 2	6
Week 3	5
Week 4	5
Week 5	6
Midterm Performance	7
Week 6	7
Week 7	6
Week 8	7
Performance	7

Conservatory Program
Level 3

Class	Students
Week 1	7
Week 2	6
Week 3	6
Week 4	7
Week 5	5
Week 6	7
Midterm Performance	7
Week 7	2
Week 8	7
Performance	6

Conservatory Program
Level 4

Class	Students
Week 1	3
Week 2	6
Week 3	5
Week 4	6
Week 5	5
Week 6	5
Week 7	6
Week 8	6
Performance	6

Conservatory Program
Level 5

Class	Students
Week 1	6
Week 2	5
Week 3	6
Week 4	5
Week 5	4
Week 6	4
Week 7	6
Week 8	6
Performance	6

Conclusion

Looking back, most of the type of humor I do is improvisational. The class clown kind of antics. The street performing as a jester. The entertaining I'm able to do while giving papers at technical conferences. All of these activities require quick thinking and responding to what is going on around you, while being funny - or at least, trying to be funny.

At Pennsic, as part of the Coxcomb Academy, Captain Matthew ran a show called "Whose Line Doth it Be?" Obviously, it was a take on the show "Whose Line is it Anyway" (British version, US version). I had a blast. I seemed to be pretty good: the audience liked me and I got a lot of laughs. But more important, I had a ton of fun, and very much enjoyed myself.

I tried doing improv at home, but it was very hard to get people together. At SCA events, I taught some improv classes, which basically allowed me to play some more, with lots of fun people. I also had a great time performing with a Commedia del Arte troupe with a good friend of mine.

Still, these activities were few and far between. After doing a second year of "Whose Line Doth it Be?" I thought I'd check out the Michigan area and see if there where any improv groups. I found some, but most of those seemed defunct, or at least not very active.

Wait a moment, there is a link to the Second City Comedy Club. Duh. That's right, Second City. They do improv. They are mainly based in Toronto, but now they are all over the place: Chicago, Los Angeles, others, and, go figure, Detroit. I had forgotten about them.

Well then. If I wanted to play, I suppose I could check them out. It took a while to figure out their web page (actually, I couldn't figure it out: it took an artist to show me the correct link), I found out they teach a bunch of classes. Excellent! I could take some, try it out, learn about improv instead of, well, winging it, and see if I actually have any real skill or not.

There are two levels of courses that I would be interested in. The Beginning Program has five levels (A through E) that run for eight weeks each:

Each class is three hours long. You have to fill out a simple application to get in, and let them know what your experience is. Apparently a performance follows levels C, D, and E. I have no idea if that performance is open to the public or not.

The Conservatory Program has five levels (they say five, but I see six so it is a bit confusing to me) that also run eight weeks each:

You must have previous theater performance experience to enter the Conservatory Program - oh, you also have to audition. This program is "only for those students dedicated to the work." The goal is to build an ensemble that would eventually perform.

This journal serves two purposes. The first is to help me keep track of what I've learned. The second is for people who might be interested in taking the class and want to know what to expect. Obviously, reading this isn't as good as being there.

I obviously got in, or I wouldn't be taking this class. I did everything through email, but eventually I got a letter in the mail. It gave me some basic instructions, useful things like suggesting I wear loose clothing that I don't mind rolling around on the floor in. I also got a parking pass (I still have to pay $2 a class to park) and a ticket, which is mainly my receipt.

My instructor was Tiffany Jones. I decided to google her. The first link was a porn site. Later ones were about soccer. I finally googled "Tiffany Jones" "Second City" and there she was: bottom right. [If you are reading this several years from now, I'm sorry that the link doesn't work anymore.]

It was pretty easy to find the place. Right off of I-75 and I-96 (somewhere near there) in downtown Detroit. Second City is connected to the Hockeytown Cafe. They serve food. That might be important to me in the future.

The class was large. I was wondering how big it would be, but I didn't expect 18 students! From what I gathered, I don't think what I wrote on my application mattered - they let everyone who wanted to attend in. That made me feel good, actually. Everyone gets a chance!

Tiffany showed up. She is going to be a ton of fun. She likes to talk, and surprisingly is a bit of an extrovert (for those of you not playing along, that last bit was sarcasm). She explained through the class how this program works, but I'll summarize it here.

There is another Level A on Saturday at Noon, taught by a different teacher. We have to go to at least six classes (out of eight) to go on to Level B, and so on. We can make it up on Saturday if we want to.

There are 10 free tickets to the main show at Second City (Wednesday and Thursday at 8 PM, or Friday at 10 PM). The first 10 students who show ID get free, and then after that is ½ price. Apparently these tickets mostly go unclaimed.

Throughout the program, this will be the class evening. That is, as we go through the levels, we will always be meeting on Monday nights. I guess I'll be missing a lot more Cynnabar meetings.

Oh, and wear aren't allowed to bring guns or large metal weapons to class. Apparently this has happened before and a rule had to be made.

We spent the first ninety minutes sitting around on stage talking about what each of us does.

I forgot to mention that! We were on stage. The stage. The stage where everyone performs. They put you right up there with just the stage lights on and we interact and do improv.

So we introduced ourselves in random order. Not everyone was from south east Michigan. A couple had come in from New York. A few more were from California.

One of the people there interviewed at Cybernet nine months ago. We didn't hire him.

A woman recognized me from my street performing at the Art Faire a few years ago. She admitted I was funny.

Another guy was a Roman Catholic Priest. I think he has issues. He kept saying how he wasn't going to be one soon, and his gesture (I'll explain later) was removing his collar and throwing it away.

One of the women there was a bartender and dancer. Um ...ballet dancer. As in the Windsor ballet. I don't know why but I was one of the five who first understood what she meant when she said she was a dancer.

Here is the best. I am not making this up. This really adorable woman who was sitting next to me on stage says, "For three years I played Ariel in her grotto at the MGM in Florida." I was in heaven. She even liked my Little Mermaid joke.

Some of the people wanted to be improv performers. Other were the funny guy in a group and wanted to see if they could go farther. Others wanted to learn to be the funny one since they didn't think they could be funny. Others wanted to enhance their acting ability. Others were just trying it out because it sounded interesting.

I wasn't the oldest (the Priest was), but I was one of the older people there. Most were in their twenties.

Tiffany told us about her touring company and how she got her start. She never taught this kind of class before, or even taught one, but from what I could tell she's going to do a great job. She made sure we all had fun, and while teaching us the basics, she is going to do her best to allow us to have a ton of fun.

After a short break we jumped right into improv games. The first was Zip Zap Zoop (a variation of Woosh). It was used to help teach eye-contact. You look at someone, clap your hands at them, and yell, "Zip!" Then they look at someone else, clap their hands at them, and yells "Zap!" That continues through "Zoop!" process repeats. We sped it up as fast as we could, then left out the clapping and just did it with eye contact.

Next we played a variation name game. symbol game. We would slap are legs in a pattern and repeat our name then someone else's. Then that person would repeat the process. Better still was when, instead of knee slapping, we would do a gesture with the name. Associating a name with the gestures really helped people learn everyone's names. I don't know them all, but I know most of them now. My symbol was two juggling throws.

Our next routine was a group exercise. We walked around, exploring the stage and the space. We milled about and went in different directions. Then she called out instructions. We would go faster and faster, then really slow. Then normal speed, but it was getting cold. And colder. Then raining. Then it would warm up, with the sun out. Then it got really hot, with dense foliage to get through, then back to normal.

Following that we walked around normal and one person would make some strange motion (nothing verbal) that we had to mimic. After a while, that person would tap someone else and the new person would make a motion and we'd follow that, and so on. She called this a Space walk with extras, but I can't find a link.

This next one was a ton of fun. It was called "Make a Machine." Nine of us were up there at a time. One person would start making a sound and motion as if they were part of a machine. Another person joins in, continuing the machine. After we all join in, Tiffany would have us go faster and faster, then very slow, then fast, and then stop. Some of the stuff people did was hilarious. It was very difficult to not laugh, and just concentrate on repeating the motion.

In Object Work, we each had to mime that we were holding an object. Not a symbol of the object, but the object itself. For instance, a phone is not one hand to your hear with your thumb and pinky out. You would pretend to grip the phone and bring it to your ear.

The last routine was an experiment Tiffany had us try. She gave us a character we had to perform, not in an obvious way, but as if we were all meeting in a town square. Nine of us did it at a time, with the others guessing who we were. Of course, I ended up having to be a Nun.

The goal of this program is to build an ensemble. These are the people who, for the most part, will be in the classes I take every Monday if I continue into the other courses. Some may join us later, but the group should remain the same.

She also told us the three rules of improv. She didn't explain it much, but will in future classes. I'll try my best now.

1. Yes, and. You work with the people in your ensemble. You take what they do and build on it. You don't twist it around or steal the show yourself.
2. Don’t Deny. Again, work with your group. If they are going with an idea, work with it.
3. Don’t ask questions. This is more of keeping the scene moving and the flow, er, flowing.

Okay, so I don't understand it all in an academic level. That is why I'm taking the classes!

I arrived about five minutes late. I really need to try to leave the house no later that 6:10 PM. Earlier is better, but things need to get done around the house.

When I arrived, they were all in a circle giving back rubs!! I think I can like this class! I jumped in. We spent the first part talking about our week and getting caught up. Two people were missing. One just couldn’t make it, but the other felt she was far advanced for this class. Oh well.

Tiffany then brought out a big ball of tape, and while in a circle our goal was to hit it around and not let it touch the ground. We needed to do it for more than 20 hits, and it took us quite a while – we kept getting to 19 for some reason. Eventually we broke 20, and got up to 28. The Second City record is 157. This was to help us learn to work together and warm up.

The next game was a ton of fun, called Bippety Boppity Boo. The person in the center is “it” and says that phrase. The person they are looking at has to say “Boo” before they do. If not, they are it. If the center person says something else (like Bippety Flippity foo) then the person they are looking at shouldn’t say anything. If they say “Boo” or finish it or something, then they are it.

Just to make things harder, the person can call out a special routine. The person they are looking at and the two side people have to do that routine within ten counts or the center person is it. The routines we could choose from are:

• Charlie’s Angels: the three people do the gun poses.
• Elvis: the center person sashays a leg and pretends to sing, while the two side people get down on one knee, raise there hands, and scream like adoring fans.
• Truck Driver: the center person mimes driving a truck, while the two sides are wheels.
• Samurai: the center person makes a samurai face with their hands (curl the fingers upside-down on your face, with the thumb and index finger making circles around your eyes – I know, it is also hard to do, too) while the two sides pretend to hold swords.

Like I said, I really enjoyed this game, as did almost everyone else. It was fun trying to trick people and see what would cause people to talk or not. I think we played that for 20 minutes. This game helps you to keep on your toes, maintain eye contact and a sense of your surroundings, as well as working with others. I think it would make an excellent drinking game! Unfortunately, one member of the class got very flusters (and was recovering from a very bad week) and left during this game. It was pretty sad, and I hope that person doesn’t drop the class.

After the break we did the mirror game. We formed up in couples and faced each other. We moved our hands and arms, then eventually the whole body, and we mirrored each other’s movements. No one leads all the time. We switched partners two more times. The second person was the best for me. At times we couldn’t tell who was leading and who was following. She agreed that it was an odd experience. This game helped to teach us how to give and take.

The next exercise was on communication. Without talking, we had to line up in order of height, then alphabetically by name, then age, then birthday, then alphabetically by middle name. It is not as easy as it sounds!

I don’t know the name of this game, but we could do this as an entire group. In a circle, we closed our eyes or looked down, and in a random order we had to count to 28. This was almost impossible. You didn’t know when someone else would join in, and if two people talked at the same time, you had to start over. Eventually I only counted the number 5, 15, 25, and others caught on and we made it, but it took forever.

More fun was tossing the ball, and when the ball was thrown to you, you had to toss it quickly and say something from the current topic, like girl’s names, cities, fruit, movie stars, etc. If you messed up you were out. It is incredible how hard it is to think of something. I had the hardest time thinking of movie star names for some reasons. I think we’ll be doing this a lot.

Next we did one of my favorite games: What are you doing? One person starts out performing some routing. A new person comes in and asks, “What are you doing?” Person one then says something other then what they are doing, and person two has to mime that activity. The game continues with a new person coming in. Most actions are pretty mundane: shaving, dealing cards, or skipping rope. I like to think of evil things to say, like: giving birth, being shot full of arrows, or getting distressed that my parachute won’t open.

I can’t sing very well, but of course we had to do some singing. This game is called Hot Spot. All of us are on stage, and one person starts to sing a song. At some point (pretty quickly) someone will rescue them and sing a different song. People seemed to follow a theme for a while. When I sang Weird Al’s “I’m Fat,” a woman rescued me by singing the “I Like Big Butts” song. All of us knew lots of songs from musicals. People also started dancing a bit. I did some gyrations (I did some sort of country song at one point). I have to admit though – I can’t dance. At all. People were out there moving their hips and stuff. I have nothing. I need to work on that. I know I can be funny at it, and I am, but still, this bugs me. I can sing good enough, and can belt out “Day-O” like nobody else in that crew.

Like last week, we ended with the Freeze game. I think as a group we did much better than last time, and it was tons of fun.

We still haven’t really learned anything specific in a classroom sense, but these routines are teaching all of us. I’ve never gone through a performance class like environment for more than an hour, so this is turning out great.

I got to class this week in plenty of time. I left home at 6 PM, and arrived at around 6:45. I didn’t even have to speed (much).

There was no massage circle this week (and I had positioned myself perfectly for that, arg!). We still sat around in a circle to talk about our week. I am always amazed at the different type of people we have taking this class. Some of them work around 100 hours a week, while others are lucky to get five hours of work. Some have great weeks, others have had horrible ones. Some are parents with many kids and grand kids, while some are not even 21.

During this circle everyone went over their names again, and I think I finally got it down. While people were telling their stories I kept repeating their name, and the people who spoke before them, and visualizing that name above the head. I think it worked – I may finally know all their names. Name memorization is very difficult for me. If that is the only skill I improve here it will still be worth it.

We started off with the black tape ball toss again. We only got up to 27 (where last week we made it to 28). Keeping an odd shaped ball in the air with a large group of people is hard! Either multiple people will go for it, or no one will. Also, the stage lights almost blind you. It is much easier with less people. Later, during a break, with just six of us we got up to 71. I stood up stage and the lights made it quite difficult.

Our next routine was simple but turned out to be a ton of fun. It is called Big Booty. We stood around in a circle. Tiffany, our teacher, was Big Booty (hey, she said it, not me!). Then in a circle everyone is numbered, starting at 1 and going higher. She then started a rhythm with us clapping to it, saying “Awwww yeah, Big Booty awwww yeah, big booty big booty big booty.” We would sing that along with her. She would then start the game by saying her call then a number, like “Big booty number 5” and that person would pass it to another random person by saying something like “number 5 number 2” and so on. We try to go as fast as we can and keep the beat going.

You could pass it back to Tiffany by saying your number then her, like this: “number 6 big booty” and she would have to continue it. If you messed up everyone would yell out “Awww yeah, Big Booty…” and do that opening sentence. The person who lost would go to the highest number, changing everyone else’s number in between.

So, if #4 messed up, #4 becomes #10, #10 becomes #9, #9 becomes #8, and so on. Numbers 3, 2, 1 stay the same. So, many people’s numbers change and you have to concentrate to not mess up.

Only 10 people were up there at a time, so we cycled people in and out. It was almost as fun to watch as play. We all got into the rhythm and even danced a long a bit. That line is just too much fun to say!

I had an evil moment. I ended up as Big Booty at one point, and found out that one of the people, Bill (our preacher), was fine in the game unless he was chosen right after Big Booty. At first I kept calling on him “Big Booty number 10!” and he just couldn’t spit out “number 10,” he would constantly say “booty” or something. After that, when someone would mess up and he would become #9, I’d call “Big Booty number 9” and every single time he goofed! It was hilarious. I would then start it off, we’d go for a while, and he’d be fine, but as soon as someone messed up I called on him and brought him right next to me again. This must have happened at least ten times!!

We then did a bunch of silent work. This for me was the hardest. No, not because I had to be quiet and not talk! It is because we had to pay attention to details.

For the first bit, three at a time on stage, we had to do something that we do ritualistically. Again, the point isn’t to be funny, but to try to get all the little details down. I performed “making, pouring, and drinking a cup of coffee.” Since there was one person left at the end, I went up again and did “putting on armor.” The goal was to take our time and savor the details, especially the small details. One guy did a great job driving his car – for example, he put his hand out the window and surfed the wind with it, which is what many people do when driving with the window down.

Next, by ourselves, we did another environmental routine. Tiffany called this “Where we come from, and where we are going.” We would have to totally mime out a routine. Her routine was coming from the bank and then going to the store. She showed this by balancing her checkbook, then cutting out coupons, looking the fridge and making a list, then heading out the door. The goal, again, is to pay attention to all the details. I did eating a meal then loading the dishwasher, discovering there was no detergent, so I went to the store. The best was the guy who discovered his car had a flat tire. His attention to detail was amazing, especially with all the problems of getting the lug nuts off.

I had a tough time with this. I kept wanting to rush through the routines. In mine, I’m sure I left the sink water running. Others had similar difficulties. For example, they’d take the time to create the impression of a table, then a minute later they’d walk through it. However, one fellow did remember his beer when walked off stage!

It also showed that we don’t really pay attention to what we are doing when performing ordinary tasks. How do we open and close a door? How can we mime that without making it look awkward? Many people, for some odd reason, mimed taking off their clothes to shower and stuff: how do you that in a realistic manner? People removed their shoes in many different ways, all of them correct, yet different.

I’ve already started to pay attention to what I’m doing while I’m doing it, even when it is just routine activities, like typing on the computer. It is strange feeling, as if I’m not just a participant in my own actions, but also an observer. I find myself hesitating, like when someone asks you which foot you start walking with, and you stand there trying to figure it out instead of just walking. That is a very odd sensation.

I have to admit, because I was sick I was way out of it. I don’t think I did well this week. I definitely wasn’t in top form. I missed some easy responses that I could have done, thinking about them during the car ride home. Oh well, that is why this is practice!

I think I’ve got the timing down. I made it with around five minutes to spare. Only 12 people were here today. A couple haven’t come for two weeks now, but one guy came back from being gone most of the time – he had been in the far east, and we all felt that was a valid excuse.

This week would be tough for me. I had lost my voice over the weekend – with a ton of effort I could talk at a normal strength, but nothing louder than that. Otherwise I’d talk in a sultry, okay, hoarse whisper. That is just great for doing a night of improve!

We started off with tossing the tape around. This time we actually got up to 39!! Woohoo!! I stood upstage, so the light glared in my eyes. As I recall it now, I dropped the ball at the end, but I also hit it quite a few times during that stretch.

Let’s see. We did our circle week review. My week was kinda boring as no one has really heard the SCA (although one guy, the one with all the piercing's, seems to know Shadowclans quite well!). But everyone else had very fun stories. Since I couldn’t talk much, it was good that I didn’t have much to say.

We did Big Booty again. Bill did an amazing job! He hardly messed up, although I tried very hard to get him too. In fact, I think I messed up more than him.

The next game was Kitty in the Corner. This game was a ton of fun! If I’m ever bored at a party, thanks to improv I’ll have lots of games to play. This is one, which seems to be a kid’s game. Everyone is in a circle with one in the middle. Two people try to make eye contact and switch places. The one in the middle says “Kitty wants a corner” and the person he looks at has to respond “go ask my neighbor.” The person in the middle has to try to beat the people who switch to one of their places. We tried to get a fast pace. I know it sounds silly, but honestly, it was a ton of fun!

I don’t know what to call this game, but basically Tiffany, our teacher, walked into a room and mimed working with an object. In her case it was a hair dryer. Then the next person would have to use the hand dryer and do some other object, and the next person would do those and add one more, and so on. When I came up we had the following objects: hair dryer, shaving razor, toothbrush, blowup doll, lipstick, wig, towel, tweezers, and pieces of paper with a fridge and wall magnets.

I didn’t (I know, everyone is surprised). I did use the tweezers on my nose hairs – eww – and I forgot to use the razor. I applied to lipstick to a first on my thumb and finger, with them making a face, and put the wig on my hand and started to pretend to talk to it. Oh, and when I walked in the room I pretended that the blow up doll was blocking it, so I threw it out of the apartment, getting rid of it right away! I added a television remote control.

Others added a toilet, mascara, and …darn, I think there was one more. I can’t remember it! Afterward, Tiffany went through the apartment, using the toothbrush to clean the toilet. Eww!! She, of course, was amazing.

This next bit is one my friend Joe would love. We all stood on stage in a line, facing the “audience.” We’d have to tell a joke in the following form. Our teacher would suggested an object, and a person would say:

The rest of us have to laugh and cheer as loud as possible, no matter how bad or stupid the punch line was – and most of them would be, we were told, and they were. But some were amazing. I don’t remember much of it, because people from Class 4 (that would be the conservatory level) came in to watch us.

They suggested items. I remember a really funny bit, when someone used the turkey baster object:

For the last half hour we watched the other class perform some skits that they just had written and hardly worked on. It was a vision of things to come if we continued with this next year. I have to admit, they were pretty funny.

So I guess in class 4, they have to write their own routines, work out the blocking, and refine their performances. The thing is, I’ve done that already in the SCA through the Bedlam players. I’ve been involved in writing a good number of comical skits, and some of them were quite well received. I think it would be interesting to do this in a non-SCA setting. At the very least, if I continue with this program, I’ll have a lot of training if I ever decide to start up Bedlam again.

After they left we played Freeze. I’ll say it again, we are an odd bunch of people.

Class ended, and a bunch of us went to the bar nearby. That is a tradition with the classes, and we’ll probably go every week. The other class was there (actually, two classes were there).

I was still sick and hoarse, so I didn’t bother drinking anything. And this bar doesn’t serve decaf coffee, so I was out of luck there too. The thing is, I get buzzed very easily. I hate beer, but I think they have Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

I need to be careful. Back in my college days, when I would have more than half a beer I’d be on the tables singing “Material Girl.” I’d rather people not see that side of me.

My real worry is that I do get buzzed easily, and I don’t want to drink and drive. I think if I nurse my drink for an hour I should be okay. We’ll see how it goes.

Finally, more people are starting to come to class again. We had fourteen this time. I don’t mind the smaller numbers, but, as I’ll discuss later in this entry, I wouldn’t mind if everyone who could show up would.

We started once again with the toss tape. Last time we reached 39, and Tiffany insisted we had to reach 50 this time. We made it to 48…and were stuck there for a while. Ugh. But, we broke 50, and reached 56! Woohoo!!!

And we all know how well I can dance. You know, as well as William Shatner can sing. That level. One day I’ll find my hips.

I’m not sure what this routine is called. We stood around in a circle, facing each other. Tiffany started off with a four beat dance move, something she made up. (By the way, don’t expect me to even explain the dance moves – I can’t even dance and you want me to write it out?) It was a simple move, and we would all do it together.

The person to her right would then add another four beat step and then we’d do both in sequence. The third person would make up another move, and we’d repeat all three, and so on.

So by the end we were doing 15 dance moves. Some were kinda tough. I did the two fingers going across your eyes.

As with all these odd games, it was fun. We got to move, work with our memories, etc. After we went through all of them, we reordered ourselves and did the dance again (in the same order). We did it right the first time, even without keying off of a person!

Next was an odd routine. We paired up in twos, and were given an emotion or idea. We would then, silently, have to interact. We had to use the space, and just see what happens. The person who is leading should shift. It was to teach us how we could work in someone else’s space. At first we thought we were doing an actual dance (and the first couple, two women, looked great!!), but we figured it out. The concepts were

• Giddy
• Worry
• Annoyance
• Repulsion
• Eagerness
• Intelligence
• Sad (mine)
• Moody (the first group went again)

I kind of cheated for sad. I just thought of Little Arbeau, and using that I was on the verge of tears. I think some of the people watching were really affective. It was really tough, and I liked how I interacted with my partner, Scott. He, I think, is more of an extrovert than I am! But we gave and took very well from each other. I had an idea for an ending, but he took it somewhere else that was better and really work.

After that was an evaluation of each of us individually. Tiffany would take us into a back room, tie us to a chair, and have her way with us for about five or so minutes.

I need to tone it down, I don’t have to be “on” all the time, be myself and relax.

Well, she’s right. It is odd; I don’t feel like I’m trying to be funny. I’ve seen people do that, and while I have that to a degree, I don’t think I’m that bad.

Still, I know that I do have a hard time doing the basic and mundane routines, and that is where you can have a ton of fun and be really funny.

The three hours go by really fast. I honestly don’t notice it passing, and wish we could it for five or six even.

Unfortunately, we didn’t go out drinking afterwards. I don’t mind getting home by 11 PM, but this week I did bring and old jacket, and I had my voice back so I could have been good company.

I do want to add something here, something that surprised me. Everyone in this class seems to be really good at this improve stuff. I expected a few to not do well, but that isn’t the case.

Now, we aren’t all the same. We have, for the most part, different strengths and attitudes. But that is even better, and that also means that as a whole we have a great range of talent and can do a lot. I’ve also discovered I can learn something from everyone there.

I watch them very carefully when I’m in the audience and they are performing. I like seeing their strengths shine and how they move, talk, and work the environment.

This was kind of a sparse class today – only eleven people! It was mostly guys today, actually. I hope more people show up next week. Only two more weeks left!

The tape toss went quite well today. It must have been because Tiffany joined us. In less than five minutes we tossed it 66 times! Woo hoo! We quit while we were ahead and went into Big Booty. I like that game. It is fun to move and sort of sing and see who will mess up. It is funny. No matter how hard one tries, something will mess that person up.

The next game was extremely cathartic: Conductive Griping. Half of us were on stage and Tiffany was below moving her arms…well, conducting. She would point at each of us, and when she did that we would complain about a subject previously determined by the rest of the class. Each person had a different topic. Tiffany could have us go individually, or bring more people in. She would also control the volume. At the end she’d have us all gripe at once, then cut us all off and leave only one other person griping to finish it out.

The topics the first group had were: pinecones, grocery store clerks, bunions (that was mine), marriage, and snow blowers. The second group’s topics were: pantyhose, the moon, Alka Seltzer, hangnails, action figures, and air.

I can’t tell you how much fun this was. We were all given permission to just bitch and complain to our heart’s content! I think I might use this one at a party.

Today’s topic was Heightening. This improv concept has to do with always adding more and more to a scene, like Tiffany did with the conducting. This lead to the three rules of Improvisation:

1. Yes, And. When someone starts something, you should accept what they do and then add to it.
2. Don’t Deny! Denial is a big no-no. You need to accept the other person’s reality and build on that. For example.
My Father died today.
No he didn’t, he’s over there! ? that is denial.
I’m sorry, my Mother did too. ? this accepts and builds on the scene.
3. Don’t ask questions: We should also be careful about questions, because that might slow things down. Instead, be declarative and give something back to the scene.
4. Okay, this might be a fourth rule: Who, where, and what. This involves what you need to make clear when you are developing a scene: who you are, where you are, and what you are doing. Eventually we’ll get crafty and subtle about getting that information across. However, for now, we can be very obvious.

In an attempt to try to say “yes, and” more, we played something called that Ad game. We are advertising executives trying to come up with all the possible uses for an object. They can be as strange or as odd as we wanted. Again we went into two groups, and the objects were “a shoelace” and “a sponge.” I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – this group of people is just sick and twisted! All of us thought of the oddest ideas and concepts. Tons of fun!

Next we did a silent scene. We were to explore the environment, two at a time, and try to express who, what, and where. Two people were paired up, and the overall area was determined beforehand.

I was amazed at how funny everyone was. We all laughed with all the skits, and none of us said a word!

To continue the lesson we did a game were we had to communicate with only a certain number of words. We still had to make a scene, and determine who, what, and where. We had to keep thinking about heightening it, exploring the area, and “yes, and.”

Talking in short phrases was difficult. We think that the more words you had, the harder it was. I think two words were the easiest, but Garrett and Scott said it was very tough. I have no idea how Russ and Chris conveyed so much with 1 word. It was also fascinating how we fell back on mime work when we were stuck. The earlier classes worked quite well.

We ended the evening with the One Word Story. This was much harder than I thought it would be! We sat in a circle and would tell a story, but each person in order could only say one word at a time. Kenny was a riot: he would add the strangest words, like ‘hermaphrodite.” This was during a story about a clown and children. Anyway, the key was to try to keep it on the subject of whatever the first sentence was, and to always try to go back to that. With the last story we actually ended it, and it made some sort of sense!!

Still, I don’t think we are about to make any money writing children’s stories soon.

Only one more class after this one, and people are getting a little sad. Most, if not all of us, will be back in January. But we won’t be doing this at all in December, and quite frankly we are having far too much fun.

This class started off on a very odd note: there was no tape toss!! Tiffany couldn’t find the huge ball of black tape, so instead we started with a great game of Bippity Boppity Boo (see week 2). I have to say, this game is a ton of fun. We are all getting better at that, which means it looks exactly the same. People are better at not getting fooled into messing up, but now people are also craftier at getting fooled. I messed up a ton of times.
We added two more routines:
• Lawyer: middle person swings a gavel, the two end people type like a stenographer. That should be called Judge, but I’m not in charge. ?
• Reagan: middle person looks confused, touching their head, while the two wend people whisper in the middle person’s ears.

The next game was Conductive Gripes. It felt so goooood to complain so much! I might do this one at my Improv class this weekend. Anyway, here were the topics:

Brendan – taxes
Chuck – women (ahhhhh….)
Russ – poison ivy
Garrett – holidays
Autumn – bad drivers
Jeff – computers
Scott – fast food

Lee – cheese
Kenny – the stock market
Kristen – men (heh – she had a surprisingly large amount of things to say)
April – beanbag chairs
Katina – Sumo wrestlers
Chris – flowers
Sarah – Acorns

I can’t tell you my actual gripes, because if I mentioned cold feet in bed, not tell us what we did wrong, and why they take forever to go out, I’d get into a lot of trouble.

Our next game was a new one: Hitch Hiker. It is pretty simple. Three chairs were set up. The person on the left is the driver and there is one passenger. They pick up a hitch hiker who plays a certain type of person (a profession, or mannerism). Then everyone in the car becomes that profession/mannerism. Eventually the driver leaves (making an in-role excuse), everyone shifts over, and they pick up a new person and it starts again.

There were many types and all were basic but fun. A Jamaican person, a sorority girl, drug dealer, mass murderer, priest, and others I can’t think of. The ones I did were weather man and gorilla (we went twice). The cool thing about this game is you get to play with someone else’s idea. Sure, I came in as a weather man, but then I had to turn into a Hindu monk, and then something else. Sheesh, I should really write this summary sooner so I’d remember more.

Something else happened during the game that, well, caught my attention. I’ll mention it at the end.

We did another round of Advertiser, with the products being a spoon and dice. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: we are all sick.

Next as an exercise we worked in predetermined scenes that Tiffany created for us. It was neat, but actually quite hard. We were given a who, what, and where, but we still had to fill in the details. We could take a minute to plan, but then we had to act it out, both with speech and motion.

I was up there with Kristen and Sarah. Our scene was our carpool driver died and we were at the funeral. We had to figure out everything else. We had him working at the Ford plant. We never said how he died, but we didn’t know him well. We just liked that he brought doughnuts and that he was always on time. Eventually I said that we should leave and lets get something to eat. As we are walking off, Sarah ended it perfectly by asking, “Hey, who’s going to drive?”

• Chris, Russ, and Jeff: dinner at a restaurant, husband forgot anniversary.
• Autumn and Brendan: father sending daughter off to school.
• Sarah, Kristen, and Chuck: carpool driver died and we were at the funeral.
• Katina and Scot: father and daughter in store shopping, and she gets her first period.
• Garrett and April: devoted religious people on day 3 of 40 day fast at a barbeque place.
• Chris, Kristen, Kenny, and Brendan: student council dealing with a broken swing.
• Autumn and Sarah: two old ladies playing bingo.
• Chuck, Lee, and Jeff. Three merchant marines left behind when their ship left.

I need to talk about that last one. For some reason, people are surprised when I curse. I also, apparently, curse like a 36 year old man. I say things like “Fuhkin’ A!” Kids today don’t curse like that anymore. I’m so old…at the bar that evening I said some gal there was a “babe,” and everyone laughed at that too.

Oh well. I’m not fazed. I don’t mind acting my age and talking the way I do.

We ended with that one, and a bunch of us went to the bar, and Tiffany joined us. I haven’t had a teacher join me at the bar since the seventh grade, so that was pretty cool.

We talked about a bunch of things, but I had a Mike’s Lemonade in me, so I had to ask this question. “Hey, um…during the Hitch Hiker game, did any of you guys notice … well, you know, when those two girls were…” and about four guys say, “Oooh, yeah, we noticed!”

But me, being the dirty old man, couldn’t help but notice. I even think I was staring for a while. I couldn’t help it! I was afraid I was the only one who noticed.

Everyone noticed, but no one wanted to say anything at first. But after I opened that door we all had a great laugh over it. Heck, one of the other girl’s in our troupe laughed and even said, “Hey, I didn’t get the memo!!”

So all of us are just raunchy boys and girls who can’t help but notice this stuff.

I’m sure you are wondering, so I’ll get this out of the way now: no, we didn’t wear thongs (at least, I didn’t notice any…not that I looked…very hard…).

I think this class was the hardest one we ever had. Tiffany was teaching us all about concentration. Apparently, it is tough to concentrate, as we learned.

We started off with the tape toss. We got to 56, which is what we had two weeks ago, but we couldn’t get above that. We went at it for a while, but we just couldn’t do it.

Then we started our first concentration game. We all stood in a circle, and Kristen started us off in colors. She’s point at someone and say a color. That person would say another color and point to a different person, and we’d continue until everyone got picked just once. Kristen would start again and we’d repeat, same color, same order. We did that few times to made sure we got it right.

We’d then start again, but this time it was ice cream flavors, and Kristen would choose a different person, and the order would be different. We practiced that.

Now the hard part: she’d stay both words and we’d have two threads going at once. This was a lot harder than it sounds. We messed up quite a bit. I think we finally got it, because Tiffany had us do a third thread based on items of clothing (and the thong did appear).

Doing three was pretty much impossible. For some reason people would miss their cues. I know I missed plenty. The whole exercise was giving us all headaches. It was pretty neat, though, when we did have three threads going for a while, even though we never made it to completion.

Here was a strange game that we placed. I don’t know what it was called, but a person would sit down, and on either side would be two other people. The person sitting had to hold a conversation with the other two people simultaneously. The standing people ignored each other – they just babbled on and on to the sitting person trying to get their attention.

We played a Dr. Know-It-All game. Tiffany was the MC, and we were asked questions that four people had to answer – one word at a time. Tons of fun. Then we were Experts, each of the four people was a character they had to play. Somehow I ended up a militant black man named Malcolm of Vibe magazine. I really don’t understand that.

We ended with a round of Big Booty, and didn’t leave for the bar until around 10:20!

I think people were a bit down because we knew it was our last class for a while. Hopefully we’ll all be back. Unfortunately, it looks like the next class won’t start until February! I don’t want to wait that long!!

It was an excellent class with wonderful people. I hope they come to my New Year’s Eve party!

Left side, back row (left to right): Kristen, Chuck, Kenny, Scott
Left side, front row (left to right): April, Chris, Sarah
Right side, back row (left to right): Bill, Brendan, Katina, Jeff, Garrett
Right side, middle row (left to right): Russ, Lee
(not shown: Autumn)
Right side,: front: Our teacher, Tiffany!

As I predicted, everyone who wanted to get into this class from the previous class was able to get in. There are a total of 17 people signed up for the class, though due to the incredibly nasty weather, only 13 people were here. Lee from our last class dropped (and he will be missed). However, we have one new face: Tom, who took Level A a full year ago.

Tom is outgoing, an extrovert, loud, boisterous, and probably a tad neurotic. I think he has an affinity for moldy cheese. He is also pro thong. I think he will fit in quite well.

Our teacher is Rachel Bellack. I’d link to her Second City faculty page, but she is one of those mysterious teachers who don’t say much about herself. She has a ton of experience in acting and improv, and has also taken all of the Second City classes, including the one we taking now.

I suppose I could explain it by saying that she had us gasping for breath, confounded, frustrated, and even sent one of us to the hospital, but you’d probably think I was just kidding.

Then again, she was also fantastic, and I really think I’m going to enjoy this class immensely.

Rachel somehow managed to make us feel as if we had learned a lot while at the same time having us feel like we knew nothing. Kinda like life.

In the last class, our instructor Tiffany had two goals. The first was to help us understand our space and learn object work. The second, which I think was more important, was to help us get comfortable with just being on a stage and performing. To do anything as long as we did something.

Rachel’s goal for this next class, which she achieved, was different. She wants to take us out of comfort zone. We need to accept ourselves and be willing to try and do almost anything. We need to get out of our head of how we normally do things, and to really pay attention to everything that is going on around us.

I better simplify. Class A: object work – where are you. Class B: relationships (within scenes and between the group) and communication.

I also liked Rachel’s job description for the individual improv performer: make everyone else look better than you do.

She also will be side coaching. During a scene she will stop us, give us a critique, or change the direction, or give us ideas. If she waited until the end, none of us would have any idea what she was referring to. She did some side coaching during this class session, and I think it worked out well.

On to the actual class itself. We started with a bunch of warm-ups. I forget what it was called, but it was basically the clap and point stuff. You clap and point at someone, and they do that to someone else.

Variations were added. We would have to say someone’s name, then do different sounds, then Zip Zap Zop.

A new variation was 007: starting person says “zero” and points, next person also says “zero” and points, third person says “seven” and points, and the forth person says “Bang!” and points. That fifth person acts as if she were shot, and the two people next to her scream in horror. That was fun. We had to reminded, however, that we need to concentrate on what we are doing. Keep it going as fast as possible, but don’t be sloppy.

We then played ‘tag.’ You know, the “Tag! You’re it!” game? This being improv, it was different. The space was restricted, and if you got tagged, then you had to grab on to that area for the rest of the game. Same thing if this happened a second time. Third time you had to die creatively. We played this once, and it was a lot of fun, but this is where we almost killed Kenny (like I would be able to resist that reference). Someone either stepped on him, or he twisted around, or something, but he hurt his ankle, badly. About ten minutes later Scott took him to the hospital.

Improv is dangerous
Or
How I spent 5 hours at Detroit receiving
Or
How I managed to cripple myself playing a game of tag.

I thought I'd give you an update on my trip to the emergency room. Major thanks are due to Scott for spending several fun filled hours at the hospital with me.

The E.R. Doctors confirmed that I was correct in my initial self diagnosis: I ruptured/tore my Achilles tendon. I take a small amount of joy in knowing that I could accurately pinpoint my injury.

I have a temporary splint right now and it looks like I'll be on crutches for the foreseeable future. Once the swelling goes down I'll see an orthopedic surgeon and he/she will decide if I need to have surgery to reattach the tendon (I've been told that most likely this will be the case), or if they can treat it non-surgically. Either way I'll be in a cast for a while.

Despite this being a major bummer I'm in relatively good spirits, although I do bitterly regret purchasing a car with a manual transmission seeing as I need both feet to shift gears properly. I need to discuss this further with our instructor, but if it’s at all possible I'd like to continue coming to class and participate, albeit in a somewhat limited fashion.
I'm pissed that this had to happen an hour into the first class.

For the curious amongst you I've included a couple of links regarding ruptured Achilles tendons, including a totally awesome, super sweet video (real player required) of an actual surgery where they sew the tendons back together.

-Kenny

Seriously, that stinks. I’m glad he’ll still be doing the classes though.

After tag while we were resting we reviewed the three rules of improv:
Yes, and….
Don’t deny.
Don’t ask questions.

Rachel clarified the “don’t ask questions” rule. In a scene, if you ask “Did you take my sweater?” then the response is either yes or no. But if you say “You took my sweater!” then the other person has something to build on.

We also discussed Exposition: who, what, where (the focus of Level A), how, and sometimes why.

The deny part is worth reviewing, as we all, me especially, had troubles with that. Denying isn’t just saying no, it is fighting the scene as opposed to going along with it. That came into the fore when we played the Gibberish game. Three people would sit together, with the two on the end talking in gibberish but trying to hold a conversation with each other. The one in the middle would translate, as if they were each person.

This was incredibly tough. I’ll go through who did what, and the scenes, and then add all the notes at the end, because they applied pretty much to all of us.

Tom, Chuck, Russ: Father and son.
Kristin, Scott, Bill: In an airplane.
Brendan, Garrett, Sarah: Brother and sister.
Chris, April, Katina: Beauty shop.
April, Brendan, Bill: Doctor.
Chuck, Katina, Garrett: Gym.
Chris, Kristen, Tom: Teacher and student.
Russ, Sarah, Kristen: Lawyer.
Chris, Tom, Chuck: Swimming Pool.
Brenden, Bill, April: Library.
Russ, Chris, Bill: Golf course.
Garrett, Sarah, Katina: Probation officer and client.

My initial problem was that I was trying to be funny, again, instead of just playing the scene straight. Making a conversation, a realistic one, is difficult, and I was fighting myself when I was doing the translating.

The scene needs to be about something. There has to be a reason for communicating. Many times we would do things that one would only see on a stupid situation comedy, and not real life. So, have a subject with some sort of conflict (conflict as in drama, not conflict as in fighting). Then have a resolution that ends the scene.

Don’t ask too many questions, it will push you into a corner. Think about how to heighten the scene. Think about the need: why is stuff happening?

Given a who, what, or where from the audience doesn’t mean anything, because you can go anywhere with it. For example, if someone says a Taxi as a location, you could still be a couple having a discussion about dinner while in the cab. We can take it anywhere we want; don’t limit ourselves.

Turn questions into statements. Keep in mind the relationship between the two people. That is what this class is about. How you talk to your boss is different than how you talk to your spouse, friends, etc.

Don’t do shit and penis jokes – there is no where to go from there, and we are too smart for that.

Be true to real life. Avoid teaching and coaching. Don’t say what you are doing – when people are talking, they don’t say “I am now pouring a cup of coffee!”

Lots of stuff. Like I said, it was hard, and there were tons of things to think about. However, we really enjoyed the exercise and the experience.

We ended with the old standby, Switch, only this time our teacher would freeze us. We had to jump in quickly, and be meticulous about keeping the previous poses.

We were given two pieces of homework, er, that is, homeplay:
1. Pay attention to conversations, both ours and others. What do people want? Why are they speaking? What is the tone of voice used, and what are they actually saying?
2. Watch the news. Know enough to form a strong opinion about topics.

The hour long drive home in the freezing icy rain wasn’t, but I think I came out lucky – I’m glad Kenny is doing okay, and hope he heals quickly.

Only twelve people attended this week. Two couldn't make it (one had a previous commitment and the other I think was coming down with the Black Death). I do have to apologize though. Last week I said Lee wasn't taking the class, and imagine my surprise when I see him there! Excellent! Kenny was also there, on crutches. He managed to move around pretty well.

To start off, we went around talking about what was new with us. This was done so that we could not only bond, but to hear about how we express ourselves. Something new happens to us everyday (let alone every week). It is interesting to hear how people talk about themselves, what it is they want to say about their life, and maybe even why it is important enough to mention.

Next it was a bunch of warm-ups. We did 8's, clap and point, sounds, and then our old favorite: Bippity Boppity Boo.

We did something that I've not done before. It was another form of object work, where we stood apart from each other, and each person pretended there was a table in front of us an behind us. Rachel would call out an object and we would have to pick it up from the table behind us, and place it on the table in front.

For instance, I think the first object we picked up was a plate. I, like many others, had my fingers touching when I picked up the plate, which isn't how it would be. We really had to visualize that object we were holding; so much that we could answer questions about it. Every so often Rachel would ask one of us about the color of the object, or style, or what emotion we felt. A towel that is snuggly warm out the dryer: what would you do if you picked it up? You'd probably put it on your face and feel the warmth. That was the sort of thing you should do when visualizing. I can't remember all the objects she mentioned (and I had little time to write things down during this class).

We then worked on knowing the space around us and our environment. We would walk around for a while and at some point everyone would freeze. One person would start walking, and when they made eye contact with someone, that person would start moving and the first person would stop. The goal was to make those transitions incredibly smooth: the new person should start moving as the first person is slowing down to stop. As with all things, this was tough too, but we were developing a sort of group mind.

The exercise was enhanced by having us try to guess who the person was (if they were walking behind us) - or at least their gender, height, weight. We were also to try to figure who they were going to pick. To help we would try to set our intention of who we would pick while walking around. It was tough to not look at people as we were walking by! We then would walk around with an emotion, and could also have full phrases.

The goal was to speed up those transitions. I think at the end she had us going on with this for a full ten minutes. It seemed like a long time, and we would go so fast that we had no time to preplan what we were going to say or how we were going to feel.

And that was the whole point. For improv, you aren't supposed to preplan. We need to clear our minds so that we are open to thousands of possibilities. That's the theory anyway.

After a short break we went on to do some scene work. As before, we had to focus on the relationship to each other in the scene. How do you feel? What do you want? The conversation/scene should be about something, and then we need to heighten the situation, and finally bring it to a resolution.

The game we played was called "Dubbing." Like gibberish before, two people would stand and pretend to talk, but this time each of them had a person doing the talking for them. We each had a chance to dub and be dubbed. We needed to avoid the obvious. If we were given a scene between two divorced people, the first thought is to have them fight and argue. Instead, have them talk about their jobs, or how they miss each other, or something. Everyone has more than one relationship between them. College roommates might also be sports rivals. A brother and sister might like the same types of movies. The possibilities are endless, and we had to try to think of the non-obvious and go with it, heighten, and then resolve the story.

To practice our thinking on the fly, we did the One Word Storyteller, where we sat in a circle, and each person in order doing one word of a story. It was tough for us, so Rachel had us take a step back. We did word associations. We just had to say the first word that comes to mind after hearing the person next to us say their word. I think we did this for ten to fifteen minutes too. After a while, you just stopped thinking and say what comes to mind. We would get on themes at times: colors, food types, etc. It was surreal.

Our homeplay was to, at a place we are very familiar with (someplace at home, or office, whatever), notice three sounds that you never really noticed before, and three things (not just objects, but effects such as light on an object) in the same way.

Thirteen people here today. People were out auditioning for shows, or had personal affairs to take care of. The new guy Tom was replaced by another new guy called ... Tom.

We are so uncreative here at Improv, that we can't even come up with a new name for visitors. Even Tommy would be fine. Heck, add an 'h' so he's Thom. Anything!

I'm afraid of what will happen if both Toms show up at the same time. Second City might implode and end up relocating to Novi or something.

The conversation this week (after Rachel made a few of us sit in different locations - I got the wonderful view of hockey players with bad dental plans) was to tell everyone about a pleasant surprise. Most people had to think about what that was, which is kind of depressing. If we were asked to talk about something that bothered us, we'd be able to whip out a top ten list in less than twenty seconds.

We continued with our standard warm ups (see the previous two weeks), and then moved on an exercise that was totally different than anything we had done before. This is a great exercise for a small group of people to help them get to know each other, especially if you are in a comedy troupe (or Commedia Troupe, or a troupe run by someone named Sophia...).

Basically, we split up into teams of two (with one group of three to include the odd person out), and go off to a corner, sitting with our backs to each other. It is best to team up with someone you don't know very well. For fifteen minutes one person would interview the other, asking them about their life and anything else. Where they came from, their job, favorite flavor of ice cream, why they are in the improv class, person who inspires them ...whatever. Then it switches and the second person interviews the first. Notes are taken.

But then comes an even more fun part. Everyone gets together as an audience, and one person comes forward and becomes that person they interviewed. They are called by that person's name, and first they stand there and talk about themselves. When done, the audience then asks questions. If the person doesn't know the answer, they still pretend they are that person, who would know that answer, and just make something up. The person who is being played on the stage is not allowed to ask questions.

The task isn't to imitate that person. You don't have to mimic their voice or mannerisms if you don't want to. But you should feel enough like them so that you can answer questions.

Hmm, that is confusing. I wasn't going to at first, but I think an example will help.

I was in the group of three, with Lee and Chris. I interviewed Lee (and had to be him). Lee interviewed Chris (and had to be her). Chris interviewed me (and had to be me). We didn't really ask about our pasts much, so while others were able to give a brief life history, we didn't know that. We knew enough, of course.

When being Lee, I didn't imitate his voice, but I did try to do his mannerisms to a certain degree. I was very contemplative and spoke slowly and precisely. I smiled and had a very good humor about me. Sometimes I responded to a question so like him that I got a great reaction from everyone else.

The coolest part was when someone asked me: Lee, what do you look for in a woman? I won't put the answer here, but I gave an answer that I thought Lee would give, and it wasn't what I would normally answer about myself. Afterwards he told me that I exactly right, and it was amazing. People might get facts wrong that they didn't know about, but for some reason during this exercise, you learn enough to be able to answer emotional and philosophical questions quite well.

As Rachel told us afterwards, we didn't do this to just learn about others. This exercise helped us to learn more about ourselves.

All of us did a fantastic job. People really got deep into what the other students were like - it was uncanny.

I should note that this exercise took up the entire class time. Although we were rushing a bit at the end, I think we all got to do a full presentation of the people we interviewed.

Our homeplay for this week is to have a sensual experience every day. Use our senses. Really taste some food we are eating. Feel the weather around us. Enjoy the texture of an object. That sort of thing. More about this is in my February 10th blog from 2004.

We had fourteen students today, but also we had two guests who were in Rachel's troupe: Barry and Debbie. They were a lot of fun, and added an interesting mix to the day.

We did our normal warmups, then went right into a game we did in Level A called Make a Machine. We split up into two groups, and the other group would give us what we had to make. It was something weird, a color, or made up object. We learned a lot about how to actually be a part of the group when making a machine. We also for one of them had to make sure we were touching. The key was to work as an ensemble, a mechanism of connecting parts.

Next we did some space walking, with different emotions, feelings, and activities. A key point here was to keep moving, which translates to performance. No matter what is going on, you should make sure that you keep doing something and not let the show just die.

Our next exercise was a word game. We stood in a circle and someone would say a word and point. That person who was pointed at would have to make a new word from the last letter of the first word, point, and so on. It was hard for us, as we were quite slow and thinking too much. So we switched to places, and tried to go as fast as possible, paying attention to others and trying to not mess up.

Continuing this, we got into two lines and did a game I actually played in my medieval club: going in alphabetical order we had to say a sentence back and forth, making a story. If you started with the wrong letter (or took too long), then you got buzzed and went to the back of your line. As you can imagine, 'Q' and 'Z' were tough, and I think I'm going to look up some words in the dictionary.

To help improve our trust, we made a trust circle, where one person would stand in the center, fold their arms over the chest, close their eyes, keep their body rigid, and fall. All of us would catch them and move them around the small circle. It was a weird but very fun exercise!!

A new game we played was the Three Person Statue. Standing in a circle, a person would say a phrase (anything really), and the three people next in the circle would go out and make a statue of it. This was much harder than it sounds! We went one way around the circle then the other.

We ended with Switch. This time we got to call 'freeze' ourselves and pick the time to jump in. I goofed by pretending someone's hand was glued to their body. That is a big no-no, as there really isn't any place to go with it. I do love Switch though. I always want to jump in everytime!

This week Rachel gave us our evaluations, so even for an Improv class it wasn’t a regular session. To start us off she talked us through a full body relaxation. I need to do such relaxation techniques more. It really helps to have someone talk you through it, that way you can just, well, relax, and not think about how you are relaxing.

Next, to continue the relaxation effect, we did something that was so cool that I will be doing it again with groups of people. Basically, she had us, all at the same time, talk about all the things about our life that we wanted to complain about. However, we talked in gibberish. You use the same tone and volume of voice, gestures, and body language, but no one knows what you are saying. Everyone is talking over everyone else. When we got it all out of our system, we’d speak in gibberish again, but about all the things that make us happy.

It was like telling all of your secrets, yet keeping them at the same time. It was incredibly cathartic. Seriously. I talked about everything, good and bad parts of my life that most people don’t even know about, petty things that are too stupid to even bring up and silly things that make me happy but would be a bit embarrassed to express. I talked about it all, as if I was really speaking, and no one understood a word I said. It was great!

While a person was evaluated, the rest of us got to go back to kindergarten. We did two activities: drawing, and writing a story.

For the drawing, Rachel brought a hotplate and paper. We had to draw an emotion. We’d melt crayons on the hot plate then put the paper on top. When removed (and removing it changes how the art comes out – for example, I swirled mine when I took it off), you had a piece of art, just perfect for the fridge.

For the fairytale story, each person would write one sentence while only seeing the sentence before. It went around and around until the class was over. As requested, here is the story. Bonus points are given if you can figure out who wrote what.

This week we started off by finishing up the evaluations. There were about four left, so the ones not being evaluated did warm-ups and played any games we wanted! So we did Big Booty, Zip-Zap-Zop, 007, What Are You Doing….basically whatever we felt like doing.

The main work we did was another game of Hitchhiker. This time, as usual, was much harder. We had to mime really being in a car, and getting and out using the door, and driving properly. We had to make up real reasons for the driver getting out and the other two picking up a new passenger. We also had to keep track of where we were going.

The first time we did a terrible job. After a whole bunch of instruction, though, the second time was incredibly good and very funny! It was a hard game, but when you do an improv game well, it really is a ton of fun.

We finished with Switch, and are trying to go fast and not anyone hang out there.

Our homeplay is to, when in a non-critical conversation, try to say the second thing that comes to your mind, not the first. I can’t believe there are only two sessions left.

Beginning Program, Level B, Week 7 - Saturday, 6 March 2004, and Monday, 8 March 2004

As I was going to California this week and would be missing class, I went to the other B session that meets on Saturdays. There were three aspects to the Saturday class that were really nice:

This B class had Rachel as their A teacher, and it showed. They were very good and fun to play with. Their current teacher Eric was a lot of fun and a fine teacher. I was welcomed immediately and was comfortable playing with the group. They are as crazy as my own group, but that just made it easier.

We played many similar games and also a few that I hadn’t done yet. This class’s topic to practice was “give and take.” That is, give and take with each other and within a scene.

One of the new games was similar to our clap and point, but this one was “point and evade.” You would clap and point at someone, then immediately walk to their space. They would have to clap and point and move out of your way into someone else’s place. If you get this going really fast, you can get five or more people all moving in and out of the circle. Tons of fun!

We also played Ding, which is a great game for me to play as it helps to teach me to not think ahead. We do a regular scene, but when Eric rings his bell, the person who just spoke has to say something different. That person might have to say three or more different things before the scene can continue. It gets really funny!

A very silly game we played as Sit-Stand-Kneel. I got into a great scene with another guy as we were belligerent to each other, and we’d stand up and yell, forcing the other guy to kneel before the other. What fun!

A simple game we played was Holding the Line. After a subject was picked, someone would stand up at the front of the stage and talk about that subject (one or more lines, but it didn’t have to be much). Others would come forward, and when the first person finishes, the new person would take over. They didn’t have to continue the specific thread, they just had to talk about the original topic.

A tough one was were two pairs of people were on their own side of the stage. They each had a separate scene to improv, and when they hear a line they like, one person from that other group says that line, incorporating it into their scene. It becomes much more fun when the scene switches back and forth quickly.

This game I’ve seen before, but have never played: Exits and Entrances. We did this in groups of four, though my group had six. Each person has a word, like “pizza.” When that word is said by anyone, that person who has that word has to exit or enter, with justification. So if someone said, “Hey, where is my pizza,” and pizza is my word, I might say, “Oh, I’ll go get some!” If I come back and say, “Here is the pizza!” Then I have to turn right around and leave because I said the word, and justify it. It gets really nasty if the other plays say your word with every sentence. “What kind of pizza do you like?” “I like pizza with cheese!” “This pizza doesn’t have any.” “Ugh, I ate too much pizza.” With six of us, it was hard remembering the words, and sometimes people wouldn’t be called back on for a while. By the way, it is also bad form to call out your own word so you can come back on stage!!

I’ve asked a guest writer to summarize Monday’s class. Stay tuned. I’ll add it later in the week!

Class started off a little differently this week. Rachel had invited Rich Goteri the artistic director for second city Detroit to join us. Rich was there to observe and answer any questions we might have. Rich is offering a couple of advanced improv classes as well as a writing class. Both Jeff and I have expressed interest in taking the writing class, and after meeting Rich I’m convinced I want to sign up. We started off by asking about the move to Novi, unfortunately he didn’t have new information for us regarding when the training center would be up and running again in the new space. After exhausting the move to Novi topic, we began asking Rich for suggestions about how to improve our improv skills.

This led to Rich suggesting we play the 3-line scene game so that he could get a better idea about where we were skill wise. The 3-line scene game was really cool. The basic idea was to have two people perform a scene by only saying 3 lines. The first person would make a declarative statement that would hopefully define the two characters relationship and/or the source of conflict in the scene. The second person would respond by accepting this information and offering something in addition. Finally the first person would respond in turn. Ideally this brief exchange would if not consist of an entire scene at least set up the basic exposition needed to carry on from that point forward. This was really cool and I think it would be tremendously helpful when it comes time to do switch and other scene work.

Rich was a really great instructor (no slight towards Tiffany or Rachel intended). His suggestions were great and he made small corrections to what we were doing that really made sense. One of the things he had us do was to make sure that we involve object work before we spoke. He mentioned that we should try and touch at least 3 objects before we start in with dialogue in order to help set the scene. Rich also stressed that we should really pay attention to what the other person was doing with their scene work as well, in fact if we missed something that was key to the scene Rich would freeze us and have us redo the scene and make sure we caught what the other person was doing. Another cool thing I got out of this exercise was the idea that we don’t have to rush and that it was okay for there to be silence provided we were doing some object work at the time. This was really cool, because it gave us time to really listen to what the other person was saying and to form a proper response. Rich also stressed that it was very important for us to have a strong point of view and would at times pause us and give us an emotion, or some other background information that he felt would be helpful in furthering the scene.

After everyone had a chance at the 3-line scene Rachel and Rich broke off to discuss what we had done and the rest of the class jumped into eights, point and clap, and finally 007. Next we played a game where one person would leave the room and the rest of the group would form a circle. Rachel would then pick a leader for the group. The leader would be in charge of making a gesture (with their hands, feet, whatever) and the rest of the group was to mimic whatever gesture the leader performed. The leader could change gestures at will and the rest of the group was to follow suit. After settling on an initial gesture the person who was sent out of the room was brought back in and then observed the group and attempted to guess who the leader was in three tries or less. Rich was the first person who tried to guess the leader, after which he had to leave for the evening.

After everyone had gone once we took a short break and started off the second half of the class by discussing our week. Notable news was Katina's acceptance into the Columbia theater program in Chicago. Her classes don't start until August but it appears we will definitely be losing her to Chi-Town. Kristen has officially put her house up for sale and her family is preparing for the upcoming move, so she will be leaving us as well.

Next we played a slightly different version of the conductive gripes game that we played in level A. In addition to having a topic to speak on, each person was also given an emotion to convey. The rest of the game was the same. We split up into two groups of 6. I was in the first group and my first subject was crutches and my emotion was paranoia. We did this exercise twice and then switched it up so that instead a subject we would just speak gibberish but still try to convey whatever emotion we were given.

Finally we ended the class by playing switch, which is rapidly becoming my downfall. I felt completely off today. When I jumped in I was trying to have a good declarative opening line that would establish the scene, similar to what we were doing earlier with the 3-line scene with Rich. Despite my best intentions I kept screwing up, and would often lead with a question. I noticed that I have a bad habit of asking permission in a scene instead of declaring what I’m going to do or would like to do. This is something I’ll have to work on.

Half way through playing switch Rachel made us all turn around so that we could only hear the scene that was happening and not see the action. This was to help us from planning out what we were going to say. I had trouble with this. I can usually think of something to say when I run in however I have trouble justifying whatever silly pose the actors may have been frozen in. Not being able to see what the others were doing prior to calling out “Switch” really rattled me, so much so that I was at a complete loss for words at one point and could not think of a single thing to say. Needless to say this was not a good feeling, and I was surprised and upset at myself for drawing a blank. The good news is that most everyone else seemed to find this exercise really helpful. I still find it a bit off putting and think I need a lot more practice with switch.

I can’t believe we only have one more class left in level B; the past 7 weeks have gone by really fast!

Beginning Program, Level B, Week 8 - Saturday, 6 March 2004, and Monday, 8 March 2004

After talking about our week, and a quick warm up, we were allowed to play any game we wanted. We chose the 3-line scene game, and Kenny was right – that game is incredibly hard. I enjoyed it, but wow, we all had to work.

A quick break, and then Rachel had us do something that she does at the end of all her classes: we’d sit around in a circle with one person out. That person would sit with their back to us and take notes, while the rest of us talked about them for five minutes. It was … well … beautiful. We said many positive things about each other, and I found the comments very insightful. It was interesting to find out how people saw each other, and what qualities stood out.

Another break, then for our last game of the class we played blind freeze. Our backs were to the audience so you couldn't see what the two people were doing, only hear them. Therefore, you couldn't wait for the 'perfect' time to jump in based on position, you just had to clap freeze and hope for the best!

At one point I jumped in and had no idea what to do. My partner was holding her hands together so I said something like, "I'm very flattered, but you are my sister-in-law. I don't think this is right." She, of course, ran with that.

Then someone claps her out and gives me a hard time about hitting on my sister-in-law. I called him my Dad and we continued with that same thread. Someone claps him out, and he becomes my brother-in-law, giving me a hard time too!

Then someone claps him out and is my wife, wondering why I'm spending so much time with her sister and noting how cute she is. She is clapped out, and it is my gay friend wondering why I'm ignoring him for my family. He's clapped out, and my brother comes on asking me about my hot looking sister-in-law and we talk like a couple of horny guys about her.

While all this is happening, I’m going along with the rollercoaster ride, interacting with these new events and moving the scene along, not denying, just working with it. It was incredibly fun and a bit stressful!! I was surprised that no one tagged me out. We all had a fantastic time doing that.

We basically stumbled upon an advanced form of improv, doing a long improv story scene. Rachel was pretty amazed with us, as were we!

Because we don’t know when the next class will begin, what with Second City moving to Novi and all, this last class was bitter sweet. It could be weeks or even months before we all get together again. We still have no idea when the new stage will be open.

So, what else was there to do but to go out drinking!! I think all of us went, including Rachel and Tiffany! I stayed out much later than usual (past midnight). Someone ordered pizza, which was just perfect with all that we were drinking.

Yay Second City!! I was finally able to make it to my Saturday classes. I missed the first one because I was in England, and the second because of an SCA demo. I switch from my Monday class time because I’m taking Richard’s improv classes (which I love, and hope to write about someday).

This class is at Second City’s new location in Novi, Michigan, right across from 12 Oaks Mall. The stage is still under construction, but they have two classrooms set up. They are really just a couple of empty rooms with lots of chairs, but honestly, compared to the old place with the pictures of dentally impaired hockey players, this place was fine. Also, the neighborhood is much, well, nicer. It feels like we are in Pleasantville or something.

This class was big, with I think 14 people, but only nine were here this week (including me). Bill and Garrett were here from my previous classes, and rounding out the class from the original Saturday section were John, Ann, Christian, Heather, Andrea, and Carissa. All of them are quite good, as good as the class I was in, but different. No surprise there, although I think Christian could give Kenny a run for his money…

Pj teaches this section. A very cool guy who can even teach after barfing on the side of the road an hour before class.

We started off telling everyone something they don’t know about ourselves. Most of it was either amazing, or pretty sad, or both.

Next is a fun activity that is useful for starting an improv party. First we lined up in order of our birthday (month and day) without using any verbal signals. Then we lined up by age, then by middle name.

Next we played a game of Hitchhicker. It isn’t my favorite game, but I did have a ton of fun. I also apparently came up with the geekiest ‘hitting on a girl’ line ever when, while pretending to be a role playing game kid, I said “ooh, I would really love to roll her dice!” I’m using that on my wife now, and I can’t tell you how much she loves it.

After that we had a long discussion on scene work. Scenes have the following components:

All scenes have “beats,” which are basically the events or elements that happen.

Editing is when you cut into a scene, during the beats. For example, during switch, edit right after a big laugh, or after the end. Scenes can be as short as eight seconds, or as long as required to develop into a scene. For some reason, at Second City the switch scenes have been getting shorter and shorter, but they don’t have to be.

Heightening: raising the stakes. It doesn’t have to be absurd; it can be a small event. In fact, have multiple small heightens is a very good thing.

To practice making a story, we sat in a circle and told a story, one line at time, and going only once. Pj would start us out. I think the funniest thing to me was when Garrett said that robots are silver. Seven years of graduate school and I never learned that!! They also liked it when I referred to heightening as a monotonically increasing function.

To end the session we played a “bell” like game to practice heightening and story telling. It was basically two person scenes, and at various points Pj would say “new choice” and we’d have to change our response.

One thing I learned during this class was that when performing, it is always more interesting to go to the awkward and uncomfortable place.

Since my other Monday class was cancelled, I decided to go back to Second City and take the other section C class. It was a small one, I think with only six