For the first Mullaney Chain, I invited Lillian Frances. She invited Pete Parsons. He invited Pat Kent. On Tuesday night at 8pm we play at the Underground Lounge.
Author: mullaney
Unprocessed Food Diet – More Info
A while back, I came up with the idea of the Unprocessed Food Diet (UFD). I had read The End of Overeating
I did lose weight, about 20 pounds over two and half months. Continue reading “Unprocessed Food Diet – More Info”
What is a Mullaney Chain?
I’m trying out a new show called Mullaney Chain. It’s a bit like Messing with a Friend, but instead of asking one friend to play with me, I’m going to assemble a team for each show. It will work like this: I’ll ask one person to sit in with me, they will ask a third person and then they will ask a fourth. I like the idea that I won’t be picking that third and fourth person. I’ll just trust that each person in the chain will ask someone fun to play with us.
The first couple of shows will be at the Underground Lounge (952 West Newport Avenue), Tuesday July 12th and Tuesday July 26th, at 8pm. I’ve sent out some invites for the initial shows, but I’m still working on lining up the guests. I’ll announce my guest performers here and on my twitter feed when I have them confirmed. I hope to do many more of these shows in the coming months.
Oh! And those shows at the Underground Lounge are FREE!
IRC Podcast with Megan Johns
The latest episode of Improv Resource Center Podcast is up. I interview Megan Johns, a teacher at The Annoyance and a member of the New Colony. We talk about improv newbies, hybrid improv classes, and using improv to write plays. Megan’s latest show with the New Colony is 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche which runs through the end of July.
What is Joy Joy Tragedy?
Like me, Amrita is also an improvisor and she had a slot in a show that weekend to do some improv. Continue reading “What is Joy Joy Tragedy?”
Black Box Acting Studio – Review
Yesterday I finished B4 at the Black Box Acting Studio in Chicago. It’s the fourth and final level in what is a terrific program. It’s only been around for a few years, but the curriculum is solid and the teachers are passionate and smart. I feel like I’ve learned some new tools and sharpened some old ones, but most importantly I’ve now got a process for auditions and rehearsals. I also feel like I have a new home base, so that when I do get cast in a show and I’m running into roadblocks, I have a community of people I can call on to help.
What is the program?
Like a lot of programs in Chicago and elsewhere, they start with exercises used in Meisner classes. You learn to observe your partners behavior. You do repetition. Repetition is something that I’ve done for years. I thought this part of the curriculum would be old hat for me. But I certainly did learn new things.
Game of the Scene – an example
A therapist welcomes her patient into her office and asks him to tell her about his week. He tells her how he argued with his teenage child about a curfew. She tells him about her own truculent child. He tells her how he is frustrated with his spouse in the bedroom. The therapist sympathizes with him and complains about how her spouse refuses to sleep with her. The patient admits to getting too drunk at a work party. The therapist admits that she is drunk right now.
This is an example of a scene with a game.
The Game of the Scene is a term we use in improv (and sketch comedy) to describe what is funny and interesting about a particular scene. Continue reading “Game of the Scene – an example”
Who, what, where… the first three lines
I think that this whole thing about getting the who, what, where out in the first few lines is a scene killer. It may be this necessary building block for newbies, but when two moderately experienced improvisors are worrying about that stuff at the opening moments of a scene, it can be dreadful to watch and dreadful to do.
One solution that I’ve advocated for years is just do something, anything at the beginning of the scene. Don’t think about it, don’t talk about it, don’t make the scene about that activity. Just do that thing so that your scene partner can join you and you can blow past the who, what and where. Start talking about anything else. This tends to work reasonably well.
But when you can do that, there is a whole different set of muscles to work on. They are acting muscles. Continue reading “Who, what, where… the first three lines”
Get it into your body
I’m learning to play guitar. It is a tough, slow process. If I have a new chord to learn, it takes a lot of repetitions before that chord becomes second nature. I have to practice that shape with my fingers many times. I have to practice changing from chords that I already know to the chord I’m learning. The goal is to play that chord as quickly and as easily as I might say a phrase or sing a melody. But it doesn’t come with one lesson or with one or two practice sessions. It takes many sessions over many days and weeks and sometimes months for me to learn to play a chord with that kind of ease.
Sometimes I think we expect improv to work differently. Continue reading “Get it into your body”
Better
So I have moved back to Chicago. I’m renting a nice one bedroom condo. It’s definitely the nicest apartment I’ve ever had. It has central air and a washer/dryer in the unit. I feel almost spoiled now. I think it would be hard to go back to most of the closets I rented in Chicago and New York.
You might ask, why am I here? I’m here to get better. I feel out of shape as a performer. As an actor, I never really nailed down any particular process. I’d get a script, memorize it, go to rehearsal, try to absorb the blocking and direction, and try to figure out the best way to say my lines. It’s not a great process and it doesn’t seem to take advantage of all that early training which encouraged me to work off my partner. So the first priority was to find a studio, go back to class and figure out a process–a real process that starts with a script and ends with a full, dynamic, grounded and improvisational performance.