Author: mullaney

IRC Podcast with Joe Bill

The latest episode of Improv Resource Center Podcast is up. Joe Bill teaches Power Improv workshops in Chicago and around the country. He is one half of BassProv with Mark Sutton and one half of SCRAM with Jill Bernard. He also teaches at iO and has taught at the Annoyance before that.

I first got to know Joe Bill back in the 1990s. He was teacher over at the Annoyance when I was at iO. He coached Georgia Pacific, a very talented team at iO and eventually joined that team. Similarly he joined Inside Vladimir after some of the original members had moved on. I joined not long after that and it was then that we first really got to know each other. It’s always fun talking to him, because he has lots of experience and plenty of passion when it comes to improv.

Should you tell people your goals?

I ran into a TED video last night about telling people your goals. It’s a very short video, worth looking at before you read the rest of this post.

So Sivers claims that we should keep our goals to ourselves. When we tell someone else our goals, they often give us approval and praise right away just for setting the goal. The boost we get from this can actually discourage us from pursuing the goal. We have already gotten the reward.

This idea annoyed me a bit, because it did make some sense. I can think of goals I’ve set for myself recently where I did talk to people about the goal early on. They were suitably impressed and stroked me for just stating the goal. And so far, I have not gotten very far attaining those goals. But the real reason this annoyed me is that it flies in the face of other research too.

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IRC Podcast Live in New York

This past weekend, I was in New York for a visit. It was a fun whirlwind of events. I arrived on Friday in time to rehearse with my 3 on 3 team and play in one of the first round shows on Friday night. On Saturday, I taught a workshop and performed four times, once in a jam in the basement of a bar on seventh avenue, once at the Magnet Theater with Theory of Everything, and two more shows at the UCB–we made it to the finals of the 3 on 3 Tourney. Sunday, was all about my podcast.

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IRC Podcast with Evan Linder

I uploaded episode 15 last week on Thanksgiving.

I first met Evan Linder after going to see 11:11 by The New Colony, a play that he co-wrote for the company. He also performed in the play. I asked him about their development process and what he told me surprised and delighted me.

The play was a good one, interesting and funny, but what I really liked about the production was how connected the actors were to the material. It was as if they knew what they were doing at every moment of the play. Every line made sense and had purpose. That’s not a small feat for a new theater company filled with young actors performing a new script. After Evan described the extent to which the writers collaborated with the actors through improvisation, it all made sense.

If you are in Chicago, be sure to check out their new show, Pancake Breakfast, which opened on Sunday. I’m going to see it tonight!

I need a montage

I’m in class again. Actually I’m in a lot of classes again. I decided to move back Chicago and to retool. It’s like that part in the movie where the guy has to train for the big confrontation in act three–the montage. I needed a montage. In my montage, I’m taking acting classes, learning to play guitar, studying at the Annoyance and inventing activities that I can practice deeply and which will make me a better performer. Of the classes I’m in, the acting one is the most challenging.

Years ago I took a series of acting technique classes. The instructors didn’t mention Meisner, but it was obvious that the exercises and methods were similar. We used repetition. We improvised scenes using imaginary circumstances. It was exciting and visceral and raw.

I took those lessons and tried to apply them to my improv. It taught me to be present, to pay close attention to the emotional life of my scene partner and to act on my gut impulses. For years, I’ve taught workshops that try to bring those ideas from Meisner to improv. I’m teaching one of those workshops this weekend.

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IRC Podcast with Craig Cackowski

Episode 14 of the Improv Resource Center Podcast is up and ready to download. Craig Cackowski from iO West and Second City in LA talks about doing scenes from imaginary plays, feeling scenes before you know what is happening, La Ronde and the North vs. South Harold.

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IRC Podcast with Armando Diaz

Finally, it’s here! I’ve uploaded another episode of my podcast. This interview is with Armando Diaz, founder of the Magnet Theater. We talked about connecting with your scene partner, initiations, using improv to write and how to teach better.

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Six nights a week

The best team I was ever on was Frank Booth. I’ve played with other groups that have been very good, but that was the best one. It was the best because we rehearsed nearly every week for four years. And we probably performed over 200 times together. We weren’t the most talented or the smartest group ever, but we knew each other as performers well and worked well together on stage. I’d like to do that again, be in a group that has rehearsed 200 times and has performed 200 shows. But here is the difference. I’d like to do that in one year instead of four.

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You Become What You Do

In my twenties, I was a performer. In my thirties, I was a teacher. I became what I spent my time doing. When I lived in Chicago, I did a lot of things, but the thing I did the most was rehearse and perform improv. For about five years, I performed at least a couple times a week and usually rehearsed once or twice too. I got good at improvising, very good, but I don’t think I mastered it. I think I still needed a lot more experience to accumulate in order to master it.

And then I began to teach. I liked teaching, a lot. I learned much about how to improvise when I started to coach it and then later when I taught it. There is something powerful about having to think deeply enough about something that you have to explain it to someone else. Still, during these first couple of years in Chicago as a teacher, I performed as much or more than I taught. I had some balance and I continued to grow as a performer.

When I moved to New York, this began to change. Continue reading “You Become What You Do”