I’ve posted a new episode of the IRC Podcast. The guest is Paul Grondy who has been teaching at iO in Chicago since 1997. He teaches students how to do the Harold and so we talk about Harold structure, the principles of group work, being tender and heartfelt, knowing what you know, and group things. ...
If you are interested in improv and you do not already follow Will Hines blog about improv, Improv Nonsense, you are missing some great info. The most recent two posts are an interview with Chris Gethard, and it’s full of good advice for people who teach or coach improv. For example: Failure is a skill ...
I’ve never really liked clowns. I’ve never really thought they were funny or interesting. As a young improvisor, I sneered at them the same way I sneered at short-form improv and bad sitcoms. I thought I was above it and didn’t even think that there might be something to learn from clowning. I also remember ...
As, I tweeted a while back, almost every teacher and coach (including me) talks too much. We should all talk a lot less and let our students get more reps in class. If possible, we should give them a chance to try it again immediately after getting a negative note. If your students can keep ...
Last Saturday, I sat in with the Barstool Philosophers, an improv group featuring some old friends from my early years at Improv Olympic. It was fun to perform with them, and I wanted to share what happened in one particular scene. It was the middle of the show, and we had long since picked the ...
Joy Joy Tragedy is back with a new show, Sunday Punch, a variety show with sketch, standup, music, clown and other solo performances and of course an improv set with Joy Joy Tragedy (Amrita Dhaliwal and Kevin Mullaney). Every week a new spiked fruit punch to sample! WHERE: Upstairs Gallery, 5219 North Clark Street, Chicago ...
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 ...
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 ...
In my most recent class at Black Box Acting Studio, I met Amrita Dhaliwal. We were assigned a scene from The Memory of Water. We worked on it and ran it in class a couple of times. At break one day, she asked me if I wanted to perform the scene in a show. She ...
A psychiatrist welcomes his patient into his office and asks her to tell him about her week. She tells the doctor how she argued with her teenage child about a curfew. He tells her about his own truculent child. She tells him how she is frustrated with her spouse in the bedroom. The doctor sympathizes ...