Tag: improv

Possible Second Performance Class

I’ve had a lot of applications so far for the performance class that I’m teaching at Upstairs Gallery in June and July. There is a possibility I could open up a second section for the class, but I would need some more applications to make a second class happen. The most likely time for the second class would be 11:30 to 2:30 on Sundays with a show on Sunday evening, probably around 9:30pm.

So if you are interested in taking the class but Saturday afternoons don’t work for you, and Sundays do, please apply and note that on the form.

The Avengers as a Prototype for an Improv Team

I couldn’t resist.

The Hulk

The Hulk is an improvisor who is shy and quiet offstage, but when he is onstage, he becomes a rampaging uncontrollable force of comedy, smashing scenes with his unbridled joy. A team of hulks might be awful to watch, but a team with one Hulk and several other improvisors strong enough to play with him would be fun.

Thor

Thor is strong like the Hulk, but less impulsive. He is confident in his choices and capable of big booming characters, but he can also reign it in when necessary. He has a youthful exuberance, and sometimes makes choices that a wiser improvisor would avoid, but his perseverance and fortitude makes even terrible choices work.

Hawkeye

Hawkeye rarely takes center stage. He hangs back, letting the others make most of the initiations. He watches the whole show for an opening to contribute. He not only sees what is going on, but can anticipate what is about to happen. When he does contribute, it’s a precision shot, making the connection that brings the whole show together.

Captain America

The Captain is a soldier, always fearlessly doing what needs to be done. He is often the second person in the scene using Hulk’s crazy choices to make fun scenes. He is the voice of reason dealing with all the chaos being created around him.

Black Widow

With no obvious superpower, there are likely some in the back of the theatre watching the show who don’t understand why Black Widow is part of the team. But then the show starts, and she is fast and smart and makes it look easy to keep up with the boys. For every move, she has a counter move. But more than that, she has a way of bending situations to her advantage. You can’t box her into to stereotypical roles, she has a way breaking free and turning the tables. And watch out when she starts a scene weak, she is about to kick your ass.

Iron Man

Every team needs an Iron Man. Sure, he is smart and clever, but he also has lots of gadgets. No matter what the situation, he has just the right tool to make the scene work. He is the first out to initiate, pointing the way for the rest of the team. He is a great editor, cutting scenes just before they start to wear out their welcome and knows how to bring things together when the show is reaching it’s climax. Finally, he rarely takes things too seriously. When things aren’t going well offstage, he is quick to find the humor in the situation, popping stress balloons with well timed pin pricks of wit.

Who are the Avengers among the improvisors you know?

Putting The Pieces Together

Putting the Pieces Together
Photo by: Songster09 on flickr
Most improv training is focused on scenes. If you can do a good scene, you can do a good show, the thought goes. I’d like to suggest that the opposite is also true, or maybe more true, if you can do a good show, the scenes take care of themselves. When you learn how to take a character or an idea or a game and follow it through multiple scenes, you learn how better to play with characters, ideas and games within a scene.

This is how I’ll be approaching my upcoming performance workshop. We won’t start by working on openings, or breaking our form down into pieces. We will start by putting it all together. In the very first day, you will be doing 20-30 minute improvisations with your classmates. We will start with a narrow focus, a simple structure to be sure, but it will gradually expand over the weeks until we have a full form which follows games, explores themes, has group games and finds connections.

These won’t be Harolds. They won’t be that formal, but they will have many things in common with Harolds. And if you do this performance workshop, you will learn tools that will work in any kind of improv performance.

10 Reasons This Class Will Be Awesome

Yesterday I announced that I will be teaching a class at Upstairs Gallery in June and July. Here are 10 reasons why this class will be awesome.

  1. Kevin Mullaney (me) is one of the most experienced teachers in Chicago. He has been coaching long form improv since 1995 and teaching since 1997. He taught well over 100 classes in New York for the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater.
  2. Smaller class size: This class will have 14 people or less in it. I’ve seen classes in Chicago with more than 20 people in them. Honestly, that sucks for the student. Smaller class sizes mean more chances to try exercises and to learn by doing.
  3. Smaller team size: Team size will be limited to 7 people max for performances. New performers in Chicago are typically put on teams with 10 players, sometimes more. That’s too many people. 7 people per team means that each person will have plenty of room to contribute to the shows.
  4. Less expensive: $175, about half the cost of a regular improv class.
  5. 4 performances: Most improv classes only have 1 performance.
  6. Performances begin in the middle of the session, not after the class is over. This means we will be able to work in class on problems that arise in the shows.
  7. Shows are free! Invite your friends to come see you for free. Or if the class decides to, they can ask for donations and split the money.
  8. Shows are BYOB! Even more reason to invite your friends.
  9. Upstairs Gallery is a beautiful space to rehearse and perform in and the people that run it are super nice.
  10. After class, you get to hang out in Andersonville, a truly awesome neighborhood.

Performance Class at Upstairs Gallery Taught by Kevin Mullaney

Kevin Mullaney
Kevin Mullaney
This is an eight week class for intermediate and advanced improv students with some long form improv experience. You will learn how to create fun, interesting, two-person scenes; explore different ways to create second beats from those scenes; and try connecting different threads at the end of your piece. We will work on games within scenes and how to build group scenes and group games.

Best of all, the class includes four performances at Upstairs Gallery in Andersonville. Each show will be hosted by your teacher and you will receive notes after the show. The following week, in class, will feature exercises to work on the specific areas of potential improvement identified from the last show.

Who is Kevin Mullaney?

Kevin Mullaney was the original Artistic Director for the UCB Theatre in New York. He was also the first director of their training program. Before that he taught at iO Theatre and directed their touring company, the iO Road Show. He is the host of the Improv Resource Center Podcast and most recently one of the Co-Artistic Directors at the Chicago Improv Festival. Find out more about Kevin Mullaney here.

When is the class?

Class meets Saturdays 2-5pm, June 9th to July 28th (8 classes)
Performances are Sundays at 8pm, July 8 to July 29th (4 performances)

Where is the class?

Upstairs Gallery
5219 N Clark Ave
3rd Floor
Chicago, IL 60640

How much will it cost?

$175

How many students will be in the class?

Maximum number of students will be 14

How will teams be created?

For each performance, the teacher will break up the class into two teams. You will work with that team during the Saturday class before the show on Sunday. There will be 7 people on each team at the most.

What if I miss a class?

If you miss the class directly before a show, you cannot perform in that weekend’s show. If you miss more than two classes, you cannot perform in any remaining shows, however you are welcome to come to the remaining classes.

How much will tickets be for the show?

Upstairs Gallery shows are typically free with a five dollar suggested donation. The class will decide whether or not to ask for donations.

Who gets money from the donations?

The students do. The cost of renting the space for the show is included in the price of the class. Any donations will be split equally between the participants of the show.

How do I get into the class?

Students can apply to be in this class by filling out this form before Sunday May 20th. Students will be chosen from the pool of applicants. If you are chosen for the class, you’ll be notified by Tuesday, May 22nd. You will need to pay a deposit of $50 to hold your spot in the class by May 29th.

IRC Podcast with Paul Grondy

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.

Two links I mentioned in the intro:

Chris Gethard on Teaching and Coaching Improv

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 everyone has to learn. Get good at it. Encourage your students to get good at it by making your classroom a place where they know failure is ok. That being said, make sure they understand that integrity comes with failing for the right reasons. Don’t fail because you’re being lazy or unfocused. Don’t fail because you’re bailing on your scene to go for the cheap joke. Fail because you are pushing yourself to take chances you haven’t taken before.

Physical Theater, Masks and Clowns

photo by illustir from flickr.com
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 being confused about Keith Johnstone including so much material about masks in his book on Impro. What could possibly be the value in spending so much time working in masks?

Things started to change a few years ago when one of my friends in New York, a woman whose creative impulses I greatly respected started talking about how the improvisors she knew needed to learn how to use their bodies more. I don’t know what kind of classes she was taking, but she ended up involved in the clown community out there. I was open to the idea that improvisors needed to do more than stand on stage and say clever things, but I didn’t investigate it much at the time.

Continue reading “Physical Theater, Masks and Clowns”

Thoughts about coaching and teaching improv

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 track of how many scenes they have improvised in your class, you have failed as a teacher.

Research on the effects of cardio vascular health on neurobiology seems pretty clear. The fitter you are > the fitter your brain will be > the better you will be at learning and the better you will be at the kind of executive functions that make good improvisors. So get your ass out there and exercise every day.

Exercise also has immediate short term benefits in learning environments, which means I’ll be starting rehearsals that I coach with active warmups that get people moving and their heart rates up. Be ready for it.

Keep things simple and focused. Work one muscle at a time in rehearsal. Repeat exercises from rehearsal to rehearsal or class to class. A student must practice a given skill many times for it to become second nature and useful on stage.

Also, you can’t really practice two things at once and certainly not three. Let students practice something over and over and until it becomes at least partially unconscious, before you add other layers on top of it.

Let students practice things slowly. Too often we are pushing people to do things fast before they have succeeded in doing them slow. In fact, force them to go far slower than they are used to sometimes. Then speed them up. Then slow them back down again.

For the first time in my life, I’m doing movement/physical theater classes. It’s silly and ridiculous and queer, but it’s also fun and playful and ultimately quite useful. I recommend it.

Don’t Panic

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 low hanging fruit from the opening. Joe, an improvisor with whom I go back nearly 20 years, walked on stage and started making an action like he was feeding bread to ducks. I walked out and matched his activity. At this point, neither of us had much of an idea of where we were, or who we were to each other or how we felt about each other. He edited because it was time to edit, and I joined him because somebody had to.

Here was the part I loved. When we checked in with each other the beginning of the scene, we both knew that we had nothing. But I didn’t see any panic in Joe’s eyes. He was perfectly happy to be in a scene where we had nothing to start.

And so in the next few lines we calmly figured out what was going on and what we felt about it and each other and scene turned out pretty well. And it was because neither of us panicked. We were both completely comfortable starting a scene from almost nothing.