Two links I mentioned in the intro:

• Submissions are due soon for the Chicago Improv Festival.
• Come see Kevin in Will Act For Food‘s production of Jack’s Precious Moment.

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.

In the afternoon, I recorded a couple of hours with a teacher from the UCB whom I’ve wanted to interview for some time. I’ll be whittling that down to a podcast soon. And in the evening I did my first podcast recorded live in front of an audience. The show was at the People’s Improv Theater and featured three teachers, Ed Herbstman of the Magnet, Nate Starkey of the PIT and Porter Mason of the UCB. For both of these, I was using my new digital recorder and I think it came out great. I posted the podcast up today. I hope you enjoy it.

One thing that I especially liked about the panel interview approach, is that the conversation flowed quite naturally and I think we each gave each other ideas. The end result is probably better than if I tried to interview them separately. One topic flowed to the next and when we finished–about 20 minutes over–we still had plenty to talk about. I hope I’ll be able to do these live panels again.

If you are an organizer for an improv festival or schedule shows for a theater and would like me to do one of these live at your venue, please let me know.

And finally, if you are in New York, and enjoyed this live podcast, do me a favor and pick out another show to see at the PIT, go to see it and be sure to tell the manager that Kevin Mullaney from the IRC Podcast told you to go. Thanks!

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!

See Craig perform in Quartet at iO West and Dasariski at UCB Theatre. He has been writing about his 20 years in improv at yesand.com. He will be an instructor at Camp Improv Utopia next May.

It’s funny how memory warps and changes over the years and how if we are honest, we don’t remember the past like we think we do. I had one thought about La Ronde, after considering our conversation. While I’ve always thought Del must have come up with the idea, I don’t really remember doing it in his class. I’m thinking that Craig’s version is probably right. It was his idea originally and I just assumed it was something Craig had done in Del’s class.

It’s been almost five months since I put up a podcast. I recorded this one in June. I have another one from June that I hope to get up next week. These would have been up much sooner, but my mother passed away in July and my father had a stroke in August. As you can imagine, updating the podcast hasn’t been a priority and once I had taken a couple of months to take care of family matters, it proved difficult for me to jump back in and get these uploaded.

However, I’m back and should have enough time to get this going again. I’d love for this to be weekly, but I know myself better than to promise that right now. I’m going to be acquiring some new recording equipment that should allow me to finally do in-person interviews. So you should look forward to a whole bunch of new interviews going up in the coming months.

I uploaded another episode of my improv podcast today. This week’s guest is Jimmy Carrane. We talk about grounded scenework, the third choice, reality transaction scenes, commitment, silent scenes, side coaching and group therapy.

I’ve known Jimmy for a long time and known of him even longer. He was a founding member of Jazz Freddy, a show which amazed and inspired me as a young improvisor in the early ’90s. Later we got a chance to work together on Naked a show that Rob Mello directed and starring Jimmy and Stephnie Weir. I produced the show and was the assistant director. I was extremely proud of Naked when we put it up. The idea of the show was simple, two characters, one hour, one scene. It pushed the performers to be grounded and real in a way that few shows had before. Jimmy and Stephnie rose to the occasion again and again during the run.

If you’d like to take a workshop from Jimmy, his email address is at the end of the episode. You might also check out his Facebook page, Jimmy Carrane Improv. Also, Jimmy is the co-author of Improvising Better: A Guide for the Working Improviser with Liz Allen, one of the most useful books on improv that I’ve ever read.

Finally, episode #11 of the Improv Resource Center Podcast is ready and uploaded! Will Hines and John Frusciante from the UCB Theatre in New York discuss the game, improv training simulators, an improv sabbath and things to steal from Ian Roberts.

Will and John host the UCB Theatre Podcast and teach at the UCB Training Center.

IRC Podcast image

However, there was a problem. One of the things that I assumed it would handle was the image that you see on your iPod while it is playing. When you add a new podcast to the RSS stream, the script requires you to assign an image for iTunes. And when you search for the podcast on iTunes, you do see an image for the show. But that was not enough to get the image on my iPod. When you listen to the first 10 episodes of my podcast, you won’t see an image on your iPod.

I finally decided to research it today. The solution is pretty simple. You have to embed the image into the mp3 file before you upload it to your website. As far as I know, you must use iTunes to add the artwork. First you create the image using Photoshop or GIMP. It should be a square image. Mine is a 300 x 300 pixel jpg, the same size you use for the iTunes store image. Once you have the image, you should:

1. Open iTunes on your computer.
2. Add/import the mp3 file to iTunes library.
3. Right click on the mp3 in iTunes and choose Get Info.
4. Click on the Artwork tab and add the image.

Now the mp3 file on your hard drive is ready to upload to your website and be added to your RSS feed.

If you want some more detailed instructions with images, you can look at the original post where I found the solution.