Sunday November 10th filled me with pride. My 301 Patterns & Games class performed their showcase. And it was great. Their energy was high. Their support, unwavering. And their commitment to building collaborative patterns using the rubrics' guidance led to hilarious moments. Those rubrics? The One Person Scene. To The Ether games. Help Desk games. […]
Watch this. Keep watching. Wait for it. Stay with it. There it is. [wpvideo RW9h0Kis] Following the simplest pattern saves the day. And gets a nice big laugh.
Oh, man, this organic group game made me laugh. It's simple and fun. All Chapman has to do accept each addition with his character's garbled, "That's my thing..." The audience loves him for it! They know he's getting put upon by his fellow players (literally by the end!) and they reward his acceptance and commitment […]
The Johnsons' performances account for the majority of this site's videos. Why? I'm their coach. That means A) I love them, B) their work often reflects Improv As Improv Does Best characteristics and C) theirs are the recordings that are the easiest for me to get. But I have been a bad coach lately and […]
Check out this fun, loose Hey Everybody game from The Coalition's Detective. [wpvideo SreYQCIv] The team isn't behold to the sequence of contributions - they allow their characters to react in-the-moment as inspired - but you can see the sequence is loosely maintained and it helps the overall flow. Improvisers clearly stick their character's silos […]
Detective, a house team at The Coalition Theater, created an Opening inspired by this scene from Black Dynamite where wild associative leaps serve to solve a crime. [wpvideo 2f2vbo0R] The Opening generates a lot of Details for them to inspire future scenes. The big jumps showcase individual's humor and building on one another showcases their […]
In learning Tertiary Moves an improv student is taught that "the first move is trump" (a reference to card games not our shitty president). In practice this means that if the first tertiary move is a Walk-on then the next tertiary move should also be a Walk-on to heighten the game at play. While there […]
Yes, when approaching Tag-Outs it can be helpful for the sake of focused heightening to only tag-out one side of the scene - keeping one character consistent and heightening his/her Personal Game. And yes, when choosing between two players to tag-out it is often advantageous if you replace the catalyst and keep the character reacting […]
Building a game out of heightening the pattern of an interaction isn't just for improv. It's a creation tool. At least if you're looking to create something coherent. Both of these cartoons appeared in The Washington Post's Sunday Cartoon section on September 30th. Read Jef Mallett's Frazz and Tim Rickard's Brewster Rockit below - but […]
A quick, fun Help Desk game utilizing the Split Screen. The escalating pattern is fun but the commitment to emotion helps the pattern hit. [wpvideo DX4bsnVV] Listen for the laugh Adrienne gets just by reacting without words. Note the key to the end is that Ben actually feels bad for his allergy to murder. The […]