ON THE SPOT IMPROV

Its not that I’m lazy to write a blog now and again. its the sometime I read a Blog or a Facebook note which kinda sums up what I think. like the blog I posted from Ian Parizot a few weeks ago about SFIT. I remember reading a Facebook note from R Kevin Garcia Doyle which really has sum up my thoughts about dogma in improvisation and his experience at the Seattle Festival of improv. I would like to share that with you.

Garrick - OTS

SFIT / Improv / Dogma by R Kevin Garcia Doyle

One of the great things about attending improv festivals is that you’re forced to wrestle with your preconceptions concerning improv as theatre or comedy or whatever you might preconceive it to be.

The sheer variety of styles on display in the shows does this, as does the conversation with improvisers from across the country. Its very difficult to say “improv is this, but not that” when you’ve just seen a remarkable example of successfully improvised “that” on stage,

A book I was reading about U.S. Air Force pilots flying over Laos in 1970 (“Flying Through Midnight”) also helped direct my thoughts towards the dangers of dogma.

In this book, a veteran pilot (veterans being measured in months of service rather than years) discusses how the first pilots who flew the missions over Laos quickly learned that the air force rules were not only useless, but likely to get them killed.  Thus, they came to the conclusion that they’d have to come up with their own ideas about how to successfully fly missions.  During this time period, they felt totally alive as pilots - many viewed it as the most exciting time of their lives.

They wrote their ideas down on 8 1/2 x 14 yellow paper and shared them with each other - not as rules, but as ideas about what worked for them in specific situations.  In improv, we’d call those tools.

However, when they rotated out of duty, an office jockey came across the hand written notes and thought “this won’t do!”  He edited out 90% of what was on those pieces of ledger paper, added some of the old air force rules back in and published it as official rules of engagement for flying over Laos.

Now, these new rules (which were accepted as dogma by many pilots) were just as useless and just as likely to get you killed as the original rules.

What the best pilots had to learn to survive while flying over Laos was how to know their plane and their crew so well that they could make split second decisions that (as often as not) defied air force dogma.  They would be busted later by desk jockeys for not following the rules, but the missions would be successful. 

While at SFIT, I don’t know that I saw more than one or two shows that fit into conventional models of “the correct way for improv to be performed.”  For example:

• Paris Tales by Parisian Gentlemen of Paris - This French trio did short loose scenes based on direct interaction with individual audience members.  They focused largely on garnering ask-fors that were based on American’s perceptions of Paris and France.  Their scenes then undercut these perceptions.  The show had a couple of stealth short-form games.  They embraced fully developed characters and a delightful sense of the absurd.  They were the only show that I saw at the Festival that leaned more towards short form, but they didn’t play it in a way that telegraphed that to the audience.  As far as anyone watching the show was concerned, It was solid, funny improvisation (with a really amazing opening sequence that dove straight into the heart of half a dozen French stereotypes).  You can do a short form show in a very different way from “Whose Line” and make it work.  Hurray for blowing up formulas!
• Confidence Men from Austin performed improvised Mamet.  That said, you wouldn’t have needed to be familiar with Mamet to enjoy the show.  They made a remarkable, 100% commitment to being true to Mamet’s language quirks - the short, unfinished thoughts and sentences, the staccato rhythms and the profane word choices.  As with the best genre shows, they were not parodying Mamet, but using his style as a springboard for great improvisation.  Also, though they had 20-25 minutes like the rest of us, they made this into a two act play (with a wonderful violinist between the halves).  We’ve done two acts before, but doing two acts in 25 minutes was a new and interesting thing to me.  You don’t have to be prisoner to your time limits - you can do the things you need to do to make your show work no matter how long (or short) you have.
• The Amie and Kristin/Kristin and Amie show from Philiedelphia - What stood out to me about this duo was that their level of emotional commitment to their work.  When one got upset, she didn’t get ‘fakey improv upset.’  She was UPSET.  I mean, if I’d seen her acting like that in real life, I would have thought she was genuinely having a fit.  I mean that as high praise.  We have a tendency in improv, sometimes, to hold back from genuine emotions and these two very talented performers drove home to me how the same kind of emotional commitment that makes for excellent scripted acting can raise your game as an improviser.
• Funbucket from Seattle.  Jordan Savusa sat next to me during this show and said “what the heck am I watching?” with absolute delight about ten times.  I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything like Funbucket.  It was like watching a religious cult do improv. The premise is that audience members bring “offerings” to place in the Funbucket and then the large cast is inspired by the various objects.  Note that I didn’t use the word “scenes” because (while there were some scenes) the group might be just as moved to do something insane and non-scene like by the object.  For example, when they pulled out a role of tape, they took the opportunity to use the tape to try and corral the entire audience.  Another prop prompted them to all die various deaths.  A third turned into a scene about a man in a truss being carried over the heads of the rest of the cast in an attempt to enjoy some “man time.”  While the cast approached the show with a sort of militant dedication, it was as close to anarchy as I’ve ever seen on stage.  Funbucket not only gleefully tossed away all of the rules of improv, they destroyed their own internal rules as the show went on.  I said afterwards that its the only improv show that I ever want to see from now on, but what I meant was that I want to approach my own work with that attitude.  Destroy everything, even the ruins, as Pere Ubu would say.

There were a number of other fantastic shows that I saw both familiar (Pimprov, Twinprov, Super-Mega Art Show, Dirty Laundry) and unfamiliar (The SheSpot’s Spanish soap-opera, Al and Jim’s One-Man Show, Where No Man’s improvised Star Trek TOS, Royal Friends Society and the beyond delightful improv duo Carskee) - not to mention a dozen or so shows that I missed - and I could have picked any one of them as an example of own forging your own path results in a stronger improvised show.

Anyhow, one of the things I love about the Seattle improv scene is that they really embrace everything.  They remind me of those pilots in “Flying Through Midnight” who are doing whatever it takes to get their job done (in the case of Seattle improv, creating great theatre) without any regard to anyone’s dogma.  As a result, its one of the most exciting improv scenes in the country.  History suggests that somebody is going to create a book titled ‘The Seattle Way’ that will, in turn, become a kind of dogma in and of itself (note how Napier’s “Improvisation” which espouses the “don’t follow rules” approach has sometimes been treated as a kind of dogma by people who missed the point of the book entirely).  I’m going to hope that history doesn’t lock the Seattle scene into that particular trap ever because, man, are the shows good now.

Thank you, SFIT, for a reinvigorating, thought provoking and extremely entertaining Festival.  Thank you also for your warm reception of “Hush.”  Its great to be reminded sometimes that the work you’re doing is worthwhile.  Its easy to forget that.

On The Spot met Ian Parizot from Paris France during Chicago Improv Festival in 2011 with his group Eux Compagnie D’Improvisation. We were fortunate to meet him again at this years Seattle Festival of Improv Theater with another group called the Paris Tales. Well, being post SFIT, I went scrolling through everyone’s facebook to tag pictures, add new friends, and post stuff on people walls when I came across a post Ian made on his facebook page. It was a very elegant and beautiful letter to the People of Seattle, in particularly the people at Wing-It Productions (the folks who put on the festival) and all the improvisers he met. It was the perfect summery of what took place this past week in Seattle. I thought it would be a shame not to share it with our friends. 

“Dear SFIT and Wing-It people (and more generally, people of Seattle), THANK YOU SO MUCH for making us feel so good. You are amazing improvisers, you have extraordinary dedication to your art and your community (we hope to take some of that back with us to Paris) and you are such beautiful people. I can’t beleive how much we flirted, touched, kissed, talked, connected, hugged over the course of the last days : I fear I might get addicted to that and I am already suffering from withdrawal. Highlights of the festival : getting picked up by Amanda, seeing a puppet get killed on stage (Puppet Happiness Machine), the salmon and seafood (so good), seeing Lauren try to drink the whole bottle of wine on stage and playing with that (Paris Tales 1), the awesome chemistry between Margret and Michael (M&M) and also that scene where Margret was scared of heights, all the flirting girls in Seattle (we could not even order coffee without getting a conversation started), the EMP museum, seing real Star Trek on stage (loved the girls’ hairdo, and first time I’ve seen a real good kiss like that in impro !), Jean-Luc the giant snail and revealing John’s “secret” (Paris Tales 2), seeing some good slow-paced impro (Amie & Kristen), Caitlin’s spoken-word mixed with impro (Ghost Jail), HUSH’s improvised puppet dance with the audience - the most beautiful impro I have ever seen -, playing the Super NES until 3:00 am, Directing workshop with Asaf, Genre workshop with Troy, Confidence Men improvising lying down… they are so confident !!, HAVING A VIOLIN PLAYER ON STAGE, a dinner (!) with audience members (Improsia), 5:00 am pancakes, Puppet workshop with Elizabeth, the nice stage pictures in our sadness & depression format at the Dust-Up… But most of all all the beautiful meaningful conversations and moments with you guys (you know who you are, yes, you !)… and so much more ! Merci ! I’m happy and sad at the same time…”

Well Said Ian.

OTS Improv

Bunker 13 - Seattle
Classy D - Chicago
Chocolate squirrel - Honolulu
Dicks and Jane - Honolulu
Dirty Laundry - Seattle
Galapagos - Phoenix
Home Wreckers - Honolulu
Landry and Summers - Los Angeles
Mega Lou - New York
Morally Improvished - Juneau
Oil in the Alley - Honolulu
On the Spot - Aiea
Puppet This - Seattle
Revlis - Austin
Something Classy - Honolulu
Super Mega Art Show - Seattle
Team X - Los Angeles
Twin Prov - Oklahoma City

There’s been a lot of buzz about our newest original improvised format True Wes: An Improvised Wes Anderson Movie.” A lot of you wanted to know how we are pulling it off.  So this blog is for all of you.

For about a year now I’ve been toying around the idea of putting on an Improvised Wes Anderson movie. Now the reason I’ve more or less waited a year to put this show together was because… Well, let’s face it; Wes Anderson is an Auteur Film maker. His films reflect his personal creative vision. His creative voice is so distinct that It’s hard to improvise it and not make it into a parody. If you’re familiar with our work, in particularly with of improvised film formats, you know that we don’t like to make parodies of the films genres we improvise. In this case, We essential wanted to stay true to Mr. Anderson’s creative vision, his creative voice, and his entire body of work which is why we entitled the show “TRUE WES.”

I’ll be breaking down this blog down in three entries based on the roles he plays in all his movies. Part 1 Wes Anderson the screen writer. Part 2 Wes Anderson the director.  Part 3 Wes Anderson the Producer. Let us begin with Wes Anderson the screen writer.

Wes Anderson screen plays are a mixture colorful characters and hyper realistic surroundings. Add in Anderson’s novelistic dialog and direct delivery and you get the get bare basics of the brilliantly odd and often hilarious Wes Anderson Universe. But if we examine his work more carefully you’ll notice at the heart of all his quirky films are extremely identifiable characters who speak to those who feel that they are not a part of the mainstream. When asked in an interview who watches your movies Wes replied, “I think outsiders, people who feel like misfits. I mean that’s how I always felt.”  This statement truly sheds light on his artistic voice. If you’ve ever felt that no one got you, you could identify with Wes Anderson’s movies and in particularly his characters.

All of his characters are brilliant and accomplished, yet flawed in some way. Take for example the Max Fischer Character in Rushmore.  Max is a well-meaning maniac in question fifteen-year old a prep-school student with an overwhelming slate of extracurricular activities but whose lackluster grades threatens to expel him from the school he loves.  When he falls in love with a first grade teacher as much as he loves the titular school itself his relationship with other quickly fall apart.

Another example is Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow and Luke Wilson’s characters in The Royal Tenebaums. The actors play Richie, Chaz, and Margot Tenenbaum. Three sibling child prodigies who never reach their potential. As adults they are in a state of arrested genius and flawed relationships because of years of betrayal, failure and disaster mainly at the hands of their Father played by Gene Hackman.

Lastly take the Title character in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zisou. He is an acclaimed oceanographer and film maker who come to a mid life crisis after a slew of lack luster documentaries and the death of his best friend at the jaws of a shark. He puts the life of his crew and his marriage in jeopardy when he decides to hunt down and kill the shark that ate his best friend.

In all of his movies Wes Anderson’s characters are geniuses who are unable to connect with others because of their genius.  But as the stories progress in his movies we learn to love these flawed characters as we note their missteps.

This is why we love Wes Anderson Screen plays, He puts extraordinary and identifiable characters who are flawed and he make them go through difficult situation to discovery what is truly important to them. This is the Heart of our new format and is what we aim to achieve when telling our improvised version of his movies. To produce not only the quirky colorful characters and hyper realistic surrounds but make you identify and empathizes with them.

In my next blog well go over Wes Ander the Director and explain how we are trying to take his distinct directing style and making it work for an improv.

Greetings all -

If you’re not in the know. This weekend was our first run of shows was amazing. But to fully appreciate how awesome it was you kinda needed to know the back story of the ending of our 2010 year. For starters we ended the year with Rod Cachola sitting out all of November and December, with his work at the credit union and his activities with the Rosalie Woodson Dance studio, Rod clearly needed some well deserve time off of OTS to rest up; And because he was on Hiatus, he was unable to join Alissa and I on stage for our newest improv format Screwballed (An Improvised Screwball Comedy set in 1938. Mainly done in the vain of the Movies Bringing up Baby, and His Girl Friday) Our master improv musician Art Koshi cut his finger so bad that he too was not able to play music during this past weekends run of shows too. So for a little while it looked like it was just me and Alissa were the only two people in OTS. 

But on Friday night we were lucky to be Joined By Brent Mukai from Las Vegas to do some short form improv games. Brent is a local boy and a student of mine who lives and improvises in Las Vegas. We were also joined by Jordan Savusa, a former OTS member who left for the main land but was back home for the holidays. Due to happenstance we moved our Friday night show from the down stairs studio area to the larger 3rd floor studio. We found that it was much better to perform in and will most likely play there regularly. To top that all off we had full house. The first full house we had since May.

Saturday Morning we took brand new OTS pictures with the Cheyne Gallarde at his new studio in Chinatown. If you’ve seen our publicity shots of our shows Hush and Tell Tale Dreadful that’s Cheyne. I love working with Cheyne because he gets the essence of what we do on stage and is able to capture that in our photo shoots with him. That day we needed to update our Hush Pictures and our Hitchcock pictures for our up coming trip to the Chicago Improv Festival. We will post those very soon.

That Saturday night we were once again joined by Jordan Savusa who actually helped Alissa and I with our Screwball Comedy Format. Along with a few people who I was invited to be a part of my special Project Genre Showcase the night ended up with a full house with new flock of new people introduced to the OTS Style of improv. We got to see three brand new formats created. An improvised Disaster Movie which killed and a Mash up of Fairy Tales on Trial. That show also kicked ass.

Our Newest Format Screwballed headlined the show and it was a Huge success. Mainly because of the chemistry between Jordan Alissa and I. But more so because of Alissa. Her strong improvisation of the movie style work was the driving force behind the show. It was like she was channeled Katharine Hepburn. She was good that Jordan and I had to follow her lead.

And even though Rod could not perform with us because of his conflicts with practice he was still able to support us by hosting the show. And Art was still able to improvise music for the show by using his lab top to create a play list of soundtracks music to improvised to.  Basically the entire group got to do the show together. All in all its a great start of new year for OTS.

In February we will premier our newest improv format TRUE WES: An Improvised Wes Anderson Movie. And in March we will celebrate our ten year Anniversary with our 10 year Anniversary Weenie Fest Fundraiser. And in April we go on Tour to Chicago. I’m so Looking forward to the future.

Hey Everybody

its been a very long time since I blogged about OTS stuff. Well to be honest all of us in the group is pretty exhausted after putting on Improvaganza improv festival. But after talking about some of the projects we wanted to work on we got super psyched. I am excited to share with you guys that our next original improv format will be Pride, Prejudice, & Zombies.

That’s right folks OTS will be doing their first ever Mash up Format based on the book by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. I’ve already read a few chapters of the Novel and I have to say it’s Pretty Funny. Once I Finnish the Novel I’ll be Getting to work on creating the format.

Alissa and I are already doing reseach on this production. Our Improvised Production of Pride, Prejudice, & Zombies is be in full costumes and 100% in period. This is going to be so much fun. More blogs to come about OTS and Pride, Predjudice, & Zombies. Stay Tuned.

Well tonight is opening night for Tell-Tale Dreadful and all of us in OTS has really enjoyed creating this wonderful show. The thing I like about working on this show is that it is truly a continuing work in progress. There is a lot of stuff that we are constantly discovering and will continue discovering every time we practice or perform this show.  That being said, most of our show formats are based off of a video resource, in particularly a movie resource. This show had no video resource for us to build a show structure on, so we created a structure from scratch. To achieve this we went through our entire catalogue of shows to incorporate techniques we have invented in past shows The Freedom to build on past works allowed us to create a highly stylized show which extremely different than any OTS show we have done in our 9 plus years together and yet hold true to our unique brand of improv.

Tell-Tale Dreadful is all about stylization. Stylization is that signature approach and look that makes a show unique. Stylization establishes mood, tone, pace, and atmosphere. This blog is about the techniques we used to stylize Tell-Tale Dreadful and how we made them work for this show.

Emoting –
Emoting is a technique we use to communicate without speaking. Originally we developed this technique for our improvised silent movie show “HUSH.” Emoting uses body language and facial expressions to communicate in a way which gets to the root of what a character wants from another character.  We also found that emoting was a great way to engage the audience with just a glance. The Emoting technique we use in Tell-Tale Dreadful is specifically used to engage the audience and entice them to be a part of the show.

Subjective Movement –
Subjective movement was developed during the run of our Alfred Hitchcock improv show. The technique comes from the way Alfred Hitchcock visually directed his movies. Hitchcock would use the image on screen to put the audience into the mind of the character. He called it a subject point of view.  His mastery of the subjective point of made his movies suspenseful and compelling. The subjective movement technique duplicates Hitchcock’s subjective point of view for the stage. By actively looking for powerful position on stage you can place the audience into the mind your character. For Tell-Tale Dreadful we want the audience to be put into the minds of killers and madmen. So moving subjective definitely will fit the mood and atmosphere of Tell-Tale Dreadful

Villainy and Farce -
Two years ago our friends from Parallelogramophonograph (an improv troupe from Austin), taught a workshop on two of their original show formats at our annual improv festival, French Farce and Villainy. Villainy and Farce uses two extremely different approaches and improv techniques for each show. Villainy is very dark and sinister while Farce is very light hearted and silly. It would be crazy not to incorporate some of these techniques in our show. 

Specifically we are using Villainy and Farce to help create the characters that live in the Tell-tale Dreadful universe. Using villainy techniques allow us to play awful characters, the void of moral compass that are unafraid of commuting horrible acts to others. This is a necessary trait for our macabre improv. Jack the Ripper would not be an interesting character if he did not kill brutally. Villains are also interesting characters to play. They are also interesting to watch. Villains don’t see themselves as evil. Villains may know what they are doing is wrong but it is interesting to see them justify their actions. Playing a villainous character allows the audience to be place in the mind of a villain.


We used the Farce techniques to play big, silly, and over the top. Farces like Oscar Wilde’s” The Important of Being Earnest” were very popular in London theaters in 19th century.  As we are playing a troupe of wondering actors performing penny Dreadful plays for a London audience in 1888, the farce technique helps us to play to the time period.

Musical –
Because Tell-Tale Dreadful is a Macabre Cabaret, we thought it would be important to perform the show as a troupe of cabaret actors performing Penny Dreadful play. It’s basically a play in a play. Therefore improvising song and dance was a must. We’ve performed our improvised musical for well over 5 years now and improvising songs are very easy for us. We mainly use it to convey the traveling cabaret show but also use musical technique because it always wows the audience. Yes it’s a cheap ploy to earn your affections but it also is creates the right atmosphere.

So these are some of the techniques we are using for Tell-Tale Dreadful. I hope you will be interested in seeing this very cool Stylized show.

Every Friday we perform improv at the Rosalie Woodson Dance Academy. Our Friday night shows features some of our some stand up comedian friends, some long form improv, and short form games. Well we’ve been doing this every Friday since January and since we’ve been playing the same rotation of games every week, I’m kinda in a funk about playing the same games. So I decided last week to play the game-o-matic format.  In a game-o-matic we basically ask the audience for the names of an unexisting improv game, then invent the rules on the spot and perform them. It was so much fun to play and it got me out of the short form funk I was talking about.  I want to share the games we invented that night in this blog.

PUNCH DRUNK – This is naive game. The premise is very simple.  3 roommates had a wild party the night before and got so drunk that they have no memory of what happened. A fourth roommate gives them clues in which the other roommates have to guess what happen. One roommate made out with some famous person, the other got a tattoo somewhere on his body, and the last roommate got so drunk he did some kind of crazy stunt.

OKOLE SLIDE – Well I doubt we will ever play this game again. But the okole side is an improvised hula. Okole means Ass or Butt in Hawaiian.
 
WHATS THAT SOUND – What is that sound is very much like new choice or hesitation. The idea is to fish out sounds and noises from the other players on stage, then incorporate it into the scene.

DESTINY – This was a very fun game. I’m surprise how well it worked. Because the game is called destiny we decided that one of the player would be foretold his destiny or fulfill some made up prophecy in the scene. In fact, this was the suggestion we asked from audience. (that night the suggestion was “slay a dragon”) That wasn’t the only element in the game. Earlier we planned to play lines from a hat and had the audience fill out lines of dialog. Now instead of reading those lines out loud and incorporating them as if it was our actual dialogue we had someone off stage periodically freeze the scene and read out one of those lines. The players on stage would use them as a suggestion and somehow include elements of the line into the scene.

CHOP SUI - This was a fun game and our closer. Its like Mega Replay or any other type of Replay game. The player would act out a scene. after every scene the player would replay everything word for word movement for movement with exception of one person who will replay everything in a different style of character. After every scene another person would change (note the last person who change keeps replaying that same character.) until everyone is replaying the orginal scene each in a different stlye. Therefor a mundayne scene like four people looking for lost car keys can now be A Shakespearian actor, A Noir Femme Fatal, Hulk Hogan, and an emo kid are looking for car keys.

Murder, Mayhem, and Madness; this is our mantra for Improvising our macabre cabaret show Tell-Tale Dreadful. Improvising the Macabre is not an original concept. There are a few improv troupes across the country and around the world that has performed macabre theater. One group in particular really stands out; The Los Angeles based improv troupe Doubtful Guests. Improvisers Jason Ades, Sabrina Hill, Todd Stashwick and Ezra Weisz have created a show which is so stylistically rich that it has its own mythology and group of musicians who improvise the music. I’m a huge fan of the Doubtful Guests. I saw them at CIF in 2009. I’ll be honest; it’s so hard not to want to bite them because their macabre show is so good.  but that’s the challenge we are taking in Tell-Tale Dreadful; to create our own stylistic DARK improv show rich in its own mythology and continue that cutting edge improvisation work associated with OTS shows

In creating the Tell Tale Dreadful we needed that idea to build our own improvised macabre mythology.  So we had to define the parameters of our show. As artistic director I wanted Tell-Tale Dreadful to look like a cabaret show (or a “Dark Cabaret show”) with these mad traveling actors who present these dreadful plays to a curious audience. Being that it is a caberet show it needs to have a masters of ceremonies and live music played by our man Art Koshi. Heres a fun fact in the 19th century it was common for a traveling company of actors to perform reenactments of famous murders. People would actual get dressed up to see these performance in theaters and opera houses. This is what the show should be like and what we intend to perform for our audience.

Since this concept is the backbone of our show we decided that the mythology Should have these fundamental truths. The first truth is that “Tell-Tale Dreadful” is set in 19th century Victorian London during the time of Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes.  This back drop of foggy Victorian London, is the perfect setting for Tell-Tale Dreadful, as it automatically makes the audience assume the tone of the show.  This also means that the audience should be treated as if they live in 19th century London perhaps living in the slums or a poor working class block.  Like most of our shows we love playing in period. It gives us an opportunity to go research the era, dress in full costumes and make up, and try new approaches to improv to bring the period to life. 

The second truth is that all the performers in the cabaret show needed to be “a bit off their rocker” or to come across as if they may have escape from the asylum. This is a way for the audience to feel like they can laugh at the characters and the dark subject matter. It’s also a way we can play as villainous, seductive, and as brutal as possible. 

Currently we are researching a lot of resource material. Some or classic macabre authors like Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, and Author Conan Doyle to other are modern resources like Roald Dahl, the lyrics of musical trio of the Tiger Lillies, and even Tim Burton movies. Research for this show has been a lot of fun, in particularly with reading Poe. His SHIT is CRAZY! I swear to God when you read his work and its very poetic and elegant then all of the sudden you are shocked the character is doing these evil things. Good Stuff. boy that was a tangent.

Rod, Alissa, and I will be getting together tomorrow to toss around some ideas about structuring the macabre plays but we do have the general concept down. And it is very different than any other macabre improv show out there. I know for a fact that we will be including our own brand of improv to this show by incorporating some silent movie improv from our Hush show and subjective improv techniques we used in Hitchcock. We’ll also be using some (French Farce and Villainy) techniques that were taught to us by our friends from Parallelogramophonograph when they taught workshops at improvaganza in 2008. In My Next blog I’ll be sharing some of those techniques and how we’re incorporating them into the Tell-Tale Dreadful