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photo by me via Flickr. Click photo for more

As I’ve mentioned before, Susan Messing is an i.O. teacher and co-founder of The Annoyance theatre. She’s pictured above performing in her weekly two-man show, “Messing with a Friend.” She’s insane.

Susan designed the Level Two curriculum for i.O. Level two is focused a lot on creating environments on stage and using your body, not just your mouth. On Friday, she ran a special three-hour optional workshop for summer intensive students in “Story Theatre,” where we narrate our own tales and fantasies, using our entire body and stage to create the previously-imagined. Susan had us fly people around, build cars and undersea schools of fish.

We even had the smallest fish in the sea return as a messiah and vow a fiery vengeance upon those who would fail to follow his example.

But back to Susan Messing being insane. All last week, our teacher, Rachael Mason, was as dirty and foul-mouthed as could be! It turns out, she was just channeling Susan. This lady has Noooo inhibitions at all, and is easily the most absurdly quotable teacher I’ve ever had. Here’s a sample fun pak

“I do improv to get me off. If it doesn’t get me off, it’s not worth doing.”

“Don’t be a wandering Jew.” She said this to a student who took too long to find his place in the scenery.

“You whore! Get your hair back.” to a woman who hadn’t tied her hair up or in a pony tail.

“Have you ever almost cum, and then your mom calls.” on following through with a sequence.

“Thank you for giving me polio.” one of the few places you can say something like this is in an improv scene. Polio might have saved it!

So those were the outlandish ones, but I’m not doing the workshop justice with just some crazy quotes. Susan believes seriously in improv, and she pushed us to create and build in just a few hours. A few more lessons she dropped on us:

• When you’re flying another player around on stage, don’t stand directly under her. Always support the neck and head. Set her down feet first
• “half of improv is talking yourself into improv.”
• “lead with people instead of plot.” Plot will come after the people are established in a scene
• “you don’t know where the product is gonna be, so enjoy the fucking ride.” a metaphor for everything we’re doing in improv. There’s no script, just the players. The point will arise somewhere. Enjoy finding it.
• “speak in sentences, not paragraphs.” It’s hard for your fellow player (especially in Story Theatre) to respond to long-winded paragraphs
• “a game is anything that happens more than once.” The idea of The Game in an improv scene keeps coming up. Susan’s breakdown is simple. A “game” is something repetitive. I walk on-stage and ask for bread. Next player asks for a sandwich; next, a buffet; next, the castle; next, the world… That could be a game. Weird example, I know, but I’m movin on peoples!
• When in doubt, match your scene partner’s energy

Firstlyness, I need to standardize how I refer to the days of this program. It’s five weeks, five levels and four days a week. From now on, I’m gonna just refer to the overall day count, so there’s no confusion about “which day four?” That being said, my last post was about how crappy I felt on Day 7, but as the teaser noted, day 8 rocked.

At the beginning of class we talked about the amazing TJ and Dave show many of us saw the night before. I need to set this up a bit. TJ and Dave are two master, veteran improvisors who have been doing their two-man show every week for about six years. The consistently sell out the show and collect rave reviews. There are so few shows I’ve seen in my life that impressed me to the point of simultaneously thinking, “I should abandon this performance business” and “that’s what art can be.” One such show is The Whitest Kids U Know, who have honored me by having me open their show with standup. Another is Black Folks Guide to Black Folks by Hanifah Walidah.

Seeing TJ and Dave (along with buying some comfortable shoes and getting a good night’s sleep) is what pulled me out of my day 7 funk and fatigue. These two dudes walk on stage, take an audience suggestion and improvise a show for 45 minutes! This week, they began as motorcade secret service agents, and it was beautiful. If they ever hit the road or put out a DVD, I will definitely let yall know. So in Day 8 of class we started the day by talking about their show.

• They moved slowly. They didn’t speak for 30-45 seconds at the top of the show, then one of them said, “So, first time workin the motorcade?”
• They transitioned into and out of characters very smoothly, using every tool they had. Facial expressions, speaking style and posture all changed as they morphed from character to character. They didn’t rapidly juggle characters (the way Practice Scaring a Bear did amazingly well), but they made beautifully deliberate choices. They defined characters so well, that when TJ began enacting the Senator they’d created, Dave was later able to play that same senator while TJ was motorcade guy. Even though these two men don’t look alike, they both looked like the same senator somehow.
• They didn’t go for the easy nor obvious laugh. The laughter was a byproduct.
• They have huge balls, as Rachael said, because they didn’t even solicit and audience suggestion!

Creating Massively Multiplayer Scenes

I just gotta say, Rachael loves to fuck with us. Apologies for the profanity. I use it rarely here, but it is truly the most appropriate word. The Level 2 curriculum was designed by Susan Messing (more on her in another post), who just loves to fuck with people. She’ll use hella profanity, obscenity and other under-the-skin-getting techniques to push your knowledge.

Rachael broke us into two groups on stage, and she told us we had “five minutes to prepare a bit.” What does that mean? NOTHING! We don’t work that way? What’s a “bit” anyway? And what does “prepare” mean. Each group huddled and threw out ideas. We considered writing a little sketch. We thought maybe her point was that improv is easier than writing a sketch together. We looked at her. She looked at us. She yelled the countdown, “TWO MINUTES!!” When it was our turn to present, we did an opening and some story theatre piece and closed it.

Lesson: you don’t have time to mull over a thousand different ideas and “plots.” Just YES-AND (that’s the main improvisors credo. Say “yes” to whatever your teammate throws out there “and” add information) the first idea, and build from there. We could have better used that five minutes doing random warmups.

Next exercise: same thing. This time, some in our group taught the others a warmup called “Show Us How to Get Down,” which is a dance number type thing. At the last second before we ran out of time, somebody said, our theme is “dance.” But when we started, another teammate asked for a suggestion from the audience. We got something different, and YES-ANDed that joint.

Next exercise: Rachael mixed up our teams. We did it all again.

Lesson: you can do improv with anyone. It’s nice to have team chemistry, but it’s not necessary.

Out of this chaos, we then took to the stage four or five or seven at a time to create scenes with more than two people. Rachael gave us physical locations (teacher’s lounge, jail, hospital waiting room), and we filled in the rest, defining the environment, using objects, establishing relationships with the other characters. These were the most fun scenes I’ve done, and each one was hilarious. I’m serious. We whipped out three scenes in six minutes with no planning, and they were all very funny! It’s like magic.

To the Beat of the Rhythm of the Night

Our next stop was the Busby Berkeley dance routine. These are the old school cabaret, old Vegas, feathere boa-style, synchronized moves that only exist in musicals or films/plays about the mid 20th century. We lined up according to height and created that beauty on the fly by creating patterns and paying attention to each other.

Lesson: rhythm. (which should give black folks an unfair improv advantage right? :))

A Positive Intervention

Our final and coolest exercise involved two people sitting on the stage in front of the rest of our class. We gave them a massive standing ovation, then Rachael would ask, “So tell me what you love about Jeff.” We would talk about how Jeff is an amazing team player, makes surprising character choices, is generous, etc. Then she would ask, “Tell me what you’d like to see more of from Jeff.” And we’d say, “maybe a bit less active” or “play someone higher status, in charge.” Rachael then added more of her own feedback from watching us all week. We did this for both players, and Rachael then set them up in a scene together with assignments of character traits based on the group feedback.

This was a really powerful way to provide constructive criticism. It’s one thing for the teacher to hand you a “report card.” It’s another (more effective) thing to hear the collective thoughts of your teammates on your strengths and weaknesses, however.

For me, the positives included:

• great energy
• “heart of gold.” really, someone said this. I was so touched. Then I died, because while it’s nice to have a heart of gold in theory, in practice, it’s not so good at powering the circulatory system
• versatile player
• great with anything involving song
• great well-rounded performer
• beautiful smile
• very positive

And what they wanted to see more of:

• play someone serious. hard.
• use more accents
• play the straight man. don’t provide the laughs. support the guy that does

In my scene, I was paired with Gabe, who was told to be bigger and outlandish. We were set in a warehouse where we moved boxes. Gabe talked all about partying and how hungover he was. I played it straight and mostly silence, adding occasionally, “I am here to work.” or “This job provides for my family.” The interestingness came when Gabe started talking about how sexy my daughter was. This comment finally got me to stop moving the boxes and look at Gabe for the first time. “Do not talk about my daughter.” Gabe continued though. Me again: “This is the last time. Don’t talk about my daughter that way again.” Silence, silence, and Gabe throws out one more line about how he’d do X to her, and just as I was preparing to leap on him, the scene ended.

The one snafu in the scene was about 1/3rd of the way through, I took on a more pronounced African accent. I didn’t think I had said enough for the audience to know I didn’t have one before, but Rachael noticed and paused the scene. “Keep your shit!” she yelled. I had just been remembering the feedback to use more accents, but it was a good lesson. Once you make a character choice, you have to stick with it.

So that was day 8 in class.

That night, I saw a two-person show at The Annoyance featuring the legendary Susan Messing with legendary Mick Napier. I saw it was good, said it was good, and it was good.

This improv thing is getting pretty deep philosophically. If I had to summarize with just a few words, I’d say I’m starting to understand why folks take this stuff so seriously. What we’re really doing is unlocking the power of imagination we stashed away when society told us that was only for kids.

Building an Environment

As a child, I’m sure most of us can remember kids playing house or cops and robbers. We’d sit in a sandbox, but we didn’t just see “sand.” We imagined a vast desert crawling with armies or space shuttle landings or a kingdom. What we learned today was to create those spaces again, agree they exist and then perform scenes within the limits of the world we had created.

Rachael had us start by constructing a room (in our minds) on stage. One person described what was along a single wall; another person did wall two, etc. up to the four walls. Then a fifth person defined the floor and ceilings. Where are the doors? What kind of lights? What diplomas, awards, posters are on the wall? Is the paint peeling? Is there a ceiling fan? How big is the room?

It’s important to remember where we’ve put things. If there’s a mantle on the wall, we can lean on it. If there’s a desk on stage left, we can’t just walk through it when entering and exiting the scene. If we don’t respect the limits of our worlds, the audience won’t buy it.

The exercise is all about giving us and our characters tools to define a scene as we walk onto a seemingly empty stage. Rachael shared what I will call “The Trick of Three.” When entering a scene, have in mind three possible environments and three possible motivations or directions for your character. Entering the stage with at least one is crucial so you don’t flail around, but if your scene partner creates a reality which negates your first ideas, you have two to fall back on.

Folks, I can’t overemphasize how hot this concept is philosophically. The rooms we build on stage are real as long as everyone agrees they are. That’s how the real world functions! The only reason I’m able to walk into a 7-Eleven with a $5 bill and come out with a box of donuts is that the I, the merchant and the larger society agree that $5 bills have a set value and can be exchanged for goods and services. There’s nothing inherent in the $5 bill itself which says “am worth one box of donuts.” No, it’s based on an AGREEMENT between all parties involved that the bill means certain things.

If the improvisers decide they are on a deserted island five square feet in area, and if they respect that creation, the audience will see the island and EVERYONE IN THE ROOM WILL AGREE IT EXISTS. We have the power to create anything we want!

DIE, DIE, DIE!

We did another exercise where we had to depict our own deaths (whether intentional suicide or accidental) without using words. We had to use objects we created in the scene to pull off the death. Karen had a really sick one. She was setting up a birthday party and accidentally hung herself when putting up the decorations. Leah had a suicide checklist, tied a rope around her neck and had a friend speed away in a car attached to the rape. I turned on four televisions blasting the Andy Griffith theme song, built a guillotine and chopped my own head off!

Why did we do this morbid thing? To create characters that were invested, scenes that were to the point all while using objects created in the scene.

The Organic Opening

I’ve referred to The Harold enough by now that I won’t re-explain it every time. We’ve practiced several types of openings, but in this class we added the “organic transformational” opening. We take the audience suggestion and, as a group, create three interpretations of what that suggestion might mean. These aren’t scenes but constructions of some sort, usually initiated by one person. If the suggestion was “Christmas,” we might build a Christmas tree with our bodies as the first of the opening, then we might transform into elves on an assembly line and then into a group of crying children who complain that they got crappy gifts.

We played a performance game called “One to Seven. Seven to One.” This was a challenge. Here’s the deal

• There are seven players in the back line on stage
• One person initiates a solo scene (player A, scene 1)
• A new person enters the stage and created an new scene (scene 2, with player A and player B)
• A new person enters the stage, creating a third, different scene (scene 3, with player A, B and C)
• Remember, player A is a completely different character in Scene 1, Scene 2 and Scene 3
• We do this until the seventh player created scene 7 and finds some reasonable excuse for his character to leave the scene
• Then we return to some LATER POINT in Scene 6 until the player that initiated Scene 6 finds an excuse to exit
• The same applies to Scenes 5 through 1
• So the game ends with a solo player (player A, scene 1, later in the plot of scene 1)

Other notes from Rachael

• Another Rule (this is #6, building on the five we got on Monday): Use Your Actual/Real Emotions in Your Scenes. If you’re nervous, use that!
• If you are listening for the audience to laugh, you are not in your scene. This rule came as a response to something Gabe said. I’m not sure it quite applied to his statement, but I get the point. If the audience laughs, great, but don’t let the audience lead or define the scene. Let the relationship between the characters and/or the ongoing game define the next step. Sweet. I think I learned something!
• It’s brave to be quiet in improv. Harold Pinter is a playwright who devoted about 40 percent of his plays to silence

Day 2 Lessons:

1. Use your environment. It gives you something to do if you have nothing to say.
2. Go for three things in the transformational opening
3. Listen, listen, listen
4. Make eye contact with your fellow players
5. Have fun
6. Give yourself a gift, and maintain it throughout the scene
7. The scene is about the relationships between characters, NOT THE OBJECTS YOU’VE CREATED!

I’m diggin this improv stuff, man. That philosophical point I was making at the start of this post is only one of many powerful metaphors this art form provides. Last week I talked about how frightening it was to discover how much we can communicate with our fellow humans, and get from them what we want, without being negatively manipulative or overt. Now, we’re building worlds together and abiding by the rules within that world. This all reminds me of what’s happening in the online virtual worlds of places like Second Life and World of Warcraft, and there’s a lot to learn about humanity in all of this.

I gotta bounce now. Day 3 was a pretty crappy day for me overall. I’ll explain why when I give that recap lata (don’t worry. it doesn’t involved gettin jacked!). I’m off to see a puppet improv show!