Hug somebody today!!!
Posted by dandy | Filed under Videos
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!!
LOVE,
-USSRR
An Update On Our Friend EJ Scott
Posted by dandy | Filed under Guest Blog, News
Here is an update on our friend EJ Scott who is running 12 marathon’s blindfolded to raise money and awareness for a rare degenerative eye condition called choroideremia. You can find out much more about EJ and his race to the cure on his blog www.ejcurechm.com. We will also do our best to keep you updated here as EJ is one of our community and a close friend. And now, EJ:
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1 down 11 to go!! I finished the Arizona Marathon!!!
Writing this in a car. I had stated this blog last night and shortly after felt the incredible need for not only rest, but sleep. Didn’t do my usual routine of brushing, flossing, Listerine, eye vitamins. I just closed my eyes. And that was that. Woke up a couple times during the night. I was at a motel 6 next to a railroad so it wasn’t the quietest place to stay. No matter, I had some of the deepest sleep I can remember. I’m sure I dreamt, but of what, I have no idea. I’m not usually good at remembering dreams. They seem to drip through my memory like water through fingers.
The cab ride was short and sweet to the Motel. The final price was 11 or 12 bucks but theres a $16 minimum from the airport. Off to a great start.
On Friday after arriving in phoenix, I checked in with motel 6. When I made my reservation for the room I requested a room on the second floor. I know what its like to have people walk above me and I don’t like it. It affects my sleep. And I knew I’d need some the next night. Even though I made the request online months before they had no room for me on the second floor. Ok, I’ll need to change rooms tomorrow though.
I checked in to my crummy first floor room, complete with a tube tv, drippy faucet in the sink and lack of shampoo. That’s what you get for $45.99 a night.
That’s ok, because I got a response from one of the 2 dozen local Arizona reporters I emailed 2 days earlier. She loved my story and wanted to meet me and interview me right away. Great!
Elizabeth Erwin was running herself this coming Sunday doing the half marathon, which was a different course than the one I was taking. She was a one woman army. She drove up in a KPHO 5 CBS van by herself. She pointed out a good shady spot for me to stand while she opened her van doors and dug around for camera equipment. She pulled out a tripod, set it up and mounted a camera, brought a lav mic to me and asked if I could hide the wire under my shirt. She was incredibly pleasant and frantic at the same time.
It looked like she was set up. She stood behind the camera and began her questions. She looked at her readings on the camera almost every time I was answering her question, but I could tell she was trying not to. I was amazed she had no camera man or even a driver to help her out. After several questions she set herself up in front of the camera to make it look like she had a camera man. It was quite impressive actually. She took some close up shots of my hat, shoes and cane and I grabbed a quick pic with her she wished me luck and was off to who knows where. The whole thing took ten minutes I’d say. She said the piece would air at ten that night. Cool!
The rock n roll marathon had been advertising a concert that night at cityscape. I had planned to attend. But I also knew I wanted to get over to the Torch Improv theatre that night too. I was hoping to do both.
Angels in Improv
Posted by dandy | Filed under Guest Blog, Shows
Written by Stephen Perlstein - Stephen is an improviser in Los Angeles. He has a blog and podcast all about improv, Improv Obsession Podcast. You can also see him around town on one of his numerous teams. Or if you want, he’ll even join yours.
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The one rule at an improv jam is don’t be a dick. This rule was not followed on November 28th, 2011.
For those of you who don’t know, an improv jam is a show where anyone can participate in an improv set, be it veteran improvisers, people who’ve never improvised, and anyone in between.
The night in question, at The Long Hard Improv Jam at the Upright Citizens Brigade Los Angeles, I got up in the first group. I did a few scenes and support moves that went well and I was feeling like I had done great work. Eventually, we played a game in which a young man worked on film sets just to be mean to the film crew. There was a long tag run-on during that game, and it was hilarious. That is, until someone tagged in to be on a date with this asshole guy and lost track of the game. There were no laughs for 30 seconds. The improvisers looked nervous. I did a walk on as a timid PA, asking if their date was over yet because they were in the middle of our shot and they refused to move. It got a huge laugh and the scene got edited on my line. I walked to the back line, doing my best to not look too proud.
The third jam of the night had three monologues for an opening. The first two monologues were weak but the third monologue was different. The third monologue was stand up. This Fucking Guy was clearly a stand up comedian attempting to do stand up comedy for monologues. He got no laughs, and the audience didn’t know what to do because we all knew what we were watching was wrong.
The Critic And The Creator
Posted by dandy | Filed under Writing Staff
I was watching a YouTube video of a reporter interviewing Bob Dylan. The questions that were being asked seemed reasonable in the way that I’ve heard other reporters ask similar questions to artists before. Artists usually take the time to think what type of answer is actually wanted from the interviewer and give that. George Clooney is good at this. He can be serious when he can tell that the interviewer wants him to be a bit more serious. He can be humorous when that seems to be the desired effect. Dylan doesn’t have the same emotional intelligence…that or he just doesn’t care, which is what I actually think it is. He responded to the questions with shrugs and nods and basically an “I just don’t think about things like that” kind of attitude. I feel like this is true of many artists. There are two separate wavelengths. You are either a Critic or a Creator at this moment in time. You can’t be both simultaneously. Creators are simply expressing. It’s flowing through them and they are just vessels for the message. They can’t judge or plan or think about what’s coming out of them, they just do it. Critics on the other hand view the creations from the outside. They evaluate it, judge it, label it, and discuss it. When you’re in this mode you simply cannot create. And vice versa. Neither wavelength is better, they just are.
An image that popped into my mind is of the Creator in the very center of a sphere. The sphere is their creation. It’s all around, it encompasses them. They’re in the center, ‘in the thick of it’, ‘in the belly of the beast’. All around them they see only the creation. On the outside of the sphere is the Critic. He can view the entire sphere or just a piece of it but he can only view it from the outside. He can look left, right, and all around and see how the creation relates to the surrounding world; he can see its context. But he doesn’t ‘know it’ the same way the Creator does. He can only describe it. If they were to talk about the creation with each other they would actually be talking about two completely different things. Many times a Creator is forced to become a Critic or at least think like one once his creation is complete. Some can do it with grace and ease(Clooney), for others it’s much more difficult(Dylan). They are forced to crawl out of the center of their sphere and turn around to look at their creation from a similar vantage point of the Critic. But now they don’t have any special insight. They can only see it from the outside just as well as the Critic can. Many Critics think they can ‘understand’ something enough from the outside to figure out how it was created but that’s impossible.
You are beautiful when you are free.
Posted by Piebenga | Filed under Resources for improvisers
The introduction to Improvisation for the Theater by Viola Spolin (geeky sidenote: I am writing this at Northwestern Settlement, where I teach drama in an after-school program. This settlement house is the second oldest in Chicago, founded in 1891 (the better-known Hull House was 1889). Hull House was where Neva Boyd created and workshopped many of the improvisation exercises that Spolin adapted into her teaching. When you are participating in improvisation, you’re part of a history going back to the 19th century, and that’s just in this country!) throws down some pretty compelling reading:
Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become “stageworthy.”
We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. This is as true for the infant moving from kicking to crawling to walking as it is for the scientist with equations.
If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he or she chooses to learn, and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach everything it has to teach. “Talent” or “lack of talent” have little to do with it.
We must consider what is meant by “talent.” It is highly possible that what is called talented behavior is simply a greater individual capacity for experiencing. From this point of view, it is in the increasing of the individual capacity for experiencing that the untold potentiality of a personality can be evoked.
Experiencing is penetration into the environment, total organic involvement with it. This means involvement on all levels: intellectual, physical, and intuitive. Of the three, the intuitive, most vital to the learning situation, is neglected.
Last week I asked Levin for a direction on this post, and he said to elaborate on who is my greatest influence in improv. I immediately knew the answer: my Level 4 teacher at iO, T.J. Jagodowski, who later became my director, fellow player, and friend.
T.J. is one of the most compelling improvisers working today, at least in part because he has a tremendous individual capacity for experiencing. He is tapped into the “untold potentiality of a personality.” My friend Tom Blandfarb, who has taken copious personal development workshops and had numerous self-actualization training experiences (including time in Native American sweat lodge), refers to him as “shamanic.” T.J. has a shocking ability to synthesize and recreate details of people, places, and moments, and to live them with startling clarity, honesty, and intuition on stage. The fact that he’s the smartest person I know doesn’t hurt either.
TGIF: Featured Video – COOL stuff & HOT tips!!!
Posted by dandy | Filed under Uncategorized, Videos
In this edition of TGIF: Featured Video we will be looking to save you money with a great AA battery secret. So if you use AA batteries, you gotta see this! We’ve also got a video on the future of vending machines (hopefully) and a very clear explanation of SOPA from USSRR friend and fellow pun enthusiast Ethan Cushing. ENJOY!!
Battery Hack:
In Memory of Mike Enriquez
Posted by dandy | Filed under News, Videos
Last week our improv community lost a great person, a great performer and a great teacher when Mike Enriquez passed away. I knew Mike from my time in Chicago. He wasn’t somebody that I had the fortune to get to work with so I knew him in that way that we improvisers mostly know each other – an excited hello when we cross paths, a couple of bits at the bar after shows and lots of admiration in watching the artist at work. But in my short time with Mike I was so immediately aware of what a caring and kind person he truly was.
Given how little I actually knew Mike, it is strange to me how much hearing of his passing has effected me. He has been in my thoughts a lot these last few days. I am sure it is because he was so young and we would all like to go on thinking that death is something much further away than that. And maybe he is a reminder that this thing we are doing together doesn’t go on forever and that we should make sure to soak it and each other up as much as we can while we can. And those relationships, those people you admire but don’t take the time to get to know better, maybe we could make an effort at that too. Because it is worth it and time is short, too short.
Mike, your loss is being deeply felt all the way out here in Los Angeles. We miss you. May you rest in peace and thank you for all that you did for us.
This is a clip of Mike hosting the ‘Armando Diaz Show’ at iO Chicago on 12.27.10
Twitter: @USSRockNRoll
An interview with Annie Kouris
Posted by dandy | Filed under Interviews, The Dandy, The Mouth
This spring USSRRerz The Mouth and The Dandy will be teaching at the annual Camp Improv Utopia. If you are an improv fan and you have not yet heard about the camp, wake up! This is what you have been hoping would happen your whole adult life. If you have heard of the camp, but have not yet registered, now is the time. It is filling up fast and you don’t want to miss out on, “Four days of peace and improv.” For more information on Camp Improv Utopia check out their website (www.improvutopia.com). Here is an interview with The Mouth from this month’s CIU newsletter to get you pumped. Enjoy and happy improvising!!
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Interview with Annie Kouris
Whether she is performing with USS Rock N Roll or Spreading her improv knowledge around the country with NOW? Improv. Annie’s commitment to the art of improv is absolutely amazing and we are lucky to have her at Camp this year! Here is an interview we did with Annie:
What do you love about improv?
I love that improv teaches me everything I need to know about myself. It asks me to do things that make me feel uncomfortable. It asks me to show up and put on good show even when I’m tired or sick or not in the mood. It asks me to try to honest in the moment and not invent out of fearful need to tell a joke. It asks me to listen not only with my ears but with my eyes. It asks me to honor and love the group and put their choices above my own. And all of this, i feel, makes me a better person. So i love that improv asks me to be a better person and tests me constantly. Its never ending. There will never be a end to my progression just like the waves in the sea. They get big and tall and then they crash and have to start all over again. And it just the same with shows, scenes and moments. They rise and and build you feel strong and have the most amazing show or scene and you can’t believe and ride that high all night and then… it’s gone. And the same is true of the bad. Once moment your shitting on stage and next it’s gone. They happen and can never happen again. It means you will never win or lose and thus forth don’t ever have to stop.
Who are your improv mentors?
Acting for Improvisors
Posted by dandy | Filed under Talkin' Shop - We talk improv, Writing Staff
Written by Bryan Truong (Staff)
Here are some ideas to be a better actor in an improv scene from what I learned in acting classes I’ve taken. I’m only going to write about what I think is the most efficient concepts to use while improvising because there is so much more to acting when a script is involved.
1) Belief in circumstance. Improv is made up moment to moment which causes circumstances(Who, What, Where, Why, how, when) to be made up moment to moment. Without belief in circumstance the scene becomes non genuine because there are no costumes or sets that the audience can visually connect with. It’s only you on an empty stage.
2) History. Could also be related to “Why”. History should be thought of, what happened before to cause me to do this behavior now. Don’t get lost in over thinking about history, you only need to think of history pretaining to your current behavoir. Example: Not what was my parents like and where did I go to school but I’m over explaining this job task because my last employee had a hard time understanding me. Therefore having History bonds you to your character’s point of view for that breif improv scene.
3) Expectation. We always have some kind of expectation in life how things are going to go and a lot of comedy comes from broken expectations. So the stronger your expectations are in your current circumstance the more genuine your reactions become when those expectations are fullfilled or broken.
4) Fantasy. similar to expectation but the difference is. Fantasy is something we hope for but don’t think that it’s going to happen. Fantasy is good to keep in mind to drive us to take action(tactics) to achieve our fantasy. (more…)
Help! I’m trapped in a box!
Posted by Rolland | Filed under Talkin' Shop - We talk improv, Writing Staff
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I recently spoke to an improviser who was explaining a form his team used to do. There were several aspects of the show that kinda blew my mind…changes to the conventional improv show I normally see on stage. I got excited talking about it because most of the shows I see follow a certain pattern: bare stage except for 2 chairs, team comes on stage, gets a suggestion, does an opening, does a bunch of scenes. Bam. You got yourself an improv show. Now, I obviously don’t get to see every show that plays in every theater in LA, so I’m sure there are probably many shows that don’t follow this convention…but a lot of ‘em do. And that’s great, because this convention has worked and will continue to work. It’s the way my very first show was done, and it’s the way my current house team performs. But because I see it often, I tend to forget that ALL of this is changeable. There aren’t actually any rules that say “you MUST follow this convention”.
I remember watching a 2-person show back when I started learning improv, and seeing those 2 people play multiple characters IN THE SAME SCENE!!! Now, I know this doesn’t sound impressive, and anybody who watches improv shows have seen this type of thing happen a lot, heck, they’ve most likely done it in a show themselves. But for a student starting out, I had only done scenes where each player plays the same character throughout the scene, so to see multiple character played by the same players on stage…it was (and pardon me, for using this overdone cliche) like seeing the Matrix. “OH!!! I DON’T HAVE TO BE JUST ONE CHARACTER. I’M NOT BOUND TO THAT! I’M NOT LIMITED TO THAT CONVENTION!!”
For me…it was huge.
A little later, I saw a show where some people continued their scene OFF THE STAGE. They walked right into the audience!! HOLY CRAP!!! You mean you DON’T have to stay on the stage????? NOBODY EVER TOLD ME THAT!!!
Now, again, I’m sure most everybody who’s reading this has either seen shows where the players went off the stage or have done it themselves (…and that’s assuming anyone IS reading this…if you are, thank you! i hope you like it. i kinda just figured it’d be my mom. and Mom, if you ARE reading this, i exchanged the jacket you got me for store credit. It just didn’t fit. Sorry.)
But, like the “playing the same character” thing, the “staying on the stage” thing was purely an assumption that I had made. Nobody ever TOLD me I had to play the same character in a scene, and nobody ever said “the 4 edges of the stage are the limits of your world in a show”. But, because I’m human, I had made assumptions based on shows I had seen and on my experiences in class.
I know that in improv, you can do “whatever you want” and that there are “no limits”, but I’ve found it’s taken a bunch of other shows to really show me what that actually means. (more…)
