Recap of Improv Summit 2013

The Improv Summit, now in it’s 11th year, was held at TSC last night before a packed house. Josh hosted for the first time this year, using the now well-worn Beat It format.

In the first semi-final, McGill (11th participation, natch) squared off against teams from Queens (5th), Carleton (9th) and Western (2nd). Overall, it was a pretty even round. McGill’s best scene was a wedding night scene where the fiancée was engaging in premarital activities behind (literally) the fiancé’s back. Queens put together a good string of scenes, capped off by a successful scene of Smote Loi Let where one player plays as many characters as possible. Carleton’s highlight was a Puppets scene with a vigorous audience member. Western performed my favourite scene of the round: a film noir with some great narration by Matt. Queens won the round with 6 points, whereas Western collected 4 points, Carleton 2, and McGill none.

In the second semi-final, Toronto (5th participation) swept the round with 4 great scenes (8 points): two boxers who take their coaches dating analogies literally and fall in love; the invention of basketball, not by Dr. James Naismith, but by cavemen; happy miners; and a psycho keeping her inner monologue under wraps just long enough to score an apartment. Brock got 4 points on the backs of some character work by Liv and storytelling by Erik. They had a creepy 1st date scene I quite liked. Ottawa, who had recently won the U of Toronto Summit at Beat It, had some good moments with a Day in the Life scene they inexplicably lost, but were shut out of the scoring.

The audience was fantastic this year–enthusiastic and non-partisan. Save for the aforementioned Ottawa scene and a couple of close votes in the final round, I thought the audience had very good taste (in that it matched my own) and favoured substance over cheap d&f jokes.

Judges, Sandi, Mariana & Bryan were dishing out lots of awards, including one to Brock for “Most disgusting thing Bryan has every seen” for a horrific tongue-wagging open-mouthed kiss, an award to the audience for “Collective gasp at the mention of ‘High Fat Mayonnaise’”, and one to Anton on lights & sound for “Best Indian music at the Egyptian pyramids”.

The final round featured Queens, Toronto, and judge wildcard pick Western. Whereas it looked like Toronto was going to run away with the prize, the round ended with 4 points all around. Western did a great silent time machine scene where a couple of guys visited a dancing lady in different eras. Queens did a nice Hansel & Gretel retelling. Toronto had a scene set in the future where “there are no more humans, just people who act like robots”, a cinematographic masterpiece in the story of a horse who betrays his jockey and jumps the fence to run free, and a cop/robber shootout scene where the cops can’t decide who should draw fire since they both have considerable RRSP investments. The tie-breaker came in the form of a 1-minute scene in which all 3 teams performed their worst scene to date. In the end, Toronto was crowned champion by applause-o-meter. The judges ranked Western 2nd, and Queens a close 3rd.

The MVP certificate was awarded to Charles from Toronto (though Sam, Robby and Talal also made huge contributions to the win). The 2nd star went to Josh from Queens, who was making his 5th and final trip with the team. Michelle from Western picked up her 2nd consecutive 3rd star.

Recap of Improv Summit 2012

The 10th annual McGill Improv Summit saw 8 teams compete for the coveted Shatner Trophy (a homemade pink bowl this year.) I’m not even sure the current generation of McGill Improv realizes that the trophy has a name, but I managed to remind everyone several times. Tradition!

TSC played host to the Summit for a 2nd year and once again the place was packed from wall to shining wall. The teams competing were: McGill (10th participation), UQAM (10th), Carleton (8th), U of Ottawa (5th), Queens (4th), U of Toronto (4th), Brock (3rd), and Western (1st).

McGill won the first semi-final with 6 points, besting Toronto and Carleton with 4 points each and Ottawa with 2. It was an incredibly close round. Carleton’s 2-person team was consistently strong, their highlights being a fun Tarantino genre scene and another about a kid taking D&D too seriously. Toronto brought a long-form sensibility into the mix. They did an epic rendering of the movie 300 in 2 minutes flat. McGill started off a bit slow, but some expressive character work by Fred scored them a few late points to put them on top. Ottawa had a nice sound effects scene.

Brock won the second semi-final with 8 points, topping Queens with 6, UQAM with 2, and Western with 0. Brock, led by Liv and Victoria, won all 4 of their challenges. I enjoyed the scene about 2 rivals vying to be Sherlock Holmes’ new sidekick, and a nighttime haunting monster story. UQAM, 3-time defending champions, put on a good show as usual. I particularly liked the “Ghost” scene where guys at a party are not sure whether the girl in the corner is real or not. They also had a fun scene where Mario and Luigi had to collect coins for rent. I liked Queens’ dream-sequence scene, and Western had a good puppets scene early in the round.

The judges, Marc and Josh, put Toronto through to the final, though they were considering no fewer than 3 teams.

In the final, McGill prevailed narrowly with 6 points, Toronto took second place with 4 points, and Brock rounded out the top three with 2 points. Sam from U of T took MVP honours, Liv from Brock received the 2nd star, and Michelle brightened Western’s evening by earning the 3rd star. I also thought that Will from McGill played an excellent straight man all night and was instrumental in securing McGill’s first win since 2005.

Watch McGill’s Body Language silent scene and From Good to Bad game from the final.

MPROV: The 5th Montreal Improv Festival

MPROV – The Montreal Improv Festival

Montreal’s great festival tradition continues with MPROV: the 5th Annual Montreal Improv Festival, October 6th-9th. Improvisers from New York City, Denver, Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg will be converging at Mainline Theatre, 3997 St-Laurent. Shows and workshops!

Montreal Fringe 2010

If you’re looking for Fringe views, news, and reviews, check us out at http://blog.montrealimprov.com.

Getting Yourself Into Trouble

Instant Trouble
“Instant Trouble” is any problem or conflict that occurs abruptly at the beginning of a scene. Because the problem happens so early in the scene, the players typically spend the rest of the scene trying to fix the problem.

E.g. Sarah is in the shower, relaxing, when suddenly the water turns cold. She jumps out of the shower and sets about finding the cause of the problem. She tries turning another faucet.. same problem. She calls in her husband who tries using a wrench on various pipes to no avail. They call a plumber but it’s the weekend. Finally, she boils some water, puts it in a bucket, and has her husband pour it over her slowly as she takes a “shower”.

In this example, the players have managed to tell a nice little story with a quirky ending; but ultimately, the story was about fixing the shower, not about the people involved. Sarah is completed unchanged in her relationship to herself and everyone around her. There isn’t any obvious follow-up scene to this one, because the problem is fixed.

Getting Yourself Into Trouble
While the natural urge in improv is to fix a problem, it’s much more interesting to get the person deeper and deeper into trouble by raising the stakes. This means taking active choices to amp up the tension.

E.g. Sarah is in the shower, relaxing, when suddenly the fire alarm goes off. She rushes outside, then realizes she’s naked. She tries to go back inside but discovers she’s locked out. She looks under the welcome mat for her key, but doesn’t find it. She looks up to discover that the next door neighbour’s kid is smirking, dangling the key in front of her. Sarah chases after the kid, and finally tackles him. With the key finally in hand, she looks up to see 2 cops standing over her, still naked and straddling a boy.

In this example, while there is still instant trouble, the players didn’t try to fix the problem by looking to put out the fire or find the source of the alarm. They raised the stakes and made the scene about Sarah’s humiliation. There are many possibilities for a follow-up scene: Sarah at the police station, Sarah trying to explain herself to the neighbours, a town council meeting where Sarah is discussed, etc.

This example came straight from a game of “Yes, Let’s” by my level 1 class. Pretty amazing given that I had just explained the concept of getting into trouble.

Advancing without advancing
It’s hard to get yourself into trouble. Often, improvisors fall into patterns where the trouble is just a series of obstacles keeping them from what they want. In the first example, Sarah is thwarted at every turn, but the trouble isn’t moving the story forward. If the husband is of no help, and the plumber isn’t at work, and the wrench is useless, what is happening? Nothing is happening. If the wrench fixes the problem, but then the shower no longer drains properly, what is happening? Nothing–we just put up another obstacle and are still trying to fix the shower problem.

Certified organic trouble
The most satisfying trouble is trouble that arises organically from the platform of your scene. If we know the character and what they care about, it will be much easier to get them into trouble with stakes that matter.

Trouble can come in many shapes, but physical injury is not usually helpful, because physical injuries usually require you to fix them. Here is another example from class where the students dealt with injury well:

E.g. A chef is preparing chicken in the kitchen of his restaurant. He has some wine. He nicks himself with his knife. He can’t find anything to stop the bleeding, and starts to feel faint. As he’s about to pass out, he grabs the chicken and uses it to apply pressure to the wound. (In class, this unfortunately fixed the problem, but what if…) Someone walks in to find the chef treating his wound with food… or it’s his last piece of chicken and he serves it to someone and they notice.

Let the trouble find you
Don’t look for trouble early in the scene. Establish your whos, whats and wheres and let the trouble find you.

When does the trouble end?
Once the stakes are high, it’s time for something BIG to happen. Don’t wimp out with an easy fix–the outcome of that something BIG should ideally alter your relationships and mean that you can no longer go back to the way things were before.

Finding the game
Getting into trouble is just one kind of game, that is, a pattern in the scene that gets repeated and amplified. By no means is getting into trouble the only way to approach a scene, but when trouble finds you, resist the temptation to fix it.

Housekeeping

I just recycled all those all non-sequitur title cards from 2008’s Argument With a Dolphin. I couldn’t think of a better place to store this list, so for posterity’s sake:

The good:
The Moment I Fell out of Love
Argument with a Dolphin
Serenade
Neighbours
Yours Truly
The Slap

The so-so:
Phone Call from a Former Lover
Answering Machine

The eh:
Pearly Gates
Slumber Party
The Birds

The never played:
POV
Spelling Bee
Diamond Dance
Hat Squad

And of course, on with the show!

McImprov website’s last day

McGill Improv’s website has been hosted on Geocities since March 11, 1998. Yahoo is pulling the plug on Geocities on Oct. 26th, so this is your last day to peruse McGill Improv’s hand-coded website in all it’s framed glory. I guess their Facebook page becomes the new official website.

mprov night 4

Gotta be quick to be on time for the workshops today.

• Kudos to Vinny for keeping the website updated with photos and recaps, and for twittering during shows. At TSC, you have the choice of either watching the show, or reading Vinny’s interpretations of events.
• Andy Eninger was an early audience favourite, garnering a standing O for his one-man show. I was one of the ones standing.
• The mark of a good show is when you can’t imagine it performed in any other way. Pgraph was that good. I don’t understand all the intricacies of French Farce, but it was great to watch.
• I really liked ProjectPROJECT’s format, where they took scene painting to a whole new level. Hard to pick a standout in this great cast.
• Crush from Ottawa did a long-form foursquare. Very playful, very strong ensemble. Liked it a whole lot.
• On The Spot had a very funny short-form outing. Josh has his own cheering section. I impressed Josh’s mom by what I assume to be my keen sense of listening, as I didn’t actually say much in our conversation.
• Focus–the View-like talk-show from NYC–got most of its facts right about Canada, except for marijuana being legal and Pierre Trudeau being alive.
• This was quite possibly the best and most varied night of improv Montreal has seen! Beat that, night 5!

mprov nights 2 & 3

Some more thoughts that sprang to mind directly or indirectly based on nights 2 and 3 of Mprov:

• Bilingual improv: it’s a neat concept. Ultimately, the show has to stand on its own merits, but the language switching does inject a little extra fun off the top. That being said, after a few scenes, the effect does wear off. In the end, it’s just words you understand (or not). I would classify bilingual improv (at least the formats presented) as a fun idea, no more, no less. That said, Improcrastination did a good job, and so did the All-Star bilingual squad that followed. I thought Isabelle was particularly good.
• Performing in the bilingual show was rather fun–I hadn’t actually improvised in French before–but performing in improv jams is not my favourite. It’s fun to play with new people, but it’s also hard being on the ice with new line mates for what will prove to be a single game. The results are never as satisfying. Still, I got to make fun of Ontario–”C’est pas des mafias, c’est des rednecks”. I had a bit more chemistry with Josh, despite not having performed together in years, and Anders is very easy to play with as well.
• Block of the night:
  

  A – Sir, permission to speak, sir!
  B – No.
  (audience laughs)

  Admittedly, it’s petty to bring up a block committed against oneself in a show, but as Obama might say, we can use this as a teachable moment. Blocks tend to happen for 3 reasons: obliviousness (I didn’t realize I blocked you), obstinacy (I blocked you because my idea is better) or vanity (I blocked you to look good or get a laugh). Of these, vanity is the worst because in improv, your aim should be to make others look good, not to make yourself look good. This flows directly into one of my Deep Improv Thoughts: Look to please your fellow players, not the audience. Unlike stand-up, if people don’t like playing with you, you won’t be able to perform (unless solo.). Plus, vanity blocks are easily converted into grudging acceptances:

  A – Sir, permission to speak, sir!
  B – No.
  (audience laughs)
  B – Fine, soldier, what is it?

  I probably block people all the time. But I purposefully do it obliviously.

• Avi is an interesting guy. He says a big part of musical accompaniment is about when to start and when to stop. He suggests starting on an emotional reaction, and ending when the the suspense ends. I’m going to be paying attention to him tonight.
• A successful show depends on enthusiasm, dedication and talent. If your show isn’t going the way you want, dropping your enthusiasm is practically inevitable, but isn’t going to help. Soldier on! Johnstone formats let you bail on a scene, but most long-form formats won’t. Johnstone says trying harder is like trying to slam a revolving door. I say trying less hard is like trying to make sense of the hazy musings of a codger.

mprov night 1

Gold medal performance: Vinny and Marc from Improv Montreal. Very tight, very funny, very playful.

Random thoughts:

A shot from a recent corporate workshop with a fun group. That’s me, pointing.