When I entered the iO theater on Monday morning, it really looked like the first day of school. Very many people gathered together in the upper theater, called the Del Close theater. Many of them are talking. Many others uncomfortably sit on their chairs, while they look around like if everything they see is new. In fact, it is. And not just that, they know this place has a history.
Charna Halpern and Del Close founded the iO theater in 1981. It is the birth ground of the Harold, which still is their trademark. In all those years many talented people became part of iO, and turned it into what it is today: a booming theater with 2 shows every(!) night of the week. Half of the shows are Harolds, but nowadays there are also many 2, 3 or 4 man shows. On Thursday's and Friday's they have Improvised Shakepseare, which has frontman Blaine Swen. Four years ago I saw him improvise a One-Man Musical, which is as unbelievable as it sounds. I've seen quite some good improv shows by now, but that was the best one. I'm very excited to be back here!
I'm a bit late, so I get a chair close to the stage (strange that it always works that way). Rob, the Coordinator, explains a few things, while Charna's dogs walk in and out the theater. We can sign up for workshops, which is a matter of being as fast as you can to write your name down. It's not the best system when the result is that 130 students storm their way on stage. Luckily I sit close by. I signed up for three.
After the frenzy faded away, Charna herself takes the stage. She tells a bit about the history of iO. How they performed in bars at first, which didn't convince the owners. And that they finally started a theater, while most certainly they couldn't pay the rent after one month. They flyered on the streets just to get people in. And then it took off. The basic success story, which started, how cliche, with believing. Only in this case, they believed that improvisation is an art form of its own. They're the first ones in the world who turned that belief into reality (for the skeptics: of course, Second City already opened its doors in 1959, but at Second City improvisation was mainly used as an inspiring tool for skit shows). She also explains some improv rules: blocking doesn't mean you can't say no. The characters may have a conflict, the players behind the characters never do (say yes to each other's ideas). Make each other look good. She quotes Del Close: "Treat each other as geniuses, poets and artists. And you'll have a better chance of becoming these things." And then she talks about Del Close, the artistic mastermind behind it all. He represents the Chicago style improv, like Keith Johnstone represents theatersports. His ashes are in the theater we sit in. Charna very openly tells that Del was also an alcoholic, a heroine and a cocaine addict.
After lunch, class starts. My first class is in the same theater we started: the Del Close theater. Our teacher is Steve Waltien, a calm, friendly and very modest guy. He's doing improv in Chicago since 2002, teaching for 5 years. Among many other things, he used to be part of the the Improvised Shakespeare Company with Blaine Swen. At the moment he's performing every night at the Second City main stage. A resume like everyone else. Seriously, every teacher here has more than 10 years of experience, and they were taught by people who had 10 years of experience. Again, I'm very excited to be here! My group consists of 15 people (including me). After one week I can say we have the nicest group! Everyone wants to see many shows. We tell each other what else is going on in town or when we go to the beach. Thirty-five group emails were sent within three days, including everyone's phone number. So we all give each other reason to trust each other - on and off stage. It's promising for the next four weeks!
So let's talk improv now. Week 1 in the iO Summer Intensive is about listening and agreement. And add to that: Yes, and. Listening is one of my stronger skills, but the 'and' part is something I can certainly improve. And that was exactly the part that we focused on! Basically it comes down to asking yourself a few questions when you're in a scene or if you want to start the next scene: what question is still unanswered? What is the bigger theme? What is the superior feeling? What's in the environment that could add to the scene? What's a nice contrast, situation or energy wise? I noticed that once I was thinking in these questions, my brain started to work much faster right away. And sometimes you get lucky too. In one exercise, our object was a projector. We had to say what kind of projector it was, and after that play a few scenes. So I thought of weather report, because the weather is on a screen, and projector screen came up earlier. I walked on stage, but I was second. Angela said/asked: you're obsolete? (Our projector had become an old piece of junk; the sentence "you're obsolete" was literally said before.) So in the next second the following thoughts went through my head: I had to drop my thing because I needed to accept what she introduced. She said it in a way like she was my wife, so I figured I lost my job. So what was my job? Well, first thing I could think of - apparently it was still close to the consciously active part of my brain - was weather man. So I said: "Apparently they want some young chick to do the weather report now." And that more or less clarified the entire situation. So I used an idea I dropped a split second earlier; interesting how the brain can work like that. The lucky part is that I could combine her idea with mine, which almost never happens.
Steve really challenges everyone to play at the top of their intelligence. Charna said that Monday morning: play at the top of your intelligence. The exercises facilitate that. One of the exercises was tag-out. There are multiple ways to edit a scene. Most used are the sweep edit: walk in front of the current scene without making any contact to start an entirely new scene, and the tag-out: tag someone to leave, so you play a scene with the remaining character (supposing a two player scene). The new scene can be anywhere at any time; the only thing that needs to stay the same is the character of the player who stayed on stage. So we played tag-out. And everyone was really playing at the top of their intelligence. As an example of that, the next happened in a few moments: Colleen and Kaithlyn were playing a scene, Colleen held a baby, Kaithlyn asked: "Can I hold your baby?" I tag out Kaithlyn, and I say to Colleen: "You gave her our baby?" Next moment Ryan tags out Colleen. He brings back the reporter he had already played in a few scenes during the exercise. He puts a microphone under my nose, and says: "So you lost your baby" I stare in the camera, concerned. Next moment Phoebe tags out Ryan, and she says with big eyes and a grown-up voice: "I'm home, dad." Okay, Steve tells us we should also allow longer scenes, but I enjoyed being a part of that nice little roller coaster!
In the evenings I went to shows on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Monday night is Armando Diaz night. The Armando is a form which consists of true monologues with scenes in between. Scenes and monologues inspire one another. I tried to teach this form to my troop Improbattle, because we did a story telling project in Amsterdam Oost in June, and just because everyone of our troop - Marijn in particular - really likes stories. We never managed to do a proper Armando, so to see these experienced improvisers perform was very inspiring and stimulating. The second show on Monday was the DeFrancisco. It's risk taking at its best. Tera DeFrancisco pulls a student ID out of a bowl (students can put their ID in (I did)) and she plays a 2-man show with that person for half an hour. The guy in front of me, Ross Childs, got picked out. He is in the lowest level; he only had three classes so far. He was very nervous. And he played incredible. And not by doing weird things. Technically, he was very good! He played multiple characters in one scene and he edited to a new scene. He was clever and read the scenes perfectly. Only time I could see he was not very experienced was afterwards, when he was fully pumped up with adrenaline. He has an experience he'll never forget. Isn't that what improv is really about?!!!
Tuesday, I saw the 2-man show Blessing with Blaine Swen and Susan Messing. Also, Susan Messing rocks it. They play with a lot of confidence. They believe in their characters, and they don't let any part of information slip away. They use it all. On top of that they are hilarious, and you can see that they enjoy playing! They video taped it, so I'm hoping that will be put online. If so, I'll post the link. Friday the Shakespeare Improvisation Company blew the roof of the theater. They were performing with five men (Blaine Swen again). Every scene was Shakespearian witty!! Standing ovation afterwards!
Yesterday I biked through Chicago. Today I'm taking an easy day. Tomorrow week 2 starts!
I'm a bit late, so I get a chair close to the stage (strange that it always works that way). Rob, the Coordinator, explains a few things, while Charna's dogs walk in and out the theater. We can sign up for workshops, which is a matter of being as fast as you can to write your name down. It's not the best system when the result is that 130 students storm their way on stage. Luckily I sit close by. I signed up for three.
After the frenzy faded away, Charna herself takes the stage. She tells a bit about the history of iO. How they performed in bars at first, which didn't convince the owners. And that they finally started a theater, while most certainly they couldn't pay the rent after one month. They flyered on the streets just to get people in. And then it took off. The basic success story, which started, how cliche, with believing. Only in this case, they believed that improvisation is an art form of its own. They're the first ones in the world who turned that belief into reality (for the skeptics: of course, Second City already opened its doors in 1959, but at Second City improvisation was mainly used as an inspiring tool for skit shows). She also explains some improv rules: blocking doesn't mean you can't say no. The characters may have a conflict, the players behind the characters never do (say yes to each other's ideas). Make each other look good. She quotes Del Close: "Treat each other as geniuses, poets and artists. And you'll have a better chance of becoming these things." And then she talks about Del Close, the artistic mastermind behind it all. He represents the Chicago style improv, like Keith Johnstone represents theatersports. His ashes are in the theater we sit in. Charna very openly tells that Del was also an alcoholic, a heroine and a cocaine addict.
After lunch, class starts. My first class is in the same theater we started: the Del Close theater. Our teacher is Steve Waltien, a calm, friendly and very modest guy. He's doing improv in Chicago since 2002, teaching for 5 years. Among many other things, he used to be part of the the Improvised Shakespeare Company with Blaine Swen. At the moment he's performing every night at the Second City main stage. A resume like everyone else. Seriously, every teacher here has more than 10 years of experience, and they were taught by people who had 10 years of experience. Again, I'm very excited to be here! My group consists of 15 people (including me). After one week I can say we have the nicest group! Everyone wants to see many shows. We tell each other what else is going on in town or when we go to the beach. Thirty-five group emails were sent within three days, including everyone's phone number. So we all give each other reason to trust each other - on and off stage. It's promising for the next four weeks!
So let's talk improv now. Week 1 in the iO Summer Intensive is about listening and agreement. And add to that: Yes, and. Listening is one of my stronger skills, but the 'and' part is something I can certainly improve. And that was exactly the part that we focused on! Basically it comes down to asking yourself a few questions when you're in a scene or if you want to start the next scene: what question is still unanswered? What is the bigger theme? What is the superior feeling? What's in the environment that could add to the scene? What's a nice contrast, situation or energy wise? I noticed that once I was thinking in these questions, my brain started to work much faster right away. And sometimes you get lucky too. In one exercise, our object was a projector. We had to say what kind of projector it was, and after that play a few scenes. So I thought of weather report, because the weather is on a screen, and projector screen came up earlier. I walked on stage, but I was second. Angela said/asked: you're obsolete? (Our projector had become an old piece of junk; the sentence "you're obsolete" was literally said before.) So in the next second the following thoughts went through my head: I had to drop my thing because I needed to accept what she introduced. She said it in a way like she was my wife, so I figured I lost my job. So what was my job? Well, first thing I could think of - apparently it was still close to the consciously active part of my brain - was weather man. So I said: "Apparently they want some young chick to do the weather report now." And that more or less clarified the entire situation. So I used an idea I dropped a split second earlier; interesting how the brain can work like that. The lucky part is that I could combine her idea with mine, which almost never happens.
Steve really challenges everyone to play at the top of their intelligence. Charna said that Monday morning: play at the top of your intelligence. The exercises facilitate that. One of the exercises was tag-out. There are multiple ways to edit a scene. Most used are the sweep edit: walk in front of the current scene without making any contact to start an entirely new scene, and the tag-out: tag someone to leave, so you play a scene with the remaining character (supposing a two player scene). The new scene can be anywhere at any time; the only thing that needs to stay the same is the character of the player who stayed on stage. So we played tag-out. And everyone was really playing at the top of their intelligence. As an example of that, the next happened in a few moments: Colleen and Kaithlyn were playing a scene, Colleen held a baby, Kaithlyn asked: "Can I hold your baby?" I tag out Kaithlyn, and I say to Colleen: "You gave her our baby?" Next moment Ryan tags out Colleen. He brings back the reporter he had already played in a few scenes during the exercise. He puts a microphone under my nose, and says: "So you lost your baby" I stare in the camera, concerned. Next moment Phoebe tags out Ryan, and she says with big eyes and a grown-up voice: "I'm home, dad." Okay, Steve tells us we should also allow longer scenes, but I enjoyed being a part of that nice little roller coaster!
In the evenings I went to shows on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Monday night is Armando Diaz night. The Armando is a form which consists of true monologues with scenes in between. Scenes and monologues inspire one another. I tried to teach this form to my troop Improbattle, because we did a story telling project in Amsterdam Oost in June, and just because everyone of our troop - Marijn in particular - really likes stories. We never managed to do a proper Armando, so to see these experienced improvisers perform was very inspiring and stimulating. The second show on Monday was the DeFrancisco. It's risk taking at its best. Tera DeFrancisco pulls a student ID out of a bowl (students can put their ID in (I did)) and she plays a 2-man show with that person for half an hour. The guy in front of me, Ross Childs, got picked out. He is in the lowest level; he only had three classes so far. He was very nervous. And he played incredible. And not by doing weird things. Technically, he was very good! He played multiple characters in one scene and he edited to a new scene. He was clever and read the scenes perfectly. Only time I could see he was not very experienced was afterwards, when he was fully pumped up with adrenaline. He has an experience he'll never forget. Isn't that what improv is really about?!!!
Tuesday, I saw the 2-man show Blessing with Blaine Swen and Susan Messing. Also, Susan Messing rocks it. They play with a lot of confidence. They believe in their characters, and they don't let any part of information slip away. They use it all. On top of that they are hilarious, and you can see that they enjoy playing! They video taped it, so I'm hoping that will be put online. If so, I'll post the link. Friday the Shakespeare Improvisation Company blew the roof of the theater. They were performing with five men (Blaine Swen again). Every scene was Shakespearian witty!! Standing ovation afterwards!
Yesterday I biked through Chicago. Today I'm taking an easy day. Tomorrow week 2 starts!
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