Impronol at Trill Comedy Festival
I adore going to improv festivals. It's a chance to show your wares and depending on the caliber of the improv festival, a good way to raise your stock in the community, make connections, and hopefully get invited to perform or teach elsewhere. Improv festivals require a certain mindset from the…
I remember sitting in my first or second class of a beginner improv program. My teacher, who was lovely and shared her burning passion for improv with everyone, told us:
In improv, you can do, say, or be anything you want to be!
All of the exercises we did supported that statement and it served me…
At some point in every improviser's career, they come to crossroads and they ask themselves if continuing with improv is "worth it". Sometimes improv doesn't charge us like it used to and we begin to look as to reasons why that's the case. This could be a career, personal, or artistic query but usually…
In this segment, Nelson discusses how to overcome your fear of initiating scenes with help from Mick Napier's book "Improvise: Scene from the Inside Out".
Puchase Mick's book here:
https://www.amazon.com/Improvise-Scen...
For mroe helpful improv-related articles and resources, please visit
http://improductionsllc.com
When first starting out in theater, we spend a ton of precious time and money training, going to shows, hanging with fellow actors, and obsessing about our craft. We want to get better at performing so that we are ready at some point to audition for that one famous Harold team or that one spectacle…
Any good improv instructor in improvisation will tell their students, "GO SEE SHOWS!" Here are 10 reasons to do so:
You will be supporting the local arts/improv theatre scene. Be a good actor by being a good "actor".
The people you support may actually support you back be attending your shows. It's called community…
I've been producing shows for over 10 years now. I've worked with a myriad of people to put them up. I've had some complete disasters limp along to the stage with others so wonderfully produced that it was as effortless as moving water down a stream.
A lot of what makes a production is a good…
So, you've got your brand spanking new improv team all hot-rodded and ready to go conquer the world. You've finished a lot of training, done a number of shows, and feel that the world is your oyster and it's time to make that oyster make some pearls! You may quickly find out that in the…
Uhhhh...what happened?
Recently I listened to this WGN segment discussing how TJ & Dave's "theatre inside a theatre" The Mission was closing at the end of the month. I was sad to see that another performance space dedicated to the artforms I love close, but at the same time I thought, "Wow. It took this long…
DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS!
That axiom was drilled into my head during my training a billion times. It was a "rule of improv" that I worked REALLY HARD on following. The spirit behind the rule was that basically questions in a scene require additional effort to work and most of us are not…
I was at a show recently to take in the finer points of classic theatre. There was a pretty decent crowd in the seats and a lot of buzz going on about how good the show was. It got a couple of good reviews, had a large cast, and been adapted for modern sensibilities. The…
Some of my beginner improv students recently saw a 3 team improv show at a well-known Chicago blackbox theatre. I asked them what they liked/didn't like about it. The best comment I heard was:
"Well, it was kinda weird being, you know, one of 4 people in the place that weren't performing."
Play For…