Aventuras En Comedia Improvisational

As part of my current series of long posts on the ins and outs of my social activities, I thought I would touch on improv. I have written one lengthy recap of an improv show I was in as well as scores of brief notes about classes and things, but have not exactly written a big picture posting, so here we are: According to my records, I seem to have gone to my first improv class sometime in the month or so before February of this year. I did not make a point of going regularly for some time, but do think that my regular attendance may have begun some time in the spring. Just about at that time, the teacher who had been doing the class left for a lengthy trip, making way for the current teacher of the class. There has been a difference, but not one of quality.

Initially, I was somewhat uncomfortable with getting into scenes. I don't think that I even did so in the first class I attended. With each successive class, however, I got more and more comfortable at least with getting in there. I don't know if I would say at that time that I was getting good, but being comfortable enough to try was a start. Ultimately I did get to be not too bad.

The program I'm in ("Monkey Butler") has three levels of development before one can get on one of the teams that performs in the big shows. The games done in Level One occasionally include the ones which made up the show "Whose Line Is It Anyway", but not terribly often. There's Go, Party Quirks, Freeze Tag, Do Run Run and so forth. It's a lot of fun. The games are short, so you can do well without building an enduring character or story.

Around the time the new teacher came along, I got into my first student showcase (known as "Two Buck Butler"). It was a lot of fun, and the audience did not add appreciably to the difficulty. From this time, I was going to every class without fail. I did another one of those shows while in Level One, after which I was invited to join Level Two. Of course I did, and it's been as fun as it has been tough. Level Two does what is called long form improv. You improvise a story that could be half an hour long with multiple plots and five or more fellow performers. I imagine that the challenge in that is self-evident.

Since joining the level two class (the teacher of which is awesomeness personified), I have taken part in one Two Buck Butler. It was not the unqualified success that I feel the others were. There were a number of factors we talked about. Most of the group we had were pretty new to long form, we were employing a relatively unstructured format, and we just failed to execute properly. Our set was not without merit, but it hurt some to not meet our expectations.

The next class after that did not seem to entirely cure what ailed us. Again we tried our hand at something rather unconventional and experimental. Our teacher concocted a ten person long form in which there were two teams of five. Each team was charged with playing characters who knew each other but not the characters played by the other side. It's a sound idea, but played out awkwardly the first time it was put into practice. I suspect it could be very effective in future, though.

The class after that was a great one, and by that time I think any wounds left by the show had faded away. Currently, we are working our way through musical improv- this coming just as I was getting comfortable with ordinary long form. It's tons of fun, however, and it feels great when I have any success with it.

That's my improv story. It's really one of the best things to happen to me here. I just couldn't bear the absence of this stuff in my life at this point. Perhaps down the line it might yield great rewards.