How Class Went

Last night was the first class since a series of new directives have been handed down concerning the location at which we meet. Now it's 7:30 to 9:30, although the important thing really is just that we're all the way out of there by 10pm.

Since we didn't have any musicians, the last week of our musical improv block has been pushed back to next week. Today, we did a few things, with the bigger part of it being the "Slacker". First, however, we did a movie trailer game. In that game, three people act out a movie trailer while two others take turns providing narration that guides the action. We did two of those. In the first, a hard-boiled female detective struggles to hard boil eggs. In the second, a battle between nerds and jocks raged in a school while a plucky youngster tries to raise the money needed to keep the school open.

Then we went into the Slacker. This is pretty neat. It's less structured than the Harold or the Armando. You start with one ordinary two person scene. Eventually, that scene ends in one way or another (via a cut or tap-out), and a new scene maintaining a connection to the old scene begins. This can be keeping one or all characters, continuing the plot or staying in the same location.

In the first Slacker of two, a young man steals a hotly-anticipated DVD from someone outside a Target, leading to explorations of the victim, the attacker, the attacker's girlfriend, cops, security footage and an Irish version of the events in Slumdog Millionaire.

For the second one, we started with two gay hikers who die after being stranded on the trail. This led to a lawsuit and courtroom scene, the son of one of the hikers getting a book deal and an unfortunate interlude in which Matthew McConaughey goes berzerk to the apparent delight of unscrupulous film producers.

After that, we had a few minutes, so we did an interesting game wherein everyone lines up. The first two perform a scene. The first person leaves, the second person stays in character and a new person joins that person. That can just keep going. When I got into it, a fellow performer was doing some kind of Gabby Hayes character, so I came in as a kind of Henry Higgins to correct his speaking impediment. When I stepped aside, the next performer came in as my daughter. She came in as a Girl Scout and made a sugar-peddling dealer from earlier her mother and my wife. She was sorrowful that her mother was stealing her thunder, and I helped matters none by declaring my daughter homely and my wife "really something".

It was a great, great class. Once again, one of the highlights of my week.