I was watching a few impro shows as an audience member recently. What stuck me was from their point of view it was just super simple things that stuck out when watching performers, namely: 1. Can I hear you? 2. Have you got your back to the audience? 3. Are you blocking the other actor?[…]
Got an impro show? Here’s some places to perform it. Are an improviser? Here’s some more groups/nights that might want you to perform with them. I don’t have all contact details but they should pop up on google. This is an ever changing fluctuating list so please let me know if I’ve missed any. Tuesdays:[…]
Being altered by small offers Came up with a new exercise at our Monday night class this week. It was part of a ‘Listening Workshop’. I’d already done lots of listening exercises, similar to those mentioned in a previous blog when I got onto the topic of active listening. It’s not about just being on[…]
How to use improv to write sketch comedy Yeahhhhh! Finally cracked it. I’ve run this workshop a few times before but never felt like it reached it’s full potential, but this Saturday sketch comedy course there were some amazing sketches popping up one after another – blam blam blam! Here’s a collection of things that[…]
Reality Workshop Notes This is one of my new favourite exercises. I seem to always start a blog like that, which I suppose makes sense because if they weren’t my current favourites they wouldn’t make it onto the blog. So last night’s Monday impro class was on reality. The idea being that having the mantra[…]
Solo Improvisation Workshop Notes Really fun workshop this one, with a healthy mix of improvisers, stand ups and actors. Some really cool stuff came out of it. The main tips that arose were when improvising with an audience were: 1. You are never really alone, the audience and room are always providing offers even when[…]
List of most comedy fringe festivals ordered by start date Friend of mine asked for them, I happened to have a list, so thought it might be useful for all. Exeter Comedy Festival January Leicester Comedy Festival February Sheffield Student Comedy Festival February Adelaide Fringe February Laughter Lines Comedy Festival, Leeds March Udderbelly Festival April[…]
A brief history of rough theatre In the 16th century bands of Commedia dell’Arte actors traveled Europe, performing in market places, outdoor festivals and carnivals. Their show was fun, fast and noisy and incorporated mask, music, singing, acting, acrobatics, improvisation, script, satire, impressions and comedy. The audience shouted out, interacted and were part of the[…]
Presence Workshop Notes These are from this week’s Monday night workshop on Presence. Largely influenced by a combination of Patsy Rodenburg’s book Presence and Keith Johnstone’s chapter on Being There, with a bit of John Wright’s Why is that so Funny thrown in. Patsy’s book goes more into theory so I won’t write about that[…]
Impro or Improv? This could be the biggest impro (or improv) geek out known to man! I know at least 2 people who might find this interesting, so I’m going to write it. Some people say Impro. Some people say Improv. In London it used to be largely Impro, but now there’s a growing trend[…]
Circle of Expectation These are from the Monday night ‘Being Obvious’ workshop from a few weeks ago. I seem to be specialising at the moment in taking basic Keith Johnstone exercises and then expanding them and modifying them. At some point I’ll tell him and he’ll be like “WHATTTTTT??? HOW DARE YOU! YOU MUST DIE[…]
Improv in one class Most of this popped out of my last Thursday and Saturday workshops. The Saturday theme was ‘Making Things Happen’, which I might change in the future to ‘Letting Things Happen’, and then actually defines most of what we do in improv. If I had only one class to teach to someone[…]