I’m telling you, these people make me LAUGH SO HARD!
What a great cast in the March 2nd show, including Will Rubio, Ali Kinkade, Zanon Schmidt, Lincoln Hoppe, and special guest Miranda Parham.
But in an improv show, the AUDIENCE is also one of the most important players! And it’s so amazing when the cast onstage and audience in the seats find the amazing harmony in that relationship. In those cases, as it was on Saturday, it truly is a WIN/WIN situation.
As always, a fun show. I really liked a couple of the songs in the musical especially the dueling melodies between an aerospace engineer and an IT guy. Will Rubio is amazing. Another song was the ladies singing about sisterhood, slime, and nepotism – oh my.
Advice Panel was particularly hilarious to me. Will Rubio played a character very ‘unhappy’ with life, which often spilled out into his answers through his broad but somehow still entirely grounded performance. I’m always surprised when an actor I’ve worked with for years comes onstage with a character so new that I’ve never seen before, but I’m also so blown away when the character seems so full and rounded that I just don’t want their scene to end.
Given the completely spontaneous nature of improv shows, actors have many choices as to what characters to bring onstage at any given moment:
- They can play themselves, with only small changes in their point of view in a way that compliments the scene.
- They can make up an entirely new character and bring it on for the first time. (This is one of my favorite devices because it not only surprises my fellow actors, and the audience, it surprises me as well!)
- Players can bring on a character they’ve tried before, but still are learning that character.
- Players can bring on a character they love, but it shakes everything up because they’re bringing that strong character into a completely new and dynamic situation. A great example would be if I were to bring on my German “Rolf” character, who plays in a number of Films, commercials, and youtube videos. Strangely, I rarely bring this character onstage at shows, mostly because I like taking a big leap on something new.
All of these methods are completely valid, and simply a choice the performer must make at the beginnning of every scene or game. Using the example above, if I’m instructed to bring on a German accent during a game or scene, I still need to decide if my very snooty and serious Rolf character is coming on, or if I’m doing a completely different kind of German character. Often the scene dictates what is needed, and I simply try to listen. Othertimes, it’s just a call of what seems more fun at the time. Or better yet, what will best serve the scene.
My favorite game we played this last show was advice panel. We have a strong group of character performers, and that game lets everyone shine! Who doesn’t want advice on the meaning of love from a blogger, an overworked receptionist, and Sven?
Miranda Parham was great to have in our show! She’s an accomplished actor and a great improviser.
Bringing new actors into a show creates so many new variables, and certainly makes it so that no-one onstage or in the audience can predict at any given time what will happen next. That’s one of the things I love about being in improv shows.
Yes, I LOVED watching advice panel – so funny! My favorite scene to perform was the Jane Austen scene in which Will, AKA “Froger Featherbottom,” was afraid of my horse. I really enjoy doing a lispy British accent, and improvising with an invisible horse was a fun new challenge. Thanks for having me!!
‘Moving Bodies’ is another game that always blows me away. In this game, the players onstage cannot move their own bodies and must be moved by other players…. in this case, by three audience members! – Talk about throwing variables into the mix!
These 3 audience members moved the players around in a give-and-take situation, providing very funny results. Thank you, audience volunteers! You rocked it!
Oh, my goodness, these people are so funny. I’m telling you these people make me laugh so hard! It is an absolute privilege to perform with them and take the stage with them month after month.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the scene between Will and Miranda, as upper-class characters in the Jane Austen styled scene where Will was afraid of horses, and Miranda insisted on Will dealing with the horse.
Also Zanon made me laugh so hard as a somewhat clueless Swede Sven in ‘Advice Panel’, which was quite well counterpointed (did I use that correctly?!) by Will’s hilariously abrasive and volitile character in search of Love in all the wrong places. Ali did a great job keeping a bit of the peace and gluing it together with her comic genius. I’m so glad to be in shows with these people!
The musical had a particularly interesting relationship between our main character Alex (played by Will Rubio), and his nemesis in the I.T. Department (played by Zanon Schmidt). Somehow this I.T. guy ended up the villain for the musical with very funny results. No offense, I.T., but according to one of the songs made up in the musical, “I.T. is Evil”.
But of course, in the end, we had a happy ending and amends made. Thank goodness. Because everyone needs I.T. these days. Am I right, people?!
Come and be a part of our next completely improvised show! Don’t miss out. Tickets are available now!
Lincoln Hoppe is an actor, writer, director, and father of 5. He is the the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Society Comedy Troupe.
Recent Comments