Why you owe it to yourself (and your cast) to be kind of a hard-ass

I have been getting caught in leadership positions for the majority of my adult life. I've learned a lot of things about myself through the groups I've been put in charge of. While I believe in kindness as a general basis for all human interactions, I've learned that leaders sometimes have to say and do the difficult and often hurtful things.

In improv it is really very difficult for me to give a note to a teammate. However I am finding myself in a leadership position far more often in improv scenarios lately and I need to grow up and move forward from my position of "I'm improv dumb and I don't know anything that isn't obvious." 

I was looked to as the most experienced performer and therefore the director of a recent improv show and I was too afraid to give notes because I didn't want to mar the positive and fun  atmosphere of the rehearsals. I had several very specific things that I noticed that I never brought up because I hoped we could work them out without communicating about them. I thought that maybe the other folks in the group could figure out the things that weren't working for themselves. I was super wrong and our show didn't magically fix itself.

They needed my help and I was co-signing all the bad habits I was witnessing by not calling them out. Every time someone started a scene with negativity and I didn't make them re-start, I messed up. Every time the words "I have a plan" showed up and I didn't yell "No you don't! You have a feeling!" I goofed. Every walk-on that was unnecessary that I didn't immediately send into exile was a gaffe by yours truly.

Improv should be fun and happy, but rehearsals are also a thing we do to help ourselves improve. Notes are something that help us have fun quicker and more effectively. Your notes shouldn't be mean or personal, but they do need to be direct and as immediate as possible. If something doesn't work, tell that performer and offer an idea of how to make it work. Be honest about the different skill levels in your group, even if that hurts someone's feelings. Help the people who aren't quite there yet if they're hard workers, and cut them loose if they aren't. Don't let being nice drag your shows down and take away from the fun that you could be having.

Start A Resolution!

With just days left in January I am going to put up some things I want to do this year and then do my best to hold myself accountable for them. If I achieve even one of them, it'll be a pretty good year. Like I have told my cast, why even attempt something if succeeding isn't awesome?

3 months expenses in savings

This one is boring but important! I have money saved up, but  I need to keep the ball rolling and get my safety net in gear. It's gonna be tougher with the added expenses I've got this year, but hopefully I will have an increase in income, too. I've got the math done up and boy is it terrifying to me, but I think I can manage to get this one done through diligence and cleverness.

Quit serving, art full time

This one feels the least realistic for the year. I am not even close to the place I'd need to be in to quit my current dayjob (barring something awesome happening). Something arts-adjacent like box office or marketing work would be great too. The way to get there is going to be plugging away at writing and doing as much improv type stuff on my days/shifts off from working.

Hell, I'll be happy if I can pay even one bill with regularity due to improv.

Take an improv class

This one has been altered a bit from last year. I got to thinking about what I wanted out of learning from somewhere like Second City or iO and outside of being able to use that name recognition in my about me section, I just want fundamentals. Instinct, experience, and solo research have gotten me this far but if I had some solid building blocks I'd be in a lot better of a place. The important thing isn't where I learn these things, it's that I learn them at all. I just need to start.

Film 4 sketches

I've made a few sketches with Dillon and I had a good time doing them and think that some of them are still hilarious. I want to write more and film more of them and I'm calling myself out to do it!

Do something that I don't think I can succeed at initially.

Basically this is just me insisting that I keep doing new and scary things. I've got to step out of my box more deliberately this year or else I will be treading water instead of swimming towards the shore.

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That's what I've got for now! Do you guys have any goals for the year? Let's get to work.

What's a 2015 Anyway?

In the middle of January 2015 I laid out seven goals for the year. It is now late January in 2016 and it's high time I examined my progress on these goals. Here is a link to that post to read it for yourself. Originally I was going to include my goals for this year, but this post got looooong. I will include those in another post later.

Expand class-load at the Community School of the Arts

Status: Not kept.

I tried, honest I did. The classes I put up didn't make. You know what did make? My summer camp for Theatre for Children. It made with an agreement that I'd be paid by the class rather than by the hour. Then my class maximum was doubled from 10 to 20 without notice and they packed 18 young people into a room with just me for 15 hours. I want to believe that this was done out of an ignorance of how my class works and not out of a desire to wring more money out of my abilities, but I do know that this is the second year running that I've had to deal with fishy things going on around my summer camp with the CSA. I'm more than a little disillusioned with the company and I'm honestly considering not returning to teach again.

Create a regular improvised performance for families in Clarksville

Status: Not kept. 1/2 credit?

I did have a group of awesome people improvising with me for a few months in Clarksville. My original idea was to do musical narrative show but that quickly fell by the wayside when we had trouble managing the schedules of all the people who would've been willing to accompany us. I got to work with some amazing people and I proved to myself that I was capable of teaching improv. It kind of solidified what my ideals are and made me hyper aware of the building blocks of a good performance and story. Lauren, Maggie, Abby, and Dillon: I want y'all to know I was so proud to see you guys be incredible for a few weeks and I hope we can improvise together again because you're all crazy talented and the best kind of people.

Make, at minimum, 52 posts in this blog.

Status: Hahahahaha, definitely not kept.

33 posts. 19 short, which isn't as much as I'd expected. I fell off hard in 2015. Part of it is how busy I got toward the end of the year, but another piece is how I put so much pressure on myself to write and share and make sure everything I wrote was awesome and insightful. I learned that I tend to crumble in front of the assumption of success, probably cause I'm such a rebel. "Oh you think I'll be great, huh? I'll show you!" Honestly it's a thing I'm pecking away at.

Get my own place.

Status: Success.

Well it's not my own place, but I moved out of Clarksville and back to Nashville. I have a roommate who I like and plenty of space to myself. In August I kind of opted to fail at this resolution but I was offered a job and a place to live in late September and I pounced on the opportunity.

Get $1000 safely in savings and keep it there.

Status: Success

I did a real good job at this. Saved slowly and consistently and eclipsed my goal rather quickly. This year was a good start and I just need to keep it up.

Read 20 new novels. Autobiographies and theory books don't count!

Status: Not kept

I made some progress on this, but I fell off hard towards the middle of the year. Here's what I read:

Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Anansi Boys, Good Omens, Guards Guards, Man in the High Castle

I also read Yes, Please and Improv at the Speed of Life but those didn't count towards my goal due to being an autobiography and a theory book. I read several new chidren's books for my class (it would be cheating to count those, I feel) and about half of Moby Dick. 

When it came down to it, I just had a lot of excuses and distractions from reading. This year I need to go into it with more discipline and structure if I want to succeed.

Study at a big-time improv school!

Status: Not Kept.

I chose not to succeed at this in order to succeed at my savings goal and my moving goal. It stings a little bit that I didn't manage to do this because I really, desperately want to take some time to learn from new people who are improvising for a living. I think some re-orientation is going to be necessary if I want to manage this goal this year.

2.5 out of 7 Resolutions Kept.

I'm tempted to say that's a laughably failing grade, but honestly that's not how real life works. I tried and learned and managed to do a few things that weren't on my list. I taught improv professionally for the first time, I moved back to Nashville, I got my Dungeons and Dragons show running finally.

On a more personal level, I've learned to say yes to opportunities and to be a better friend. I managed to get healthy and be better at being a grown-up in general. I'm going on dates and being a human, it's great!

By the numbers, I did not succeed. But real life isn't always by the numbers and I'm in a way better place than I've ever been. I just need to pick a direction and start marching, 2016 is going to be even more incredible.

Top Five Things for Giving Notes

Having to give notes in improv is a necessary evil. We've got to look at our performances with a critical eye if we want to improve at we're doing and make it easier for us to have fun while we're playing and for an audience to have fun watching us. Here are some things that I've found to alleviate some of the awkwardness that comes with giving notes in improv:

1. Ask the performers how they felt about the scene. Did they enjoy anything specifically? Did they feel themselves slip up or succeed? If they noticed a success you can tell them what was great about it and try to encourage any good tactics they've come up with. If they struggled with something, point out what made it difficult and how to steer out of that skid.
2. If you are a performer as well, give yourself the harshest notes. Be the first to admit when you make a mistake, diagnose how you can fix it. Before you give anybody else a negative note, really search your work to see if you can apply it to yourself first.
3. Acknowledge that there isn't one specific way to do things. Rules in improv only represent the simplest path to success, not the only path to success. I know improvisers who break every single rule and create wonderful, hilarious scenes without alienating their partners. If someone breaks a fundamental principle of improv but it still works somehow, discuss what made it work.
4. Give mostly positive notes. Nothing hurts people's creativity more than you telling them that they're bad at playing make-believe. If you see a scene that has 20 bad ideas and 1 good one, rave about that good idea and forget all the bad ones. Yes! You were a genius to come up with that singular moment, let's do more of that awesome stuff! A positive atmosphere begets joyful work.
5. Pay attention and react enthusiastically. Watch everything that happens, watch all the little things, get invested in the scenes and the characters. If something's funny, laugh. If something's sweet give'em an "awwwww." If they make a horrible pun, boo loudly. Don't spend too much time writing down your notes, if the note is that important you will be able to remember it after the scene. If you care about their work, the improvisers will care about their work too.

Those are the TOP FIVE THINGS (pew pew pew) to get you started giving notes. I stray from these occasionally, but I don't think straying has ever made my notes more insightful or better received. If anybody has any suggestions that could help with giving notes, I'd love to read them.

Time Management

For the handful of readers who may not know, this weekend I am in Vegas with my dad, stepmom, and my sister. I'm telling you this so it is more acceptable for me to admit to drunken phone-blogging at noon PST.

I am not the most organized person in the world, but I really strive to be better than I am. I struggle with sending reminder e-mails and writing out lesson plans, but timing is something I pride myself on. 

If it's a show or a class or even a mildly important meeting that I'm running, I can figure it out down to the minute. I can figure whether people are going to run late, what things to cut to account for the late-comers, and how to drop the hammer and end whatever I'm doing at precisely the moment we're aiming for. I don't know for sure where this skill came from aside from valuing my own time. I wear a watch and check it nigh constantly. As a server, I am quick to clock out before my hourly tips drop below $10/hr. As an improviser or student or actor, I get angry when rehearsal or class runs over the time alotted.

I think the biggest mistake people make when estimating how long something will take is that they are far too optimistic about the timing of things. I have generally noticed that when inexperienced directors run a short form improv show, it runs short. Hell, anybody who is inexperienced will typically run short in any kind of presentation. If they're well studied and have a lot of information to get across, then they have a chance of running too long, but that is a much easier thing to plan contingencies for.

My tips on timing boil down to being honest with yourself about how long an activity takes and never sharing that with your audience. They don't need to know that you expect a game to last four minutes, they are just there to see you and be mystified by your bizarre ability to bend the seconds to your will. Yes, they want to be entertained, but entertainment is primarily an enjoyable way to kill time between obligations. They want to feel like their 90 minutes watching you is only 30 minutes and they want to feel like they got a great return on the investment of their time. As an audience member I want to make my memories count and nothing makes that tougher than a poorly timed and organized show. 

No short form game should last more than four minutes and no long form should run longer than thirty. No lesson in an improv or theatre class needs to consist of over five minutes of you speaking in a row. If any of the above run hot and everybody wants more, give them more and cut from the back end of your show or class. Always plan to have two or three things run short so you can finish big and make people want to come back next time. Cut things mercilessly if you see them die with no chance of resurrection. Never over run a show by more than five minutes and never over run a rehearsal or a class without permission from the performers or students. If you think you may go over time or under it, you are right. Trust your experience and instincts to guide your sweeps and be as bold and brash as you need to be.

And last but not least, I personally prefer a bad show that ends exactly on time as opposed to a good show that ends 30 minutes early or 30 minutes late. I can people watch for a random amount of time and imagine a good show for free, if you're charging me to watch the least you can do is time your show properly.

Class Can't Focus? Make A Change

My new class has finally started and boy is it a doozie. I have nine young students, five of them liked my class so much the last time they took it that they signed up this time. I feel like that means I must be doing something right.

The difficult part is that because the class is so comfortable with me, they feel like it's okay to break focus over and over again. Some of them just honestly can't help it, heck I don't blame any of them when they lose interest in whatever we're teaching. If they're not paying attention, then I need to make a change, not them. 

I've been doing the class improv style for the last few semesters and I have had varying results with it. It's just tougher to create something with these young people without some kind of skeletal structure to fall back on. I think I will need to start building the class around a pre-existing story like I used to do.

My other huge deficiency is that I don't include any crafts in my class really, because the logistics of building a paper mask or designing a background for my class to color are a little daunting. I have to be able to help at every step and I only have my younger sister who serves as my assistant to help me with that.

I think the structure will help me with specifying what kind of crafts we should do. The second part is that I just need to suck it up and figure it out.

Gonna teach the heck outta these kids. They are gonna have too much fun. 

Vulnerable Villainy

We were running a long form the other day where one player realized he'd been endowed as the villain, so he went full douche-mode. Earlier, I'd told him to fully commit to whatever position he was placed at in the story. So if he was a hero he'd be brave and if he was a villain he'd be horrible. He followed my note as it was given, and he executed with precision.

He and I spoke after the rehearsal and we both agreed that while his character was infuriating, there was definitely something missing from him. It was hard to think of a form of comeuppance for his villain, part of what made him so frustrating was that he was invincible. I wanted him to be like a putty from power rangers, with a little button on his chest for me to strike when I was done doing cool martial arts flourishes. That kind of vulnerability is an option, but is it actually a good option most of the time? How does he stop himself from being impervious to harm and create an interesting, fun character?

The answer, I've realized, is to begin with a feeling. The answer to why a villain behaves the way they do should begin with how they feel about the characters that they are antagonizing. Feel first, and ask questions later.

The improviser in my group played with detached emotion, he never had a revealing moment and he never made any excuses for his awful behavior. He didn't even seem to enjoy his awful behavior. He was clearly the bad guy, but we knew nothing about him and never got to learn anything. Because we knew nothing about him or his feelings, we had no idea how to deal with him.

Here's me starting with a feeling:

My character despises those guys. Why? Because he is above them. In what way? He's risen in station while they have remained the same. How did he rise? Hard work, clever wit, and betrayal. What does he want? To prove he is better, that anybody would backstab anybody else if the reward was right and the opportunity presented itself.

If a character feels an emotion powerfully enough, everybody immediately starts to wonder why he feels that way. They wonder what happened, but most importantly they know that something happened to make this character feel this way. Not only does that all-consuming feeling answer questions about the bad-guy, it fills in empty spots in the good guys' characters as well.

Perhaps most importantly, if we are able to get some of these feelings out of the antagonist we are able to resolve the story and overcome them. We can dole out poetic justice or give them a chance at redemption. We can even let them win if we know what their conditions for victory and defeat are. None of that is possible without the villain having feelings and acting on them.

Basically, if you want to create something powerful and human: begin with a feeling.

When Do the Good Things Start?

Being sick is the pits. I think I've done it to myself, though. I've built a lot of stress up in my brain lately and it's definitely worn on my psyche these past few weeks.

For the first time in my life I'm accurately tracking my spending and income and boy does it make me pull my hair out. My spending habits aren't too terrible, but something about every dollar being accounted for makes me froth at the mouth. I feel like I should spend nothing ever, even if it's necessary or incredibly minute. 

I suppose a large amount of the stress comes from knowing that I'm not making very much money. I've got my server schedule trimmed down to make room for improv and teaching and my income is paying the price. My classes aren't quite in session yet and improv isn't paying me, but those things happen to be what I love to do so I'm just sacrificing money to do them.

To be honest, I'm getting less and less certain that I'm making the right choice. Most people my age have grown up jobs or are at least management in their cruddy service jobs. Am I even really even "chasing a dream" or am I just avoiding responsibility? Don't get me wrong, I don't want to sell insurance or manage a restaurant or grocery store. I don't want a job that can tell me when I'm allowed to perform and make me feel obliged to listen. I just feel... useless. Unimportant. Valueless. 

I acknowledge I'm being somewhat melodramatic, but I am really beginning to worry. When do the good things start? Am I not working hard enough? I'm probably not, I still have time to sleep. If you're sleeping and you're not finding success, then sleep less ya loser.

I don't have any answers for these questions right now, I just wanted to commit this crisis of confidence to writing. I figure I'll have answered one way or another eventually and I can at least have a good laugh at my present confusion. 

Want To Get Started? Just Ask.

I've had a lot of improv and theatre related ambitions in my life and its surprising how many of them have come to fruition. The thing is, very few of those things just came to me. I had to go out and get them, but going and getting them isn't always as easy as it sounds.

New Idea: Tag Team Car Salesmen

Mid-January Resolutions!

I talked about last year, but that stuff's in the past. I've got some ambitious eyes and they are set on the future. Life and career related goals for 2015, comin down the pipeline!

Resolution for Every Year: More Pirate Shenanigans

What I Did With 2014

So I did a whole lot of stuff in 2014 and I figure there's no shame in bragging about a little about some of it. Maybe in the process of boasting I'll be able to do a little bit of reflection, too.

Taken at ComedySportz Richmond's 2013 Improv Festivus

Spolin:A Basic Understanding

I've been looking for some more theory to have rattling around in my brain and I managed to get my hands on Improvisation for the Theater by Viola Spolin. Spolin is regarded as the "American Grand Mother of Improv" and basically all improv theory comes out of her work in some way or another. I haven't finished the book, so if there's a twist ending don't spoil it for me. Here are some

 of the basics that I've gleaned:

Voila! Viola Spolin

Dealing with Pre-show Anxiety

Most days I feel like I could take on the world and at least go even, but sometimes the creeping spectre of doubt is able to land a few hits on my psyche. Pre-show nerves, it happens to the best and most experienced of us. If you're nervous, that's great! It means you're taking risks and leaving your comfort zone. After the jump, I'll go over a few ways that help me cope with anxiety.

First step: Breathing and wiping down your sweaty palms.

Top Five Things That I'm Thankful for This Year

Time to get myself in the thankful spirit with a rousing blog version of TOP FIVE THINGS. I've got my game face on and it's time to get THANKFUL AS HELL UP IN HERE.

Shamelessly stolen from my very own instagram. Deal w/ it.

Teacher Post: The Benefits of Building a Blanket Fort

Gonna drop some teacher tips on you guys today! So your class is clipping along at a pretty good rate and your students are pickin' up what you're puttin down every lesson. You're blitzing through curriculum faster than you could have expected because A) you're probably a better teacher than you give yourself credit for and B) your students are geniuses who were created in laboratories. Now's the time to stop and smell the roses, but how do you do it? Sometimes it's as simple as reading stories or playing their favorite games for half an hour, but sometimes you gotta go big. You gotta build a blanket fort.

My second-in-command Callie Mattox and I finishing the Blanket Fort. The students had all jumped inside already.

Blog-O-Ween! A Reflection On My Teaching Style

Wednesday night was my final class before Halloween and I tried something new. Usually my pre-Halloween class is a hectic jaunt around whatever building we happen to be in. I recruit two or three friends to play characters and I have them lead us on a chase around the building dropping candy wherever they go. It is stressful and exhausting and almost always not planned thoroughly enough. I also worry how parents will feel when my costumed friends inevitably give their children floor-candy. This year I did away with all the hubub, and I think it was a real sign of growth for me as a teacher.

Blog-O-Ween! Just do it!

Getting your students interested and involved in class can be difficult. If you're anything like me, you are always incredibly into the theory of what you're teaching and you want your class to be able to appreciate the beautiful mechanics of what they're about to do. While it's great to be so excited about how stuff works, sometimes it's better just to let it work before explaining it. In theatre and in improv it is important to let your students get to creating in a safe environment quickly before even thinking about sharing theory with them. So quit mucking around with vocabulary words in your theatre class and just do it!

Blog-O-Ween! A Teaching Horror Story

This comes from my Summer teaching at Lexington Children's Theater back in 2010. I had never taught before that Summer and it was also my first professional internship. We had cleared our way through six out of ten weeks of classes when disaster finally struck. The only way we could survive was quick thinking and powerfully efficient teamwork.

Important Lessons From Teaching Young People

Teaching is hard. Teaching young people is harder. Of course teaching your lesson is important, but it's also what you're specifically trained to do. If you want your class to actually be successful, you're gonna have to do more than just communicate the material. Here's what's important in a class for young people (though I'm sure many lessons can be translated into teaching older students).