(This is one of the 52 performances in 52 weeks project.)
(I say “for real” because the one I tried to do for #4 was a bust.)
Not too long before this, I’d happened to see The Deltones perform, as they were the second half of a night of improv some friends of mine were doing.
At the end of their set, they invited audience members to come up and improvise with them! They said they do it all the time.
So, when I was looking around for fun stuff to do after a light night at work, I saw that I could see a show – and improvise in same said show – at iO west! How fun!
When The Deltones invited people onstage, I asked the guy next to me (who’d been an improviser in the first half of the night) if he’d take some photos of me, and he obliged.
He turned out to be a semi-famous-ish guy with a ton of twitter followers who DMed later apologizing for ducking out early. He took pics of the first scene or two, then had to leave for a friend’s party.
Sure, I’d thought it would’ve been fun to have pics from the musical scene, but the fact that a stranger who was doing me a favor thought to reach out, out of the blue, to apologize for not doing me even more of a favor was just flabbergasting in the most wonderful way to me. (So, thank you, Ryan Nemeth!)
We played a few fun improv games. Goodness has it been a while since I’ve done improv!
But I still remembered the main tenants. Unfortunately, I did ask someone a question onstage (something like “do you use these too?” when she was selling me fake mustaches for disguises.
And I know you’re never supposed to ask questions! You always make assumptions and tell people things to give them the gift of more information.
You never force them to give it to you by asking them questions! That’s one of the rules, consarn it! Ugh. Sorry Kevin (…and Jordan, and Guy, and really every other teacher I had at Groundlings [*hangs head in shame*]).
(I wonder if The Deltones love working with all these newbs though who make mistakes like that, because it maybe makes them even better and more flexible to work with people like that? They were super encouraging. So they seem to be used to (and kind to) newbs).)
Also, I think I forgot until mid-way through how actively engaged and happy your face needs to be all the time – including when you’re getting instructions for games, or when you’re getting the suggestions. I mean, I think my face looked okay. But it’s obviously more fun to watch someone who’s very excited, rather than someone who’s concentrating hard.
We did get to do some singing improv, which was super fun (and not something I got to do much of in my classes at The Groundlings). I think the singing scene was probably my best (and favorite), but that’s probably just because I looove breaking into song. I don’t actually know if I was funny, but in my head I was (while getting things to rhyme – yay!).
And we’ll get more into my song next time.