NCCAF Improv Week – Night Three: 2/18/11 (at DSI 7:30)

Chris Brown finally joined the party last night! And we planned to split up for the night to cover more stuff, but we both really wanted to see the 7:30 show at DSI. So we decided to only split off for the second half of the night. So after eating some delicious tex-mex at Armadillo Grill (festival sponsor), we went over to the DSI Comedy Theater to catch North Coast, The N Crowd, and Neutrino Boston.

North Coast, from NYC, is a rapping longform team, performing what they call a “hip-hopera.” I’ll admit, any musically improv show tends to wow me, because it’s just a skill i don’t have, but these guys were particularly good. To get started, they take any rap lyric, in this case “Pink wig, big ass, make em whiplash” and turn it into a crazy world of freestyle rap and scenes. The opening focused on different elements of a hair salon, right down to the “mysterious blue liquid.” I loved how the backline basically decides when the rap starts, not just the guy beat-boxing. Best rhyme in my opinion was “take care of my wiener/ with my girlfriend Josephina.” and I forget what it rhymed with, but when talking about the helicopter weave, the line “a haircut designed by Divinci” killed me.

Then came The N Crowd from Philly. They had a really awesome short form show. Everything was high energy, solid, fun play. They played some games I’ve never seen before too, which was really cool. In Little Voice (where one person does and activity, in this case breast feeding, while object in environment speak to him), it was fun to hear talking tits and bottles. Especially when the bottle said “No, I said recycle first, Tit!”In 3-way dub (where three people are on stage, and each provides someone else’s voice as the scene happens), it was great to hear “I can break dance, watch me!” almost immediately followed by “wait wait wait, so much better when I do it first!.” These guys where having a great show already, but if they hadn’t been, playing Scenes with a Baby would have saved the show anyway. That’s right, they finished the show by having someone’s baby (presumably one of their’s, or at least someone close to them) come on stage, and they just tagged each other out while talking to the baby. “you brought a baby to a knife fight” then the got baby-stabbed.

Neutrino Boston was last in the 7:30 set. Neutrino is a video improv format where they get a suggestion (“boxing” last night), then three separate teams go out to the surrounding area, and start filming with 2 players, a camera man, and a runner on each team. As each scene is finished, the runners bring the tape back to the theater, and we see it at about a 4 minute delay off of real time. The soundtrack is added live by the the tech guys, and once the first video comes in, there is no stopping.  In the sisters first scene “I hit you once, in like 6 months” was my favorite line from there thread. They also had some fun camera work in the second beat, as the one sister finally snapped and freaked out, the camera shook violently, then would pan to the other sister and be totally steady, then back over and shaking again. Awesome. The team doing the couple on their 3rd date had a fun game of we’re-so-perfect-for-each-other/no-we’re-not. Their second beat had the best establishment shot, with a sign that said “Danger: Quicksand-like Surface.” The third team, playing an emotionally distressed former boxer and his old boxing buddy, had a great third beat. After they fought, they’re sitting on a stoop, trying to think of non-violent ways to deal with things. Yoga comes up, but instead a third player enters, as a cult leader (never actually said, but that’s what it seemed like) offering a path to “heal-a-tion” they take his hand for a moment, then proceeded to beat him up. What was really amazing, was that there were ideas across the different threads that connected, like therapy, and none of the teams knew what the other teams were up to the whole time. The whole thing wrapped up with one group scene, where they all get a super quick idea of what the other 2 teams were doing, and then go. In this case, it was essentially a brawl.

About to go get ready for some workshops, so the later shows will have to wait.

NCCAF Improv Week – Night Two: 2/17/11

I only got to really watch one set last night, the 7pm show at Arts Center West End, featuring Gangs of Recess, The Immediate Gratification Players, DOPPLEGANGER, and Jessica Tandy.

First up of the night was Gangs of Recess from Forth Worth, TX. According to their profile on NCCAF’s site, they are a 7 person group, but only 2 of them were in this show. They played somewhat slower than other groups of seen so far this weekend. Which was nice to see, because while they weren’t constant small laughs, the big laughs were worth the wait. Like a divorced husband and wife running into each other at a bar, she’s on a date, he’s in a darts tourney, and needs to win, and the line “That’s a lot of money to you, right now” really hit home because of how invested you got in her bitchiness. My other favorite moment was the amazingly intense chess game, which was part of asking a girl out, and then she dominated the game like Bobby Fischer, while staring into his eyes rather than at the game. It was crazy intense. Other great line, which sounds even weirder out of context, “Do Hotpockets have that kind of power over you?”

Next up was Immediate Gratification Player, from Harvard. These guys had a lot of great energy. Right from the beginning with the pregnant irish sea women who craved potatoes all the way thru to thebigbadpriests.blogspot.com (i hope that’s not a real website by the way, afraid to check). I think my absolute favorite part of this show was the non-articulated vagueness they played around with. The “aaaahhhhs” and “mehs” and “you knows” of kids that one parent was struggling to understand. Followed by a teacher learning to communicate the same way to her students, and they finally understood history! Plus when two parents were blogging and a scene got cut by a kid walking in on the say “ewww gross!” was a nice bit too.

After them came DOPPLEGANGER from NYC. I saw these 3 ladies at the Del Close Marathon this past year, when I was really drunk in the middle of the night. I’m glad I got to see them not so drunk this time around. I’ll admit, this wasn’t my favorite show, and it felt a little too non-sequitur for me. They got great laughs off of some crazy stuff, and it was funny, but it seemed to come out of nowhere for most of the time. There was actually one really funny line that echoed my thoughts on the show “What the fuck is with people not reacting to weird shit happening in my life.” But in the end, they did an amazing job of taking all that crazy, and tying it all together. So in the end, it made sense and kinda won me over.

Then the last team of the block was Jessica Tandy. I’m a little biased on these guys, cause i know both of them from Philly, although this was my first time actually seeing their duo. They had a pretty cool format where every edit was this organic mirroring thing. Each scene would end by the two of them locking in on some sound or word to repeat and repeat until it transformed into the new characters. The very first scene, they said the word “babe” more times than I can even remember. Later they were two people working out, lift chairs, saying they felt like “a million bucks.” When Andy said “I feel like THREE million bucks,” Jessica responded with “A chair will do that to a man.” I actually wrote down a ton of quotes, because each of these scenes had such in depth characters, that everything they said was so rich. Towards the end, Jess as a little girl said “does anybody kiss and fall in love and stay together forever in your anime show?” and andy as little boy said “no, it’s about ninjas” AWESOME.

After the 7-9 block, DBI went to warm up for our set, so I didn’t get to see much of the other Arts Center West show, and never actually made it to the other stages last night. There was a great webcam bit that I caught late into the Biological Necessities set, where a guy put in a How To CD and the voice led him to stripping and doing dirty things with chocolate. Wish I had seen the whole set.

The afterparty at Tyler’s Taproom was fun times. Ran into some people I knew. Katie and Dave from RVA, Jacey and Canoe Pete from Boston, and met a really tall guy. I call Pete “Canoe Pete” because I walked up to the bar, to talk to Brown and Katie, and recognized Pete, but couldn’t place it. We figured out we were both at Camprov in 2008. Then a minute later he goes “we took a long canoe ride together!” which we did.

New day, at the crack on noon. Off to some more adventures.

-Hochman

NCCAF Improv Week – Death By Improv Travel Mishap

So yesterday was an interesting day for those of us in Death By Improv. Half of us came down on Wednesday, the other half came down yesterday. First at around 9am I text Brown (the other half of Improv Kerouac), Tim and Eric, checking to make sure they had started their road trip. Turns out they were just getting on the NJ Turnpike then. So that put them at least an hour behind already.

Then at me, Mick, Michelle, and Ron (those of us already here) went to lunch at the Southern Rail, where I stuffed my face with loaded fries, some tomato bisque, and an avocado sandwich, which while not my usual fair, was quite tasty. And I give Tim a call, around 12:15, and find out they are almost through Maryland. Okay, making good time, right?

3 hours later … I talk to Tim again, and find out that they hit a bunch of traffic by DC, had just finished their lunch stop, and were about to get back on the road. So still by DC at 3:30 had me worried enough, until 10 minutes later i get the text “Brown got on 95N.” Pretty laughable mistake, but it could happen to anyone, right?

Over the course of the next hour, they attempted to turn around and fix where they were going, but kept accidentally heading to Baltimore apparently. I get a text saying “My God, we are fucked. we’ll get there by 8:15 if we’re lucky.” They turned around on the Beltway 3 times. There by 8:15, for a 9pm show, it’s tight, but it’ll happen. (stage one, denial)

At this point, it’s now passed 4:30, and they are sitting in DC commuter traffic. I call Tim to find out if they are even moving, and Eric gets on the phone. Eric is trying to make it as laughable as possible. I tell him don’t take any stops, just put the pedal to metal and get here. His response, “don’t worry, brown is now wearing stillsuit so his sweat and urine will just be filtered back into his mouth as drinking water under the hot Arrakis sun.” Really? Dune jokes? I’m a sci-fi dork, but wow.

At this point, Mick takes the phone from me, talks to Eric for a bit, while I sit on the computer and start saying how I’m going to shoot them all in the face when I see them. (stage two, anger)

Next I talk to them around an hour later, to see if traffic has cleared at all, and not much luck. Around 6:30 Tim tells me they are moving fine, and are “just passed the marine ship thing.” He meant the Marine Corps Museum at Quantico. I suggest that maybe Tim should drive, since I know he will have no problem speeding, whereas Brown might be being more cautious, even given the time constraints. And I call Zach Ward asking if we can be moved to the end of our time slot to allow them a little more time to get here, which he says we’ll have to take up with the stage manager at call time. (stage three, bargaining)

By now, Mick, Ron, Michelle and myself have gone over to ArtsCenter West, to check in, and to watch the 7pm show. I start to feel pretty bummed. Can barely eat my pizza. (stage four, depression).

Then I start running into Philly people, wind up explaining our dilemma to a couple of them, and to the stage manager, and the absurdity of the whole thing makes me realize that if we have to do a 4 person show, oh well, that’s what it’ll be. I scarf down my pizza (stage five, acceptance)

We then watch the 7pm show (see my next post for the review/recap of that). I’m still checking in with Tim periodically to f:ind out where they are, in the off chance they could still make it. At 9:30ish, the 4 of us go to find a place to start warming up, and I actually start to loosen up. Mick says to me “I’ve actually never seen you this animated during a warm-up before. It’s scares me”

10:25 rolls around, and Katie, the host, introduces us “I don’t actually know how many guys are about to get up here, since half of them may be stranded on the side of I-85…” We get up and have a really fun show. I shit the bed on our DoWop song, but other than that, I think it was really strong all around. I go to introduce our last game of the set, knowing that we’re almost out of time, and I say “Ron and Michelle will be playing a Character Coaster.” And then I hear “How about Tim or Eric?” THEY MADE IT. For the last 3 minutes of the set, but they made it. Brown was parking the car, and probably having a massive panic attack.

Interesting thing, Eric drove down for just those three minutes. Last month his friend called him up and asked him to be in his wedding in Seattle this weekend. So Eric figured, get down here Thursday, play the show, crash at another friend’s place down here, and then fly with him to the Seattle on Friday. So basically he had a 14 hour drive to the airport. I’m sorry Eric.

We then got drunk. The ride back to the hotel was fun, cause Mick, Ron, Michelle and me came over in the hotel shuttle, figuring we’d take a cab back. Instead, we all piled into Brown’s car, 6 of us in a Ford Focus, with Ron (sober) driving, as I drunk navigated.

DBI, doing things the hard way since forever.

-Hochman

NCCAF Improv Week – Night One: 2/16/11 (Part Two)

This morning on twitter, @nccomedyarts tweeted:

@ImprovKerouac looks to be blogging #NCCAF shows. With 3 venues kicking into action tonight, Will it last? http://bit.ly/ggnJLX“

Our answer: we’ll see as much as we can and write as much as we can. With two of us, 3 venues, and overlapping shows, obviously we can’t get everything. But lets keep the ball rolling with thoughts on last night’s second show: DSI Harold Night. We had the 3 Dirty South Harold Teams.

First up was Kid Lincoln. They had a cloverleaf opening, which was fun to see since I’ve recently started using the cloverleaf as an exercise with Death By Improv. They explored some great ideas off the suggestion of “Dark Crystal.” This lead to marriage and gems and Jared from Subway. The middle scene of the first beat started off weird, as an odd forced marriage thing, but turned into a cooler supportive mail order bride scene. Which ended with saying its good to be a “tech-savy Morman!” In the second beat, we were introduced to dueling banjo players, Jed Ben and Quietly. They fueded over Susanna, right down to singing the song “oh susanna” together while one of them clearly didn’t know the words. I love seeing when people get put in the shit like that, and then just have fun with it. There was also a fun scene where the mail order bride came back and couldn’t remember anything, the doctor said her life story was tattooed on her, and she asked “am i in the movie Momento” followed by two or three back tracking scenes, and then looping the whole sequence 3 times. It was great to see people so clearly get on the same page with the game.

Second on Harold Night was AU JUS. I’ve never seen the opening they did before. They started a two person scene, so at first i didn’t think it was an opening, but then people started tagging in and continuing to play the same characters. Only it wasn’t a normal tag, it was this cool physical thing where they had to take the posture of the and sort of just replace them organically. They took “double bag it” and played a grocery store owner and bagger. We saw scene about a boy on a farm, who’s mother had bigger balls than he did, so she was man of the house. The boy later in the second beat went to a women who could “make him a man” which lead to an awesome run of scenes about her making lots of other people into real men. There was the other boy trying to please his father, by bringing him a truck load of apples, but the father insists the boy peel and core an apple, chew it up, and spit it into his father’s mouth. My favorite thread from this Harold though was the Day Shift manager on a date, who loses all his bravado when asked to “be the night shift manager.” He ends up knocking over the chair that his date is sitting in. Comes back later as the night shift manager who is just as nervous about becoming a supervisor. Followed be a run of other suitors, like the owner, then Mr. Wholesale, and some others. I think Au Jus had the best group games of the night. The reporters asking about Kroger’s invasion of other stores was fun. They all jumped in as 1920’s newspaper reporters with old-timey voices and constant hat movement.

Then closing out the night was The 708. They opened with a version of an invocation, first vividly describing their object suggestion, a wheelchair, then addressing it as different characters, followed by a number of “Thou Art” statements to elevate it, and then finally “I am” statements until the final “I am Wheelchair!” Out of that opening, they found some cool threads to explore. We had the guy who was useless at his job. First as a airport security guy who is baffled the machine didn’t beep, “it always beeps.” Later that idea was explored as a teacher who didn’t need to tutor his kids, which tagged to a husband who didn’t need to have sex with his wife. We also a girl saying she was pregnant to her very puritanical friend. That ended with a literal push down the stairs. The virgin friend came back later, 60 years later, to finally lose her virginity in the nursing home, with another guy watching. My favorite scene from these guys was the scooter shop. Stated as a guy buying his wife two scooters “don’t call them chairs, they don’t like that” and tagged to the shop where he bought them from gun nuts. Each tag back had more guns. Eventually he bought two scooters, some handguns, and a cannon.

All three teams, even with slightly different styles of play, had one clear common ground. Super fast 3 beats. I haven’t actually seen too many Harolds played, so I don’t know if thats more common than i’m realizing, but it was cool to see each show kinda go into a minute or two of overdrive, and then blackout.

So that’s it for night one of NCCAF Improv week. Tonight Chris Brown gets down here with the other half of Death By Improv, and we’ll be performing. But with two of us down here, hopefully we can cover plenty of the shows over the next couple days.

Oh, and each of these teams performs again this weekend too. Kid Lincoln on Friday @ 7pm @ ArtsCenter West End, AU JUS on Friday @ 9pm @ ArtsCenter West End, and The 708 on Saturday @ 10pm @ ArtsCenter Main Stage.

NCCAF Improv Week – Night One: 2/16/11 (Part One)

I’m writing this recap solo, because Brown won’t be down here until tomorrow sadly. He missed two awesome shows. If you happened to start following us on twitter (@ImprovKerouac) you might have seen the couple of show quotes i threw up on there right after the shows. But there was a lot of good stuff, so let me dive a little deeper here.

First up, we had a level 301 student show. Starting off a festival has got to be nerve racking, and doing a student show is kinda nerve racking too … so double nerves. But these guys delivered. The student show was full of good little bits, like right away in the first scene, you had an interesting father-son relationship centered around the son wanting things for his wedding; this week was a cake, last week he wanted guns, because “you need a gun to get married in africa.”  Or like during their La Ronde, a mother daughter scene with a over-supportive mother talking about why it’s okay that no boys talk to her 5th grade daughter, because those other 5th grade “bitches will be pregnant by the 6th grade.” Great character commitment all around. Everyone clearly found what there own anchor was, and mixed really well with each other all through out.

Next up was Armadeddon’ It, a duo of Rick Skarbez and Kevin Browning, who took a suggestion of Casablanca and turned it into an interesting character study of some people at an Applebees in Casablanca. There was a lot of great chemistry between these two guys. What I liked most was that Rick would play these characters who would kinda run on a bit, but it was balanced by Kevin playing characters who were very direct. Kevin’s out-of-nowhere lines like “I want a baby” from his caberet/stripper/nazi and the very blunt “I hate chicken” from the nazi board of health inspector were awesome. As was Rick’s stringing of thoughts together to get to “It pains me to be away and miss his first goosesteps.” Very fun duo.

After that came DoubleD20s, an all lady improv group that does scenes inspired by a random monster from a Dungeons and Dragons book. That’s right, all women, and D&D. I know nothing about D&D, but most of the show isn’t about D&D, it’s about the weird relationships of the characters that get created in their opening. And when they do throw in a pretty blatant game reference, it’s funny whether you know the game or not, like Molly Buckley’s line “I want to level up and gain some XP, but I’m old and my hips don’t work.”

The last set of the 7:30 show was another duo, Houdini, know individually as Robert Bapst and Andy Lavender, and they were my favorite team of the night. They had such high energy right from the suggestion. They came out into the audience, had an audience member (Mick from DBI) shuffle a tarot deck, draw the top card, and then presented it to everyone with a bit of fanfare. I’m not sure how I can even begin to describe the strength of their set. There was strong, absurd characters, interesting stage pictures, and amazing callbacks and repetition. The Father who tells his son “your mom’s dead, I think the Great Depression got her”, the women who lick their lips and make egg salad sandwiches, The Wizard (“not anything as harmless as a Klansman Wizard”) that lived next door, and so much more. It was one of the best duo performances I have ever seen.

Well that’s all I have for right now. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon with my thoughts on the 9:30 DSI Harold Night show with Kid Lincoln, Au Jus, and The 708.

-Hochman