need to hunker down

If you are reading this, then you’ve probably noticed that Improv Kerouac hasn’t been actively writing. We had a plan to see and write about shows with some degree of frequency following our trip to NCCAF (with Death By Improv) this passed February, and then didn’t follow through. Part of that is because we haven’t been traveling and seeing shows like we had planned. Outside of performing with Death By Improv, Brown has focused primarily on his band, Sun Puddles (which is awesome btw), and I have focused pretty heavily on playing with Mayor Karen at Philly Improv Theater.

That’s not to say we haven’t seen shows, or thought about working on the blog, we just haven’t put the time in that we had intended. In the coming weeks, hopefully that will change. I plan to hit up at least part of the Del Close Marathon, and Brown will be in Baltimore the same weekend for a show with his band, which happens to coincide with the Baltimore Improv Festival, so he may get to a show or two there. Hopefully we’ll both have insightful things to say about those shows.

sorry about the hiatus, but we will jump back in and hit the ground running soon (i hope)

-Hochman

Chicago Improv Festival: Deltones & ImproTop

Last weekend I was out in Chicago with my Philly Team, Mayor Karen, for CIF14. what’s odd is, I didn’t see nearly as many shows as I had either expected or hoped to see, but what i did see was a really fun mix of styles and even cultures. The first festival show I saw was Friday Night at IO: the musical harold, the Deltones, featuring a number of great Chicago improvisers (almost know of whom i had met yet, but as the weekend went on, I met a few of them), and ImproTop from Mexico City, a really fun show that broke passed any language barriers and entertained a packed room for close to an hour.

The Deltones aren’t the first musical improv act I’ve seen, but it was one of the first musical improv shows where I felt that the music wasn’t forced. Most scenes had a musical number, but not all.  It felt like the music was just another scene move that could be initiated and that they all were prepared for, rather than a required component. They took the title of “Shenanigans” and created a world full of Ashton Kutcher enthusiasts, bad actresses, parents reliving glory days, a bizarre family, and a shy kid learning to about love thru rehearsing Shakespeare.  I think the Romeo and Juliet scene was my favorite, where a drama rehearsal exploded as they abandoned the text and just said what the words meant to them, including spelling out R-O-M-E-O, where both O’s meant “Oh my God, Romeo!” (which was called back later in the scene during the song). The show closed with really great scene with a Crab Boat, and the threat of death. It had three people in the scene, with the others providing back up as dancing crabs. Best line: “Oops, you’re overboad!”

ImproTop from Mexico City went on next. This was my first time seeing an international set, and didn’t really know what to expect. Going into it, I wasn’t even sure if it would be in english or in spanish. The show was primarily in english, which I was thankful for (since I never really attending spanish class in college). They played “Four Stories, In Four Styles, For You!” I’m not usually a fan of puns, but when you’re making puns not in your native language, I’m a little more impressed. Each of the 4 stories was based on an audience suggestion, and was done very true to the styles they played. The musical section they did wasn’t very good (they were singing about Birth Certificates), but it was fun nonetheless. I particularly liked the “No-words” style, it was like watching 3 Mr. Beans all at once. It  great to see that much physical expression in all of the scenes, but especially in the no-words scene, and I wonder if they are that physical when playing in spanish, or if it is a bi-product of overcoming language barriers. The show did feel like it had reached a great end, and then went on for 10-15 minutes longer, revisiting each scene. It felt like the show had peaked too early and they were filling. The last part of the show, while still entertaining, was a bit slower and lower energy than what it had built to already. Although the very last bit when revisiting the original action movie, they did a Street Fighter scene, including life bars, and some great callbacks to early in in the show.

That was the first half of my friday night in Chicago. Later I went upstairs at IO to see Improvised Shakespeare, which while not part of the festival, I figured I should see while in Chicago. More on that and the rest of the weekend soon!

-Hochman

Chicago Improv Festival!

Hey everyone, Hochman here. I’m in Chicago right now with Mayor Karen (my team from Philly), and am taking in the festival and some local shows too. Sadly I won’t have time to sit down and write up much until at least tomorrow, if not later in the week. But Improv Kerouac will have more stuff coming! Last night I saw The Deltones (a musical Harold that plays regularly in Chicago) and Impr0Top (a group from Mexico City) and both were awesome. Then I broke off from the festival lineup to check out Improvised Shakespeare, which had been highly recommended to me by tons of people. And it lived up to the hype.

I’ve got to go get ready for 8 hours of workshops I’m taking, so more on those shows and others soon, I promise.

-Hochman

NCCAF Improv Week – Night Four: 2/19/11 (at DSI 7:30)

So it’s been a whole week since I saw this show. But the real world got in the way of writing, having to work and sleep and such. But right now, I’m sitting on a Megabus from NYC to Philly, I have free wifi, so I have no excuse not to write this recap.

IMPROV SLAM at DSI Comedy Theater is a regularly scheduled short form DSI show, but for this festival they did a Chicago vs. DSI show. The show is stuctured much like a ComedySportz show, but without the sports gimmicks. There are two teams, a host and tech who assign some arbitrary points, and it’s family friendly.

I had a blast at this show for a couple of reasons. First off, all the performers individually were really good, everyone seemed like they were on there game. Second, it was great to see really good family friendly comedy. Chris and I both play shortform with Death By Improv, and we are definitely not family friendly. This show, again like Comedysportz, didn’t rely on saying something overtly sexual, crass, or offensive to get a laugh.

But what I liked most about this show was how well tech was incorporated. It sounds stupid to some, but a good job teching can really carry the energy of a show and create a sense of Event. When a show feels like an event, not just some show, it makes it more enjoyable. Most of the time the host would be underscored by some music as he’d talk, genre games would have music for every genre, and rap games like Beastie Rap and Rap Medley had real beats, rather than someone half-ass beatboxing on the side. (good beatboxing is awesome, but most groups, like ours, don’t have beatboxers on the team). Hell, they even brought lights down on half the stage for something like a “film noir” scene. It’s so simple, but most groups either don’t bother, or don’t have talented tech guys.

As far as the actual playing went, as I said, these guys were really fun, both the visiting Chicago team, and the locals. One skill that I think gets spotlighted in a short form show is the ability to justify. Short form games often include gimmicks that are meant to trip us up, but we have to make it work. Like “Blind Line” (aka “Line in a Pocket” or “Lines from the Audience”) where players read lines that they randomly grab, and make it fit. My favorite one was from the audience “Do you want Paper or Plastic?” followed by “That’s what I named my fists!” My absolutely favorite part of the show was in “Panel of Experts” where one of the characters was Rainbow Bright. One of the Chicago players (I sadly don’t remember his name) played Rainbow Bright as a grown up, with a raspy voice, cigarette in hand, and just enough innuendo to let the adults in on the joke, and the kids remain clueless. The character returned later in the show during “Freeze,” as did the dinosaur from “Panel” too. Awesome callbacks.

This show, in conjunction with the N Crowd set I saw the night before, made me want to re-examine how I play shortform, from the games we play to the way we structure the show. The energy was fantastic, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone traveling thru the Chapel Hill area in the futre.

-Hochman

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

I meant to post this show recap before passing out last night, but I was really really tired. NCCAF, while awesome, can take a lot out of a guy, especially if you take the super-physical workshop I had with KPR on saturday. But now that I am somewhat well rested, here’s some more Festival-ness.

I spent all of the Friday night at the DSI theater, while Chris went over to the Arts Center. So the 11:30 show that night was rom-com from Chicago, IL; The Swash Improv from Greenville, NC; and Let’s Try This! from Atlanta, GA. I knew nothing about any of these guys, and was honestly worried that I wouldn’t enjoy the show, since there weren’t too many people in the house right away (everyone was probably over at Arts Center Mainstage for Festival All-stars, Death By Roo Roo and Mister Diplomat). But as it turned out, this was a really fun block to see.

Rom-com from Chicago started of the set and really killed. Mick (fellow Death By Improv-er) was there with me, and somewhat drunkenly proclaimed afterward that they were his favorite show of the festival. Level of intoxication aside, these guys were awesome. They start by interviewing a couple in the audience, getting details about how they met, what was there first date, that sort of thing. (It’s just dawning on me now that “rom-com” means romantic comedy.) The set then explored the meeting, of the couple, and the potential future of the couple. In this case, met at a party, drunk. Then went on first date to an improv show (excellent meta-play self-parodying improv), then got engaged and then married, had very dysfunctional kids, got divorced and all along the way everyone was addicted to microwave use. Even the babies were born to the “ding” of a microwave. I think my favorite lines were the two dysfunctional children, first the troubled daughter “I started cutting myself” then the brain-damaged microwaved son “I started helping.” Awesome.

The Swash Improv, a short-form team from Greenville, NC, came next. These guys seemed to have a bit of a slow start, but by the third game there energy was up, and the laughs were coming in. They played a game called Crime Story, which is similar to the game I know called Interrogator. I know it as who they killed, where they killed ’em, and with what weapon. They played what’s the crime, who helped him, and what was the motive. I liked there way a lot better. The game of Two Rooms, taking place in a crematorium and a Pottery Barn had a great start, since the first scene i wasn’t sure which of the two they were in. It was great. They finished with a really strong game of Two Lines, where 2 people can each only speak in one question and one statement each, and one person can say whatever he wants. “I already did that” was used so well, and was set up perfect for the blackout.

Closing out the set was Let’s Try This! from Georgia Tech. This was one of the few heavily themed shows I saw at the festival, and the only one with a formulated plot structure. A lot of improv tries to stay away from telling a story, and instead focuses on exploring ideas and themes. This group though plays a murder mystery. They start by dealing out cards to the players, with different cards representing the character types of Murderer, Victim, Detective, and Bystanders, and a suggestion of a motive for murder. The Detective doesn’t have to be a detective, in fact in this case, it was the victim’s secretary. We find out who everyone is, by doing a run of scenes with the Victim. Then the detective discovers the body, and starts to try to figure out who the Murder is. It was a fun set, with some interesting characters, but the most interesting character in this case was the Victim. Sadly, he was dead for most of the show. Unfortuntely the murder got away with it in this show, cause the detective accussed the wrong character. Oops.

Saturday recaps and some thoughts about workshops with Kevin Patrick Robbins and Tara DeFrancisco will be coming soon!

-Hochman