Major Inspirations

To my improv in specific, and to my performing career in general, I have a number of obvious inspirations. These inspirations, in the form of people, have quite obviously influenced the kind of work I appreciate, want to put onstage, in all hopes do put onstage. While I don't have a comprehensive list to spout out at a moment's notice, I have a few I can utter here.

These are not in any hierarchy; I've merely listed them as they come to mind.

1. Adam Goren, aka Atom and His Package

Adam is a musician, and his work as a musician inspired my music before it inspired my improv. It might even suffice to say that he does not directly influence my improv, but only in some far-flung way.

Atom and His Package was a one-man band of sorts. He would come to his shows just himself, his guitar, and a CD player with prerecorded backing music. It was kinda like karaoke with guitar in some weird way, but that wasn't what communicated during his concerts. In his concerts, he was an amazing performer, a nerdy-looking guy, heavyset, but ferocious, hilarious, understated, and even lovably insecure. He was a genius in idiot's clothing, maybe you'd say if you saw or heard about the setup.

He was inspiring because he taught me just how personal you could be in your songs. In his songs, he sings about specific people in his life, mentioning them by name, making songs up about stuff for which you have no reference. That sounds like a recipe for disaster, at least with respect for attracting listeners. But it wasn't. The people in his life became a sort of cast of characters for his songs. You almost felt as if you knew some of them--their habits, their ways, their attitudes, etc.

He also inspired me that, yes, you can go onstage with a CD player and sing. Granted, Atom had a guitar, but his band didn't need to be one or two other guys. It could just be him. He could make retarded songs that no one understood. You would grow to like them if you listened often enough. (I surely did.)

If you listen to the music of Atom and His Package, these phrases describe his early work: dorky and punk, whiny and badass, outrageously personal and obscurely specific. As his music evolved, his music just became badass. He'd have outrageous song titles ("If You Own The Washington Redskins, You're A Cock" and "The Palestinians Are NOT the Same Thing as the Rebel Alliance, Jackass," to name two), blazing fast lyrics, songs that made you just want to jump up and down, and music that just made you feel alive.

So, he inspired my music (listen to "posting songs" here to hear the influences), but he also inspired my improv. In this way: You can get deeply personal and specific. You can pull from obscure places in your life. It doesn't mean your work will suck. On the contrary, it can send it through the roof. Specifics, specifics. If your improv doesn't have them, it's general, and if it's general, it only does so much for the audience, and only so much for you.

P.S. Here's an Atom and His Package song live. It's called "I'm Downright Amazed At What I Can Destroy With Just A Hammer." It's specific, CD-backed, and badass.

2. Marjoe Gortner

Marjoe was a 4-year-old Pentecostal preacher. For footage from the beginning of his documentary, see YouTube. (Marjoe is still alive, though I speak of him here in the past tense. It would be amazing to meet him.)

I do improvised sermons. It is very safe to say that Marjoe singly influenced my approach to improvised sermons--not so much his preaching as a kid, but his preaching as an adult in his Oscar-winning documentary (1972). In the film, he shares insights into his style and approach. What impressed me most about the documentary, though, was what Marjoe did to audiences. We're talking Pentecostal churches, and he would work the audience up to such fits of ecstasy, to see it would drop your jaw. People shaking, people dancing, people writhing, people speaking in strange tongues, people crying, people on the floor, exhausted, as if they've been exorcised (not to mention exercised).

I watched this film for the first time in a religion class in college, and what he did to audiences is what I wanted to do to audiences as an actor. I used some of his approaches as warm-up exercises for actors in a play I directed in college. Today, Marjoe's body language is very much embedded in many of my curtain speeches. The object is to give the audience energy, excitement, an edge ... to move them, inspire them, open them up, get them to feel something. Mmmm.

3. Respecto Montalban

This (former?) Harold Team from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre may have been the first Harold Team I ever saw perform. If not, it was the one that impressed me time and again in those first months of watching long-form improv in the summer of 2000.

Respecto was an attractive team of outstanding performers. They never ceased giving you amazing visuals, extreme physicality, and insane implications from starting premises. They kept mixing things up, innovating when others didn't seem to innovate, and just overall usually put on a damn good show. I've never seen a team to this day that matches their chemistry and energy. And their work is probably the most inspirational for me when it comes do teaching and doing Harolds. I can't remember what's in this video, but here is some sense of their work here on YouTube.

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That will suffice for now.

Paul, you?

Ephemera

IMPROV & COMEDY
1. There's been a couple of recent, somewhat polemic discussions on the Improv Resource Center about improv (specifically long-form improv) and its relation to comedy.

The question for you, Foxy, is "How do you see their relationship?" That is, does your improv need to make the audience laugh, or not?

That's an opening question. Perhaps we can have a blog discussion about this.

DIE-NASTY 2008
2. I found some photos from Die-Nasty 2008 online. I see our friend Cariad in them. At first I didn't think I found you in them, Foxy, but then I realized, YOU WERE MOUSTACHIOED!!

Some Non-Improv Books Influential on My Improv

It's been quite some time since I've added to Tractor Control because of being swamped with work. A morning clearing after a day of major advancement in my work means I have some time to add to my beloved Tractor Control!

And the topic I chose? A list. That's easy enough for now. I herein list non-improvisation books I've read that have influenced my thoughts on improv and my pursuits in it.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
by Robert B. Cialdini

The chapter of note for me is the principle of reciprocity, which I feel has a bearing on improv. If you give the other improviser what she wants, she's more inclined to give you what you want. You might say that this book is possibly an argument for the iO, take-care-of-your-partner approach as opposed to the Annoyance, take-care-of-yourself approach, suggesting that you're better able to get what you want by taking care of your partner than yourself.

The Strategy of Conflict
by Thomas Schelling

Schelling would go on to win a Nobel Prize in Economics. In this book, he enlightened me with a new vision of conflict. Schelling saw conflicts as bargaining situations. By that, he meant two opponents going after what they wanted, but the opponents were interdependent--I could get what I wanted depending on what you do. The idea blew my mind open with respect to improv and introduced me to game theory in a way that had application to improv. Schelling talks about games of coordination, a tool I use for teaching group-mindedness. I happen to have an article coming out this month in the journal ETC: A Review of General Semantics going into detail about this!

Science & Sanity

by Alfred Korzybski

The first book on general semantics, this book has bearing on how I teach improv. General semantics and Korzybski's work oriented me toward a more fact-based orientation, a skill that allows me to resolve disagreements quickly, not to mention manage different performers opinions on subjects like how a scene went, how it should go, etc. General semantics has also heightened my awareness to the power and influence of works, which has set me on numerous quests to find just the right way of introducing an improv idea for maximum speed in learning. I credit general semantics for much of my ability at getting new improvisers to perform like "the pros" in short amounts of time.

A Technique for Producing Ideas
by James Webb Young

This short, powerful classic contains a surprising plug of a popular general semantics book at the very end! Young's book defines the word "idea" in a way that makes finding ideas at the spur of the moment easy. I use his definition in my classes. Young defines an idea as "a new combination of old elements." When it comes to doing long-form improv, finding an idea for a scene is as simple as taking two free-associations generated in the opening and putting them together to start a scene!

It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be

by Paul Arden

This short, illustrated book is incredible in its insight and advice. Geared for the advertiser, it is more generally a treatise on creativity from which nearly any creative producter could benefit. It is a book I look to for different ways of thinking about living life and doing things. It helps me to dream and to ideate. This book is the perfect gift for anyone, especially the improviser in your life!

Many more books have influenced me. These are major ones that I choose to talk about now.

Now, on a separate note: Foxy, I want to hear about Die-Nasty! Please give a report!

Edit: Blogger didn't like my original formatting. Such a pain!

It begins.

In a little over seven days...
In the Varscona Theatre... the annual Die-Nasty Soap-A-Thon returns!

It runs continuously (that's non-stop kids) from from Friday, September 12th at 1800 though to 2300 on Sunday 14th. Performed in honour of Ken Campbell.

More information is available on facebook.

I mention this, mostly because I'll be in it.

Tickets are available on the door. At all hours.

As Promised...

The link at the end of this sentence takes you to a place where you can buy fresh from the oven prints of Dyna Moe's* awesome Harold Poster.

Moe's artwork is as ever, superb. Check out her portfolio on her design website here and her flickr feed over here.

Delights a-plenty my friends... a-plenty. More so, let me assure you that her rates for design work are unreasonably reasonable. Just think, your show's flyer could be designed by a woman who owns a puppet cake.

*Also, her name is DYNA MOE. You need another reason to look at her site?

Ken Campbell Dies Aged 66

Veteran maverick of English theatre, Ken Campbell, died in his home aged 66 on Sunday 31st August, mere days after appearing to sell-out crowds in Showstopper, an improvised musical at the Edinburgh Festival.

I only had the pleasure of meeting Ken twice, both times at performances of his experimental improv company The School Of Night. He struck me as a fiercely intelligent man with uncompromising standards who was more than a little crazy to boot. Having not known him well, I see the effects of his passing in the faces of my friends who did, and in the respect of a great many talented and wonderful people. Ken was a fiend for improv, breaking boundaries and trying new concepts out with abandon and enthusiasm, seemingly driven to keep pushing the artform into pastures new.

The Guardian probably put it better here and here; they are, after all, paid for this sort of thing.

Campbell once explained "I'm not mad, I've just read different books." Which one hopes he's continuing to do, whilst confounding and delighting the establishment of a higher plane.

Ken Campbell, ladies and gentlemen.

Tumbleweed

Sorry, it's been a quiet month.

I have for the most part not been improvising and thus have had a harder time rattling on about ideas and trends than I might've had otherwise. But I'm back on stage tonight and next week, let me tell you about next week. I fly to Edmonton, Alberta next week to participate in the glory that is a 53 hour non stop improv show at the Die-Nasty/Rapid Fire Theatre. Oh yes. I intend to blog throughout, so you can watch as my mind falls apart like a poorly made sandcastle.

Also on a loosely thematic note, congratulations to the recently (re)married Tom Salinsky and Deborah Frances White who tied a second knot at an awesome ceremony at the weekend. Tom and Deb taught me how to run, and how if one must fall, you can chose what you fall on. Their book The Improv Handbook is currently in the active bit of my reading list. I'll tell you more about it later.

Ben is back in the USA after his teaching time in London is over, which I only mention to assert that Tractor Control is now international.

My fingers hurt. I'll write more tomorrow. Unless my copy of Spore arrives.