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.

---

That will suffice for now.

Paul, you?