Thursday, January 7, 2010

whose line is it anyway?

tonight i went to an "intro to improv" workshop taught by a guy who sort of looked like this...





no joke.

i thought it would be terrifying and possibly awful, but it was actually totally fun and relaxing to be in an environment where, as lee put it, "silliness is supported."

we started off playing a bunch of games where there was a lot of switching things up and thinking on your feet and saying ridiculous things like "aaooooga!" (is that even a word that can be spelled?) miss angela and i were more familiar with these games than most of the other people in the class, thanks to our years of faithful family home evening attendance. (big booty, anyone?)

and then we did a scene-type activity with a partner where you riffed together off a word someone else from the class threw out, but everything you said had to be true. i was a little bit bummed i wasn't in the pair whose conversation strayed to placentas (so many good stories on that topic!), but my partner and i hashed it out over cyber-bullying, which i feel pretty good about (our conversation, not the bullying. to be clear).

it was really a blast to let loose and let go and not worry about looking good or being funny. and it was also interesting to think about what makes us laugh and why some things are funny and other aren't, and how that ability to just be out there and honest and without an agenda all the time could change the way we interact with eachother.

not to mention that a solid foundation in improvisational technique could only be a benefit in any awkward social situation. and i am bound to have many more of those before my life is through.

and, of course, dabbling in improvisational theater can only bring my closer to my television idol, liz lemon. i was hopingt to find the clip where she starts improvising to save jack's honor during the retreat to move forward but just ends up taking off her shirt. sadly, i couldn't find that one, but i did find this nifty little montage. listen carefully at the end for the most important thing liz lemon and i have in common.




(did you catch that? date with my cousin? check!)

4 comments:

David's Holla Atchya! Blog said...

I too have been to an 'Introduction to Improv' workshop before. It was one of the strangest things I did last semester. At one point we were all buzzing around the room hitting eachother because we were electricity. It was all very peculiar. There was one game I enjoyed, though.
I find it ironic that in your profile you say you hate bad grammar, and yet you never capitalize your "I"s. I think I may have mentioned that before (if so, I apologize).
Liz Lemon is awesome, and I know the episode you alluded to, but did not find a clip of.

susan said...

I thought of you too in that episode! I don't see what the big deal is...

Popster said...

I, too, have wondered about the seeming inconsistency between Frances' claim to obsession with good grammar and her constitutional inability to use capital letters. Her response is that capitalization is punctuation and not grammar. And, if you ever have watched Frances type, then you may understand; the concept of touch typing (or keyboarding, as I think it is called currently) does not seem to have entered into her skill set. Which also may explain the use of the "eachother" (not a word). Frances, of course, would say that is spelling and not grammar. Grammar seems to have a very specific meaning in Frances' lexicon.

Popster

David's Holla Atchya! Blog said...

I like Popster.