How Common Is Your Birthday?
(via @stiles)
Woo! Less common birthday!
Oh what a shock, born on the most average day of the year and it’s an average amount of popular.
That’s one way to keep warm in the Fall and Winter!
From the UCB Training Center Guide, Page 15.
In terms of “spreading yourself too thin,” I think they should also include the problem of having a full time job outside of improv. It is NOT in your interest as an improviser to have a full time job. Instead, have rich parents that will pay for you to follow your dreams. That is far more in your interest.
Exactly. Sarah gets it. This also will help you to make shows that START AT 11PM. You heard me. START at 11pm. And that’s if everyone’s on time. Which they won’t be! Ever! Basically have nowhere to be but in the basement of a bar watching improv. Same goes for 12 AM tech rehersals. That’s right, they START at 12 AM. NO ONE IN THIS COMMUNITY HAS TO BE UP IN THE MORNING BUT ME, APPARENTLY.
Word!
As someone who has worked in an administrative/reception capacity for the better part of a decade (yikes) I can tell you one thing: People are so, so, so, so, so, so, so, SO stupid. They are just dumb. And this goes for everyone, everywhere. Including me. We are all stupid. And I was thinking, a…
We learned yesterday through Lennon Parham & Jessica St. Clair on Twitter that NBC has put their show ‘Best Friends Forever’ on hiatus. Now we know that this particular network likes to do this from time to time with truly excellent shows (coughcommunitycough) and we also know that fan feedback can definitely work. There are a few movements already starting on Twitter (#savenbcbff) so take to the inter-tubes and give some polite feedback to NBC and support these two funny friends of Earwolf!
And while crafting your letters of support, why not listen to Lennon and Jessica craft comedy gold on Comedy Bang! Bang! - Womp Up The Jamz!
Episode 60 - Marissa Wompler’s first appearance
Episode 92 - Marissa visits Boner Jamz dot com
Epsiode 116 - Womp It Up podcast
Episode 154 - Listler and Wompler
THIS!
#SaveNBCBFF - you can also watch the interview they did for UCB Difference. They are amazing!
Surprised ass gerbils.
(I think they’re hamsters, but they’re still cute as hell.)
They look pretty happy for ass gerbils…
Laughing During Scenes
This is such a great problem to have (especially for a newer improviser) that to me it’s basically a non-problem.
Sometimes people are made to feel bad about laughing during their scenes, and I really don’t get it. Like I said before, laughter is a contagious expression of happiness. And audiences (non-asshole audiences, at least) tend to be much more forgiving of breaking in scenes than teachers or coaches.
BUT… it’s a good habit to break, if only because it makes your scenes better.
Like, given the choice between two performers on stage having a great time and laughing along with the audience vs. two performers staying totally straight-faced as the audience dies laughing, we’d probably choose the latter.
How to do it, though? I dunno! I’m still bad about this, nine years later. I broke pretty hard during Friday’s Made-Up Musical, for example. But here are some tips…
- Yes, commit harder! Chances are your character doesn’t find the situation funny, so buckle down and get angrier/hungrier/wigglier. The laughter fuels you. Feed your wiggliness. I’M SERIOUS, AND SO IS YOUR CHARACTER.
- If you’re laughing, treat it like your character is laughing. Why don’t characters laugh more often in improv?! They do just about everything else. When you follow this, you haven’t “broken” in the scene, you’re using your natural reaction, which we stifle too much in improv anyways.
- Or… turn that laughter into something else - crying, sneezing, coughing, yelling, etc. Then use it in the scene.
- Bite the inside of your cheeks or discreetly pinch yourself. I used to do this.
- Cover your mouth. I often go into what I call “Jack Benny pose” and touch my face if I’m close to breaking. It helps.
- Laughter can be a homing beacon to get you to focus. (You’ll have to create a better metaphor that works for you.) For me, it’s a chance to tune in to what people find enjoyable. It gets me in flow, and with experience/muscle memory you’ll not be distracted by it, but the opposite.
- This might be my own personal note than anything else: don’t look at your teacher or coach. 1) It weirds me out when that happens, but 2) the sight of them laughing can be contagious. So when your teacher laughs, you have to ignore them as a character, while acknowledging it as a performer. You don’t tune them out, you tune in. (It can be tough, I know.)
Whew, wordy, but I hope it was worth it. Hopefully some people will reblog with their own advice. Thanks for asking such a great question, Aimee!
Great advice, as always. I like to think of not laughing in a scene like telling a great joke. You don’t want to ruin the punchline so there may be some artifice to what you are doing in the telling, but it serves the purpose of making it even funnier in the end. There’s a part of me that has a 6th sense that says, keeping a straight face will make this even funnier… but I break all the time too.
Now, laughing on the back line is great… as long as you’re not also chatting up your team members at the same time. I think people on the back line think they’re invisible, but they are very much not. Unless I forget the suggestion and simply HAVE to ask, I try to stay engaged with what is happening in the scene.
A video letter to my future/hypothetical grandkids.
Funny & smart - love it!
Just want to remember the way some of these things are stated so succinctly.
After I read this, I wanted to give myself a hug. So I did.
In 2006, actor Stephen Fry received a letter from a girl struggling with depression. This was his response.
This is why Stephen Fry is one of my heroes.
A fantastic human being.
You’ve probably seen this, but you also probably can’t see it enough.
This is wonderful. It’s almost exactly what Lauren said to me the other day.
This helps me immensely.
With special thanks to Don Fanelli and Chris Gethard
1. There is no “correct” method (except your own)
I’ve been studying improv continuously since the Fall of 2007 when I had my 101 class with Betsy Stover at the UCB. I worked my way up through the 500 levels where, through no fault…
LOVE this. Thanks Vince.
Mom shares the occasional link with me. Of course, she doesn’t email it, she just calls me up and tells me to visit MSN.com to watch it. I just thought this was appropriate as a first post for my very own Tumblr blog.
