I’m writing this very much after the fact. It is opening week at
Urban Yeti Improv, but getting here was no easy task. In fact, the
closer we get to the opening performance the more I am amazed how things
came together in such a short amount of time. The business went live
on Dec. 26th, 2013, the day when our first advertising strategies were
implemented. We had one pick-up rehearsal prior to the holiday break
just to make sure the four performers were real and would show-up. I
admit there was a bit of a risk taken in creating a business, signing
contracts and starting the advertising phase before more than one
rehearsal was complete. However, I say ‘bit’ because I was confident in
the talents of our performers at Urban Yeti. After all, they have
worked in this industry for years now, we are far removed from the
college environment and Urban Yeti pays their performers. I expect a
lot from folks based on these considerations and know they can deliver.
With three rehearsals scheduled for January and a brand new ‘Frigid
Affair’ show format no one knew how to play, the difficult task was
balancing exercises for personal improvement with needing to work the
show. But first, a little bit about the show format ‘Frigid Affair’.
Mal and I have had some folks tell us they enjoy the format we created,
but the inspiration actually came from one of our performers, John
Parsi. Over an evening of ground planning back in November (drinking),
John had mentioned really enjoying a Neo-Futurist show based completely
on current events. Mal and I took that concept and made it more local
by working a format based on Anchorage Daily News and Anchorage Press
articles. For a month I read through newspapers and cut out headlines
(we only used the bold headlines for inspiration). Each rehearsal would
utilize these headlines and the performers had no idea what they would
be basing their scene on. I found the perspective/opinion sections of
the papers to be particularly useful. The sequence of the show was as
follows:
- Opening Intro Video – Audience Warm-Up (Clapping Sound Levels)
- Freeze Tag – Player Warm-Up (Audience pulls first headline for first scene inspiration)
- Frigid Affair Sequence – Beginnings
- Audience chooses three articles headlines and the performers build three story foundations. Each story foundation can include multiple characters/environments by using taps/time jumps to transition the content. Each of the three beginnings typically run 5 – 7 minutes and after all are complete the audience votes which story to move forward.
- Frigid Affair Sequence – Middles
- The players then offer the audience three middle variations of the storyline chosen to move forward. Once again these will go for 5 – 7 minutes, players will continue to explore the world they created, but by being allowed to go back and make different choices on the same scene foundation. The audience then votes which middle variation they would like to continue.
- Frigid Affair Sequence – End
- The chosen middle variation will then be concluded with one ending sequence which will run for about 5 minutes.
- Short Form Advertisements – Audience pulls cut out newspaper advertisement and the performers will either show movie product placements, TV commercials or unique object uses based on the advertisements.
- Intermission
- Short Form Sequence
- ID Symphony using audience ID’s and coming up with headlines based on the ID pictures
- Four Square – Four performers in a square with the front side always performing a scene with the host being able to transition the square to new scenes. Each scene suggestion is an article headline.
- Stand-Ins – One scene played four times, but each time with one more performer trying to find their place, once again based on a article headline.
- Half-Life – Show Closer – Two teams of two performers. First performs a two minute scene, second performers it half the time, first performers in half that time and so on until a two minute scene is boiled down to three second.
The frigid affair sequence are longer form scenes, but I
wouldn’t classify anything in the show as a complete long form set.
I’ve been in Anchorage since 1995 and performed here for a number of
years. Audiences are typically looking for a beer, a good laugh and
short form improv is a guaranteed Anchorage favorite. I’m confident one
day we can build a niche in this community hungry for some Harold type
shows, but in my opinion getting from point A to point B requires a long
transition with a lot of finesse and very skilled improvisers. It has
to be earned, not forced and we still have a lot of work to do.
Excluding the pick-up, we had three rehearsals to prepare for this
format. I wanted to blend running the games with some player
exercises. I really want to build an environment at Urban Yeti where
players desire the rehearsal to hone their skills. I want to avoid
rehearsals for the sake of repetition/comfort. Because of this I chose
scene foundations as the central focus. In my experience with the
group, we don’t do a good enough job of establishing the who/what/where
of the scene at the beginning and therefore suffer through a lot of
fluff and talking heads until a unique objective is found. A friend of
mine in Curious Comedy down in Portland, Jake, had recommended the
Upright Citizens Brigade manual. I read the first couple of chapters
and was very happy my intentions merged pretty easily with the content.
I started to mold my terminology with the group because they did a much
more efficient job at getting to the lessons with their
terms/definitions. It became quickly apparent the focus of the three
rehearsals was on strong base realities. Without the clear base reality
established up front, the audience will lose interest and anything
odd/humorous will seem stumbled upon rather than built.
To work
this theme we ran a lot of three line scenes, pushing more and more
each time to embed more details/pantomime. We also ran exercises of
players establishing an environment through movements while others join
in with motion to help establish the idea their scene partner has
offered up. We then embedded these exercises into the show format as a
launching point for working the longer scenes. We had good results and
found better story with stronger up front ideas clearly communicated
between scene partners. One idea I’ll leave folks with: Sometimes you
just have to blatantly state your idea in the scene, and that is okay.
Another important theme I tried to work into rehearsal is the need for
energy and projection. I know, this sounds basic, but I was constantly
noticing with-in the scenes when performers were uncomfortable or
confused. Their energy and projection would drop and we’d spend a lot
of time knee deep in the chaff. I understand a lot of improv is
failure, but that doesn’t mean it has to look like it. We incorporate a
lot of energy warm-ups and I also try to point out downward trends in
projection while a scene is going on. More time and more emphasis on
this theme will yield better results in the future.
I was
initially nervous we didn’t have enough time to work development of
scenes and finding the games with-in, but I was very pleased to find the
players naturally developing these with the strong foundations. I
think it speaks to both their experience level and the strong choices
they are making. However, I’ll be excited to start making this a
central focus of upcoming rehearsals. I’m also excited because with our
season business model, we will run an already established Frigid Affair
set for a few months allowing for more rehearsal time for player
exercises to develop strong skill and rapport.
We are very proud of the foundation create for Urban Yeti Improv and know we have stumbled on to something special.