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Thanks for coming, proud of the business, this is what I liked, these are needed improvements, something inspirational for the team. Repeat. Thanks for coming, proud of the business, this is what I liked, these are needed improvements, something inspirational for the team. Repeat. Thanks for coming, proud of the business, this is what…

I have caught on to my own blog formula and much like improv I need to take some more risks. I always tell our Yeti performers in scenes they need to ‘hit it harder’. Let’s see if I can achieve the same here and find some deeper truths and a renewed vision.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. This is the Yeti side of my brain during an average performance month: Last shows were great, gotta make sure to keep on top of advertising, is it too soon to think about scheduling the next performance season, what opportunities are out there, time to schedule rehearsals, I hate scheduling, I hate scheduling, I hate scheduling, why do the stars align against me, rehearsal went well, rehearsal went rough, got some weird looks from performers, that set was awesome, have we hit an artistic wall in our improv, I hate it when everyone isn’t here, sometimes I can’t be here, are we improving as an ensemble, have I reached the limit of by knowledge, am I deserving of a director spot, trying a Harold without a formal training program, eesh, formal training programs are overrated, I need help, I don’t need help, I got this, I hope Josh is happy, he needs to be happy, do audiences get what we’re trying to do, let’s apply for festivals, is our submission material competitive enough, what will they think of us outside of Alaska, should I be nervous, I’m nervous, I’m not nervous, it’s improv right, how do people talk about Yeti when I’m not around, FACEBOOK REVIEW, is that my co-worker in the audience, do we take our short form for granted, man I wish I could play more, I like not playing as much and focusing on the business and directing. Repeat.

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The combination of being a human and John Hanus is both exhilarating and exhausting.

Josh gave me a book this past year called ‘The Director’s Voice’, which is a compilation of successful stage director interviews across the country. No improv directors, but the parallels are amazing. In an interview with Anne Bogart, she describes the idea that direction is not about knowing, it’s about having questions. She describes the best actors to work with are the ones that challenge direction through conversation and offer alternatives:

“We do suffer in this country from the disease of agreement. If you think that a rehearsal is doing what the director wants, then there’s something sick in the room.”

This actually provided a bit of an epiphany for myself. There is no director and ensemble, there is only the ensemble. The Harold has been a challenging set because we can’t just focus on the basis of good improv and long form scenes, we have to focus on making all content audience worthy and converging the ideas and themes into a coherent end point. To give us more focus on scene convergence, we applied a little structure to scene transition with the bell and the approach to group games. I have found myself hitting the concepts of strong choices, strong energy too much over two months of rehearsal. After poor sets, all I can get out is “Stronger, bolder choices will yield more memorable moments you’ll want to revisit in the second and third beats of the Harold.” Saying it is easy, applying is difficult and I feel the exercises for this sort of set are hard to come by for me. I’m sure they are out there, I just need to reach in the right places.

Then came a bit of relief during our last rehearsal. After our third Harold set, Aneliese started discussing the third beat and how we should approach it. No more weird looks and confused faces, the discussion began amongst the group about what went well and what didn’t. Everybody got in the game, and alternative views were refreshing. I want this to continue. I want more full group discussion and ideas being brought to the table. Conversation implies better focus and passion for getting to a true group think. In our conversation, we started talking about structure vs. free form and the benefits of each. Of course I started by re-emphasizing performers should slide in to the scene from transition with a strong choice and the others should follow (broken record, Hanus), but then we started bridging that with what Aneliese, Mallory, Mary Jo were seeing and thinking about as they go through the set. God dammit Hanus, reading and watching improv has hidden the fact that answers are not meant to be seen and relayed, they are meant to be discovered by the ensemble.

This is a good place to be as we wrap up our spring season and the timing couldn’t be better. This month we head to Juneau for the Alaska State Improv Festival, which will consist of workshops with outside directors who will engage us with alternative view points. We’ll then come home to our final spring show and additional workshops with Second City instructors visiting for other shows. Finally, we will hopefully hear some positive news on summer festival opportunities. Yeti is setting itself up nicely to Skywalker the shit out of our summer, getting away from the rebel alliance for some swamp time with Yoda. We’ve spent over a year establishing our brand and now we go into these diverse experiences stronger and more adaptable.

I got to slow down the brain ticker and encourage a focus on true ensemble work, rather than too much emphasis on a director/performer relationship. I’ll take all of these ticker thoughts, mash them up into a small little ball inside my brain, and exhale. No big audience reaction? Set didn’t go as well as you wanted? Butts in the seats low? Submission rejected? Performers didn’t get as much out of that rehearsal? Everyone not showing up? So what Hanus, how cool is it that we’re even in the game? How awesome is it to even get a chance to bring the best out in people and be part of a community exploring improv?

My renewed vision? The ticker is the distraction. You can’t have it perfect all the time. Wipe off the sweat, quit your whining and get back on stage. 

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This is crazy. Absolutely crazy. The beginning of our 2015 performance season has been non stop. Two PAC shows, networking through performance and workshops at the Fine Arts Academy and UAA, submitting for Lower 48 festivals, the list goes on. This weekend alone we had four shows over two nights spread between Talkeetna and Anchorage, culminating in our season premiere of the Harold. But you know what, why the hell not? It takes a lot of work to make a brand and nurture an environment where performers can grow and experiment. When the load gets heavy and the stakes get high, it is time to take a step back and realize, why the hell not? Although this game can be crazy, it’s a hilariously fun ride and this roller coaster isn’t even close to finished.

Some people think performing during Fur Rondy, with so much activity downtown, can help boost your numbers, but I have typically found the opposite to be true. The more options, the harder the sell, which is why I’m excited over a hundred fans came out to view our Harold and After Dark combo last night at the Alaska Experience Theater. We all had a great time and we got some awesome vibes in the reception line. As always, amongst the crowd are family and close friends, who choose to spend their evenings with us and our crazy dreams of experimental comedy. Simply put, thank you.

Our short form this weekend was strong. There are always a few games we can do better, where we can focus on building a scene a little more than a gag, but those were far and few between. I had a great fondness for our After Dark One Act Marathon, where we came together as a team to build concise characters with back stories and bring it all together for a nice story arch to end it. We need to continue our stage work to push scenes forward, not sink back into the curtains and diversify our environments to avoid all players standing in a straight line on stage, but we’ll get there and these are minor in context. We also need to start thinking about our f-bombs, which got a little too crazy in the final Objection set of After Dark. I would also like to get to a place where our earlier showings have none. The meat is in the long form ladies and gentlemen, and for that we turn our attention to the foundation, the original, the experimental, the Harold.

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Erik Martin, a great performer for the Iditaprov team in Talkeetna, asked me this weekend if I get stage fright. My response was no, I don’t get stage fright as people typically describe it, but I offered a counter view. I can certainly be uncomfortable on stage, especially when approaching something new. Yes, as a director of a troupe, I have to be a rock and encourage our performers to come together as a team to conquer, but I’m going to open up a bit to our blog readers out there. Sometimes I’m in over my head. But when these moments come around, I remind myself of two facts. First, this is a good feeling. In improv, never be comfortable with what you are doing. When you get comfortable, you’re done in this game. Our shows sell risk and if we ever lose site of that, our performer/audience connections will weaken. Second, and the true beauty of this art, it only takes a line. When you think you offered it up horribly, when you are losing the set, all it takes is one strong choice to lift it to something amazing.

The Harold is a tricky set, and it’s not because of a specific structure or group games. It’s tricky because the content has to converge in the end. Your set-ups have to pay off and your audience needs to view a solid evolution of scenes to something greater. It’s so tricky, the Harold is typically a 601 style class in most improv training grounds across the world. Some students will engage in months, years of courses before they take a run at this format. Did I get stage fright? No. Did I think we were in over our heads, daring to take on an advanced format without the same structured learning in place? Yeah, I did. For the last four weeks I have been struggling as a director to balance three rehearsals with warm-ups, skill buildings, a new format and embedding myself in the format. In the end, rehearsals just ended up being Harold after Harold, with me contributing notes that felt like diagnosing symptoms and left me questioning my ability to inspire my team. But we took the risk and asked why the hell not. I stand in front of you now having learned something very powerful about our Yeti performers: We are ready for this and so much more.

Our Harold last night was a success. I’m still reflecting on this simple truth with a wide smile on my face. We started with a great theme around the Iditarod, built three scenes touching the content of the monologues it inspired, and converged the scene work after the second group game into a post apocalyptic environment shared by our set’s characters. The pacing was right, we had some great physicality in our group games and the audience was engaged the entire set. We did exactly what we needed to do, we found the game and the fun, relied on playing to their strengths and didn’t get lost in the advanced nature of the format. My fellow performers, I say to you now, nice job, the risk paid off, let’s keep being risky.

There were areas needing to be improved, there always are, but given my inclusion in the set it is hard to take specific notes to discuss today. Instead, the focus needs to be on future rehearsal and how we should structure it to unlock more potential in our Harold. I would like to experiment more with looking at the A/B/C scene sets between the group games as a playground rather than forcing us to revisit in sequential order. This will also apply to the third and final beat, where we should continue experimenting with what works and leaving some content behind. Last night was the first time we didn’t revisit all three scenes in the end and decided to bring them all into the same environment in a single wrap-up. I loved it and I want to keep experimenting with this.   Ladies and gentlemen, be uncomfortable, bathe in the feeling and work through it. We can attest, that lazy Sunday afterward feels so much better and you carry with you a rare pride. Thanks for listening, we hope you come takes risks with us again soon.

The beginning of 2015 has been insane for Urban Yeti Improv. After we left you at our first Saturday shows in January, we got in a performance at the Alaska Fine Arts Academy in Eagle River and a special, sold-out performance of After Dark at the Performing Arts Center. Both shows left the audience wanting more Yeti and have been great boosts for our relationships in the community. We continue to exhibit our favorite quality of improv comedy, connecting with people. The next month will see a special Valentine’s Day PAC performance, travel to Talkeetna for some throw downs with Iditaprov and preparation for our new season being unveiled in the next week: Urban Yeti presents The Harold. We can’t stop, and you keep us driven. As always, and with a sincere heart, thank you for your support.   Last night we saw some awesome audiences brave the cold and come see our first Saturday performances of Love is Blind and After Dark at the Alaska Experience Theater. I was impressed with the turnout given we are sandwiched between two heavily promoted PAC shows and the weather was not ideal for downtown journeys. Our After Dark show was a riot and I am continually impressed with our performers finding unique ways to explore uncensored themes. I particularly enjoyed fun games of Story, Story Die, Slideshow and Your Place or Mine. Each of these games embodied some unique scene work elements, ranging from a frat trip with a lot of character depth to a portrayal of several elements of the population of Lion King’s Pride Rock. We need to continue our pursuit of uniqueness, energy and connection in our short form, but I hardly worry about it given the performance opportunities in Anchorage are very short form heavy. It was a good idea for Yeti to get in the market, but ask anyone in the ensemble what our true focus and goals are, and they would point towards our longer form development.   Today I am a conflicted director of improv comedy. I believe our Love is Blind product from last night’s set was worthy of an audience and showed some excellent creativity. In our last rehearsals we have been working on more reliable improv comedy through an emphasis on stronger scene initiations. We re-hashed lessons on starting in the action rather than at the introduction and clearly putting the initial offer on the table to internalize before jumping in. In the realm of scene offers, character work, energy, the troupe last night excelled. There were some great stories built, ranging from a little girl who hated all mythical holiday creatures to the creation of a male empowerment self help group. There was a beautiful moment, possibly one of the best I’ve seen on our stage, where a plane full of people erupted into a rendition of ‘Let it Go’, beautifully executed and wiped to become this novel, small vignette floating on the wind.

But the audience didn’t connect as much with our product last night and we ended up selling them more on our short form improv aspects in the second half over our longer form aspirations. Stay calm everyone, this is okay. In short form, I can do improv with a 6 out of 10 score and the audience will think we nailed it at an 11 given so many games are played (Don’t worry, we’re always a 10 folks). In long form, I can do an 8 out of 10 and the audience will critically think about the 2 left on the table. It’s a different product, a different experience, a true challenge. I love it. Yeti feeds on it.

So what makes me conflicted? I’m conflicted as a director in finding ways to hold lessons together and bridge it to 10 out of 10 long form. From our last couple of rehearsals, the players nailed what I asked them to do. Strong initiations, interesting worlds, nice use of environment. Soul quotas, letters to Santa, a brutal non profit world, physical portrayals of the Northern Lights, all fun. We even saw limited use of plot drive our stories, which is an excellent direction to be headed in. But just as quickly as I saw the wins, they were wiped away. Literally wiped, as in that was the most scene wipes I’ve seen in a long form set we have done to date. In the past, I have directed our performers and encouraged more use of transition and less fear to wipe a product if it was not going well. But last night’s wipes were used after high moments in the scene. They were cut like a short form game, rather than explored like a long form set. The beautiful skills and quality of our performers are lost on the audience when we do not come out of our long form set with full bodied scene work. We struggled to find a group mind and thus succumbed to the nervousness of continuing the world past the laugh. I am left as a director asking what we need to do to build on lessons, rather than something which needs to be constantly re-visited. The improvements needed from last night boil down into an easy concept to explain, but very difficult to practice: We needed more why questions asked and explored. Why does this little girl hate Santa, Easter Bunny, etc? What would happen if the Tooth Fairy died? What are the Girdwood souls used for? Why such an aggressive quota? Why is the non-profit world so cut-throat? We might not answer them all, but it only takes one line of exploration, one character development, to open up a beautiful, enriching, full bodied scene.

We also need to continue exploring our confidence in monologue work. Rehearsals for monologues went really well, but I believe the fast pace of the show with multiple scene wipes left the performers a bit dazed when the bell was ultimately rung. Slowing the scene work down a bit and a few glances at the board when out of the scene can help this easily.   Once again, rehearsal and vigilance, the broken record of the artistic director. We should also be moving back to more shows with the entire ensemble, which I’m excited about as I believe one person’s absence in our core team makes the climb steeper. I’d like to try some workshop intensives over the next couple of weeks to connect the troupe together through playing as we build our art work towards our biggest challenge yet: The Harold.   I keep it 100% real in this blog so you can better understand the beauty of improv comedy, the connections we strive for, the awesomeness of success and the trials of improving. Regardless of the notes, never doubt the Yeti is out there having fun and winning. This is quite the rush, thanks for joining us in the ride. See you at the PAC this Saturday!