Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

This weekend at improv class, we worked on the "who" portion of the "who, what and where" platform that serves as the foundation for any scene. This involved doing work on creating characters.

I found this a lot easier then the previous class, where we used mime to create a sense of "where."

We started with some familiar warm-ups, such as the Psycho Circle, where we pass around a number of different types of actions.

Then Dave had us do a movement exercise, where he had us walk, leading with different parts of our body. We were supposed to see how that affected the rest of our walk and imagine what sort of character would walk like that.

I had a lot of fun making the movements really exaggerated, which was a good way to get a feel for what the character might be. For example, when he had us leading with our hips, I imagined myself as a confident Mae West type. When we led with our feet, I felt like a laid back hippie straight out of an R. Crumb comic.

Next, he had us do some voice exercises, where we mingled and talked with each other, following his directions for how to talk (soft and calm, or like molasses, for example). We started out talking about what we'd done that weekend, but people started adjusting what they talked about, based on the way they were talking. For example, when Boris and I met up and were supposed to talk fast and loud, we ended up talking excitedly about a rock concert we'd gone to the night before, as if our ears were still ringing.

Then he had us combine the two. We were at a car show and had to lead with a part of our bodies that he would assign. When we approached people we were supposed to talk the way that character would talk. As we led with our noses, I ran into Fran and talked to her in a really nasal voice.

When we were leading with our hips, I encountered Ricardo and Steve, who were talking really fast in Spanish. I said in a perky voice, "I have no idea what you're talking about." They said they were just about to do a meringue dance on a car. I threw up my hands and exclaimed, "I'm a meringue dancer!"

Another time, we were leading with our feet and I sauntered up to Colleen. I told her I have a lead foot: "I just like to put it right down" and put my foot down heavily. She said that she heard I'd had a lot of body work done.

"Where'd you hear that? They're real!" I said, looking down at my boobs.

"No, the car."

"Oh, yes. We had a new grill put on." Then I asked her, "Which one do you like?" And she pointed to my left boob. That was such a funny exchange I wished that somebody else had been watching.

About this time, somebody came in the room and talked to Dave, and we realized there was something wrong. He left the room suddenly, his cell phone pressed to his ear, talking fast and clipped. When he returned, he told us we'd have to leave the room temporarily and maybe move to the stage upstairs.

Of course, we all exclaimed, "Woo! We're moving up! We're ready for prime time" as we gathered our stuff. But as it turned out, the stage was also occupied and we ended up standing in the upstairs hallway.

Dave told us there had been a conflict with another group that also uses the theater. We've been meeting in what's essentially a prop storage room, and the theater company that was using it needed to strike their set.

While he was working on this, we all joked around. Lindsay demonstrated how Dave was walking with his chest right now. She put an imaginary phone up to her ear and marched across the room, talking fast and sharp.

Just goes to prove she was telling the truth last week after class when she told me she's one of the people who's normally funny but not as comfortable with improv. I'd never seen her so relaxed before, and it really made her impression funny. If she could get that comfortable on stage, she'd do really great.

On the other side of the hallway, Steve was telling Ricardo and Colleen about a lounge in Old City called the Blue Martini. I'd never heard of it, even though I used to work in that neighborhood. Maybe it's new.

This brought the conversation to martinis, and the subject of a dirty martini came up. I asked what that was. Ricardo, who's a bartender, described it as a martini with olive juice. When he said "juice" it sounded like it had two syllables.

Steve picked up on that: "It has joo-oose in it?" He joked that would be a really bad pickup line: "Would you like some joo-oose in your cocktail?" Ricardo joined in with the joke, and they both were saying, "joo-oose."

At some point in the conversation, Steve revealed that he's currently a teacher's assistant for a special needs child and that he might go back to school for a teaching certificate. I'd hate to discourage anyone from doing something as useful as teaching, but he's the one person in this class who should really pursue comedy. He's really talented. Then again, he could always do ComedySportz or standup on the weekend and a regular job during the week. He'd still get to make people laugh while doing some good in the world.

I regaled a few people with my story about the obsessive compulsive cabbie from the night before. They were as puzzled by his behavior as I'd been. At about that point, Dave told us that we could return to our room. He locked the door behind us so there'd be no more interruptions.

Dave had us do more movement exercises. We started out with just two people. One person would pick a position and hold it. The other had to come up with a position that would match it or justify the first position. I was paired up with Lindsay, and it was fairly easy.

Then we got into groups of three or four. In this case, everybody except one person would choose positions and then the remaining person would come up with a caption for the frozen scene. My favorite was when Geoff was acting like he was diving, Steve like he was falling into a pool and Ricardo holding his nose, making a face like he was afraid to jump in. I titled it "The Really Special Olympics."

Dave walked by when we were all making muscles and Ricardo titled it, "South Beach on a Bad Day." Dave liked that.

We went through several rounds, and then he has us do the caption in a voice that was not ours.

After that, we did an exercise in front of the class. It was called Hitchhiker. It starts with someone waiting for a bus, in neutral emotion. Somebody else arrives, and Dave calls out an emotion. That person must then act out that emotion. The person at the bus stop "catches" the emotion from them.

First, Boris was waiting at the bus stop, and Marlene came up angry. They ended up yelling at each other and he stormed off. Next, Colleen came up, paranoid. After her, Ricardo arrived, happy. He got a laugh for coming up with a big smile on his face, his hands on his head.

Colleen talked to him, and she got happy, too, as they started flirting. He invited her to go to the Blue Martini with her, but she had to leave. Next was Lindsay, who was depressed. She was talking about how she'd just broken up with her boyfriend. "I just got dumped, too," Ricardo said, pointing in the direction of where Colleen had gone.

I was next, and I was supposed to be surprised. I got close and said, "Oh, my god! From college, remember! We were roommates. Remember?"

At first she said, "No" and started backing away. Dave called out, "Yes, you do." So she acted surprised, too, and we hugged. I asked her how she was doing and told her I'd tried to Google her name. "Did you get married?"

"No, I just broke up with my boyfriend."

"Oh, my God! That's too much! That I just asked you about getting married and you just broke up!"

Next up was Fran, who was supposed to be suave. She sauntered up and talked about how she usually doesn't take the bus because she usually takes a limo. I said, "Oh, really? My other bus is also a limo. An airport limo. It's very — luxurious. I'm going to go get in it right now," and walking away haughtily.

Steve was next, acting explosive. That was hilarious. He started acting like an action hero, grabbing her hand and helping her to avoid the buses he said were coming right at them. Next, I think, was Carol, who was carefree. Steve talked to her for awhile and then said, "I had a meeting to go to, but I don't care anymore." That got a laugh, too.

For the next exercise, Dave asked for five volunteers, and I got up along with Steve, Colleen, Ricardo and, I think, Carol. The game was called Slide Show. Two people — Dave and Colleen — would narrate the slide show. Every time they called "next slide," the four of us would choose a position and hold it. The narrators would have to describe what was happening in the slide.

Dave and Colleen were a couple describing their Aruba vacation. They were having a lot of fun with it. They worked well together, very conversational and affectionate, calling each other pet names. The most outstanding thing of the exercise for me came when Colleen said that "The next slide is the really embarrassing one."

When she said "next slide," I dove down onto the ground and lay on my back with one leg up in the air, thinking that she'd end up talking about what I was doing. Instead, all eyes were focused on Steve, who was standing in the middle of the scene, smoking a doobie. I actually got carpet burn from doing that dive, and then they barely mentioned me in their description of the slide. Which just goes to show; you can't upstage Steve.

I was paired up with Carol when it was my turn to narrate a slide show. Dave gave us characters to use. He told us we were members of a ladies community group, and we were showing slides from a convention of similar groups.

When we started up, I leaped right into a proper British accent, calling Carol "Dahling" a lot, which I think confused her. She sort of froze up, so I described the first slide. There were three people drinking tea with their fingers up, and Colleen was pointing at them and laughing.

I described how we were having this lovely tea time and this ghastly American showed up and didn't know anything about tea drinking. She was making fun of everybody.

Then we went to the next slide. Colleen was lying on the ground with her arm on her hip, and the other three were lined up behind her, Geoff hiding his eyes. I said that this was when we were at the beach, and there was this ghastly American displaying herself.

"Displaying her cellulite," Carol added.

"Yes, the men had to hide their eyes in fear. Let's not dwell on it. Next slide."

This time I thought I'd nudge Carol to take the initiative, so I said, "You took this one, right? Because I was asleep." Geoff was in the middle of the scene, eyes closed with his head on his hands.

Instead of jumping in and describing the scene, she argued with me over who took the picture! Dave jumped in and said, "Let's not argue about who took the picture. Let's just describe it."

She said it was the hotel room, and so when I saw Lori curtseying in the corner, I said that she was the maid and that she even curtseyed for us. "Lovely girl."

In the next slide, Colleen was apparently hammering back a drink, as was Geoff. I said, "There was this ghastly American who was drinking.... coffee." That got a laugh.

I forget what the final slide was, but again, Colleen was doing something that stood out and I said, "There was this ghastly American..." and broke up laughing. "I can't talk about it. You'll have to finish."

At the end, Dave gave us some comments. He said he liked the ghastly American showing up everywhere, but he told me that I should let the other person talk more. I told him that I'd tried to nudge Carol towards talking more. "Yes, but you were still talking. It takes up time." He put his finger to his lips, then: "Shhh."

Big surprise to anyone who knows me that Alyce had a hard time keeping quiet. I'm like that Bugs Bunny cartoon: "Shut up shutting up." Once when I was a little girl and I was sick, Dad looked at me and said, "Oh, so that's what you look like with your mouth shut."

I think the problem was that I wasn't trusting Carol to pick it up, and her long pauses made me nervous. That will be something for me to work on next time.

Boris and Ricardo had an entertaining slide show, about their European trip. In it, they managed to get the British guards to not only react to them but try to shoot them and then arrest them. "There's no democracy there," Boris said. "They just have a Parliament."

"Yes, that's not democracy," Ricardo agreed. They got a big response for this.

Geoff and Lindsay also had fun with Slide Show. They were supposed to be business partners talking about their product, and because of the way Steve was posed in the first slide, they were selling men's underwear. Every shot then became another one from their photo shoot. In one, Geoff said something like, "You can see that the crotchetal region," which got a laugh. One thing's for sure, English flubs always get laughs.

As the final exercise, we did a panel of experts. Dave gave us each characters, and we were supposed to answer questions on any topic, in character. For me, he took an audience suggestion, and Colleen said a sports caster. So I introduced myself as Candy Spin, the first female NFL announcer.

I found this exercise to be really easy. The first question was about preparing taxes. Steve was a college professor of ichthyology, and all of his answers involved fish skeletons. He was also kind of smarmy, coming onto women in the audience. You know, maybe Steve shouldn't go back to school for his teaching certificate!

When it got to me, I said I just talk really loudly until the forms fill themselves in.

Ricardo was a ballet dancer, and he gave himself a really ridiculously long Russian name. But when he was asked a yes-no question, he answered, "Si." That was hilarious. He played his character as a really gentle, shy personality with a slightly Russian accent, and people loved him.

An audience question was, "What do you do if you have some popcorn stuck in your teeth?"

I said that a microphone cord will pop that right out, but you have to do it when the camera's not on you.

"A microphone cord? Doesn't that electrocute you?" Dave asked me.

"Not usually," I said, with a huge, smug smile.

Colleen asked us what to do about a cat who wasn't using its litterbox. I said, "I go to the instant replay." That got some laughs. "Could you show that right now? OK, there's Fluffy going into the closet. Back that up. You see the leg going up right there. They're going to call her out!"

On another panel, Colleen was a drill sergeant. She was hilarious, getting in Dave's face and shouting at him, calling him a maggot when he asked her questions. She even got the entire class to stand up at attention for her.

After class, Dave asked us how we felt about it. I felt like it had gone really well. I found that it helps to have something given to you to work with. It's easier to answer a question in character. You don't end up worrying about, "What can I say that's funny?" You simply think, "What would my character say?"

This really gives me some insight into improv. I used to think the hardest part of it would be dealing with audience suggestions, because you didn't know what was coming. But actually, that makes it easier to do the scene. They take the thinking out of your hands. In some games, the suggestions give you the platform, the "who, what and where." All you have to do is play it out.

And playing is key. The times I'm most comfortable on-stage are when I'm too busy having fun to be self-conscious.

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Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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