Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

(l to r) Liza, Meghan, Colleeen and I during Story.
Mary is in the front facing away from the camera

This past weekend was a busy one for The Gryphon and me, starting Friday night with the opening of the Philadelphia science fiction convention, Philcon. The convention continued through Sunday, and then Sunday evening was when my intermediate ComedySportz improv class hosted our open class.

Normally, when I have a lot of stuff to talk about, I break it up over several days and try to stick to roughly chronological order. But this time, I can't stop thinking about how we did during our open class night, so I'd like to write about that first.

First of all, I'd like to address my classmates directly, because I know a lot of them have found Musings and have been enjoying reading my write-ups of our classes. You guys are awesome! We've had a lot of fun together, and I hope we all take the advanced class together. We have all improved over the course of the last several weeks, and I'm really proud of how we did at our open class. We jumped into our performance, got engaged, supported each other, and even, coincidentally, got laughs in the process. Simply put, we rocked!

That said, I'm sure we all did or said things onstage that we weren't happy with, that we wish we'd done better. But to put this in perspective, consider what happened this past weekend to Michael Richards, best known as Kramer on Seinfeld. He offended an entire comedy club audience with an off-the-cuff racist tirade against some African-American hecklers.

By contrast, we had the audience on our side the entire time. They laughed with us even when we thought we were flubbing it. Just remember, as our instructor, Mary, says, there are no mistakes in improv.

I arrived at the theater about half an hour early, because I'd gone to dinner at about 4 with some friends and we were done by 5. Afterwards, I walked down to Cosi on Walnut Street, just off Rittenhouse Square, to get some coffee, but the service was even slower than usual, and I was too wired with nerves to wait.

So I headed to the coffee shop across the square, the Tuscany Cafe, and got a small regular coffee. I was suffering from sleep deprivation from a weekend of late nights and early mornings, so the coffee, for me, was like electricity to Frankenstein. Yes, I pretty much felt like a reanimated corpse, but I wasn't going to let that slow me down.

When I arrived at the Adrienne Theater, 2030 Sansom Street, I thought I would have to sit in the hallway twiddling my thumbs for half an hour, but surprisingly, Lori and her boyfriend arrived at the same time. We sat in the hallway and chatted. Not long afterwards, Colleen and then Geoff arrived.

We were pleased that everyone made it, including Boris, who had been traveling for the last two weeks and whose e-mails had been bouncing. When Mary arrived, she asked to borrow a phone, and I gave her my cell phone. She'd left her keys at home and had to arrange for another ComedySportz member to unlock the door to the theater.

In the meantime, since everyone was there and Mary didn't want to waste any time, she had us warm up in the hallway. We did some stretching and a really quick version of Psycho Circle, and right away I could tell that we were more engaged than usual, going faster and brushing off our flubs quickly.

The other ComedySportz member arrived and let us in, and we went inside to rehearse. Of course, I have a nervous bladder (I know, TMI, but it's true), so I was in the bathroom while Mary was going through the rundown with everyone. When I came back out, she joked, "You missed the rundown, so you're no longer in the show." I hung my head down as if chagrined and made a loud sighing noise.

We ran through all the games we were going to be doing with the people who were going to be in them, and Mary gave us pointers. In some cases, we didn't do a full version of the game, simply because there wasn't enough time.

I apologize in advance if I get the order slightly wrong, because there was so much going through my head at the time that it was a little hard to concentrate. I do, of course, remember all the games we played, of course.

We started out with Story, which is where everybody is on stage and we tell a story together. Mary conducts the story, pointing to different people in turn so they could pick up the story. We were playing it elimination style, which meant that if you hesitated, failed to complete a word or a sentence, or lost control of the English language, you were out.

In our practice session, we told a story about a sponge cake who really wants to be an angel food cake. He then meets up with a pound cake and the storyline got all kinds of screwy. I was the first one eliminated, because Colleen started a word which I failed to complete. I sat on the sidelines and watched everybody else.

The funny thing is that, when Mary asked us what we should remember about that game, Meghan said, "That I will win." She was eliminated about halfway through, and we were teasing her about that.

Next, I believe, was Dr. Know-It-All. This is, of course, where four people stand shoulder-to-shoulder to form one person, an expert in an obscure subject. An interviewer, Mary, asks them questions, which they answer one word at a time until they complete the answer.

In this game were Boris, Carol, Liza and Lori. I felt they did a great job, although I don't remember what their subject was during the rehearsal. I was a bit distracted reviewing the tips that Mary had given us for Countdown and the other previous games, so as to fix them in my head for later.

Then, I believe, was Countdown, with me, Colleen, Meghan and Geoff. It started with two people on-stage, with two people off-stage who would come on later. Mary told us to try to keep it to no more than three people on-stage at a time. Of course, this is the game where you first do a minute-and-a-half long scene and then do it faster and faster.

In this case, the suggestion was Mount Everest. We started with two climbers on-stage, Geoff and Colleen, climbing up Mount Everest. They were being chased by someone. I came after them, and tried to grab Colleen's backpack. She fell off the mountain. Then I tried to get Geoff's rope from him.

Meghan was climbing further up the mountain, and she called to me to come over to help her, because she had my backpack. I followed her up, and as she was giving me the backpack, she started falling. I caught her and helped her onto a ledge. Then Geoff came over and pushed her off, and I put the backpack on and asked, "Why did I carry so many bricks?"

It was kind of fun, kind of crazy, and extremely hard to redo faster, but we made a stab at it. We only did it a couple times, because time was of the essence.

Next was Grand Theft Auto, where there are two chairs in the middle of the stage, and two teams on either side of the stage. The two teams take turns, with two people running onto the stage and the other team shouting, "Those blanks are stealing our car!" The suggestions have to start with a certain letter, which we get from audience suggestions.

I don't remember exactly what letters we were using during our rehearsal, but I remember that it went pretty well. The best part of the rehearsal period was it gave us a chance to make the sort of basic mistakes, like forgetting the rules of the game, which none of us made during our open class.

Mary reminded us that you have to remember to find a way to make a quick exit and that it shouldn't be just about a quick joke. It should be a scene.

I think that next was Replay. This is where you do an original one-minute scene and then replay it with an emotion and then with a genre. This was me, Carol and Colleen. I started on-stage with Carol, and the suggestion was a diamond. I was an incompetent jewelry shop employee who had lost Carol's diamond. I tried to look for it and then offered an extra free one to make up for it, because she was my best customer. Colleen ran on-stage, waving a check, and said, "It's me, your best customer!" End scene.

We redid that with the emotion of paranoia, and I was worried that someone had been messing around with my rings. This time, when Colleen ran on with the big check, I took the ring from Carol and gave it to her. That got a laugh.

We didn't redo it as a genre, because we didn't have time.

Then I believe came Arm Control. That's where you have two people onstage. One puts his or her arms through the armholes of the person speaking, who has his or her arms down to the side. Effectively, the person behind becomes the arms of the other person, who answers questions from an interviewer and constantly must find ways to justify what the arms are doing.

Liza and Geoff did this game, with Geoff as the arms and Liza as the interviewer. They did a fantastic job. We actually sat in the audience for this one, so we could see what they were doing. Liza was really quick on her feet, and Geoff was creative with the hands. She was an expert in lint, and shared a lint recipe as well as discussing the benefits of lint sculptures. They did great, considering we'd never run through the game together as a class before, although some of us had done it in the beginning class.

Boris, Meghan and Lori then did Blind Line. This is where the players in the scene go out into the hallway while the audience generates lines for them to say. They are written down and dropped all over the stage. The players then reenter the room and enact a scene based on a suggestion, randomly picking up lines and working them into the scene. I'm trying really hard to remember what they did during rehearsal, and if it comes back to me, I'll add it later. Right now, my most vivid memories of the night are from the open class performance itself.

Finally, we did World's Worst Blind Freeze. This is where two people are on-stage, and then you enact little scenes based on suggestions, such as "the world's worst dentist" or "the world's worst thing to say during a movie." The rest of the players are turned to face the back of the stage, and when we hear an opportunity, we shout, "Freeze" and then take the place of one of the players. Another suggestion from the audience, and you enact a new quick scene.

After we ran through this game and got some pointers, such as "Don't just go for a quick joke," we did a "Yay us!" cheer and then got a brief break before she started letting our friends and family in. I sat stage left with Carol, Meghan and Colleen. Boris, Geoff, Liza and Lori were on stage right.

In addition to The Gryphon, The Dormouse and Attila the Pun attended the open class, and I was glad to see them there. Attila came over, and I introduced him to everyone and had him take some pictures.

Mary warmed up the audience and gave them the low-down on what we'd be doing. She only laid down the rules for one foul, which was the Brown Bag Foul. If someone said something that you couldn't say in front of your grandma, whether in the audience or on-stage, you had to wear a brown paper bag for the rest of the game. Of course, that nice little reminder was enough to keep us out of brown paper bag territory for the rest of the night!

We started with everyone on-stage for Story, with the title, "The Rolling Orange". Mary chose a person in the audience to give the title of the story periodically throughout the story. I must say, we did better at Story than we've ever done. We were getting involved, getting to the point quickly, and keeping the story flowing with a minimum of characters. The Rolling Orange, after a meandering journey to Florida, turned into a detective who was solved fruit-related cases.

The greatest thing about it was that we'd never had an audience before for this game. When the audience started laughing, first it was a pleasant surprise and then a real booster, pushing us on, building the energy. By the end it was only me and Meghan on-stage, going back and forth at a quick pace.

My words were coming out of nowhere, as the orange found some clues to an old case, and looked down at his blood-covered hands. He looked into a mirror and said, "I'm the killer!" I was called out, though, because I failed to complete a word she started.

As she came off the stage, Meghan said to us, "I told you I'd win."

Next up was Dr. Know-It-All, with Carol, Boris, Liza and Lori, and their topic was pipe cleaners. They did a great job, upping the ante, using strong words, concrete images and verbs and avoiding filling words. They had the audience in stitches. They discussed all sorts of interesting uses for pipe cleaners, such as cleaning toilets.

(l to r) Mary, Carol, Boris, Lori and Liza during Dr. Know-It-All.

Then came Countdown, with me, Geoff, Meghan and Colleen. This time it started with Geoff and Meghan on-stage. The suggestion was a therapist's office. Meghan was congratulating Geoff on all the progress he'd made, and he confessed that he still heard voices sometimes. I popped on-stage and said, "Geoff."

(l to r) Meghan, Geoff and I during Countdown.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, and walked in the direction of the voice.

I popped onstage again and said, "Tell her about last night" and was waving my arms around in a ghostly manner. So he told her that he'd wrecked his car last night. When she discovered it was in a grocery store parking lot, she accused him of crashing into her car. I came on again, behind his shoulder and said, "Tell her about the keys you found."

She said that she'd been looking for her keys, and she looked on her desk and discovered them there. But I stole the keys off the desk and flew them around the room, making them dance up and down, before dropping them in front of Geoff's feet. Meghan accused him of theft, and Colleen ran on as a police officer and arrested him. End scene.

We had to redo the original minute-and-a-half scene faster. At first, Mary said to do it in 22 seconds, then corrected herself to say 45. We breathed a sigh of relief. We redid it in exactly 45 seconds.

Then we had to redo it in 22 seconds, and dropping a few words and moving faster, we also made it right on time. Finally, she said, "Can they redo it in 10 seconds?" The audience said, "Yeah!" I gave a thumbs-up. And we did it! What a rush. I have never been involved in a version of Countdown that went so well, and I was so proud of us all. Talk about great teamwork!

After a quick sip of water, it was back up for Grand Theft Auto. Our side was given the letter "J" and the other side did "L."

Boris and Liza during Grand Theft Auto.

We were taking more time to think of suggestions, and we gave them things like "Those jumping jack experts are stealing our car," so that Geoff and Liza were doing jumping jacks in their car seat, to great audience response. Likewise, Colleen and Meghan got a lot of laughs for "Those losers are stealing our car," when they leaned back in the seats, "Hey, man! What should we do today?"

Carol gave the other side the suggestion of jackals, and they just sat there with weird smiles on their faces, not saying anything, until Boris ran on and said he needed help getting these jackals out of the car because they might bite, pulling them out biting and snarling.

I was on next with Carol, and I thought they said, "Those lions are stealing our car." So I started growing and showing my claws. Then Mary called, "The suggestion was lying," so I said, "I'm a lion," and tried to eat Carol's head.

Me and Carol during Grand Theft Auto

She said, "No, you're not, you're a tiger pretending to be a lion." This was the one time where a denial was the perfect response. I told her I was going to go hang my head in shame and exited the car.

Overall, that game went really well. We had a great time with it.

Then, Colleen, Carol and I did Replay. Our suggestion was a garage. For the original scene, I told Colleen her car was only finished, but I just had to complete the calibration. She objected, saying that she just wanted detailing done. I was talking down to her and patronizing her.

I had her hold a wrench for me, and she raised it above her head to hit me with it, saying that she hated how whenever she came into the garage, people condescended to her because she was a woman.

Me and Colleen during Replay.

I took the wrench out of her hands and said, "Settle down, little lady."

She said, "Little lady? I'm bigger than you."

"OK, big lady," I said, and the audience laughed. I immediately felt so bad about going for the obvious joke that I apologized to her later. She said it was all right, because she'd followed that up with a pun, such as "Make sure you get it right, because there's not much time left," and I said, "Well, the customer is always right." Thank goodness Mary wasn't calling groaner fouls (groaner fouls are called when a player makes a pun).

Out of frustration, she called on the manager and demanded that I be fired, and Carol took away my wrench. End scene.

We had to redo it as an emotion, disgust, and this scene just kind of imploded. At one point, I started talking about her "disgusting" car, and then Colleen called my work disgusting, and the manager said she was disgusted. I even forgot the order of some of the things we had said and done, and I was kicking myself internally.

But we got one chance to redeem ourselves, as we got to redo it as a genre. Out of three choices, we chose gangster movie. I was talking in a New York accent, and so was Colleen. When she told her about calibrating the car and she said it was supposed to be detailed, I said, "Fuggedabout it. I'm detailing it" with a New York accent.

We kind of skipped the thing with the wrench, but I called her Little Lady, and when she objected, I said, "Isn't that your name on the block."

She said, "Yeah, I didn't know you were inside," and thumbed her nose. I said, "Yes," and thumbed my nose, too. "We'll fix you up."

So Colleen called on the manager to give me a raise, and Carol said, "I have to clear it with Sal."

I think we effectively recovered, although I was kicking myself afterwards about falling prey to the seduction of the easy joke at the expense of the scene. The audience, though, seemed to enjoy it; they were definitely laughing with us. I must admit: I'm my own worst critic.

Geoff and Liza took the stage for Arm Control, and they brought the house down. Their topic was toast, one of the blandest subjects possible, but they really ran with it. He was throwing her all kinds of stuff, and she was running with it. She had a running joke about saying, "First" at the beginning of most of her responses, because Geoff kept putting one finger up. Then there was this rambling explanation about new trends in toast, involving oval toast and the Bermuda Triangle!

Geoff and Liza during Arm Control.

For Blind Line, we took suggestions from the audience, and Boris and Lori took the stage, with Meghan off-stage. The suggestion was a funeral parlor. It started out with Boris as a supervisor, demanding that Lori help him move some bodies so they could use the funeral as a coroner's office.

They got into a little bit of a test of wills until Boris backed down and apologized. Meghan came on with some Chinese food, to help out. The lines couldn't have worked out better, with things like "Elvis lives" and then the immediate response of "We better look for that coffin and check to see if he's in it. Another great moment was when the line was "Somebody moved my sword" or something, and Meghan immediately said, "That was me" and walked across the stage to produce it.

The scene ended with Boris exhorting them to "Choose life."

Finally was World's Worst Blind Freeze. Since my back was turned, I couldn't see most of what was going on. I think there were strong moments and weaker ones for all of us, but we kept jumping in and kept it going. For example, in my case, I was part of a weird scene where I was a scarecrow in "World's Worst Farmer" where Meghan told me to scare away the crows.

Me and Meghan during World's Worst Blind Freeze.

Then I was a crucifix in "World's Worst Trash Collector" with Boris, who decided to throw out a crucifix on someone's lawn. For no particular reason, I started doing jumping jacks, and someone tapped me out (thankfully). But then there was a moment I was proud of, where Liza and I were "World's Worst Basketball Player," and I was thrashing around like a big doofus before tossing the ball underhand to Liza.

Overall, I think we did a terrific job. We certainly had the audience laughing, and we managed to remember and use the techniques we'd been practicing. Afterwards, our friends and family congratulated us, and we stood around chatting for a little while, making introductions and such, before everyone drifted outside.

On her way out the door, Mary told me, "Good job." I thanked her for all she'd taught us and how she'd been right, that the audience laughs at mistakes as much as they laugh at everything else. She said she liked how I'd turned around the mistake of the lion for the liar. I told her I'd try to get a group of people together to see her in "Choosical", which is an improvised musical.

Liza had a nice group of friends and family supporting her, and they even gave her flowers. Before I left, I told her I didn't have her e-mail address, so I had her give me her card. I told her again how great she'd done in Arm Control, and told her about getting a group together to see "Choosical". She said she'd be interested. Then she stepped across the circle and gave me a big hug. We both agreed we'll try to take the advanced class. I hope everyone does.

I could go on and on about how much everybody has improved over the course of this class. When I think back to how we were doing the first couple of weeks, I really think we knocked it out of the park.

Yay, us!

More Musings from improv class:

Improv Class Musings Index

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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