Practicing with New and Old Members

In our troupe, and some of the others I've talked to, one of the hardest things is dealing with rolling membership. You've got new people coming in every year (or in some cases every semester) and its hard to get the new people up to performance level while also making sure that your current members are growing and learning.

We've tried 2 things each with their own pros and cons, so it's at least something to think about if you're starting your own troupe or you're noticing some issues with the way you're currently solving the problem.

The first solution was to hit the stuff that "newbies" need, yes-and, don't deny, starting scenes, vapapo (jill bernard), how to play a game, how to express a relationship, bring a brick, etc. Seems like a good idea, and you've got all those oldies to help you teach it, right? Well here's the problem: everyone else already knows this and knows it well. And for us it really wasn't doing that much for our new people because they were playing with people who were plateauing. Once all the oldies were bored it messed up all kinds of stuff. Newbies weren't learning, nor were they becoming part of the group because the elephant in the room was that the newbies were the reason we were doing these "newbie workshops." (This solution could still work if you made sure to vary it up and not do EVERY practice geared toward new members).

The second solution was to just carry on as usual, outside a few sessions of breaking-it-down for the newbs, and just teach the workshops that were relevant and that the whole troupe needed work on. It was amazing how much faster the new members learned when they weren't focused on the lesson, but on the fun. And everyone pretty quickly got used to new people being in the practices, which helped because the newbies had people to ask questions if they had any. The downside of this was of course the steep learning curve for the new members, but I don't think any of them would say they haven't caught on.

Suggestions.

It's been awhile since the idea of using a suggestion bothered me. But coaching an inaugural college team has reminded me that there's a lot of little tips that you need to hear when you learn improv for the first time.

One of which is to not take the suggestion literally.

If someone suggests banana, please do not eat a banana. If someone suggestions bathroom, do not take a mimed dump onstage. I'd forgotten the impulses to jump from one word immediately to the first thing I think of: that's what the audience does. When they say cake, they think in their heads "Oh my gosh, I love cake. I wish I was eating cake." But they don't really want to see a scene with a character who has a train of thought like that. You've gotta be one step ahead of your audience.

The College Improv Resource

Welcome to the College Improv Resource. The goal is for this to be a place where college improvisers and former college improvisers can come together and give advice, describe forms, describe workshops, share ideas, rant, and just educate and be educated about the art-form they've decided or are thinking about doing.

My hope is that other improvisers from troupes all across the Southeast and across the nation will not only be helped by the wisdom shared here, but themselves become contributors.

Contributors will be by invitation, but all you've got to do is email collegeimprovresource@gmail.com and we'll add you.

Some ground rules:

-This is not a place for bashing other improvisers, but I'm not going to have a 0 criticism rule. If you hate something, say it in a way that proves that you're an educated being capable of righteous hate, not an ignorant lump who gets his jollies from upsetting other people.

-I would prefer this not just be a place where people plead and spam for festivals, shows, tours, or whatever. If you do a lot of it, you might get dropped, just for the sake of the whole. If you want to start a blog for spamming other improvisers about your improv, I will join you, but I don't want it here.

-Please categorize your posts with labels, like who it's for (Directors, Players, Player-Directors), what it's about (Workshop, General Directing, Basic Improv, The Rules, Starting Scenes), whether or not it's a rant, just a game, or just a funny story (Rant, Warm-up Game, Long-form, Short-form Game, Anecdote). Don't feel constricted to just these labels, but the more common labels we use, the easier it is to search through, the more your post will get read.

-Other issues will be addressed as they come up and this welcome-post may change accordingly

I'm going to try to set up a links page so if you want in on some of that sweet stuff let me know as well.

Welcome to the blog.