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.

Allow myself to introduce...myself.

Hi everybody,

I am Bryan Buckley. I am one of the original nine members of Mock Turtle Soup which means I am one of the few people old enough to remember that for a while we considered calling ourselves "Whose Line of Crack."

I was on Mock Turtle Soup for many years, serving as vice president, president and currently the alumni coordinator. While in Clemson with MTS, I was part of a spin-off sketch group called Ask Your Doctor as well as spoof new website The Almond and humor magazine, The Rapscallion. Some of our improv and sketch got captured on film and is now on Youtube.

After graduating from Clemson and getting married to Alyssa, I spent about 6 months in Durham, NC where we both were a part of Dirty South Improv. There under the tutelage of Zach Ward, I performed in Improv Slam and DSI Witness News as well as other small long form teams.

The job market then took Alyssa and me to Philadelphia where we got to perform with the Philly N Crowd (the number 1 comedy club in Philly. You guys rock!). We also got a chance to perform in the three-person improv competition Trioka and perform our two-person group Red Letters at the Shubin Theater.

The job market also took us to our current location: Tahlequah, OK. Here Alyssa and I have performed as Red Letters in a two-person short form show at our university's awesome Jazz Lab. We've also made trips into Oklahoma City to perform in the Red Dirt Improv Festival and also to perform at the Ghost Light Theater.

I've had the extreme pleasure of having taken classes from many cool and awesome and coo-awesome improvisers including, Jill Bernard, Mark Sutton, Joe Bill, Susan Messing, Anthony King, TJ Jagodowski , Anthony LeBlanc, Greg Tavares, Asaf Ronen, and many others.

I like economics and being nerdy which is good because they are not mutually exclusive and I will eat ice cream sandwiches no matter what stage of melting they are in.

Introductions: Alyssa

Hi! I'm Alyssa, and I've been improvising for five years. (This feels like AA).

I started out as a college improviser with Mock Turtle Soup of Clemson University, and I haven't stopped. When I graduated, I was invited to DSI Comedy Theatre in North Carolina to teach and perform. My teams included (one of my all time favs) Honkey Kong, Sister City, Average Ducks, the 708, DSI High, SLAM and ComedySportz. Then I moved to Philly where joined The N Crowd and performed every Friday night in Old City. Now, I'm living in Oklahoma trying to start up an improv scene. We've got three teams: a college team (yet to be named), a community team (also yet to be named) and my duo with Bryan (founder of MTS) called Red Letters.

I love pina coladas and people falling down stairs. My favorite warmup is electric factory, my favorite game is Ding and my favorite form is the Harold.