Tag Archives: improv

5 Tenets of Ensemble Play

1) Keep it as equal as possible: Unless you’ve been elected to be the director/coach/teacher, it’s not the best of ideas to elect yourself to be the person who tells the ensemble what to do and how to play before you hit stage. This tends to communicate that you don’t trust the ensemble to succeed,Continue reading “5 Tenets of Ensemble Play”

Elements of Ritual and Communion in Improvised Theatre

Introduction Whose Line Is It Anyway?, The Upright Citizen’s Brigade, Saturday Night Live, and a host of other modern popular comedic fare all draw roots from the North American tradition of improvisational theater as developed largely in Chicago, Illinois and Calgary, Canada. This brand of performance creates scenes, stories, characters, themes, dialogue and staging spontaneouslyContinue reading “Elements of Ritual and Communion in Improvised Theatre”

On the Road to a New Ethnography: Anthropology, Improvisation and Performance

“For the first time we may be moving towards a sharing of cultural experiences, the manifold “forms of objectivated mind” restored through performance to something like their pristine affectual contouring. This may be a humble step for mankind away from the destruction that surely awaits our species if we continue to cultivate deliberate mutual misunderstandingContinue reading “On the Road to a New Ethnography: Anthropology, Improvisation and Performance”

A Tool for Understanding Humor and Empathy

If you were stuck on a desert island with only one other person, would you rather be on an island with someone who was far too serious and seemed to have no interest in or understanding of ‘you’, or would you rather be with someone who has an engaged interest in your shared fate andContinue reading “A Tool for Understanding Humor and Empathy”

Holy Shit! I’m fucking done.

It’s the end of an age for me. I was awarded my Masters degree today after my thesis defense. It was funny that it offered few insights for improvisers, but it was the bomb for anthropologists and a few people from other disciplines. I’ve forgotten how much improvisers take what they do and know forContinue reading “Holy Shit! I’m fucking done.”

Take a peak at the thesis

TABLE OF CONTENTS       Page   ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………..     iii     I.          Introduction……………………………………………………………………..      1                         The Setting and Subjects………………………………………………      6                         Methods……………………………………………………………….     10                         Summary………………………………………………………………    14 II.        History of the Art and Research of Improvised Theater………………….    17                         History and Background of Improvisational Theater…………………….    17                         Studies of Chicago Improvisation and Useful Social Theories.………   Continue reading “Take a peak at the thesis”

Here comes the thesis.

After about 5+ months of writing work, I’m fast approaching a submittable edit of my thesis. If anyone is interested in reading an anthropological study focused on looking at the social effects of long-form improvised theater, shout out. It would be nice to get some feedback from folks. It’s 95 pages long, but it documentsContinue reading “Here comes the thesis.”

Learning new things in Antwerp

 So I learned a colorful new phrase in french, which has delighted my foul mind to no end. “Bouffe ma moule”, which essentially means “eat my snatch”. The story that phrase caùe from is even funnier,but too long for livejournal. I was shown a place near the old part of the city where they would lock prisoners as theContinue reading “Learning new things in Antwerp”