Detour Improv Comedy - Lead Player
Mood:  cheeky
Now Playing: www.detourimprov.com
Topic: Improv

Every last Sunday of each month at South Pasadena's historic Fremont Centre Theatre (www.fremontcentretheatre.com) - Family-friendly Improv Comedy comes home to the San Gabriel Valley!

 www.detourimprov.com

 

Room To Improv finishes its 2006-07 and starts the 2007-08
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Two Roads Theatre - Studio City and Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse
Topic: Improv

RoomToImprov 10/20/2006 - Shakespearean Hockey
Mood:  mischievious
Now Playing: Two Roads Theatre 1st and 3rd Fridays - every month!
Topic: Improv
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc571EmjnkI For your edification... see us at www.roomtoimprov.com

Latest news
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: www.improtheatre.com - www.roomtoimprov.com
Topic: Improv

Supporting Pacific Theatre Group now, and an upcoming Japanese Traditional Theatre production in November; joined Nihon-Buyo (Japanese Traditional Dance) classes being taught by Wakana Hanayagi; Impro Theatre Long-Form 3's Post-Pub Curry group is performing our first show this Saturday (8/5/2006). Finished the Planting Seeds short and Running Dragon films. RoomToImprov is on Summer hiatus until September. We finished an amazing year's worth of shows, had a great retreat over Memorial Day weekend up in Big Bear and in-general have had a great time with all. RTI booked 3 summer gigs (Lotus Festival, Austin TX ImprovJam, and the PACS Festival) so far.

Nihon-buyo - Hanayagi Wakana no Kai 

Dark Gables - ACME Theatre [7/30/05]
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: ACME Theatre - www.acmecomedy.com
Topic: Improv
The entire cast's back for the final run for Saturday nights - the show switches now to Friday nights at 8 p.m. through November.

Doruk (Robert Covarrubias) no longer merely accepts whatever pretend offering is in front of him - he's full of challenges and raising stakes left and right.

Musette's back too (Tracy Burns) after an extended hiatus. More than a little concerned that her reputation has become soiled, she too, fought back for character with plum and spunk.

Dark Gables Show 11 at ACME Theatre 7/23/2005
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: ACME Theatre www.acmetheatre.com
Topic: Improv
Missing in action were Brother Tobias (Chris MacKenzie), and the director (Joseph Limbaugh). Travis Oates (ACME's capable Theatre President and all-around Improvisor filled in for Joseph by providing the narration and scene switches.

Felt more pushed than usual, with most scenes ending on one-liners and punch-lines, which are more Travis's personal style than anything intentional.

Dark Gables Show 10 [7/16/05]
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: ACME Theatre www.acmetheatre.com
Topic: Improv
Physicality was through the roof on this one! Tracy Burns missing in action for a total of 3 episodes. Thorne Dupree (Brian Lohmann) returns this week. Protagonist alliances re-asserted. Demand for resolution on the Evilyn/Gretchen situation is increasing. Doruk Mamut Aktas (Robert Covarrubias) is almost stealing the show with his refusals to allow other cast members to get away with pimping. Audrey Fessenden Fitzpiglet (Kristen Trucksess) keeps breaking-up every time she looks Doruk in the eyes.

The Beast as performed by The F5 Group of Hothouse
Mood:  special
Now Playing: The Hothouse in Studio City www.hothousestc.com
Topic: Improv
Very powerful 3-act show featuring 100% Organic Improv based upon the work of Viola Spolin. Todd Stashwick co-founded this place.

Each act produced 3 to 5 parallel stories with unique interactive characters following evolving spontaneity all based upon movement and mannerisms found from another improvisor.

Dark Gables Show 9 [7/9/05]
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: ACME Theatre www.acmetheatre.com
Topic: Improv
Slow start with an excellent finish - with only a bumpy chatterblast to comment on. Avoid commonplace chatter like the plague - it rarely adds to a character's depth and seems to detract directly from forward movement of the story.

Dark Gables [6/18] - Acme Theatre
Topic: Improv
A nice recovery from last week's story-telling festival, with 2 particularly strong monologue scenes (by Leticia and Aubrey, individually). - both emotionally anchored, and focused on exploration of the singular element. The story evolution seemed much more organic compared with last week's journey.

OAUG Connection Point 2005 - Grapevine, TX [6/14]
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: www.oaug.org
Topic: Improv
I received the surprise of a lifetime while at this Texas conference...
One of the keynote speakers is a fellow named Joel Zeff (www.joelzeff.com) - I knew he was associated with Ad-libs down here so I was interested inwhat he'd do for a bunch of techies. Long story short, I got to perform in front of a crowd of some 3,000 people because... He started doing our impro exercises as the "act!" To me it was all familiar territory work because we went through picking up hitchhikers, marionettes, place/occupation/thing, one-word stories - all the stuff that the wonderful people at Impro Theatre (www.theatersports.com) have put me through for the past 2 months.

Besides that, both technical session presentations went well, were well attended, and I hope lots of people find value in my white paper contents because in the end, that's what really counts.

Dark Gables - Acme Theatre [6/11]
Now Playing: Acme Theatre - www.acmecomedy.com
Topic: Improv
Well, well, well... now I know what can happen when a whole cast get focused on story elements too much - people start losing connection with each other and the whole performance sort of feels like someone reading a story to you, but without any characters interacting in it. There were many moments that started out fundamentally nice, and then a character would begin launching off into intricate detail on their own background, or something they were personally fascinated with, but the other scene character would do essentially the same thing. The net result is - neither character effectively works off the other, leading to an odd staleness to the ensemble. Felt weird, looked weird. Makes perfect sense now.

ACME Theatre - Dark Gables (6/4) and Tiny & Les (6/2)
Topic: Improv
6/2 - The closing show of Tiny & Les - perfect call for the ending which started to reek during a techno-dance version of Kick the Donkey, and instead was saved by performing "another catchy number" from the Broadway period revival of Space "The Final Frontier" Heywold's greatest hits.

6/4 - Episode 4 (or 3, if you're not counting Preview nights) - with Thorne returning (Brian Lohmann) we had a number of hilarious prop failures to work with. Francisco's cross immediately broke during the introduction. Thorne pointed out that his re-emergence coincided with many unusual occurences within Dark Gables, including the inexplicable fracturing of several crucifixes. Thorne produced mystical Starbucks tea from backstage, which turned into Leticia's (Sue Peahl) bottle of wine. Then Francisco produced a different jug of wine to refill Lester's tea cup, and was chastised twice for attempting to pour without actually unscrewing the cap, or actually pouring the liquid into the cup. Proves you can't get away from the obvious in Improv.

Tango-Pasodoble for Don Pasquito Voice Warm-up
Topic: Improv
"Tango - Pasodoble" - as presented by Jo McGinley of Impro Theatre (www.theatresports.com) for voice warm-ups...

Text by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
Music by William Walton, from the Fa?ade settings

When Don Pasquito arrived at the seaside
Where the donkey's hide tide brayed, he
Saw the bandito Jo in a black cape
Whose slack shape waved like the sea -
Thetis wrote a treatise noting wheat is silver like the sea,
The lovely cheat is sweet as foam,
Erotis notices that she will steal the
Wheat-kings luggage, like Babel
Before the League of Nations grew -
So Jo put the luggage and the label
In the pocket of Flo the Kangaroo.
Through trees like rich hotels that bode
Of dreamless ease fled she,
Carrying the load and goading the road
Through the marine scene to the sea.
'Don Pasquito, the road is eloping
With your luggage though heavy and large,
You must follow and leave your moping
Bride to my guidance and charge!'
When Don Pasquito returned from the road's end
Where vanilla coloured ladies ride
From Sevilla, his mantilla'd bride and young friend
Were forgetting their mentor and guide.
For the lady and her friend from Le Touquet
In the very shady trees on the sand
Were plucking a white satin bouquet
Of foam, while the sand's brassy band
Blared in the wind. Don Pasquito
Hid where the leaves drip with sweet...
But a word stung him like a mosquito...
For what they hear, they repeat!

Dark Gables at ACME - Saturdays at 10 p.m.
Topic: Improv
A Super strong follow-on to Preview Night #2 (see website for details and synopsis at www.acmecomedy.com). We saw Brother Tobias (Chris MacKenzie) begin a misleading session with Doruk Mamut Aktas (Robert Covarrubias - LRP) with a correction by Thorne Dupree (Brian Lohmann) to never let Aktas see the "book." 3 very sharp prop improvisations occurred - first Francisco (Edmund O'Brien), addressing a complaint by Leticia Norburton (Sue Peahl) that her usual chairs seemed to be missing this evening, and thus having to "lean" her way through the scene, showed up bearing 2 in-hand, one of which was in-midst of being repaired with gluing clamps. Francisco used them to best effect.

Later, a trap door was offered to be underneath the futon bed, wherein Francisco offered to demonstrate how it worked (and belatedly realized how little room there actually is underneath the framework). Aktas had left behind his coat on a settee, when Francisco was supposed to be re-appearing into a different room, when Leticia promptly corrected him for being unauthorized in obviously Aktas's room - she promptly folded it up and put it back stage. Then, when Aktas was confronted by Lester Coldwater (Ethan Karson) and Aubrey Fessenden Fitzpiglet (Kristen Trucksess), before the lights came up, he ran back stage and restored the coat to its position. Musette (Tracy Burns) and Gretchen Hasselhoff (Porter Kelly) now have a dark secret to Gretchen's mother's past, which both need to keep hidden. And both are being offered the social tutoring by Brother Tobias and Lester, respectively. Finally, Aktas offered to remove Aubrey's burning bracelet charm, planning to struggle with it and let it burn him - but it instantly popped right off and dropped to the floor. Looking in wonderment, Aktas proclaimed immediate success and Aubrey recovered.

Dark Gables at ACME - Saturdays at 10 p.m.
Topic: Improv
Strong follow-on to Preview Night #1 (see website for details at www.acmecomedy.com). We saw Thorne Dupree (Brian Lohmann) challenge Aubrey Fessenden Fitzpiglet (Kristen Trucksess) to "finish this sentence" Dark green.... Elves - which wasn't quite the sign of the connection to the "lost race," but it was interesting nonetheless. Musette (Tracy Burns) has brought the entire ensemble into a new comfort zone of physically working in very close proximity to each other, which has ramped up the perceived tension quite a bit from the traditional show format. Good attention paid to what was going on elsewhere on-stage, though an interesting subtle scene where Leticia Norburton (Sue Peahl) was hiding behind a counter with her vast piles of raven locks showing seemed to get bypassed during the intrepid down-stage discussion between Gretchen Hasselhoff (Porter Kelly) and Lester Coldwater (Ethan Karson), so eventually a few minutes passed and she glided off stage left and re-appeared to end the scene. An odd moment occurred when Thorne entered a scene with Brother Tobias (Chris MacKenzie) and Musette and Francisco (Edmund O'Brien) at the graveyard because too many players were active at once and it took a few moments to get the scene focused on a specific conversation pair. A couple of the characters lost scene focus and gave each other that "well, who's going next?" look we're familiar with in classwork.

2 Decent Shows in Orlando
Topic: Improv
Visited the Comedy Warehouse in Pleasure Island - all short-form (expected) and interesting to see how they deal with inebriated guest suggestions. Very nice technical sound set-up, using software-based sample playback on demand.

Also visited the SAK Comedy Lab to see their "Generation S" graduate show on 5/4/2005 - solid work (more short-form) with a few interesting exercises (forward/reverse, replay last scene, and the running theme being "Star Wars" with a napsack full of memorabilia being gifted to the winning team of 3. Super-spotless 150-seat theatre with full lighting and sound. Sharing space in the City of Orlando's Centroplex garage complex, with a full concession-area worthy of a movie theater, it's very odd to see such a large financial investment on a $300/course improv studio, compared with the normal state of affairs in Los Angeles.

The Tiny and Les Show #4 [Acme Comedy Theatre] - www.acmecomedy.com
Topic: Improv
Playing Thursdays through May 26 (8 p.m.) - an outstanding fully improvised musical, song and dance show featuring 7 of the area's top improvisers.

Tonight's show: The song stylings of Toro Jones, starring Michele Spears (as Tess Turcovic alternating with Lisa Frederickson), Edi Patterson (Romulin - in absentia for 2 shows), Brian Lohmann (as Les Ability - Impro Theatre), Gary Anthony Williams (home nursing a sick spouse), Mike McShane (as Barron Alain De Straange - Shakespeare Unscripted), Sue Peahl (super hot Peanuts Tunisia - LRP) and David Keeton (as Tiny Talent - musical accompanist.) Remember to have those memorable song titles handy to shout out... Very high quality quartet work tonight. A *very* broad range of genres covered from torch songs to hip-hop and surfer tunes.

Impro Theatre Longform Show #2 - Theatre and Artists Theatre - Los Feliz 4/24/05
Topic: Improv
Buddy Cop (at the Zoo) and Passion Noir (in a Candy Store) featuring Jo McGinley, Misha Collins, Carla Rosati, Gary Rae, Nick Massough and Nils Vaule as directed by Glenn Camhi. As our Bitter and Sweet cops find themselves challenged to a murder scene with wild animals roaming about, a much more nefarious criminal intent is at work taking advantage of our animal's "capacity" to carry out a fiendish plan with a sharpened tongue to exact revenge. The quintessent lure of a saccarhine-laced shop of fine combustibles sets the scene for a lovely couple vending their way to success, only to be embittered by the sweeter taste of greed and lust. Good timing and plenty of individual and couplet space work with a much more refined pace than the prior show.

The Tiny and Les Show #2 [Acme Comedy Theatre] - www.acmecomedy.com
Topic: Improv
Playing Thursdays through May 26 (8 p.m.) - an outstanding fully improvised musical, song and dance show featuring 7 of the area's top improvisers.

Tonight's show: The song stylings of Iniki Brown, starring Lisa Frederickson (alternating with Michele Spears), Edi Patterson (Fellowship), Brian Lohmann (Impro Theatre), Gary Anthony Williams (ala Malcom in the Middle and Liquid Radio Players), Mike McShane (Shakespeare Unscripted), Sue Peahl (LRP) and David Keeton (musical accompanist). The show rocks - see it now! And remember to have those memorable song titles handy to shout out...