DB at Genesius Theatre, Reading PA
Adam, Rob & Andi perform in "Vacation" at Reading Community Players Theatre
Since we returned from Chicago this past summer, our troupe members have been very excited and motivated to try new and intricate games, especially the Long Form. At Second City and throughout the Improv club community in Chicago, the trend is to take one suggestion from the audience, and then do a 20- to 30-minute sketch, all centered around that one idea. Here are a few examples:
RASHOMON: The audience suggests a “Natural Disaster.” From that, three cast members each tell their own point of view on what happened, eventually tying all of their experiences together.
VACATION: Based on the suggestion of a vacation destination, a group of travelers returns from their trip. When they reminisce about a particular event, they go into “Flashback” mode and act out the memory.
LA RONDE: This one is a bit complicated. It starts with an audience suggestion of a family get-together. Two players start a scene based on that idea; the other players remain in the background until one calls out “Freeze.” The onstage players freeze in place, and the new player comes in and taps one of them on the shoulder. Then, assuming that exact same position, the NEW player starts an entirely new scene, but the OLD player *must maintain their original personality throughout the rest of the game.* This continues to the end of the game, so that every player has a personality that remains the same and maintains different relationships with each of the other players. WOW! It is fun and interesting!
WORKING ON THE BASICS: Every week, the troupe gets together to rehearse. How do you rehearse Improv? Good question! First, we do warm-ups, which include some basic exercises that help us to listen as well as watch and vocalize, and react physically at the same time. Then we go through some games in our repertoire, using suggestions we wrote on scraps of paper and put in a hat. Finally, we try to work on something new or different every week. Right now, we are working towards a highly intricate game called THE HAROLD. When we get good enough, we will definitely present that to Reading and it will be the first time for this area, so it will truly be a very special event!
In the meantime, of course, we continue to include a lot of fast and furious short form games in our program. Audiences love REPEAT, in which players must quickly change whatever they immediately said and/or did whenever the REFEREE ring the bell… DATING GAME is tons of fun, as is AMISH ORACLE, 264, EVERYDAY OLYMPICS and more.
We have also updated the website to include more information, different videos, and our revised Price List & Brochure in PDF format.
Thanks for reading, be sure to comment, visit the website at http://www.dutchblitzkrieg.com and come see our show!
Next Public Performance: Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 7:00 PM at Genesius Theatre. For information and to buy tickets online, go to http://www.genesiustheatre.org.
Thanks!
Improv II Day 1
Terrific day, I must admit I was a bit nervous wondering if the past year has been good enough for Improv rehearsals and shows to jump right in to a Level II class at Second City, but once I got into it, things were great. A few early mess-ups taught me immediately what NOT to do, as we are building short scenes as part of a Long Form basic.
The instructor worked us on “Overlapping Yesses;” teams of two players, a scene is started, and the other player has to jump in with an agreement as well as a Heightening Statement, immediately (if not sooner). The faster you can each do this back to each other, the better. Surprising how quickly you move into the ebb and flow of the game.
Then we did Ad Game and teach introduced “Pimping the Player” in which he created several extremely demanding and specific items for us to name, and everyone had to follow up with immediately positive responses. For example, we were a marketing team selling a blender to African American Australia teenagers, and I had to immediately come up with the “Name of a famous actor from Australia who is a Latina.” My nonsense response was “Crocodilia Nina,” and the entire team responded with positive asnwers. We ended with a Gregorian Chant theme song. It was wonderful. Looking forward to day 2!
Octogenarian Improv
Members of Dutch Blitzkrieg had a most rewarding experience when we performed, gratis, at a small assisted living facility in Pennsylvania last night.
I say small, because the home has only been open for about four months now. Our audience consisted of a total of nine residents, five employees, and three family members: seventeen people in all. Our performance space was in a bright, airy, open room with tables and chairs pulled aside for our “stage” space. No microphones were needed, because we were right there with the audience members.
The lack of a stage sort of turned this into a workshop setting, which was very nice. One of the audience members, Joe, flirted with me in spectacular fashion, elicited not one but two kisses from me, and refused to let go of my thumb for the longest time. (If Andi had been able to attend the show, I am sure all attention would have gone to her!) Except for one other gentleman and someone’s young grandson, the rest of the audience were women.
We kept a pretty high energy level going throughout the performance, although not so much as we do in a regular theater setting. I did a lot more explaining of games as we went along, making sure the audience knew what improv was – none of them had ever heard of Improv before, nor had they ever seen “Whose Line” – but what was really great was, right from the start, they began talking back at us, repeating what we had just explained and getting sort of excited about the upcoming games.
We also engaged the audience on a more intimate level, asking them for suggestions more often than usual, and during several of the games, I almost felt as if we were a crossword puzzle, and the audience was putting forth a concerted group effort to solve us. They especially enjoyed “Instead Of,” which was Baseball played with a cabbage instead of a bat, a monkey instead of a ball, and played on a shopping mall instead of a baseball diamond. They sure picked some doozies for replacements! Sure enough, Rick guessed everything … the audience members were craned forward in their seats, clapping with excitement every time he guessed correctly.
“Ding” or “Repeat” was another favorite, along with Alphabet, which started with Adam and Rob, but Rob “dinged” himself out when he got stuck on a letter and I jumped in – congratulations to Adam, who managed to stay in the entire time, only getting stuck momentarily on the letter “K” (we were at the beach), but offered up “KFC! I could sure go for some grilled chicken right now!” and the audience literally *cheered*!
We also did another variation on Alphabet, in which the audience chooses a topic and related words in alphabetical order based on that topic (which means they had to come up with a total of 26 different words!) That got a little confusing; when suggestions were slow in coming, a few of the troupe members tended to quickly offer up their own ideas and charge ahead with acting out whatever it is they had come up with. Two of the women in the audience seemed upset by this – they really wanted to have a moment to think so they could play the game! So a few times, as moderator, I did have to stop the players and remind them to listen to the audience; after that, the game went very well indeed.
For our last game, we played “Everyday Olympics.” Rob and gary were the commentators, Rick was the Referee and on bell; Adam and I were competitors, and the audience decided on “Running the Sweeper.” As we went through the motions, boy oh boy did Adam and I cheat – we unplugged each other’s vacuums, poured dust down each other’s faces, during slow-motion replays we got into ninja fights; and when Rick declared Adam the winner, he and I started “kicking dust” at each other and getting into our own little tussle.
After the show was finished, we sat down with the residents and just chatted with them. They absolutely loved what we had done for them that evening, and one suggested we copyright our games – high praise indeed.
Special thanks to Reading Community Players for asking us to perform on their behalf; and to Kim Shreve, the new Activities Director at Hearthstone Assisted Living in Douglassville PA. We look forward to doing this again, and to trying out new and different games there – I suspect these residents would enjoy a 20-minute long form …
My 2nd City Crew
Improv Angels
My God, I usually have trouble just getting up in the morning!
From what he has been posting, his writing class differs from the one I took. We did not have to “create a scene”; the emphasis in my class, all week long, was to learn how to write as a group.
Our ultimate goal at Dutch Blitzkrieg is to follow in Second City’s footsteps, by taking note of our short games, and based on a common theme, turn them into a long comedy show.
I look forward to reading Rob’s daily posts, both on WordPress and Twitter. I know that my CREW will come back chock-full of ideas and excitement … and I can’t wait to get started!
They are already talking about next summer…
Improv Comedy is da Bomb!
Not even a year has gone by on our foray into Improvisational Theatre, and here we are, Official Invitees to The Atlanta Black Box Improv Festival in September, and the Chicago Improv Fesitval in 2010!
Boy Wonder Productions, a studio located in Brooklyn, NY, has taped us and is pitching our story for a Reality Show and a Documentary program!
Our members are (or will soon be) alumnus to Second City’s famed Training Ground, in Chicago. Our Twitter following is growing. Our YouTube videos have regular viewers. And we entertain everywhere, from restaurants to theatres to people’s backyard picnics.
How did we come so far so fast?
We are fortunate to have an extremely skilled and dedicated group of Improv artists who not only feel free to loosen their imagination upon the unsuspecting audience, but who also look forward to truly building a future with and for the troupe.
We want to have our own theatre, of course; but beyond that, we want to use our improv comedy to build sketch shows, much as Second City and Saturday Night Live do.
We have a vision, and this is our dream.
Welcome to the Dutch Blitzkrieg blog, and thank you for joining our quest!
