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 …
