Isolations

In my warm-up routine for teaching commedia dell'arte characters and physical characterization, we spend most of our focus on two things: warming up the spine and isolating parts of the body for specificity. This guy's video may have to become a part of the multimedia model for the class:



I PROMISED FART JOKES; I GIVE YOU FART JOKES.

Marywood on the Green

My first introduction to the concept of a "greenshow" was through my second professional theatre job, at the Porthouse summer theatre.  I haven't been back in a while, so I don't know if they still do this, but in my time there a great mass of the more minor players would be expected to learn songs and devise routines to entertain the audience who came early to enjoy a picnic dinner on the green between the parking lot and the stage.  This in many ways was my first introduction to variety performance, and at the time I had absolutely no idea that variety would play such a significant role in my creative development as an adult.  Just about all of my busking, clowning, circus and self-generated work stems in some way from that first experience - a connection I only recognized just now, while writing.  So naturally I was thrilled when Heather suggested that for this year's Portal Project initiative with the theatre students of Marywood University we divide the group of nearly 30 into some working on the commedia dell'arte scenario, and others devising a greenshow.

I've written in the past (see 9/2/08 & 8/28/07) about my experiences teaching this week-long commedia dell'arte intensive.  Last year, regrettably, it followed too hard and fast on our time in Italy and I had to give it a pass in favor of maintaining my day job (yes - irony is ironic).  I was eager to return this year, and the whole thing felt fresh to me once again, particularly in regard to all the new faces I would be meeting.  I confess I was a little apprehensive about the loss of many graduates who started out with us back in 2007, but that anxiety proved entirely unfounded - somewhere between my and Heather's greater experience and deeper understanding, and the students' willingness to focus and commit to the work we found the experience to be one of our most efficient and successful.  Safe to say, too, that everyone had a lot of fun.

The key to this success, I think, was in getting to working directly on the scenario sooner.  In the past we spent more days on general training on improvisation, stylistic elements and concept, not arriving at a scenario until the Friday or sometimes even the Saturday before a Monday performance.  This time I found the team problem-solving involved in working from a scenario does a lot of the training for us, creating situations and challenges that end up being far more interesting (not to mention well-motivated) than anything we can prepare them for in hypothetical exercises.  It was a near-perfect balance, spending a couple of days on character and improvisation, one on physical lazzi (could have used a bit more time there, I confess) and then three-or-so hours to memorize the scenario and ten more to develop and refine it.  We came out strong, with the perfect amount of fear, I think.

In a sense, the real challenge we set for ourselves this year was the greenshow, rather than the scenario.  Heather was responsible for both the challenge and the success of that portion of the endeavor.  She has an impressive talent for not just randomly applying a routine to performers, but recognizing in them a possibility for a routine already lying in wait within their personalities or styles.  This is part of what makes her such a brilliant clown, her ability to read people (including herself) and comprehend unspoken personae.  Our greenshow ended up consisting of a couple of clownish acts, a group of acrobats, a group of musicians, a tie-in relationship with the conclusion of the scenario (Heather's brilliance again) and all of it encircled by an MC character who also provided a prologue to the scenario.  The greenshow established the space, warmed up the crowd and was integrated into the scenario by way of concept and a couple of character references.

All the performers were amazing, and I believe everyone grew a little through the process.  They had two shows, at noon and 2:00 respectively.  The first was pretty sparsely attended and had some of the earmarks of the struggle to discover that last scene member: the audience.  They did well enough, though, and by the end of the first show they had definitely learned a lot about what was going to work.  They won the audience they had over, in spite of the dialogue being nigh inaudible over some terribly insistent generic "Italian music" blaring from the nearby clocktower, and after some lunch we regrouped at the theatre for our second run.  We gave them some advice for the second show, but I don't think they needed it.  In the second show, the audience was far more substantial, the greenshow-ers took bigger risks and the scenario-ists (is SO a word) made fuller, clearer physical choices.  We all still had to contend with blaring, generic music, but they compensated beautifully and really knocked it out of the park.

I had a tremendous time working with this group again, and it fortifies my desire to teach more often.  These were, to be frank, practically ideal circumstances (apart from the lateness of the hours).  It's exceptional when one gets the chance to work with a fellow ensemble member as a co-teacher, and have as students a group so focused on strengthening their sense of ensemble and overall improvement.  Two incidents in particular however stood out for me toward the end of this week, neither of which had anything directly to do with these circumstances.  They had to do with something larger.

The first of these was introducing the students to an idea we at Zuppa have used from our very first show: the musical run. In this style of run, we play an ever-changing mix of music during a run of the scenario involving no speaking.  The players thereby run through a very complex sequence of action using only their bodies to communicate that progress, plus they must continually listen to whatever music happens to be playing as they enter and synchronize their tempo, mood and choices to it.  It's inordinately helpful, but exhausting and can be a difficult concept to grasp.  Frustration is easy to find here.  Yet, just before their first showing, the players took to quite naturally, and seemed to really enjoy it.  This seeming was later proven for me when we were between the two shows, all rather full of food and feeling the week behind us, and I gave them the option of resting or doing another musical run.  They enthusiastically leaped into that second musical run, and came out of it grinning like mad.

The second was a more abstract result, and the result of another brilliant idea from Heather.  That is, a way to warm both the scenario people and the greenshow folks up together.  Eccolo:

For the Benefit of "ETC"

Last Saturday I made one of my most brief sojourns to Scranton ever, and also one of my busiest, to perform as a part of the Electric Theatre Company's (nee The Northeast Theatre) midsummer benefit, Sparks & Feathers. Although everything I was scheduled to do there is fairly old hat to me, I was anxious about this volunteer work. The theatre has had some extremely well-intentioned benefits in the past that were just disastrous affairs, owing to an almost complete lack of interest (and/or possibly awareness, though they advertise the hell from these things) on the part of their community. It could have gone either way -- on the one hand, the event coincided with their change in identity and received a broad press coverage; and on the other, tickets were $50 a head, which seems like a lot for a buffet-style party even in places where the cost of living is higher. The mayor was scheduled to finally appear, famous as he is for not attending their theatre, but even that was uncertain. There is little more excruciating than performing energetically in the context of a big bash, when only a handful of people show.

Fortunately, the affair was quite well-attended and, perhaps more importantly, everyone there was excited to be there. I have to hand it to the newly formed ETC: They really dolled the place up right nice. The theatre is essentially set up in three areas of a former hotel (about two-thirds of a floor), and when they initially moved in in 2005, TNT/ETC worked pretty hard to refurbish it closer to its original state, peeling away layers of bad decorating decisions through the years. They even framed a rectangle of wall in the lobby that was left un-re-painted to demonstrate the layers of experience the place had had. In keeping with that ethos, a lot of what they've done since has been in honor of the hotel's former glory. This is all well and good and all, but in their traditionalism they had a convenient excuse not to claim something for themselves, to not make something new and wholly theirs (budget, of course, being another handy excuse). What they did for the benefit was hardly reconstructive, but it went a long way to making the space both special for a night, and more thoroughly theirs. Building details were painted in their new three-color scheme, an inexpensive but effective homemade electric chandelier of sorts was hung in the lobby, and the rest was decked out in balloons, show photographs and posters, and old scenery flats. It was a pretty impressive transformation, if you ask me.

As to the work I contributed, it was mostly pretty fun, and my expectations were either met or exceeded. I usually get a little nervous about improvising a speaking character for a busking gig, though I usually do all right with it, and I knew that the characters we'd be walk-about-ing were not the sort that adhered to my particular busking ethos. Richard Grunn, Elizabeth Feller and I were to play the Marx Brothers -- Groucho, Harpo and Chico, respectively (though not respectably). The Marx Brothers, for those of you not in the know (and shame on those of you; you'll catch your death of cold out there) are one of the most anarchic comic groups in recent memories. They exist to stir up trouble, and rare is the cocktail party I've been to at which people were eager to get their horsefeathers ruffled in that way. Fortunately, we had a "backstage" (never mind the quotes--it was literally backstage) to retire periodically to, and Rich had some plans for gags. Some people were still terrified or, worse, disdainful, but by-and-large people were there for a good time and wanted to be included. The Marx Brothers are a great excuse for punning, which is a rare joy for me. Which is, it goes without saying, probably for the best.

Thereafter, I had but a short break in which to change and warm up before performing acrobalance with Friend Heather to the live accompaniment of Cuban Tres, a wonderful young trio of musicians we had the pleasure of meeting last season. Improvising a sequence of acrobalance moves to live music is really just a joy. I think I appreciate it especially because most of the time I'm either aiming to perfect a move I haven't yet or trying to incorporate it into a story when I'm working on acrobalance, and when it's set to music before an audience I can just enjoy it and loosen it all up a bit. This, too, had its own worries, of course. Heather and I don't get together nearly enough, even when we did live in the same city, to practice to the extent a straight-up acro-adagio deserves. The week before we practiced a bit when I was down for our NEIU (no, the other one) certification, but that's like combining a first rehearsal and the dress rehearsal in one day a week before opening. At that session, I had the idea for us to be domino-esque characters, in keeping with the black-and-white theme of the affair, and so Heather dressed in black clothes with a white half-mask, I in white with black. And we didn't drop each other even once, and we were well-received, and Heather and I may even regain muscle control in a few weeks. So it was really really good!

After my obligations were fulfilled, I got to join the party as a formal participant with Fiancee Megan, and so the evening ended with rewards similar to those enjoyed by the rest of the attendees. As usual, I immediately wished I were in better practice with my acro, and wondered at when I would return to the theatre. The mayor had donated a very large, free-standing projection screen to them, and the main stage was set up as a kind of ballroom, with couches at the perimeter, a DJ and a DVD projector running silent films on the screen for a backdrop. People had finally reached that critical blood-alcohol level that allows them to dance with some abandon. I relaxed, however briefly, and dreamed of uses for the screen in shows, and for a moment I had done a job well and had nothing to do but sit back and enjoy my company and the world around me.

So Low

Last night was my solo clown debut.

Well, not precisely. I have done a number of solo clown performances in my time. Last night merely marked the first time I did so on an actual stage. Up until this event, my solo clowning was largely busked and/or filmic. In fact, I volunteered for the festival hosting clown and puppet events because I wanted to have a good deadline for adapting this particular solo routine to a stage. Plus I was desperate for work, at the time. Naturally, I completely ignored this opportunity to work on the piece, and found myself panicky all day yesterday, contemplating exactly what I was going to do up there that night.

It went okay, rife with the peaks and valleys I might have expected from a debut work in a nurturing yet unexpectedly intimate environment of strangers. I didn't, of course, expect these variances in my experience. No, I find that when contemplating performance I'm usually surprised by the comparisons between my expectations and the experience. I expect complete victory or total failure; the median is difficult to imagine, the variable completely confounding. This is possibly because the more intense the stage fright or adrenaline, the more apt I am to think in absolutes. Or, it could be that the (utterly erroneous) stereotypical mentality of a struggling actor has infected my imagination deeper than I, er, imagined. In other words, the idea that just one big hit could change everything for me may contribute to the absolutes I contemplate. Either way, the product was, in some respect, just like every other. Some things went over great. Others, not so much.

I have yet to attempt any kind of monodrama, or extended solo performance as such. Outside of a few scattered soliloquies, I'm always acting with other performers. Last night I found a popular axiom to be doubly true and especially so for live silent comedy: When you lose the audience, there's no one to turn to but yourself.

Not so backstage. The worlds of circus, clown and other "gig acts" is a small one anywhere, I'd imagine. That goes double for New York, where you're just as likely to run into your babysitter from age 5 as you are to never see current friends who live just two neighborhoods over. I happened to get ensnared in this show's clutches through an email sent out by one Ms. Jenny Lee Mitchell requesting acts. I know Jenny through Friend Dave (Berent [nee Gochfeld]), whom I know through Friend Heather (whom I know from having worked with her in Zuppa del Giorno), but I also knew Dave as the more male half of The Kourageous Kiplingers, and vaudeville act he did with Friend Rachel (Kramer). Dave and Jenny have also done shows with The Northeast Theatre (which is the home of Zuppa del Giorno). I did one of those with Dave, but not Jenny. BUT, I did do A Lie of the Mind with Jenny's mom, Emily Mitchell, long before I ever met Jenny herself. And finally, who was MCing last night, but the very same clown act, Bambouk, that was recently recommended to me by the good and fine people at Bond Street Theatre, whom I met through working with Cirque Boom (which is also where I met Rachel).

It would seem, after this assault of name-dropping and six-degrees-of-network-makin', that I had all the world backing me up as I prepared for my show. Didn't feel that way, though. Felt very, very alone. Each performers was doing his or her own thing, for the most part, and I was in an advanced state of freak-out. It reminded me of the intense stage fright I felt just before the first show of Noble Aspirations, Zuppa's first production. I stood backstage, the first to enter for that show, and suddenly realized, "I have no script. I HAVE NO SCRIPT! It's just ME out there!" I did all I could to dispel it, and I actually owe a debt of gratitude to one half of Bambouk, Brian Foley, who stood in front of me and asked, "So, could you use some distracting conversation, or are you better staying in the zone?" Thankfully I had the presence of mind to opt for conversation, and it made for smoother passage into the time spent along backstage.

The trouble in adapting the piece to the stage was in taking some of the fun of its original venue(s) -- places where people are relaxing and not necessarily expecting spontaneous fun -- and translating that into a stage setting, with an audience that had no choice but to pay attention. This is a powerfully appealing aspect: choice. It may go a long way toward explaining the historically recent success of cinema over live theatre, in fact. Theatre, in the conventional sense, is a gamble. A movie costs little (comparatively speaking) and can be voluntarily escaped in any of its forms. Walking into a theatre, you know very little about what to expect, and can get subjected to something confusing, unappealing, or just plain ill-executed. And there seems to be no escape. The space I was performing in last night had the advantage of being intimate, with very little audience/performer separation, but that was just about its only similarity to the piazzas I was used to doing the piece in.

What I did to adapt it was very much shaped by having to create an entrance. In the square, you just start acting doofy and see what grabs people, then mold your performance based on feedback and a skeleton. In the theatre, you need to put them at ease, to apply balm to their sense of disorientation at the beginning of any new piece. In public, you grab them, and they tell you where to go next. In the theatre, you have their attention, and then you have to justify it. (Speaking in generalities here, of course; much overlap between the venues.) Needing to create an entrance helped shape my given circumstances. Whereas previously the act was based on the idea of the character as a quasi-homeless, drunk reveler who interrupts a party, last night's incarnation was an awkward fellow escaping a party into the kitchen. This allowed for a less invasive characterization at first, and my hope was to put the audience a bit more at ease. Also, whereas previous incarnations took place amongst relaxed (often inebriated) party-goers, this crowd, at a relatively early show in a theatre, seemed to me more likely to be at the energy of such kitchen-clingers. It also allowed for my using a song I have longed longed to use in a show; it closed with the irascibly awkward "You'll Always Find Me In the Kitchen at Parties," by Jona Lewie.

And it worked fairly well. I would say, all factors considered, I had the audience pretty well on my side throughout. They did best with bits in which I suffered and they weren't threatened. (This would seem natural enough, save for experiences I've had in which the only way you could begin to entertain certain audiences was to mix things up with them.) Keeping things simple, singular, and taking one's time is essential in clown work. The piece suffered the most at times when I got carried away with my energy, racing the audience and only pouring on more fuel if I felt myself losing them.

The scenario is that Lloyd Schlemiel (my noseless [or silent-filmic] clown character) is trying to quietly escape a party. He backs into the kitchen, all the while munching on Cheetos(R) from an orange bowl. Once he's cleared the doorway, he closes it, and the sounds of the party fade out. He breathes a sigh of relief, and raises another Cheeto to his mouth when he suddenly notices the audience. The Cheeto snaps in his hand. He races for the door again, but is too scared to return to the party, so turns to the audience and makes due. From there it proceeds along fairly typical Lecoq lines, with dabblings of silent-film comics thrown in here and there. He adjusts his clothing, thinking the audience will better approve of him. He decides he doesn't like his hat, and trades it for the "bowl" he was snacking from, which proves to be a mistake. The rest of the sequence involves his trying to escape this hat, which just won't leave him be. He tosses it away, and it returns to him. It clings to his head, despite acrobatic endeavors to remove it, and obscures his vision. He finally frees himself from it, but it's changed him into an extrovert. He performs a striptease (only down to undies, mind), puts the hat back on and rejoins the party.

It needs work, even in verbal explanation, but the performance was a tremendous jump forward for me in making discoveries about it. My hope is to break it out in Italy a bit, and play with it there. We can only pray that they sell Cheetos there. Hell: They end in an "o." They probably are Italian.

Mutually Beneficial

Last Monday, routed through my association with Cirque Boom, I performed at a benefit for the NYFA. They're wonderful people. They even sent me a thank-you card for the event. They paid me, and they formally thanked me. It's enough to make an actor feel sort of worthwhile. (Which we'll have to put a stop to immediately, of course. If we start feeling worthwhile, nobody will be able to enlist our services for little-to-no money, and before you know it it'll be work, work, work for actors everywhere!) And, in the week that followed, I developed a busking/greenshow routine to perform in the half hour before The Women's Project's show, Corporate Carnival, which I performed in all week down at The World Financial Center (see video here). So it's been a very busky, walkabout-performance sort of past week for yours truly. This is a form of performance that represents a lot of the income a specially skilled actor can pick up here and there. People are constantly interested in creating memorable events, or events with themes, or just an "event" in general, and performers seem a really creative way to do that. I applaud people who are interested in employing creative artists for their affairs.

It does not, however, mean that it's necessarily a good idea.

An actor has to be smarter about his or her craft than anyone who employs him or her when it comes to this kind of job. If you're cast in a regular play, with rehearsal time and a script and a director who's competent, there isn't necessarily a need to be the authority in the room. You may do your job best, in fact, by being a bit more of an empty vessel, ready to receive the influences of the process you're about to put your all into. But when you're asked to pitch your innovation into the ring for a semi-improvised solo performance, you'd better see in all directions at once and be ready for any and everything. Because -- and here is the rub -- the people asking you to do something generally have very little understanding of what exactly they're asking you to do. I believe the thought that goes into this sort of notion is something along the lines of, "Oo! Live performers! It'll be like Moulin Rouge!"

To be fair, the two gigs were very different (in spite of both having the word "carnival" in the title, a detail that made my inbox a very confusing place for a while there). The benefit was a costly evening affair in a restaurant in midtown, with wealthy arts patrons and alcohol, and the greenshow (so named because of the tradition of apprentices-to-the-theatre trying out their acts before the show on the "green" outside) was for all sorts of working types in a public space during the daytime. The purpose of the first was largely to entertain. The purpose of the second was also to entertain, but more important was to spread the word of the upcoming free show and thereby garner more audience for it. Still, there were common lessons to be learned by the performer in both.

• Be a performer, not a salesman. For some reason, the more your act promises to assault the audience, the more excited your producers are likely to be about it. Perhaps it's their imaginations vicariously enjoying the power play; I can't say. Whatever it is, you mustn't succumb to it. The secret to a great busking act is to make something that invites people to participate, rather than forcing them into it. There are many ways to do this. If you're a walk-about character, you can simply look eccentric enough to elicit comments, and that's your in. If it's a little more presentational, you could dress normally, and invite attention more with your actions. Either way, you're not going to get people to play by telling them they have to play.



• Suit the performance to the environment. This seems obvious, but often times predicting your environment can be tricky. Maybe you don't know exactly how it's going to be set up (see the NYFA event) or exactly how much expectation your audience has of finding a performance going on in a given space (see the Women's Project busking). Be prepared to adapt. The performance I prepared for the benefit turned out to be totally inappropriate for how the space was laid out and what people were there to do, which was pay attention to one another. I tried to adapt, but couldn't be flexible enough to put people at ease and still entertain. I had more luck later in the week, when I went from a very invasive hypnotist character to a very simple, friendly guy who occasionally does physically eccentric things.



• Speak. I love silent characters, and play them whenever I get a chance. When I busk on my stilts this is fine, because it serves to somewhat undercut the magnificence of a nine-foot man. Plus, you've already got their attention. I planned a mime-like character for the benefit, which seemed like a great idea at the time (he was a consumptive poet, who wrote on mirrors with paint marker) but ultimately did not play out to my . . . uh, benefit. It takes special circumstances to effectively play a silent character in a busy environment. When in doubt, use your gob and be heard.



• Love what you do. Busking is freaking tough. It takes a ton of energy, concentration and thinking-on-one's-toes and -- as if that weren't enough -- is rarely unequivocally appreciated. So it helps if whatever activity you're utilizing in your act, be it singing, dancing or self-aggrandizement, is something you genuinely enjoy. Because you'll be a doing a lot of it. And you'll often be the only one who cares.

I would be remiss, however, to offer tips to the performers of public acts of entertainment without nodding my sagacity toward the audiences as well. So, a few tips for the rest of you:

• It's okay. Everything's going to be okay. Remember when you were five or so, and you'd go out on the playground and someone you didn't know at all would just start playing with you? That's all this is. And it doesn't hurt, I promise. We are neither homeless nor crazy; just playful. And it's only humiliating when you fight it.



• Change is good. Have you ever been to a cocktail party, and run out of things to say? Awkward, no? You know what changes that? Good stories. Which come from good experiences. Which comes from saying "yes" to opportunities that come at you from outside your routine. Keep saying "yes." See where it takes you. It's hard to frown whilst saying "yes."



• Your status is safe. We aren't here to discredit you, or lay disparaging remarks at your doorstep. If anything, we're here to revel in our own shortcomings, such as they are. There really is no need for pithy responses and one-ups-man-ship. Don't you get enough of that in the daily struggles of normal life? Let it go and be amused, if by nothing else than at least by the fact that there are still people in the world more concerned with your enjoyment than their own dignity.



• We don't want your money. Okay, well, yeah, we do. Give it to us, if you feel that's an appropriate compensation for whatever we do. (It'll feel surprisingly good to do so; I promise.) But we'll take a receptive audience over a monetarily generous one any ol' day. You don't have to hang back, or hide your appreciation. As that guy on the subway often says, "If you can't give a penny, a smile gets me by, too."

I should conclude by confessing that I'm feeling a little old for busking. I don't mean to say it's beneath me, in any way. Busking can be one of the most rewarding examples of that mysterious alchemy between an audience and a performer, and I treasure several experiences of that I've had. It's just that I couldn't help but remember how joyful I used to be about getting out on a floor to do that, how simultaneously terrified, in my twenties. Now I found myself thinking, "Meh. Here I come, trying to give you something you didn't ask for." Which attitude, of course, might account for some of my angst in the doing of it. Either way -- chicken or egg -- I think I'll be taking a little break from busking. I think that will be best for both of us.

Incorporation

Next week I'll be performing a show twice daily down at the World Financial Center, under the auspices of The Women's Project. The show is called Corporate Carnival, and is much as it sounds -- a sort of carnival (though more circus) celebration (though more satire) of corporate America (though more capitalist America at large). It will be performing in the "Winter Garden" section, May 14 - 16, showtimes at 1:00 and 7:00, and the 15th thrice, the previous times plus a 4:00. We earn our money over there at The Women's Project, fo' sho'.

The show itself is interesting to me for a return to collaborative creation and my status within it. I'm one of a sort of inconsequential chorus called "The Temps." We burst through between main acts with commercial-like interruptions, and supplement the other actors' "scenes." We're also on stage even when we're "backstage," owing to the nature of our staging the show in an open area, and we're all responsible for developing a "greenshow" act. Greenshow acts are sort of a roving warm-up before the main stage begins, especially useful in this format because they get people's attention by adhering to a busking style. So we're doing all that (see above "fo' sho'"), but our additions to the show itself are not necessarily especially skilled. I'm stilting for one commercial, but for the most part the Temps' contributions aren't particularly physically demanding. In spite of the many circumstantial similarities between this project and the work of Cirque Boom and Kirkos (particularly Cirque Boom's Circus of Vices and Virtues, in which I played a stilt-walking businessman), they're very different in that regard.

I've had to create a lot of self-generated output recently. So much, in fact, that today I began to worry for the first time if I wasn't just recycling and regurgitating. This is due in part to hammering out an outline for a potential performance piece (pah pah pah) for Italy, under the auspices of Zuppa del Giorno. I took the three archetypal clowns we portrayed in Silent Lives, and bits and sequences from all our shows (Zuppa-related or no), added a dash of some of my favorite stage conventions and voilà! A . . . show! Of sorts! I kind of hate it! But the idea is that we'll all get into a room together soon (somehow) and develop it, or something that doesn't resemble it in the slightest. Not sure which one I'm hoping for at this point.

Sludging through this effort reminded me of working on my clown film (see 3/27/08), in that I was writing out actions more than words, trying to tell a story through humorous, true deeds and bits. It was also reminiscent of the film in that I was frequently stuck, trying to figure out how to go on from a given point, and I've been feeling pretty stuck on the film script as well. It seems that once Our Hero (this is what I've been calling the clown character in the script) gets out of Central Park, I have very little direction for him. And now, after a couple of weeks of contributing to generate original scenes for Corporate Carnival, I have to develop a greenshow act for it, and I'm drawing blank. It's a little like I've run out of gas. Cough! Cough! Sputtterrrrr . . .

Yet on Sunday (see 5/5/08), with eager and communicative collaborators, the ideas were flowing like gasoline in the 1990s. Perhaps what I need to do is engage in dialogue with someone who is inclined to be energetic about this kind of thing. Perhaps, too, I need to just get out of my mind and into my body. That was definitely a key element in Sunday's successful creation. This block may be entirely symptomatic, in fact, of a period of relative creative isolation of late. I started writing the clown film when I was between day jobs, and there were no theatre commitments, and very little energy on my part going into find them. At the time I viewed my individual effort as reclaiming a little of my work for myself (as part of my process of dealing with letting go of As Far As We Know [see 1/15/08]), and so it was. Yet it was also a retreat.

That's the nice thing about work. As long as you're doing it, you're working.

Ain't No Party Like A "The Office" Party . . .

Some of you have been awaiting this post for a while now. Like, about three days. Man, am I sorry it took me so long, but when you have an experience as profound as I recently have, you have to allow yourself at least a little time to let it settle in. See if you don't. When you return from a pilgrimage, you need a little "me time" padding at the end. I'm not even sure I'm ready to write about this, but, then again, maybe it's good that I try. Maybe, just maybe, it will further me in understanding the experience.

Last weekend I traveled out to Scranton for work. This is by no means an unusual experience. In fact, nearly half of my adult acting career has been spent in affiliation with The Northeast Theatre or their commedia dell'arte branch, Zuppa del Giorno. Hell, I go out to Pennsylvania all the time, too, to catch other shows in their season, visit friends and perform or teach workshops at events outside the theatre. Love Scranton. It's like that friend you had in high school about whom everyone else's response was, "You hang out with him?" (I probably was "that friend" more often than I had one such.) But you know what they all don't. That, in spite of appearances, this was one of the coolest friends to have, if you took the time to truly get to know him. So: Yay: Scranton!

Scranton was having its biggest event in recent memory last weekend: The first annual "The Office" Convention. A couple of months ago I received an email from TNT informing me of this and asking me--along with all their other previous improvisatorily trained (some of them by me, he admitted with trepidation) actors--if I would not like to contribute to a semi-improvised performance in conjunction with said convention. I deliberated a bit. It sounded like a custom-made suckfest, to be honest with you. Improvising in a mall? For an audience who was there to see celebrities? I have participated in events before that I have since blocked from my memory, lest they convince me never to mount the boards again in my whole life ever ever (perhaps a future entry will be devoted to The Dreaded Borders Incident from our efforts to promote Noble Aspirations). Ultimately I decided to go for it, however. I love the show and improvising in general and, frankly, realized it can never hurt to brush sleeves with working television actors.

Various things came to be in the intervening weeks. I spent two months night-and-day improvising to create and perform Prohibitive Standards. Friend Sam came to be inscripted to direct the event, and Friend Steve to craft an initial scenario. Finally, just about every cast member but the five most major was confirmed to attend, and at least one--Oscar Nunez--had promised to perform with us in our little shopping mall adventure. Last week, in my few days back in New York before heading out again, I tried to save up energy for . . . well . . . I knew not what. But I had lots of indications that, whatever it was, it was going to be surreal.

The first of these occurred around 4:00 PM Friday, when we New Yorkers were scheduled to meet our ride on the corner of 32nd Street and 8th Avenue. It was a dismal day of swelling, cold rain when we individually happened upon the realization that there is no 32nd and 8th. It is one of those rare idiosyncrasies of midtown New York city planning, a result of Madison Square Garden and the main branch of the post office on either side of 8th, like enormous children engaged in a game of slot car racing. We knew our ride was "a limo being sent out for us." There were four of us, and we promptly set about keeping our eyes open for a regular old town car, debating whether it would have Pennsylvania or New York plates.

When we found our ride at last, we found it was a white, stretch, SUV limousine. No foolin'.

Bear in mind: The actors were being paid a $50 food stipend for the weekend. They did, to their great credit, put us up in a very nice hotel.

Further surreality came upon us as we arrived in town late, due to weather and confusion. After getting checked in to the hotel, we all sqeezed into David Zarko's Prius (penance for our boat trip out) to be driven to the rehearsal, already in progress, in The Steamtown Mall. (Or: "The Mall at Steamtown," depending how posh you wish to sound.) We walked right in through the front doors to discover an informal sort of party going on. Everyone of our cast of non-Office folk, about a dozen, was there on a stage in the dead center of the mall that was decorated with huge replicas of the cast members' faces. There were also several people representing the Scranton Chamber of Commerce, who had brought with them a cooler full of wine and beer. I wasn't planning to partake. Then I found out we weren't working from a written scenario, and were just going to be assigned characters that we were welcome to throw out as well. For three hours we were brought drinks as we tried to choreograph a concluding brawl to our as-yet-unknown scenario. I had to concentrate to avoid imagining scenes from the film Dawn of the Dead. The perk for me (continuing our foray into the surreal experience) was to wish aloud for a paper shredder on stage, and actually have a maintenance man bring one down in a matter of minutes.

The next morning we were rehearsing in the theatre (there is no rest for capitalism) and had a few more actors to incorporate, so the brawl changed completely. We also did character interviews as a way to explore our burgeoning, soon-to-be-realized-whether-they're-ready-or-not characters. We also did a little Viewpoints(TM) work for a warm-up. What else did we do? Let me see.... Um.... It's all kind of a blur, really. Over the entire three hours there was a mounting sense of dread, born in part from the recognition that there just wasn't enough time to create something reliably good. The best we could do was plan an entrance and exit, promise to try not to interrupt one another and give the rest to God. There are, after all, no atheists in foxholes.

At 1:30 we came to the mall in pieces, and all was chaos. The stage area was already teeming with fans being warmed up by schwag give-away and a local team mascot (who, as it turns out, can do a wicked handstand IN A GIANT PENGUIN OUTFIT) and various of our cast didn't have their cell phones in their costumes, so it was nigh impossible to get together on anything. Once, miraculously, we were all in the general area of the stage, assuring eager audience members that we wouldn't be blocking their view much longer, everything held in place for a good twenty minutes. Not a one of us knew what was going on, and there was no one to tell us. We moved in our entrance groups from side to side of the stage as an emcee (likely self-appointed) berated the crowd with commands to clear the stairways, and threatened to forcefully expel them if they acted up in the presence of the celebrities. I was reminded of high school pep rallies, and contemplated the possibility that there may be no such thing as a terminal velocity when it comes to that plummeting feeling one gets in one's stomach at such times.

Then, unexpectedly, I was buoyed. A family asked me and my comrades (as we nervously awaited some sign from above for when to take the stage) if we were part of the entertainment. We informed them we were, and they were instantly excited and bashfully asked if they could take their picture with us. As we got into place to have our photograph taken, they explained to us that they were "stockholders," which meant that they had paid a good amount for a ticket to all the events this weekend. Big fans of the show, and they were just as excited to get a moment with us--we working stiffs (with occasional limo benefits)--as they were to be there at all. We had to cross to the other side of the stage for our entrance (again), and bid them a fond farewell. That's part of what's great about "The Office"; it makes heroes out of regular joes.

Well, the performance itself was chaos, utter and complete. We all entered the stage at once, rather than as a start to our story. Friend Geoff, thank goodness, and his scene partner Will had been warming up the crowd for about twenty minutes as bumbling security guards, so our entrance as relative nobodies had a strong enough precedence so as not to seem utterly random. No sooner had we sat down at the long table, when the performers from the show arrived to screams of delight. Oscar, Daryl and Andy (the other one) sat down with us, and we were off. No one could hear us, of course, because the acoustics were God-awful and the mikes were all set at different levels. Control of the "meeting" bounced between Friends Heather and Sam, who were just trying to keep the ball passing to the cast members. Oscar seemed most at home in the chaos, spinning off some really wonderful replies. Daryl was a crowd favorite, and eventually really got the spirit of the thing. Andy, poor guy, seemed a little confused. I can't say as I blamed him.

For my part, I quickly gave up on speaking. I wasn't near a mic, and could tell anyway that only the cast members were going to get substantial laughs for speaking, invited as they are into everyone's home once a week. So I became shameless quickly, an eager accountant who kept standing up from the table when he was referred to, and had to be asked to return to his seat.
The climax of my performance, quite clearly, came about in establishing a conflict with one actor who was playing an environmentalist and kept complaining about Dunder Mifflin's recycling policies. At one point I took the shreddings of report pages from the shredder's canister and threw them in his face. Shameless? Yes. But effective. I found three times to do it, and the third time coincided with the ending brawl, in which I made sure to cover a good portion of the audience in paper as well. If any show executives were watching, I probably dropped a nuke on any possibility of their being impressed with my performance. But, hell: the crowd loved it.

That was the note the performance ended on, and we got good applause for it. It was fascinating to watch the actors from the show get wrangled (eventually) off the stage by their respective assistants, whose job, it seems, is to be abrasive so the stars can be genial. They were just that--all of them--and I was impressed with how ready they had been to play a mall with us. Thereafter, we collectively sighed and were hosted to dinner and an open bar on the second floor of The Banshee. The cast broke up there for various destinations. I went with a small group to the nearby, quaint little town of Waverly to watch another amateur production: A haunted house, hosted by theatre students of Friend Michaela. As we wound our way through bloody dioramas, startled by the occasional thrust arm or sound effect, I thought about how useful fear is, and wondered how much of it I would visit upon myself just for that feeling of relief, and occasionally satisfaction, when it passes.

This Is How We Do It

The past week has been a busy one, especially in comparison to the actual clocked hours of teaching last week, never mind my peculiar travel habits for the re-up of As Far As We Know. The bulk of the work has been to educate a group of incredibly mixed experience into Zuppa del Giorno's style of theatre . . . and, in the process, remind even ourselves of what it is we do.

That may seem odd. It seems one of the most consistent subjects I bring up on this here 'blog is Zuppa, that ever-adventurous work I've been doing pretty consistently for the past five years. When we're not doing a show, we're planning for one, or teaching workshops, or recruiting students or venturing off to Italy. Yet somehow, in all that hustle and bustle, we've gotten away from our roots--that is, creating a play directly from improvisation on a scenario. In Italy, we devoted much of our energy to incorporating Italian into the scenario. Operation Opera was as much about writing the scenario as it was improvising upon it, and Silent Lives was similar in that sense, and completely different in the sense that it was a clown show. There are entire technical elements of our original work that I had lost sight of in the rest of the machinations, elements such as David's "Newtonian Impulses" and the ways in which we strip down a scenario to its most basic elements, and strip away language as a communication tool.

So we've all been learning together. It's fascinating to watch the students toil in such unfamiliar territory, probably doing many of the same things wrong and right that I did in 2002. Fascinating, too, to watch how Sam, Erin and Geoff trust in the process so implicitly in spite of being new to it. I suppose acting experience in general (though, perhaps specifically experience with improvisation) helps actors perceive the merit in doing things as thoroughly and gradually as this process demands, in spite of having the intense deadline it does.

And then again, maybe I don't give my fellow actors quite enough credit. It's an amazing group. (And just how have I been so lucky this year as to only work with incredible people?) Which is just to say that the "new" actors to Zuppa's process are very disciplined and talented artists who somehow get it. They just get it. Thank God they do, too, because when your working with people who don't it adds a whole lot more work to an already intensive work process.

So just what is this work what takes me away from my beloved Aviary for so long? How can we have so much to do when we don't even have a scenario related to our play yet? I am so glad you asked! The bible of our little group is a book of Flaminio Scala's collection of original commedia dell'arte scenarios. These scenarios provide very little information in the way of dialogue or explanation. They begin with a character breakdown such as you would see at the beginning of any published play, but with no character descriptions as such, since the characters they they would be known by their type to the original actors. Then there is a paragraph or two about "the argument," which describes a little about back history and relationships, though generally not reaching much farther back than a month or so. Finally, there is the scenario itself, which is divided into paragraphs titled after the character or characters concerned in the central action of each. The scenario merely describes the action of the "scene," and provides no explanation as to specific actions of characters or motivations for such, so there's much to be interpreted (including the extensive use of pronouns: does "he" refer to Pantalone or Arlechino this time?). The scenarios don't even say "the two fail to understand one another because _______." They say, "they speak at cross-purposes."

So David will begin by assigning parts (in our case, occasionally assigning two parts to one actor, unconcerned with the supposed sex of the character), then he will read the scenario a few lines at a time, and we actors will fulfill its demands as he reads, rather like the theatre sports game "Typist Narrator." In this round, there's typically very little interpretation, and we can speak whatever dialogue helps us understand the action. The point is to absorb the scenario. After once through, we try again, and again, until we can run through the thing without narration. Then David gets us to run it more and more efficiently, giving us only five minutes to fulfill all the actions, then three, then one. This gets us centered on the action, and away from flourishes and embellishments that may have snuck in after several runs.

Then it gets difficult.

One of the distinctive features of traditional commedia dell'arte is very specific, very full physical characterizations. (This was part of the benefit of working with the students last week on creating grand characters for busking.) One part of effectively using such characterizations is learning to use one's body to communicate as specifically as one might with words. The scenarios lend themselves to this approach in the way they were recorded: no dialogue, only action. The trick, then, is to train oneself to speak with the body as significantly as with words. After learning and stream-lining the scenario, then, we begin on several challenges:

• Three-Word Phrases - The actors can only speak two-to-three words at a time, and must shave down their free dialogue to what's essential (not to mention learn to really dialogue in order to create more opportunities for each other to use another two or three words).
• One-Word Dialogue - The actors can only speak one word at a time, which drives them to use their physical life to imbue that word with as much specific meaning as possible. I.e., saying love comes to mean love that wrenches me in confusing directions whilst lifting my heart into my mouth.
• One-Word/One-Gesture Unification - Closely related to many impulse-passing exercises we warm-up with, this challenge is perhaps the most challenging (well: for me, anyway). The idea is that a scene is about passing energy back and forth, and to do so with as much commitment as possible. This is the challenge that gets us closest to the traditional style of performance. One actor begins it, with his or her body, creating a continuous motion that communicates his or her need until he or she passes it off to the scene partner with a single word punctuating the end of the motion. THEN the actor must suspend in that pose until his or her scene partner passes the changed impulse back in the same manner. (It feels very unnatural to western actors trained in "naturalism," but really it's just a different rhythm to applied to the same concept of unification.)
• Dance Through - After One-Word/Gesture, this one is typically a relief. Plus, it frees actors to make different, less-obvious choices with their characters and actions. This challenge allows NO language, only physical action, to communicate the story. Music is played throughout (we used Strauss waltzes, but I've enjoyed this with mixes of different types of music as well), and the actors are encouraged to allow the music to inform the manner in which they play the scene. Not only does this relax the actors into using physical choices to communicate, but it helps strip away physical "language," those gestures that have agreed-upon definitions, such as the thumbs-up or flipping someone the bird.

As you might imagine, after going through all these different versions of a scenario, one learns it pretty well. To keep things fresh, we often switch roles around somewhere in all this, so everyone pays very close attention to everyone else's scenes. In this way, we actors really learn the scenario, and not just "our part" in it. (...B.S., B.S., my scene with Arlechino, B.S., B.S., ...) As you may also imagine, this work helps us learn what to expect from one another in general, our strengths and enthusiasms, and builds tremendous ensemble mentality. We also work, amidst all this, on developing an instinct for the "comic three;" not just as a comedy rule, but as a method of tracking an improvisation and patterning the rhythm of interaction. A joke between two people generally has two developing beats and a punchline. If an action repeats, it does so in segments of three(s). And when acting with our scene partner, we receive his or her impulse, suspend and process it a beat, then send it right back out again. Threes are helpful.

I have the benefit or having seen how impressive the results of this groundwork can be. It helps to create a show completely unique and rewarding to a western (and I believe any) audience, and allows us to get very comfortable with that strange crisis of the moment on stage that improvised shows create: What will happen next? The audience doesn't know because we don't specifically know. It's all life. Through this work, however, we know where we are when we float in that uncertainty. Next week we begin developing the scenario with Steve, and we begin that period of rampant change and uncertainty, when sometimes all one wants is for someone else to make a decision and write us a pretty little script. Together, however, we will find the courage to not know what the hell we're doing.

ZdG Busking Workshop Days Six & Seven: Busking Heaven

It's remarkable how things come together for a show. One of the more brilliant moments of the film "Shakespeare in Love" is a line bestowed upon Geoffrey Rush's character of Philip Henslowe, as an explanation for the bizarre and spontaneous nature of the way in which shows seem to pull themselves together: "I don't know. It's a mystery."

I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that the classes leading up to our debut at La Festa Italiana were increasingly tense. The students, for the most part, really didn't know what they were going to do with themselves for three hours of improvised performance. Some were thrilled and eager; most seemed suspended, waiting for some kind of intervention from above. At the same time, we as teachers (and, more relevantly at this time, collaborators) allowed our workshop sessions to become rather less structured. We had to, which I found very interesting. It was time to let the students take more direct charge, to communicate with them on a level of equals. Even as we prepared them in the last hour before entering the liveliest stage of all, it was more a projection of authority and leadership than the actual stuff. It was their show. We were now just players in it.

One of the last "taught" segments of the workshop was demonstrating aspects of solo performance and bit development. I performed my clown for them (not to great effect--I was feeling very drained) and a greenshow bit from way back during my days at Porthouse Theatre. Then Dave and I encouraged them to perform special skills one at a time. It was a very good transition into their situation of the next day, choosing people one at a time to hold their own on stage, and helping them see what material they had to use in creating something diverting. Some used skills they had already learned, most resorted to creating scenes out of their developing relationships with one another as characters. It was good, and a good way to end the workshop of the night before we convened at TNT to brush up and perform. Both terrifying and uplifting.

The next day so much happened that it's hard to relate. We warmed them up with improvisations out and in character, and David Zarko came in to give notes on each character (most of his notes consisted of encouraging everyone to broaden their characterizations physically). At the same time, Heather and Sam arrived to observe our foray into performance. Erin would arrive during the festival, nearly completing our cast for Prohibitive Standards. From the rest of the day, and our experiences of the entire week, we would that night choose four students to join our cast. For the time, however, as Dave and I suited up and joined a family (he a Verdeloni, I a Rossolini), there was only the huge endeavor before us. We would walk down a street in character, into a teeming crowd of unsuspecting Italian enthusiasts, and start a fight.

Start a fight we did. As we entered the town square, already attracting attention with our bizarre costumes and shapes, the families formed two groups and we began the argument: OUR restaurant is better; YOU stole everything good you know from US. It had been agreed that we would stick to larger groups until everyone had gotten more comfortable with the walkabout, but it seemed to me that, as they dispersed to dispense red and green ribbons amongst the crowd (we SO didn't make enough of those), everyone took to wings. I didn't see a fellow performer for nearly a half an hour, and I worried they were huddled somewhere, avoiding the show. I couldn't have been more wrong. Every single performer took to the show like they had been born in character. It was beautiful. I only wish I had been able to observe more--being in character myself ("Uncle Bruno"), I couldn't rest for more than seconds at a time. In fact, after two hours Heather approached to gauge my feelings about wrapping it up an hour early, feeling we had more than accomplished our task and that energy was waning. I couldn't have agreed more eagerly. Busking, truly, is a sport for the young.

We concluded in a spirit of relief and excitement. It seemed everyone had a remarkable time, and I made sure we gathered in the cabaret room at the theatre for stretching and debriefing. It was marvelous to hear everyone's stories from the day, good and bad, because everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves and have learned something genuinely new from the experience (I being no exception to this). Finally, we had to say goodbye, and it was mostly sweet, since everyone felt accomplished and most were off to other Labor Day festivities. The bitter came when I had to acknowledge that only a few of our groups of eleven would be continuing on to do the show. It was necessary, to nod to the transition as we entered into it, and I hope everyone perceived how grateful I felt to all of them for their work and daring. I'm honored to have had the experience of each of them in my life.

That night we selected our four, and now we have the full cast. The week of training in the inimitable Zuppa del Giorno style begins next, and our college students are not the only ones to receive the benefit of it. Three professional actors in the this project have no idea what to expect either. And, frankly, it's been a year and a half since Heather and I have put up a full Zuppa production, and some three since we've done so with David Zarko.

So there's a lot to (re)learn.

ZdG Busking Workshop Day Five: Nature Abhors a Doormat

Okay. I'm reading my own title, and I'm struck by how insane this idea was. Let's get a group of mixed-experience, barely formed personalities together and take just six short days to equip them with the skills necessary to perform improvised scenarios at a public event. Then let's just plunge them into said event, a trial by fire, if you will. Six days should be a enough, right? To train them from the ground up, have them create wholly original characters and develop them all into a scenario, right? Oh, and hey, since that's so simple, LET'S DO IT IN THE FIRST WEEK OF THEIR RETURN TO/ENTRANCE INTO UNIVERSITY.

I may have reached my own panic stage of this process. Hence the somewhat difficult title of this post, and my own use of logic in analyzing the details of this workshop. Silly Jeff: Logic has no place in the theatre.

You're probably thinking of "doormat" in terms of the standard allegory or personification--a person who allows themselves to be walked all over. Indeed, nature probably does abhor such people. (Can't be sure [Nature and I haven't been on speaking terms ever since she made me 5' 8 3/4"], but I'm pretty sure Darwin will back me up on this [Darwin! Represent! What what!].) However, I actually mean it in the sense of a metaphor taught to me early in my own college experience. I believe it was my freshman-year acting teacher, Mr. Hopper . . . though as someone awfully prone to axioms he gets most simple lessons ascribed to him . . . who advised us, "When you come to rehearsal, wipe your feet at the door." He wasn't simply advising fastidious tidiness, but a different respect of the space. You're there to work, and whatever emotional turmoil your day may have consisted of, it shouldn't interfere.

However. That's a lesson in professionalism, and theatre has the interesting distinction of basing its business upon rather un-"business-like" behavior. Theatre is a study of nature, specifically human nature. I don't believe a true distinction can be drawn between how we feel in our lives and how we feel in our work. We can compartmentalize all we like--we can be damn good at it--but the truth of the matter is that we are who we are, as ever-changing and inconvenient as that may be. An artist learns to use it, to appreciate it for what it is, and maybe even engage it rather than try to shut it away.

Last night one of our actors surprised us. We were walking about the room in our burgeoning characters for La Festa Italiana, in a sort of guided exercise in which Dave talks the actors through exploring specific physical and emotional qualities in their characters. It came to a stage in which the characters were to begin interacting with one another, and we tried to emphasize the need for an intention, a want that can only be fulfilled by other people (this is key to successful walk-about characters in a busking performance). One actor was adamant about refusing contact--it had clearly become their intention to avoid. In the discussion afterward we spent some time discussing helpful and difficult aspects of character, and in so doing we came to the isolated actor. I was about to explain how it is less helpful to make a character who has no reason to be out in public for this venue, when they explained that a relative had just been diagnosed with cancer and painfully disintegrated into weeping.

Whoops.

So there we are, standing in a circle, as this poor student weeps. The actors on either side reach around them for the supportive, non-suffocating hug, and I sort of lose my sense of reality for a moment. I've had students lose control in class before, but never one so mature and with such a personal reason. At some point, seemingly hours later, I approach the actor and get eye contact to say that if they want to step out for a minute that's okay. They do, and we say a few words to wrap up that phase of the session before giving everyone a break. As is to be expected, several people are affected--and some very deeply--by the emotion, and it takes us a while to get back to the workshop. But we do. And we get back on the plan, after a quick, spontaneous game of
catch to lead back in. The upset actor even eventually rejoins to observe and re-involves themselves at the end.

We have a day off now, during which time we've given them plenty to think about. At the end of class we divided them into their respective families, and asked them to come back on Sunday with a costume, a prop and a piece of music that expressed their characters. Our workshop Sunday will be the day before the performance, and we'll have five hours with them all to get them ready. We have a lot to get done yet. But they'll come with everything they have, and that will get us through.

ZdG Busking Workshop Day Four: Character Hunting

The only complaint I have about last night's workshop was that we were relegated to the old gymnasium, owing to some dance team or other vying for our space. The old gymnasium (for those of you planning a trip out to olde Marywood U. in the near future) is a place most resolutely to be avoided. In the spirit of old gyms everywhere, it is hot, stuffy, and cavernous. The floor feels like hardwood laid on concrete, and no amount of fans or open doors solves a damn thing. We had to be sure to offer plenty of breaks for water and rest to our dozen students last night.

That's right: a dozen. We have our players for La Festa Italiana, and I am very happy both with the numbers and the spirit in the rehearsal room. The players are eager, and receptive, and last night we started them on building their characters. In spite of the heat--and perhaps, in some ways, because of that shared adversity--we really came together in the fashion of a familiar ensemble and began to work in earnest. After getting them started on building characters through all three walk-about exercises (leading centers, animals and appetites), we briefly outlined our vision of their scenario as we discussed it that morning. That is, a pair of feuding families--the Rossalinis and the Verdelonis--who own restaurants in town and are vying for the support of the public.

It's an exciting phase. They are well on their way to creating something detailed, tangible and fun that will stay with them well beyond the use in La Festa, and possibly Prohibitive Standards. There were a few surprises last night. I had forgotten just how emotionally available I had been at their ages, and some of the players took the character building to a very dark place and serious emotions. I was concerned for a time that we may have led one or two down a primrose path to self-doubt and difficult pain. We discussed it extensively, however, and found that those who went to dark places were better equipped to accept that as part of the work and move on. I tried to emphasize that all their discoveries, even those that feel like no fun, are valid in contributing to the creation of a character. I also made sure they knew, however, that they must love their character, no matter how flawed he or she may be, in order to play it for some time.

Tonight we get down to some real nitty-gritty stuff, developing specific relationships and encouraging the students to discover solo performances they can use in a public context. It's so exciting. It's so rewarding to see the tools I've been using for years--not really from any one place or specific training, but from experience and improvisation--working for other people. Not to mention learning all-new approaches from Geoff and Dave. It's great work, and I'm grateful to have it.

ZdG Busking Workshop Day Three: Sifting for Wisdom

I've written in the past a little bit about the value of making mistakes. It's one of those lessons that I just keep having to learn over and over again, more recently in the form of trying to learn Italian. Last night was yet another lesson for our workshop at Marywood University, and a lesson to all of us, I think, in a willingness to make mistakes. The fact is, we learn faster with the more mistakes we make. The obstacle is, we all seem to want to "be good," to impress our peers and maintain a high status by way of proving something. Some of us (Me) have more difficulty confronting this obstacle than others of us (Friend Todd). It takes a very real courage to leap in and start trying, blind. Ironically for me, this is one of the things we are trying to teach to the students at Marywood.

Just maybe, however, it's getting to be easier for me.

Last night was not an enthusiastic success as far as my comrades were concerned, yet I found it to be very gratifying. Several of our exercises with them went a bit too long, or didn't grab their imaginations. Of course, it was a much more exercise-intensive workshop, as opposed to the game-intensive ones prior to now. This was part of our effort to emphasize a shift to skill-building for the festival performance this Monday, but also to demonstrate to the students what that work would really entail before they had to make their decisions regarding whether or not they would continue in our course. So after a few quick, energetic games to get spirit up, we delved back into exploring animal physicality, this time with an animal of their own choosing, which we segued into the improvisational game "Party Quirks," only with animals instead of psychoses or professions or some such. It was very interesting to watch them integrate (and fail to integrate) the lessons of listening and specificity from the day prior. It was also curious to see them tend to push their animal characters into an intellectual, or "clever," place instead of using simple physicality and appetites. Getting them out of their heads is proving an interesting challenge; small surprise there, what with the rest of their days probably being devoted to typical classroom education.

After the break, Paulette Merchel introduced the second half by explaining to them their upcoming choice in some detail: the time commitment, the nature of the work, etc. According to our plan, I undercut her somewhat dire announcement by entering midway in the character of Dewey Cheatem, a very broadly characterized horny old man character (imagine the personality of Pantalone with the physicality of Dottore) from our show Legal Snarls. The students were somewhat shocked by his ribaldry, but it also broke the tension, especially when he hit on Dr. Merchel. It was nice to play him again. It's a character that really knows where to go, and what he wants, so is also hopefully a good demonstration of the kind of character that makes public performance somewhat easier.

In the second half we worked with them on character impersonation, utilizing one another and their homework to observe a stranger and emulate his or her physicality. Unfortunately, many of them either misunderstood or didn't prepare the assignment, and ended up bringing in a person they already knew, which taints the observation with prejudice, making it more of a caricature than an exploration. Still, there was value in their demonstrations of these people en masse, as we stepped back and watched them work. Afterward we discussed, and tried to suggest to them a need for impartial observation and discovery.

The last thing we did was to simply sit down with them and discuss the details of what they could expect from both La Festa Italiana and Prohibitive Standards, should they be cast in the latter. This was most helpful, and gratifying, as it was clear to me that we had gained their trust and that they were interested in at least the show, even if they were cautious. I do worry that they are not too interested in La Festa (there were rather fewer questions about that, which I would expect there to be more worry over if they were planning on being a part of it), and so we've discussed--in light of that and various scheduling conflicts students have with it and Pro Stand--allowing anyone who wants to attend the workshops to continue, and just be clear about whether or not they're a part of La Festa.

Today will be very interesting. We may fall on our faces, as only a few (or perhaps none) choose to be involved with the next step. At least it's good to consider that such a mistake may lead us to making an even better choice.

ZdG Busking Workshop Day Two: Accepting and Building

One of the axioms of good (or as my sophomore-year acting teacher would have preferred: "helpful") improvisation is to always accept and build on ideas your scene partner(s) put(s) forth. This is encapsulated in the phrase, "Yes, and... ," the idea being that one's response to something he or she is given should take this form. "Yes" I accept what you have established, "and" in addition I can contribute _________ to it. If both players can maintain this pattern, this energy, the scene will do a lot of work of carrying itself, and there will be less chance of the dreaded waffle. (I love self publishing; maybe there are other contexts within which I could use the phrase "dreaded waffle," but I can't think of any outside of cookbooks at present.) "Waffling" is when a scene sort of putters out, or sits still, spinning its wheels, and this is more often than not the result of "blocking."

Stick with me here. Just think of the after-show parties you'll be able to dominate with the finer points of theatrical jargon.

"Blocking" in conventional theatre refers to established gross movements around the stage. On this line, cross to the other side, etc. "Blocking" in improvisational theatre (in which there is generally very little of the previous definition) is when someone negates or "blocks" another's suggestion on stage.

"Geez, this sure is a real swell clambake."
"Yeah, or it would be, if it weren't actually a weenie roast, owing to the fact that clams are completely non indigenous for at least 100 miles in every direction."

Ouch. Not the most conducive to building a scene, not to mention trust between scene partners. This is one of the many axioms of improvisation we are attempting to impart and demonstrate to our students at Marywood. It's harder than it sounds, believe me. Nothing demonstrates this difficulty better than trying to collaborate to plan a class. Thus far, our planning sessions have taken at least as long as each class in combined discussion time, and a lot of it is owing to three guys (now four, with David Zarko cogent again [oh Heather, how I miss thy estrogenital influence]) all trying to get their ideas and priorities in. It's a good friction, the kind that makes better product, but dang: sometimes I wish we could just take thirty minutes to agree on a sequence of exercises and then go to lunch.

Last night's workshop was alternatively uplifting and frustrating for me. Uplifting because the students (Geoff and I are on a mission to keep one another from referring to these adults as "kids") are taking to the lessons so wonderfully, and listening fiercely. Even those who seemed less than engaged yesterday were fully involved last night. Frustrating, too, because I want more time with them, and that makes me impatient, which makes me feel less like collaborating with my fellow instructors and more like taking charge.

Fortunately, this less-than-helpful, semi-panic state was kept well in check last night by Dave running a great deal of the workshop. It was very game-intensive. In fact, the first half was effectively dominated by warm-up and games. Dave abandoned his Maestro persona for this class, and no one seemed to particularly notice, save for one question at the start: What's your real name?

After the games and a break, we came back in with a warm-up game, and reviewed the improvisation axioms we had agreed upon, simply stating them before trying them out. We had some discussion about this not being ideal, this terribly brief lecture, but given our time constraints it seemed the most effective way. So here's what we recommended to the students:

• Accept and build ("Yes, and...")
• Listen actively, responsively
• Be as specific as possible
• It's better to make an obvious and specific choice than a clever one
• Make the other person look good
• Establish a relationship with your scene partner(s)
• When in doubt, make a physical choice
• Rhythm is important, but allow yourself too the time to really take in what has been given you

From there we shook out, and began the game Freeze, with the adjustment that the audience stood in a circle around the players. It was thought this would be an interesting segue way into the kind of environmental performance they may be engaging in on Monday, and it kept people from getting drowsy whilst sitting. We played three rounds, with periods of groups observation--first from the players, then observers--in between. In the final round I began "freezing" pairs to give them adjustment and then asking them to continue, which worked better than I had anticipated. "Freeze. Specify your relationship. Go!" This was a largely successful period of improvisation, but we need to step up the challenges today.

From there we moved on to working on animal states, guided by Dave. They took to this well, but with some breaking of character. I attribute this to shyness about the strangeness of the exercise and the lateness of the hour, and we didn't become strict about it. Once again, an exercise that could have received scorn from people who felt silly or manipulated actually seemed to give them a better sense of effective tools incorporated in it. It really is an incredible group, and I don't relish the thought of having to choose amongst them for casting. But we're a ways off from that yet (a whole five days).

We left off with a homework assignment: to observe a stranger based on the character-building guidelines we had established thus far and bring him or her in to the workshop in some form for next class. I'm excited to see what they come up with. It's going to get very risky and challenging for them from here on out. Tonight we announce that they must choose before next class whether or not they wish to continue, to perform at the Festa and be eligible for Prohibitive Standards' cast. Thursday they will return for warm-up if they're uncertain, but largely we'll know who we've got overnight. Tonight's class marks the end of a certain period of relaxation, and the beginning of a certain period of creation.

ZdG Busking Workshop Day One: Welcome to Higher Education, B%$@#es!

We have begun.

It's been about a year-and-a-half since Zuppa del Giorno's last official show, in which time we have been quite busy as a company, with two trips to Italy, numerous workshops taught in improvisation and acrobalance, and even the odd public event or publicity stunt here and there. Still, nothing quite compares to doing what the company started out to do: Create original comedies from scratch using commedia dell'arte as a living tradition. I missed it last spring (suspended for a season in order to effectuate more work in Italy) and now we are back with a very ambitious bang. Not only are we doing another wholly original production, but we are:

• Hiring three new actors on board for it.
• Collaborating with Marywood University's theatre production department.
  
• Casting students from Marywood University's theatre department.
• Performing the eventual product in two venues: Marywood and The Northeast Theatre.
• Beginning by teaching a week-long workshop in improvisation, character development and busking to the theatre students, culminating in their performing in La Feste Italiana in downtown Scranton on Labor Day weekend.

It is this last that we began last night in the Mellow Wellness Center (read: gym) on Marywood's campus. For all the teaching and workshops I've done in various areas of theatre in the past five years, this is the first time I've taught one with an emphasis on busking, or public performance. And by "we," I'm actually referring to a very new group of collaborative teachers. There are three of us here, teaching approximately twenty-five students. Myself, Dave Berent (Gochfeld), who appeared in the last Zuppa show, Operation Opera, and Geoff Gould, with whom I haven't worked on stage since my first show at TNT, The Glass Menagerie. To summarize the significance of all this--Last night, after the first day of school, we spent three-plus hours teaching a workshop that was new to us, and that we are planning and modifying as we continue along.

It went quite well, all things considered. We were all rather nervous about what kind of reception to expect from students who are essentially required to attend this workshop (that's for a few days--thereafter we get to say, "Okay, if you want to continue and perform, stick around. The rest: ciao!"), but we just a few exceptions everyone seemed very eager to risk and learn. And we didn't necessarily make it easy on them. Our concession to their first day back and the mandatory nature of this event was to focus on game-playing, team-building and staying away from lessons or lectures. There were, however, punishments handed out (when games were misplayed, they were made to apologize to the class until it was accepted) and their own feedback--occasionally critical of one another--was encouraged. In addition, Dave did the whole class in character.

Dave has a clown called "The Maestro" who performs around New York with some frequency. Last night he rather merged The Maestro with one of his former teachers of clown, Gaulier, complete with costume, mustache and French dialect. The result was a very energetic, high-status, enigmatic man who occasionally took over teaching and kept the students on their toes. I was impressed by how easy this was to accept, for both them and me. Dave and I had discussed putting our own work out for critique during this workshop, but I hadn't imagined a character living an entire class out, and wasn't certain about what was to be gained. It turns out the answer is 'quite a lot,' as the students come to see the differences between us and our characters, and just how livable and continuous that characterization can be, even without lines or blocking.

In terms of our lesson plans, we're incorporating a lot of skills, but trying to base things in improvisation (and some clown) concepts. That is, building habits of listening, responding on impulse, accepting and building on others' ideas, making the other looks good, making physical choices, etc. Yesterday we played several games to build awareness and group mentality, touched on the concept of an "active neutral" state (devoid of character [even your own] but aligned and ready to make choices in an instant) and building a physical character, and we even began with some improvisation exercises. We were impressed with how much we managed to get through, which hopefully bodes well for the rest of the week. The emphasis will gradually shift from core skills to more specific ones having to do with public, improvised performance, such as using one's environment, prop acting and audience involvement.

Each day we will plan anew, based on the previous evening's progress. It's exciting to go back to school in this way, and truly, as a teacher I feel I'm learning as much as--if not more than--our students.