I’ve realized something that might be standing between me and happiness. I have always believed that you should treat others the way you want them to treat you. But, it doesn’t work that way. People will treat you the way they want to treat you, no matter how nice or mean you are to them. If I drop my expectations for other people’s behaviour, I won’t be disappointed or surprised by anything that anyone does.

The James Bond station is one of the reasons the Internet is the best thing. Ever. It’s an Internet radio station that plays nothing but music from James Bond movies.

Tune your wristwatch laser-guided satellite Internet radio with built-in rotary saw to:

James Bond Radio

I taught the drop in workshop at the Staircase tonight. My topic for tonight was Raising the Stakes, which was intended to teach the class how to heighten all aspects of their scene play based on ideas generated by their scene partners. We had a very decent turnout for the class. There were 13 people in the class tonight, of widely varying skill and experience levels. Some of the people who showed up had been improvising for longer than me. But, I tried to make the class challenging yet flexible so no one was bored. After a brief warmup, these are the exercises we did:

Building a machine
Players line up. The first one starts making a repetitive mechanical action. The second person joins in and adds to the machine. Then a third, etc. Eventually it is one big machine. Dismantle the machine one part at a time.

Group environment
Players take turns stepping out on stage and verbally describing an environment, using hand gestures as necessary to illustrate the environment. After three players have built an environment, we move on to a new environment.

Hot spot
One player starts a monologue based on a suggestion. Any other player can tap out the first player when they are inspired by something that person says. They jump in and start a new monologue. Continue randomly tapping out players.

Yes Because And
Two players have a conversation. Each successive line recaps what was said, with agreement: “Yes…” justification: “Because…” and heightening: “And…”
Repeat the scene as closely as possible without the Yes Because And.

BREAK

Hot spot v2.0
One player starts a monologue based on a suggestion. Any other player can tap out the first player when they are inspired by something that person says. They jump in and CONTINUE the same monologue. Continue randomly tapping out and adding to the monologue. Experiment with raising and lowering the emotions.

“So What You’re Saying Is…”
Two person scenes with environment and activity. Each successive line must recap what has just been said in the previous line with the phrase, “So what you’re saying is…” Players should be affected by what’s being said and invest those emotions onto their activity.

Open Scenes
Open scenes to incorporate ideas learned in tonight’s workshop.

The most difficult exercises were Yes Because And, and “So what you’re saying is…” I expected people to have trouble with them because they impose a lot of rules, which naturally inhibits creativity. However, I thought it was important to work the listening and heightening muscles. Even though people struggled at times with it, they still had fun, and I made sure to allow some play as well, so it never got too serious. Hot Spot was very easy and free-flowing. Definitely an exercise worth repeating in other workshops.

Gym. Sauna. Work. Teaching. LCD. Cheques. Pad Thai. Contracts. Contacts. Conflicts. Lease. Chats. Hard drives. Cold. Invitations. Friend. Old wounds. Driving. Photos. Sleepy.

We had a three hour rehearsal tonight for Counterpoint/Theatresports. Yes, it was grueling. Not many of us had time to grab food after work, so there was a certain amount of crankiness in the room. We went over the format of the show, including fine tuning the opening and closing segments. I understand the purpose of this, but three hours seemed excessive. Fortunately I had brought a box of chocolate dipped granola bars to distribute to cast members. I think this was the only thing preventing the onset of cannibalism.

Anyway, the show will be undergoing some major changes. I had felt that the competitive nature of the show had disappeared since I started coming to the theatre two years ago. I remember that being the most fun part of the show: watching two teams of improvisors competing for the hearts of the audience. It had evolved into a string of scenes, which just ended when we ran out of time. During the “suggestion period” of our meeting, I recommended bringing competition back to the format. We group discussed it, and someone suggested we hand out score cards to the audience to score each scene. I really like the idea. I hope the producer and artistic director agree to it, because it will definitely make the show more fun and more participatory to the audience.