THE MIRROR - an improvisation format for two professionals and up to 100 amateurs. Designed by David Shepherd.

 

THE MIRROR 

 an improvisation format for two professionals and up to 100 amateurs

Designed by David Shepherd (Compass/Improv Olympic) 1974

The Mirror is advertised as a place where you create a show simply by sitting in front of a mirror.  To do this we use no written material, no satirical distortion, no symbolic magnification. The experiences we explore each night are shared experiences - common to most of those present.

When people arrive at the theatre, the first thing they see is their names and themes on a program, that's been printed only minutes before.  Next they see their reflections - in glass or Mylar.  In the improvisations that follow they see their own life - mirrored first by professional players and then by their peers in the audience.

If management can afford a videotape recorder and projector, the spectator can even have the experience of seeing a full-size mirror-image of himself.

David Shepherd - Armonk, N.Y. 1974

Gathering a relevant body of themes and an audience:

A performance of The Mirror starts hours before curtain time - when apprentices pick up suggestions for the show from restaurants, hotels and offices around the theatre. These suggestions have been written on place mats and table tents designed to involve people in choosing the content of the show.

Door prizes or cash awards are offered to those willing to play out a suggestion.  Consequently we get fewer challenges and spoofs, and more thoughtful themes.  On the back of the place mat are printed creative games that can be played over supper to isolate a theme. (Naturally these place mats can be taken home to remind potential customers of our address, and to stimulate word-of-mouth.)

The apprentices who pick up suggestions do not do it routinely.  They find out if the person who's made the suggestion plans to come to the show.  If so, they sit for a minute at his table to see if he's willing or able to direct the action - or play into it.  They prepare the customer for what will happen so that The Mirror can reflect the maximum creativity of the group that will come together at show time.

The apprentice is in face a talent scout searching for people who can illuminate roles, and roles that can illuminate people.

Preparing scenario card decks:

Information gathered by apprentices is woven by the professional staff of The Mirror into scenarios.  The flood of themes is channeled under recurrent stories.  These stories can be expressed in the same "master" scenarios, for instance: "Boy meets girl," "Boy loses girl," "Boy gets girl back again."

The professional players also choose a few sound and lighting effects that can enrich the scenario.  They know that the oldest scenario is bound to come out differently every time it's done because critical details will shift.  The lovers will have different jobs, different ages, different origins.  Their story will be played out by different players against different activities or backgrounds.

Each event in the scenario is stated on a card large enough so everyone in the audience can read it under a spotlight during the blackout.  A complete scenario might include a dozen cards, arranged in a time sequence.  It's the audience that chooses where to start in the sequence and how fast to go through it.

Each improvised scene is kept short and is framed by blackouts.  Each theme can be explored in about fifteen minutes.  A show consists of about three themes - plus the warmups that prepare audience members to direct and play into improvisations.

The role of the professional:

Professional players are limited to one man and one woman - in order to assure the audience of opportunities to intervene in many ways.  The professionals promise the amateurs in advance that no one will be forced to play,  but everyone will be asked to vote on which theme to explore first, and on whom to cast.

First: a few minutes of warmups.  Next: two pools of volunteers emerge - one of directors and one of players.  The second pool is spotlighted so that the audience can at all times see its cast options.  At any moment it can vote to replace a player, and some scenes may be done several times with several casts - until the audience is satisfied.

Naturally, if no one volunteers to play, the two professionals will play out the whole scenario by themselves - snatching hand props and costume pieces to double as the various characters called for.  But this never happens.

The audience soon finds itself adding sound effects and off-stage voices to enrich the action.  Directors in the directing pool stop action and change a factor - such as the emotion or activity of a character.  And from the acting pool real people provide real alternative to the strict limitation of one professional actor and one professional actress.

By the end of the evening these pro's have usually left the stage to direct, or have limited their roles to "one-liners" or silent "cross overs."  The Mirror has happened: by simply sitting in front of the stage, the audience has created its own show.

Prizes:

Part of each night's income is retained to reward volunteer players.  These prizes are not intended to make for a TV game show competition.  They are offered to promote audiences, to validate audience talent, to enlarge the pool of volunteers and to decrease the gap between the amateur and the professional.

From David Shepherd's IBM electric typewriter, 1974.

Michael Golding is a writer, director and improv teacher. He is a founding member of the Improv Olympics and the Canadian Improv Games.  Michael created the Insight Theatre Company for Planned Parenthood, Ottawa and the Comic Strip Improv Group in New York.  He co-produced and wrote the documentary "David Shepherd: A Lifetime of Improvisational Theatre" (available on YouTube) and his book, "Listen Harder," is available on Amazon.  Michael is a faculty member at Compton College in Los Angeles, where he works with traditional and at-risk students. He holds a BFA degree in drama from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and an MA degree in education theatre from NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. He can be contacted at migaluch@yahoo.com.

David Shepherd's Anthology of Improv Formats

Years ago, a publisher suggested to David Shepherd that he put together an anthology of improv formats that were developed, tested and produced over the decades through his organization, Group Creativity Projects.  David felt that non-professionals should be the target audience.

Shortly after the publication of his book, “That Movie in Your Head” a guide to improvising movies, David recruited me to work with him on the anthology.  Unfortunately, after some initial work, conflicting projects put the anthology on the back burner.

In addition to outlines, interviews, notes and one full chapter, I have David's forward to the anthology in my archive files, which I'm sharing here.  As always, it’s filled with unique Shepherd improv insights.

David Shepherd’s Forward to Format Book - 9/2002

Improvisation has rushed like a tide across the cultural landscape of the United States.  This has happened since I produced the first store front cabaret in Hyde Park, Chicago – 1955.  It was called COMPASS because I wanted to explore how social values evolve generation by generation.  It was improvised because no one we knew could write the material we needed.

100 years ago improv would have attracted serious detractors – those who demanded conformity, who refused to let the point of a scene or the moral of a story be discovered.  After all, they felt, if you want your appendix out, you don’t ask the surgeon to improvise.  Paying customers back then felt that whatever they paid to see on stage or screen, in novel or poetry, should be set.  Some writer should put out some energy to justify charging for a ticket! The pauses and contradictions of real life should not be tolerated on the professional stage.

I believe that everyone can improvise, that people follow improv procedures in their daily lives:

• They relate strongly to their environment.
• They express a feeling of the moment.
• They respond to those around them.
• They choose a goal subconsciously when joining a group of people.
• They work on accommodation, skillfully molding many relationships.

But in fact, a very small percentage of the population conspicuously takes the opportunity to improvise – whether with a comedy troupe, an experimental theatre, a dance group or a musical ensemble. Many feel that improvisation is too silly for them or too forbidding. They like being spectators; they don’t want to be seen because they haven’t put themselves in the hands of a Coach.  And they haven’t explored other jobs – from Sound to Costume, that need to be filled to make an improv performance complete.

Historically the first step in the development of the improv company was to design and manage it well enough so the audience would pay for it, which happened in 1955.  The next step is being taken now: getting the customer onto the stage and making his or her experience good. The third step will be to develop so many improv formats the audience has many choices: night by night they can see a different form of improv – and get involved, if they wish, as story teller, director, tech or player.

Sampling of Shepherd formats.

Imagine having a nearby facility where on Monday nights you can join a musical ensemble and on Tuesday a group that shoots video movies. On Wednesday night you’re free to join a team playing a theatre sport, and Thursday you can guide players performing in front of a video project. Depending on which format is the most popular, Friday is reserved for improvised poetry while Saturday is political satire – all achieved through guidelines and games.

That’s what this book is about: formats you can use in your town to create in the mode that suits you best. They are laid out here in a way that, we hope, makes them accessible to you and your group, be they friends, co-workers or family.  We give you an overview of the format, and then offer you activities that prepare you to master the format.  Since 1974, Group Creativity Projects has been making it possible for non-professional groups to create their own novel, newspaper, cabaret, movie, theme party, performance sport, radio program and interactive TV show.  When couch potatoes want to get off their couches, Group Creativity Projects is there.

Michael Golding is a writer, director and improv teacher.  He can be contacted for workshops, festivals and private consultations at migaluch@yahoo.com. Michael participated in the evolution of the Improv Olympics & Canadian Improv Games.  Artistic director of the Comic Strip Improv Group in N.Y. & created the Insight Theatre Company for Planned Parenthood, Ottawa.  He is a faculty member at El Camino College in Los Angeles, working with at-risk teens and traditional students. Michael holds a BFA degree in Drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts & an MA degree in Educational Theatre from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education & Human Development.