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 Designing a Show around Improvisation

David Shepherd wrote this essay in 1979.  At the time, I was in the cast of his latest Compass revival and this was the process we used to develop two shows - "The Big Apple Experience" and "Basic Acts."  I've utilized his template to develop shows successfully with a variety of groups - including comedians, at-risk teens and professional improvisers.

Designing a Show around Improvisation

by David Shepherd

Developing a show around improvisation is for the man off the street to witness, boring. In order to come up with a crisp three minute improvised scene, many hours of improvisation had to go by where numerous alternatives are tried out (characters, time lapses, emotional changes, taking the characters out of the situation portrayed on stage and putting them into another to watch the changes).

Scene sources: Newspapers, experiences that have happened to you that week. Before throwing a scene out every alternative must be explored.  When you have about ten scenes ready the next step is….

-          Pick a theme and try to get the scenes to fit it.

-          Choose scenes that tell a story or a group of short stories that could run one after another.

-          Cluster the fragments and provide strong intros; present them as a catalog.

-          Pick some thread to stick together hi-quality but unrelated scenes.

-          Meditate on the scenes you like until you find the thread that’s common to most.

-          Accentuate or amplify that thread.

 

Instead of throwing out the entire show (after a satisfactory run) and starting fresh, you could start adding different players to the scenes. Eliminate the scenes slowly, replacing them with different ones. Within a month you have a totally different show.

Have a scene outline written out – including beats – keeping the scene fresh and remembered.

Designing a show to include on the spot Improvisations

This should only be done once the company itself has a particular “style” (i.e., characters that are ready to be used, particular “schtick” you may have, and a set format). Montieth and Rand ask for film genres and a theme, and then explore it. Stage Fright uses events from the Improv Olympics.  Caution – unless the audience is filled with theatre people, most audiences like to test actors (sex, vulgarity, etc.).

 

David Shepherd, watching a show being developed.

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. 

Layers by Michael Golding

Frequently, when I do workshops with experienced improvisers, I’m surprised that they don’t take advantage of all the necessary skills for a successful improvisation.  Some books on the market make improv sound more complicated than it really is.  The terminology may change over time, but the skills remains the same; listen, agree, explore where, imbue objects with qualities, be in the moment, be real, support fellow players, be emotionally sincere.  

Page from 1982 Improv Olympic program

Often, I find improvisers in scenes talking about the where, objects and emotions, rather than showing them. For a time, I taught skills workshops, with an emphasis on the aforementioned areas.  Then I hit upon a more interesting approach for myself and students; scene workshops with side-coaching.

A few years ago at the Canadian Improv Games National Festival, I conducted a scene workshop with a group of teenage players from Australia. They were a fascinating group to work with; sardonic, self-effacing, and uninhibited. After a group warm-up, I had them fill out who/what/where scene cards. My only guideline was that the scenes be grounded in reality.  After collecting and reading out the cards we started to put them up on their feet.

The first scene took place in a lifeboat with a boy and girl who had just escaped from a sinking ship.  The first minute of the improv was filled with snappy one-liners, sexual innuendo and a lack of regard for the laws of physics. Entertaining, in a surreal way – but it was time to add on some layers.

My first direction forbids the two from talking.  They can only use non-verbal sounds.  I then had them focus on the lifeboat.  It’s bobbing all over the place because of the harsh ocean and becomes particularly unsteady whenever one of them stands up or tries to move.  Then I had them focus on the temperature – which was frigid. How does that affect your breathing and movement?

The tone of the scene changed instantly and I allowed them to talk.  The conversation was much more realistic.   Using inner monologue, I had them get in touch with what they were feeling at the moment.  Fear and anxiety was at the forefront. Once those feelings were acknowledged, I had them go back into the scene – which now had a more poignant layer.  As the boy operated the oars, I had him focus on the pain in his shoulders, arms, and how the skin on his hands were burning.  Hunger began to overwhelm the two.  I had them focus on that sensation in their stomachs and how to express it in their movements and speech.

In the last thirty seconds of the scene, I had the players focus on an object; a discovered frozen solid chocolate bar. With amazing detail, the boy painstakingly unwrapped the bar, with the girl helping him so he could pull the wrapper completely off.  As the boy broke the bar in half, the girl hungrily licked the inside of the wrapper. They then huddled together, biting down hard on their chocolate bars. The chewing appeared painful and excruciating.  Without any prompting, the players watching provided the ending.  Several made the sound of a horn blowing from a ship, with another yelling out “Ahoy there!”  The two players on the boat looked towards the sound of the ship with hope. Perfect. Scene!

I allowed the players in the workshop to side-coach the next series of scenes, which focused on school, dating, working out, and parenting.  Whenever a scene began to falter, a direction focusing on feeling, objects or exploring the where, got it right back on track.

Then, the group did something unexpected and extraordinary.  They started side-coaching with various games, while still focusing on feeling, objects and the where.  Games that I originally found to be somewhat simplistic now had more vibrancy. The players provided me with another way I could approach side-coaching skills.

My workshop approach has often been described as “old school.”  As I transition from young improv whipper-snapper, to honored elder, I’m okay with that.  My “old school” teachers were David Shepherd and Paul Sills. In the improv community, my mark will never have the same impact, or be as lasting as theirs.  But I’d like to think that whenever I get improvisers to focus on the where, objects and feeling, I’m honoring their legacy, and hopefully providing young improvisers with something “old school” to think about.

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. He wrote and co-produced the documentary "David Shepherd: A Lifetime of Improvisational Theatre" (available for free on YouTube).  His book, Listen Harder, a collection of essays, curriculum and memorabilia on improvisation and educational theatre, is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and CreateSpace. 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. 

The Responsive Scene by Michael Golding

The odyssey of an audience-participation format that started on stage, evolved into a radio show, then found new life in the classroom as both.
 

In the Beginning - Responsive Scene on Stage

Howard Jerome Gomberg (cast member):

Responsive Scene began in 1971 as a stage show  entitled “Show of 1,000 Dreams” at 13 West 89th Street.  The format we used was called a “Vertical Soap Opera.”  On stage we created an apartment complex, with different people (gay couple, blue collar worker, etc.) in various units. Throughout the course of the show, we would visit them at different times:  “Now we go to apartment 3B. A married man was out all night and has just come home to his wife.”  Then we would play that scene.

First time I remember an audience member becoming part of the show was when we were exploring the theme of eviction.  In the scene, the landlord started coming on to the tenant.  An audience member suddenly yelled out “I want to be in this scene as a cop.”  So, he came on stage and we played that scene, which became about flushing things out.

Responsive Scene at the Manhattan Theatre Club, 1971. Members of the audience move into a scenario they suggested; “Turning on.” First a cop, then his captain and finally the chief of the police force.

David Shepherd (producer, director, cast member): 

I envisioned stage action that was an intimate part of the spectators’ impulses, desires and satisfaction. At COMPASS, audience suggestions were encapsulated in one sentence: “Do something about mercy killing.” Now I wanted the audience to ride the improv beat to beat until it ended.  We even had a direction: FIND AN ENDING.  I felt emotion was adulterated or phony on stage: hence the MORE EMOTION direction.  Games were designed that would plunge players into a bed of characters. Emphasizing differences of pace and volume. Use of sound effects.

Peter Waldron & Lynn Bernfield act out the suggestions of residents at the Coronet  Nursing Home in Brooklyn, 1972 . They asked to see a young, hip couple get married, have children (quadruplets) and set up a kosher home. They directed Peter and Lynn moment-to-moment, gave the five children names and found an ending for the scene.

David Shepherd:

When six of my students played the Queens House of Detention, we asked for 20 men to train in the morning.  Because I had such confidence in my students, I didn’t come until after lunch.  By about 1pm there were 60 men in the audience-a third of them familiar with the process.  It was a good tactic since only a few people knew who had been trained; if the inmates balked at a suggestion, one of the trainees popped onto the stage to do it.  The show moved rapidly, with female players cast in scenes with men.

One scene was placed in the front seat of a Buick, where Penny Kurtz rolled down an imaginary window.  The inmate was outraged: “That’s not where the window handle is on a Buick”, he shouted triumphantly. Later a Doctor showed up and was cast in a scene with an inmate.  He was prescribing a giant pill.  When the direction came “Switch Characters,” as an inmate he had to hear how powerful this pill was, how it would cure all his aches and pains, and he had to pantomime swallowing it.  The inmates enjoyed switching characters more than any other direction. 

Responsive Scene at Queens House of Detention, 1971.  Penny Kurtz (left) & Bob Aberdeen (right) train 20 volunteers to run a session that afternoon for 85 inmates.  They asked to see a Prison Doctor and an Inmate, & repeatedly gave the signal "Switch Roles.

Howard Jerome:

At L’Oursin in Southampton I remember a scene we were given to play about selling refrigerators in Hell.  I was doing it with Robin Mide, and it was going down the drain.  Just before it died, we got the direction to Add A New Character.  Robin walked into the audience and took the hand of a woman who was standing there, moving alone since the man she was with didn’t pay attention to her.  Robin replaced me with this woman, after which the scene became less about refrigerators and more about their new friendship, which worked.

It was at L’Oursin that we suffered a “brown out,” which happens just before a power failure.  Can you imagine a stage suffused in brown?  About 8:30pm brown turned to black, and we were preparing to tell people to drive home when customers offered to illuminate the action with beans of light from their cars.  We rolled back enormous doors (L’Oursin had been a boat yard before) and several cars drove up and criss-crossed their beams over the splintery stage area.  This light show was more impressive than our show even, which we picked up again and finished.  We got a long, complementary review from News Day Newspaper.

 

The Joker nightclub in Rockland Country, 1971. An audience member joins Duncan Fife, Robin Sands & Claire Michaels on the dance floor to play out a wild party.  When we blanketed the improv with the sound of loud dance music, nothing was lost.

Responsive Scene on Radio 

David Shepherd: 

We ended up on radio because Howard Jerome was friendly with Bob Lifton, who was a producer at WRVR-FM.  At the time, the nostalgia bandwagon was bringing back scripted radio theatre.  I felt that listeners should be able to create their own soaps.  So, I pitched Responsive Scene in one sentence: Listening audience creates a dramatic radio show.  The cast fluctuated, because there was always a pool of players to fill slots in any program we devised.  We approached each show without fear because the home audience had been alerted to what we would do.  I learned right off the bat that emotions are doubly important when an improv cannot be seen. We made plenty of mistakes, but the audience lit up our switchboard nightly (ten lines) and we got to feel like an institution. 

Responsive Scene Radio Show 1972. Left to right, Penny Kurtz, David Shepherd, Howard Jerome and Lynne Bernfield.

Michael Golding (caller):

At 14, I was addicted to midnight re-broadcasts of “The Shadow.” Being able to actually “see” a story in my mind was a new and incredible experience for me. Then, one week a commercial for Responsive Scene aired (“You supply the audio, we’ll supply the video.”).  I remember tingling with excitement after hearing the spot. The first time I listened to the show, it was like experiencing true magic.  Amazing that these on-air actors could conjure up an entertaining scene just based on a who, what, where outline.  Finally summoning up the courage to call in a suggestion, Bob Lifton walked me swiftly through the guidelines then put me on hold as I listened to the show over my pounding heart.  Moments later, I was on the air with Howard and immediately he made me feel comfortable. My scene was about a pizza boy delivering a pie to the wrong address – a woman on a diet.  Howard asked if I would like to play the pizza boy and surprisingly, I said yes.  Skills I never trained for before came into play – listening and teamwork.  Two minutes later the scene was over and my self-confidence levels went off the scale.  Afterwards, I called my two best friends, David and Eddie to let them in on my new magical discovery.

Throughout the summer, David, Eddie and I phoned in suggestions every week, alternating between playing and directing.  By the third week, we were “regulars.” We would have story conferences every week and spent many hours visualizing what all the Responsive Scene players looked like. When the show ended its run in the Fall, I remember being devastated.

Bob Aberdeen (cast member):

In six months of calls, we had only one really nasty suggestion from a man so high it was obvious that he was not himself.  A Jamaican woman called in once to object that her husband was romancing a woman the night before, when she came home to the apartment after work. We did that scene. Fifteen minutes later, a man with a Jamaican accent calls to object that his wife doesn’t understand him. He has been counseling his young cousin in his home, with no subterfuge, and his wife barges in and makes a commotion. We did that scene, too.

David Shepherd:

The thing about directing on radio is that (primarily) one person gives all the directions. There’s consistency in the improv because one person feels responsible.  With the stage version, the audience input should be by a cluster of three people who either volunteer or are selected in advance.  I want spectators to stay on top of the scene as it develops, but I don’t want them to be treating players like puppets – unless everybody agrees that comedy and gross humiliation is in order.

Sheldon Biber (cast member):

One week a caller phoned in with the suggestion: Son of a fireman keeps pulling false alarms. Howard Jerome played the fireman and I was the son. The first minute of the scene was riddled with cliches and one-liners. Howard and I were really struggling. Then Penny Kurtz chimed in with the direction: “Play it for real. Because I don’t get the sense that the father is angry or that the son realizes how serious this is.”  Suddenly, the scene had a deeper and richer meaning and it gave me and Howard more conflict to play off of.

The Responsive Scene Radio Show with Penny Kurtz & Howard Jerome, 1972.

David Shepherd:

At WRVR, scenes started and ended much more easily than on stage because of Lifton’s array of sound effects. Scenes could be finessed gracefully with a simple drum roll or gong.  Listeners began to phone in scenes with specific cast members in mind.  One memorable scene involved Howard Jerome playing all three bachelors on “The Dating Game.”

Responsive Scene in the Classroom
 

Michael Golding:

A couple of years ago I was teaching a theatre arts course for the Downtown Business Magnet High School in Los Angeles.  The class was composed of 40 at-risk students.  Due to a plumbing problem, the class was re-scheduled to a smaller space and I couldn’t use my original workshop plan.  So, I decided to give Responsive Scene a shot. 

I presented the format as something everyone participated in – whether they were playing or watching.  It was something THEY were in control of.

The students had already been trained in the basics of improv, so I briefly ran the scene and directing guidelines by them.  I handed out index cards and within minutes we were reading through 40 scene suggestions.  We had time to play 4 of the scenes with the students reluctant to direct at first.  I directed the first scene pretty much by myself, but was sure the students knew how it worked.  During the second scene I would periodically stop the action then ask for suggestions from the class where the scene should go.  By the start of the third scene I asked students by name what they thought should happen.  The rest of the third scene and all of the fourth was directed by the class without any prompting from me.  When the session bell rang, the students were begging for more.

Responsive Scene is a great way for me is to get to know my students better.  I ask that all their scene and character suggestions come from their lives or something based in reality.  It’s also a wonderful device to keep 40 students simultaneously focused for 75 minutes.

For Teachers:  Uses of Responsive Scene

To Explore       Roles

                        Themes

                        Diversity

                        Complex issues

                        Problem solving

                        Group creativity

Michael Golding:

With the mock radio show version, I had to exorcise a lot of the base tendencies from my students because you can do a lot of suggestive stuff with just sounds.  Most of the early scene suggestions had to do with sex or some form of humiliation.  So I initiated a rule – any scene I deemed questionable because of its inappropriateness had to be performed by the writer of the scene. That cleaned up the suggestions pretty quickly.

Most volunteers wanted to be the MC.  They had a lot of fun inventing patter – particularly warnings: “We don’t want your sick imaginations, so take them into the bathroom and do your own show in the shower.”  We warmed up a lot on tape – like having a player come up with a half dozen characters, then associate each a sound.

The great thing about the mock radio version is that is provides the students with complete anonymity – whether they’re playing or doing sound effects.

The playback is particularly important afterwards, because it brings the class together as a group and provides a nice closure for the session.  Shy students who are barely heard when they speak in class are loud and clear on tape.  The microphone really is an intimate device.


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. 

Interview with Larry Mollin (Homemade Theatre)

Larry Mollin is a TV writer/producer whose credits include “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Renegade” and “Knight Rider.”  Homemade Theatre was the creative partnership of Larry Mollin, Phil Savath, Barry Flatman and Fred Mollin.  During the 70s in Toronto, the quartet had their own fully-funded theatre, and produced “Homemade TV,” a CBC-TV series that ran for three seasons.  In 1974, Homemade Theatre produced the first Improv Olympics in Canada, with professional and amateur leagues. 

This interview was conducted in 2004 by Howard Jerome and Michael Golding, as part of a proposed book on the history of the Improv Olympics.  

Larry:  I think it was probably in 1974 or 1975 we met Howard Jerome and David Shepherd and we put together our version of the Improv Olympics – which was kind of slick, with a score methodism, scoreboard, crowds, teams – the best professional actors we could find in Toronto at the time including Delroy Lindo, who narrowly lost. And I remember some of the events we used were Silent Wrestling, which was a one-two minute event between two people. Two people played on each team. You would pick a situation out of a hat which would say “You just got the news that your mother had been hit by a train.” Some kind of terrible news that was beyond words. So in other words it was a silent scene where you had to communicate in a way what was going on and get your intentions across.

Howard: Was it then about indicating or raping on things?

Larry:  It was emotional and it was played naturalistically, because we were professional actors. We did not get involved in the amateur version. This was not Psycho Drama.  This was purely for paying audiences seeing professional actors.  Theatre companies from all across Toronto put teams up. It was a real prestige event in a sense that everyone wanted to be involved in it. It ran for a few nights until the finals. At the final show we gave a cup, which we called the "Stanley Slotzky Cup.” I believe it’s now sitting in someone’s storage room.  I’m trying to remember some of the other events.

Howard: Well, let me remind you. There’s Emotional Hurdles…

Larry: Right, right. Where you have to jump emotions. Go from like happiness, to sadness, to jealousy, to fear. You were given a course which you had to navigate through in a realistic way.  I’m not sure if there was text there which you had to incorporate.  What else?

Michael: Time Dash – where you go from one time period to another.

Larry; Don’t remember that.

Michael: Space jump – where you go from one location to another.

Larry: No.

Michael: Character Relay – where you switch characters back and forth through the course of the scene.

Larry: That one sounds familiar. I think we would do a scripted scene – like a “Three Sisters” scene and do the rotation that way.

Howard: Was any of this stuff archived, or documented on video?

Larry:  All this stuff was video-taped on that wonderful format – quarter inch reel to reel video. I’m sure the footage exists somewhere. I remember that the audiences really liked what we were doing. It was a big theatre community event. Audiences were excited by the competition – which was all good natured. There really was a good spirit associated with the whole event.   A lot of fun. A lot of good energy from the community.

Michael : How did you train for the Olympics?

Larry. I don’t remember. We were all skilled improv performers. We also all taught at various schools. We knew what we were going for. We just did it.

Michael: How did you come about working with David?

Larry: We didn’t really work with David.  We brought him up to kind of honor him. I remember he came up with Howard. I don’t remember him being involved all that much with what we were doing.  We were all a tight group and were pretty sure of what we were doing. We probably wouldn’t have listened to David anyway.  We were kind of an arrogant bunch. Still true. I believe David did some workshops for our Festival of Improvisation. We did a show also called “Babes In Lottery” – it was part of this festival. We had a crazy Argentinean who did a one man show. Still run into him out here over the last twenty years. He’s a repressed Chilean artist.

Howard: Where would you like to take this Michael?  Because obviously the connection with David was not huge.

Larry; No, it was actually more with you. We flew him up once and paid his expenses and he did a thing for the festival.

Michael: I thought it was interesting that you equated David’s working with amateurs as Psycho Drama.

Larry:  Well, David is a better person than we are.  He cared about people. We cared about acting. He was involved in fixing people and solving their problems through improvisation.  Using improv as a way to loosen blocks and build community. We were a bunch of jokers basically. We were good at what we did. We were talented.  I think we were afraid to use improvisation in a real way because we knew it’s a powerful tool. We didn’t feel qualified I guess. You can hurt people.  I still feel that way. It makes me nervous when people try role-playing. Psycho drama. Very distrustful of that stuff – it’s very dangerous.

Howard: Do you think it’s psychologically dangerous?

Larry: Yeah – you can really hurt people’s psyches. 

Howard: I’m trying to piece this time-line together. The Olympics David and I developed  in New York, at the Space for Innovative Development in ’72, was different from what we did in Toronto in ‘74.

Larry: Well, we refined it. We probably ripped some stuff off of David and he ripped a lot off of us.  These were our events before they were his.

Howard:  So, we brought the idea of the Olympics to Toronto, the who/what/where format and you added a more theatrical component to it.

Larry: That’s exactly correct. We were theatre people. And we wanted to make it an audience-fun event that they could watch and was played by professionals.  Emotional Hurdles, Character Relay – we took these games, gave them form and catchy names.

Howard: Your version of the Olympics was the best example of the format I have ever seen.

Larry: We had great actors.

Michael:  How long did you do the Olympics?

Larry: We were always doing improvisation formats, but I think we did the Olympics just for that one week festival in 1974. But maybe we did a tour that was hosted by Canada – around ‘76 or so.  A touring event for Ontario then working with theatre groups doing improv. I have a vague memory of that.

Michael: Do you still use improvisation today?

Larry:   Sure. I’m basically a writer. There’s a big improv  element to that. Story. Thinking about characters. Stuff like that.  It’s just in my head.

Michael: Do you watch any of the popular forms of improv today?

Larry: Sure. Drew Carrey is doing essentially what we did almost thirty years ago. It’s good. People like it. Larry David’s show is great.

Howard: Have you seen the veritable plethora of improv sketch shows and competitions that are on now? It’s really interesting. They have the Improv Comedy Play-offs. There’s a group of our former Canadian students doing a TV series called Sketch Troupe. They’re springing up all the place.

Michael: Cheap to produce.

Larry:  Sure.  I’m a little skeptical of them. They don’t seem like real improv. Maybe they are.

Howard: That brings up an interesting question. What is real improv?

Larry: What we did was real improv.  Which is kind of dangerous, taking risks. A real sense of failure.  Scary.

Howard: I remember some of the crazy audience formats you did Like “Disaster Land” and the one about the cruise ship.

Larry:  “Holiday Cruise.” It was improv in that the audience was involved. The situation was scripted. There is a great story about opening night for the show. The woman writing the newspaper review panicked because terrorists board the ship at one point. She  gave a terrible review.  But all those shows were improv on a different scale.

Howard:  Which seems to have proceeded the way for other popular audience participation shows. Like “Tony N’ Tina’s Wedding.”

Larry: Those shows are highly profitable. Since we were all working on grants, we weren’t allowed to make money.

Howard: I still haven’t made money off of improv.

Michael: If you did the Olympic version you did thirty years ago today, would any part of it have to be changed or adapted?

Larry: No.  The format is ageless.  I don’t think anything would have to change.

Michael: Do you remember what the judging criteria was?

Larry: Not sure. I know we had the top Toronto theatre critics as judges.  I think it was all about good acting.  We were all artists. What’s the criteria now?

Michael:  Teamwork, how well the theme was explored. Feeling. Character and space work.

Larry: That sounds like what we were probably scoring on.

Howard: There seems to be a shift in improv over the years from structured forms to more free form styles.

Larry: I’ll agree with that.  To me improv is where you have two people on stage interacting with each other. It’s as simple as that.

Video of Homemade Theatre's Improv Olympics - Professional League

https://vimeo.com/15702806 

Video of Homemade Theatre's Improv Olympics - Amateur League

https://vimeo.com/15466515 

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. 

Workshop Memories by Michael Golding

When it comes to teaching improv, I’ve been fortunate that the majority of my gigs have been working for colleges and theatre companies, where all I have to do is show up and do my thing.  I admire my peers who have forged out a living being on the road conducting workshops and attending festivals.

While I’ve had my share of independent workshops, financially, more often than not, I was lucky to break even.  I’ve never regretted doing those workshops, because of the personal and artistic rewards.  Two independent workshops come to mind.

In New York, several months after I moved on from the Comic Strip Improv Group, I was jonzing for a creative outlet.  So, I started a summer workshop in the village at a loft space on Bleecker Street, above the Bitter End nightclub.  While I was the main facilitator, the workshop was designed for experienced improvisers to bring in their own games and take turns leading.  We always started with a group warm-up, followed by a few skills games, two person scenes, group scenes and a closure exercise.  Frequently, someone would come in with an idea for “an experiment” and the entire session would be devoted to that; such as the time where we started with an animal character exercise, which morphed into a thirty minute cocktail party as our animal characters, followed by scenes which explored what happened before and after the party.

Site of the village workshop.

The best part about the village sessions was after the workshop, when we would hit the diner across the street and go over what we accomplished.  Those discussions would go on for hours. It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  David Shepherd played regularly; as did some of the members from my old Comic Strip group, and Janet Coleman (author of The Compass) joined us for a memorable session where the two of us played a couple whose relationship was explored over the years solely through the activity of washing dishes. 

The second one took place in Los Angeles, and was responsible for my renewed interest in improv.   At the time, my improv activity had dwindled and I was spending more time focusing on my career as a writer.  My last teaching gig had been a successful semester at Los Angeles City College, but a transit strike a month into my second class abruptly ended the course, followed by budget cuts which ended my association with the college.  I was a little resentful over that.  The Canadian Improv Games had recently dragged me back into the fold after a decade’s absence, but that was a once a year shot conducting workshops at their national festival.

A new acting school called the Theatre Academy opened in North Hollywood, and I was hired to conduct an eight week improv course, meeting on Friday evenings.  Unfortunately, unforeseen complications prevented the administrators of the school from doing a thorough marketing job, and by the time my course was to begin, no students had signed up.

Since the space was available, the administrators allowed me to use it as I saw fit, reasoning that perhaps it would develop interest in a future class.  I decided to invite Team Hollywood, my cycling club, to participate, using my usual format of warm-ups, games, formats and closure exercises.  With the exception of a few who had friendships outside of the club, most of us only saw each other once or twice a week in spandex. Only two had a performance background.  The backgrounds of the cyclists in Team Hollywood was diverse; sound engineer, grip, line producer, accountant, physical therapist, notary, airline pilot, doctor, lawyer, nurse, graphic artist, teacher, truck driver, counselor, police officer.  One of the members of our club frequently said “If it wasn’t for cycling, none of us would be friends, considering how diverse our backgrounds are.” 

Team Hollywood.

Eight to ten members attended the sessions on a regular basis and from the first workshop, they all came off as experienced improvisers.  Perhaps it was because we already had a familiarity with each other, or we were just thrilled to see each other in civilian clothes.  Regardless, they took to the games with complete abandon.  After the first session, the wife of the president of Team Hollywood told me “I can’t even get him to play Charades at parties. Now, he can’t stop talking about your workshop.”

In-jokes were a big part of our sessions, and frequently characters were based on people we all knew.  The workshop atmosphere was relaxed and casual, more so than others I’ve conducted with professionals.  After the sessions, we would adjourn to Pitfire Pizza nearby for a late dinner, and revel in what we had just accomplished.

We all got to see facets of each other we’ve never seen before – and I was impressed by how open and honest we were in the workshops.  When a friend of mine, who is a professional improviser, came in as a guest, I paired him up with a member who I knew was plagued with anxiety issues.  At first, she didn’t want to participate and admitted she was intimated and anxious at the prospect of playing with him.  So, we decided to make the scene about a first date – which involved anxiety and intimidation.  During the course of the scene, the date turned into a status power play, ending with the woman rolling my friend up in a rug.  After the scene, she admitted that was the first time she felt exhilarated after a scene, rather than relieved that it was over.   My friend was convinced that she was a professional improviser.

Team Hollywood at the Writers Guild for a staged reading of one of  my screenplays.

By the end of the Team Hollywood sessions, I realized that cycling and improvisation shared the same skill set, which is why the workshops were so successful.  Both rely on trust, agreement, listening, awareness and cooperation.  But, I would have to say that being in the moment is at the top.  In cycling (and improv) if you’re not completely in the moment, things can go bad very quickly.

I have the scars on my body to prove that.

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.
 

Improv's Three Sources

A brief unpublished piece by David Shepherd - written in 1984, shortly after returning to New York from Chicago where he was producing the Jonah Complex and the Improv Olympics with Charna Halpern.
  
        How to Get Content into Improvisation By David Shepherd

David Shepherd in the moment.

There are three sources available for improving improvisational content:  the spectator, the player, and the producer.

(1)   The spectator:  Go to an audience that already has something to say – or that needs to be said for them.  When you improvise for people who have something on their minds besides television, it’s easy to elicit suggestions relevant to that group of people at that moment in time.

Audience at Compass, 1955.

Alternatively, train the audience by presenting models of the kinds of suggestions you want, and make clear that you will only accept the best suggestions.

Audience suggestion guidelines for David's Responsive Scene radio show - 1972.

(2)   The performer:  How much does a player know about being a surgeon or a prostitute?  If the performer knows nothing about these professions, empathy is everything.   Play your own instrument, tuned to the key of surgeon or prostitute.  How much can you feel? The fuller the feelings, the fuller the character, as well as the content.

Prostitute soothes nervous first time client.

(3)  The producer:  The producer can choose a theme for an entire improvisational performance, such as “Fathers” or “Father’s Day” or “Revolution and Independence” for July Fourth.  The producer can also single out the suggestion of a single player or spectator to be used, or the topic might be a consensus of the audience or players, solicited by the producer.

Audience member offers suggestion for "2 Bit Poem" format.

©  Group Creativity Projects 1984

     
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. He wrote and co-produced the documentary "David Shepherd: A Lifetime of Improvisational Theatre" (available for free on YouTube).  His book, Listen Harder, a collection of essays, curriculum and memorabilia on improvisation and educational theatre, is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and CreateSpace. 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.