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.
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| 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.”
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| 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.
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| 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.
