Listen Harder by Michael Golding

Recently I replaced a professor, who seven weeks into teaching a theatre appreciation course at El Camino College in Los Angeles, had to take an emergency medical leave.  When the dean of my department contacted me about this assignment, I was told that the leave was for one month, possibly more, but that she “anticipated” the professor would return before the end of the semester.  I wasn’t expected to duplicate the professor’s style, but rather to be the best me, and to somehow provide a bridge to what was already set up in class so that he could pick up where he left off upon his return.

 

I familiarized myself with his syllabus, similar to the one I used for my theatre appreciation course with the college’s high school outreach program.  My course was a survey of theatre which focused on the theory and practice of acting, directing, writing, and critical analysis.  With the high school classes, I did very little lecturing.  I’d quickly learned that no matter how entertaining you think you might be, by the time you’re thirty seconds into a lecture, the students have gone to their happy place, or texting their friends about how boring the class is.  It’s all about learning by doing, the same method I intended to use with the college students.  When I received the roster from the department, I was a little unnerved to discover that there were forty-five students in the class.  Also, the course was scheduled for three days a week from 8am to 9am.

At the first class, I informed the students about my hands-on approach, and was met with stunned silence and blank stares.  One student raised his hand and defiantly proclaimed “I signed up for this course because I was told there would be no acting.”  Others echoed this sentiment. I responded with a brief explanation about how theatre skills are the same as life skills, regardless of the profession you choose.  That didn’t seem to assuage anyone’s fears, so I jumped right in with my own proclamation that “everyone here has the ability to act, write, direct and collaborate, and by the end of this hour, you will have all done that!”

I handed out index cards and instructed the class to write down three set or prop pieces.  Five minutes later, I collected the cards, broke the class into groups of two to three students, handed each group a card and told them they had a few minutes to design a scene around what was listed on the card, which they were going to perform.  They were instructed that they couldn’t talk about the objects in the scene, they had to “show” them to us.  The scene could be as short as thirty seconds, but no longer than a minute, and all action had to be directed towards the audience.

Within seconds the class was filled with chatter, as the groups began to collaborate.  During the planning period, I went from group to group to make sure all understood the assignment.  Some of the groups were silent and looked around aimlessly, while pleading “We don’t know what to do.”  My response to every group with that problem was, “Well, you’re just going to have to talk to each other to figure it out.”  That was my first inkling into the psychology of this class.  If the students weren’t familiar with each other, they were less inclined to collaborate.  One student exclaimed that he only worked best with those he knew well.

After a few minutes, I had each group come up to the front of the class to do their scene.  Some were amazingly brief, less than ten seconds, and others flowed into a scene with a distinct location and relationship.  A few ignored the main rule, and indicated the objects simply by mentioning them, rather than “showing” them.  Some students upstaged themselves, turning their backs on the class while exploring an object or set piece.

Within fifteen minutes all the groups had gone and I was ready to give them their next assignment, which was a hands-on introduction to directing.  I laid out the guidelines for “Zoom Story,” a format I adapted from David Shepherd’s “Life-Play,” originally designed as a series of theatre games for people to play over the phone. In “Zoom Story,” a first-person sentence is suggested as the springboard for a story which a player immediately starts telling.  During the course of the story, signals are thrown out by a guide, who functions as the director, and shifts the focus of the story.  On the board I listed the signals: Action, object, environment and feeling.  I modified the rules of this game to make directing a group activity, rather than run the risk of putting unnecessary pressure on an individual student.  The guidelines were simple:  When you want to change the focus of the story, raise your hand, wait for the storyteller to pick you, and then shift the direction with “Zoom into action” or “Zoom into feeling,” etc.”  Once the story had run its course, a direction to find an ending would be given.

It took a couple of rounds of playing before the class got the hang of directing.  My first impression of the students was that listening was not one of their strengths.  In a brief introductory lecture at the start of class, I had emphasized that all the formats I was going to introduce to them had specific rules.  As long as they adhered to them, they would do well. 

In order to refine their skills, I continued on with impressing upon them how important the opening line was for this game, and how it could make or break the story. I stressed that the sentence should be grounded in reality, and that the intention was not to make it hard for the player to tell the story.  I gave an example of an introductory sentence which was, “I was in the back of the ambulance and the paramedic said he loved theatre.”

The first suggestion I got was “I woke up the next morning and my ass hurt.”  After the laughter died down, I asked for another suggestion, which was “Once upon a time,” which didn’t provide enough of a springboard for the player to take off on.  Finally, I got “I walked into class and there was a new professor.”  Now, I thought that was a great lead-in sentence!  I gave them one final rule which was to let the player telling the story get into it a little before changing the direction.  That rule fell on deaf ears, since as soon as the player started telling the story, hands went up all over the room.

In the end, the class got the hang of the game, and “Zoom Story” proved to be a success.  Directions were well timed and insightful, and the players telling the stories imbued them with positive energy.  For one student, it was the first time she had ever spoken in front of the class.  I was about to segue into another game when a student informed me that there were only a few more minutes left of class.  “No problem,” I said, “but note how I made good on my promise.  Through your active participation, you just had a crash course in directing, acting, writing and collaboration.  See you at the next class.”  As the room slowly emptied, I could hear students muttering about how fast the session had gone, and that they had fun.

One of the requirements of this course involved a class production team project in which, in teams, students were to write and perform a scene on a selected subject.  In light of the fact that my appointment might be for only a month, I focused the sessions on preparing the students for this assignment.  I started by introducing them to various approaches to constructing a scene, which included improvising a scene repeatedly to discover beats, creating their own improv format that has a beginning, middle and end, and "Five Elements," a structure from the Canadian Improv Games which involves location, relationship, characters, conflict, raising of the stakes, and a resolution.  I took directing to the next level, demonstrating how focusing on elements of time, space, action, character and emotion, explores all the dramatic possibilities. 

The first ten minutes of each class were spent on “warm-ups” to wake the students up, while getting to know their names, interests, passions and viewpoints.  This was accomplished through a variety of “sit down” games. In “Suitcase” the students passed around an imaginary suitcase while putting in an object that began with the letter of their first name.  The second round involved taking an object out that they heard called, while remembering the name of the student who had put it in.  “Tirades and Endorsements” allowed students to vocalize what the class was passionate about and what annoyed them, and “The Opposite of What You Believe” was about how believable you could be about a viewpoint that you are personally opposed to.  One time we engaged each other using only questions.  Another, we discussed an issue via Keith Johnstone’s alphabet game, where each sentence has to begin with the next successive letter of the alphabet.  “Multiple Views” was a group story, told in past tense from each student’s perspective, based on an event that we all attended.  Sometimes, these warm-ups took up the majority of the class, because they were so into it.

The students’ interest in class began to increase.  A third of them were theatre majors, and those students could always be counted on to volunteer.  I led the others to believe that they had freedom of choice, while I started volunteering them.  In order to make the formats more accessible to them, they were rooted in their reality.  I used “Four-Sided Where” to familiarize students with staging and props.  In this game, a student stands in front of the class and describes the four sides of a room in their home, and the class asks questions in order to get more detail and feeling about the environment.  For many of the shy students, talking confidently about something they had a strong grasp on was a self-esteem booster.  Almost the entire class participated in this game, which turned out to be rich with humor and insights into their lives.  One “Four-Sided-Where” that stood out was a student’s garage, which had not one, but two dancer poles for parties.  That drew a lot of interest from the class.

When it was time to introduce the class to performance styles, I had them write on the board what they were already familiar with.  Within moments, the board was filled with styles such as romance, horror, Shakespeare, drama, sci-fi and melodrama.  Next, I chose two students to improvise a scene which would adhere to the various styles I would call out during the course of the scene.  I followed the same structure with emotions, although interestingly enough, the students’ emotions were blocked beyond anything other than love, anger, sorrow, hate and jealousy.  A lengthy discussion followed on what was an emotion and what was an attitude, as I tried to ascertain the reasoning behind the block.  By the end of the discussion, I realized that the class unconsciously was aware of a whole range of emotions, but they had never been asked to identify them out loud before.  The ongoing byproduct of the class was to get the students to do things they’d never done before, and as I saw it, my job was to get them to embrace the unknown, and to free them from the prisons of their minds.

This unconscious or self-imposed mental incarceration frequently led to bartering over the rules of the games in an effort to make them “easier.”  Preconceived notions could also be counterproductive.  Two students balked when playing Spolin’s game “Contact” in which players had to touch each other in a different way every time they talked.  From their expressions, you’d have thought that I’d just asked them to copulate in front of class.  “Tug of War,” another Spolin game, also had an unforeseen result.  In this game, two teams of players engage in a tug of war with an imaginary rope, and as it turned out, neither team wanted to lose, which resulted in no teamwork at all!

When the department informed me that I would be finishing out the semester, I became a little more innovative with my educational theatre approach.  A main requirement of the course was to read Aristotle’s Poetics, an essential study in the art of drama, and apply his components of a play in their reviews and discussions.  I developed a plan to make this interactive.  The students had recently attended a one act festival at the college.  I broke the class up into groups of five and handed each group an index card that had one of Aristotle’s components written on it.  The group then had to improvise the “essence” of a scene from one of the plays that fit the component’s description.  Because of the length of the class, not all the groups went, and were probably relieved that they were spared.  But those who did, presented a series of vibrant scenes dealing with family problems, dating issues and mental illness, all fitting within the paradigm of Aristotle’s Poetics.

As the weeks progressed, the students became more familiar with each other and me. Friendships developed and the shyer students began to emerge from their shells.  Word began to spread on campus that this was a fun class where students got to do something different at every session.  Still, 8am is a hard time for a participation course, and frequently, students would saunter in ten to fifteen minutes late.  Often, I threw the tardy ones right into a structure the second they entered the room.  Half awake, no one ever refused, and grudgingly they began to accept that this is what I would do!  As for myself, I normally arrived at class around 7:40am.  As students slowly filtered in, I engaged them in conversation, which unbeknownst to them, invariably led to a game. 

Once, when talking to a student about some of my favorite plays, I asked her if someone wanted to produce a play about her life, what would the title and genre be?  She responded “It would be a drama called My Mental Life.”  Turning to another student, I asked “Based on that title and genre, what do you think the play is about?”  After the student gave it some thought, she responded “It’s about a girl growing up with a sociopath in her family.  The sociopath is her brother, and he gets worse as she gets older.”  By the time class was ready to begin, about twenty students shared titles and genres, with twenty others providing the storylines. In addition to being a great bonding exercise, the students who provided the storylines were remarkably spot-on with what the students who came up with the titles and genres had intended.

I used this exercise as a springboard for an upcoming play review assignment.  I set up a review format with two students as theatre critics reviewing some of the play titles the class had just come up with.  Each review had to include specific details on the production - acting, direction, set, costumes, sound, make-up and lighting.  I encouraged the critics to get into arguments.  If a critic hit the wall with what to say, he was quickly replaced by another student.  As was often the case with the class, a format I intended as a warm-up took up the entire session, because the students were into it, and didn’t want to stop.

The semester progressed and the temperature began to plummet.  It became more difficult to get the students out of their early morning fatigue.  Fifty degrees in Los Angeles is considered the beginning of an ice age!  I moved the warm-up period from sitting in chairs to standing in front of the class.  The first physical warm-up we tried out was “Kitty Wants A Corner.”  The game took up half the class time because the students were having a lot of fun.  With forty-five students, we may have broken the Guinness record for the greatest amount of people playing “Kitty Wants A Corner” all at once.  Other games that started class were Spolin’s “Transforming the Object,” where a player creates an object through pantomime, which the next player transforms into a different one, and “Zoom,” and “Zip, Zap, Zop,” two impulse games that force players to pay attention to each other.  The tardy students suddenly became more prompt so they wouldn’t miss out on this portion of the class.

Warming up with Kitty Wants A Corner.

For three consecutive sessions, other than leading the group warm-up, I was treated to a show of students presenting their team project scenes. Utilizing the various skills and approaches I had taught them on scene construction, I watched in awe as I was entertained by the following scenes:  A pre-school teacher dealing with a rambunctious class.  A TV dating show where the contestant prefers the host.  A flight to Hawaii that goes horribly wrong.  A documentary-style scene about inmates.  A wife who discovers her husband is cheating on her and confronts him.  An underage girl who gets her nose pierced without her mother’s approval.  A teenager who shows up at school with a hangover.

All these scenes were developed through improv.   In some cases, the scenes had to be recast or redesigned right before the presentation, but because the structures were sound, they all came off seamlessly, and I couldn’t tell the difference.  The students had taken my main advice to heart:  Once the structure and beats are set, all you have to know in the scene is who you are, what you’re doing and where you are.  This was work we could all be proud of.

With the last class, I gave the students the opportunity to do whatever they wanted.  All were in agreement that they wanted to do one more round of “Freeze Tag,” which we had done many times before.  I split them up into two groups, placed each on opposite sides of the room, and put two players center stage who would perform a scene.  When either side wanted to change the scene, they yelled “freeze,” tagged a player out, and then began a new scene.  To challenge them further, I threw in a new rule: Try to find specific issues, themes, events, and characters within the first few scenes, then build on them.  Revisit previous scenes and explore them further, or create new ones based on information you received earlier.  Throw in a game that you learned in class, if it fits the flow.

For twenty five minutes, I watched a series of scenes dealing with issues such as drug abuse, marital problems, dating, work-place abuse, and religious differences.  There were call-backs with specific events and characters.  Imaginary objects were vibrant, and the environments were distinct and clear.  Everything the students had absorbed in class was thrown back at me with their own distinct interpretation.  I couldn’t believe how funny they all were and that the humor came from the situations and characters they had created.  It then occurred to me, that the students just performed their first long form show.

I was thrilled when I was originally presented with this opportunity to work with college students again, because it’s something I don’t do often enough.  In this particular environment, I was more able to be myself, while dealing with adult issues.  From the first few sessions, however, I discovered that aside from a one or two year age difference, the college students are almost identical to the high school students in terms of their academic and personal deficiencies.  I believe this is due to technology, specifically texting, which diminishes essential interpersonal skills, and that students are fast losing the nuance of conversation.  Most of my students communicate through texting rather than through talking on the phone, because the silences they experience while talking over the phone makes them feel awkward.  Decades ago, when I first started conducting workshops with youth, a common mistake students made was to talk too much in an improv.  Now, when I throw two young people on stage, frequently I get “we don’t know what to say.”

Some years back I wrote a letter to President Obama about how education needs to take a new approach with learning. I am convinced more than ever that lecturing has gone the way of the dodo bird, and that there isn’t a subject that can’t be taught from a hands-on participation approach. Below is a section from that letter. 

To President Obama:

Almost thirty years ago when I first started working with teenagers, more often than not, they openly embraced my workshops. How liberating it was for me to provide an arena where their opinions and beliefs were sought out and respected, and to be able to create a safe space for them to drop the self-defense mechanism of teenage hubris and to embrace the angst of transitioning from an adolescent to adult.  Today, teenagers are resigned, suspicious and emotionally guarded.  They are not accustomed to their opinions being given a platform for expression.  Learning has become a passive activity, overshadowed by excessive testing and the need to meet arbitrary external standards. The joy of learning through creative self-expression has been lost.  This is reflected in their view of playing theatre games.  For them, role-playing is about “being put on display,” and receiving a direction amounts to being picked on.

I find myself constantly reinventing my pedagogical techniques due to having to compete with technologies that shorten attention spans at an alarming rate, forcing me to seek out formats that students can instantly connect with on a personal and emotional level.  While many students will benefit from such formats by becoming writers, directors, actors and producers, that is not the main goal of this work.  The real objective is to build up the students’ life skills – trust, listening, group creativity, empathy, teamwork, compassion, spontaneity and emotional awareness. These skills, partnered with the ability to think on one’s feet in the most demanding situations, is what will support academic success, and what will give students the advantage they need in whatever profession they pursue.

President Obama, I am proposing that your administration resurrect a Federal Theatre Project for the 21^st Century, in order to combat the high mortality and incarceration rate of at-risk teens.  What I envision is that Educational Theatre specialists and artists in all disciplines will work with schools as part of an interdisciplinary curriculum, or as after-school programs, to involve students in theatrical formats that will increase social awareness and enhance their interpersonal skills.  In some instances, the emphasis will be on process, while in other instances, the students will create a final theatrical performance. 

20th century Federal Theatre Project

The White House responded with a nice form letter thanking me for my very good idea and cheering me on to keep up the good work.  I intend to do that, but I think society is running out of time.

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 Comic Strip Improv Group (Improvising with Robin Williams) by Michael Golding

From 1983 to 1985 I conducted workshops and directed shows for the Comic Strip Improv Group.  Since 1976, the Comic Strip, now known as Comic Strip Live, has been one of the top comedy showcase clubs in New York, where stars such as Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and Adam Sandler honed their skills.

The group was originally started by Steve Shaffer, but overseeing a pool of sixty comics while pursuing his own stand-up career quickly proved to be overwhelming.  Gabe Abelson, a mutual friend and comedian who I had worked with before on several off-Broadway revues, brought me in to take over the group.  The immediate challenge was to change the standup comedian’s mindset of being on one’s own, to relying on others as part of an improv ensemble.  This was accomplished through weekly three hour workshops during which I assaulted the comedians with a barrage of techniques from Viola Spolin, David Shepherd, Keith Johnstone and a few formats of my own design.  I was impressed by how the comedians threw themselves into the workshops, including the seasoned acts, who were interested in broadening their repertoire.

Still, there were a few in the group who were uncomfortable with acting, who abhorred some of the “touchy-feely” exercises, and who preferred to participate in formats that relied on their verbal skills.  These formats included: (1) Expert, in which the audience provided a topic for a comedian to do a monologue on, followed by follow-up questions from the audience;  (2) Man In The Street, which involved a comedian playing a tv news reporter, interviewing various characters on the street concerning a topic given by the audience; (3) Round Table Discussion, in which four comedians were cast by the audience as famous characters from history or literature, with another moderating the discussion of a controversial topic which was also selected from audience suggestions and (4) Commercial, in which the audience provided a name, purpose and tag line for an object that a comedian would then improvise a commercial for.  Sometimes I chose two comedians for Commercial, forcing them to collaborate and, dare I say, act.

Author at the Comic Strip.

For the comedians who had theatrical backgrounds, I threw them into formats that explored emotions, status, and imaginary objects.  Slow Motion Commentary became a personal favorite for those who excelled at pantomime.  In this game, the audience would suggest a common household activity that a comedian would execute in slow-motion, as two other comedians off-stage provided the commentary akin to a sports event.

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Three nights during the week, I chose six comedians from the core group to perform in half hour sets of various games.  We were decades ahead of Whose Line Is It Anyway?  Andy Ashe, the club pianist who was a classically trained musician, provided the atmosphere for some of the games.  Since the performing skills of the group were diverse, I always tried to match players who could compliment each other.  There is a big difference between a comedian and a comic performer.  The former goes for the one liner.  The latter will always try to get a laugh from the humor of the situation and character. 

Comic Strip Live audience.

Once a year, through improvisation we developed a full length show.  Each show bore the stamp of one of the personalities from the group.  “The Mickey Davis, Jr. Telethon” was the brainchild of Ron Zimmerman.  A deeply bent parody of the Muscular Dystrophy telethons, the goal was to wipe out death in your lifetime.  Incidentally, Ron created “Ledge,” one of the darkest improv formats around at the time. There were three players in the format – a person who was on a ledge of a building contemplating suicide for a reason which was provided by the audience.  One comedian played the devil encouraging the person on the ledge to jump. Another comedian played the angel trying to change the person’s mind.  Ron frequently played the devil, Barry Neikrug the angel, and soon the byplay between the two became the highlight of the evening.  It was like watching two Jazz musicians jamming.

Bill Masters & Ron Zimmerman; The Mickey Davis, Jr. Telethon

“A Day In New York” was Steve Shaffer’s baby, which was a series of sketches and songs based around life in the big apple.  “The Laff Maker” was mine, a rags to riches story of a comedian’s ascent, and inevitable downfall. 

"The Laff Maker" was the first time I developed a show around a personality, Hiram Kasten, and it was his energy that successfully propelled the production.  Hiram, unbeknownst to many, had a strong theatrical background, and his performance blew the minds of many in the comedy community who were unaware of the depth of his talent. 

Stu Trivax, Rob Ross & Cathy Ladman; A Day In New York

Steve Hytner & Hiram Kasten; The Laff Maker.

At the time, no other comedy club was doing what we were doing.  Many of the performers in my company at the Comic Strip have gone on to work professionally in film, theatre and television, including Susie Essman (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Steve Hytner (Seinfeld, Hung), Janette Barber (Rosie O’ Donnell Show), Bill Masters (Grace Under Fire), Dom Irrera (Aristocrats) Gabe Abelson (David Letterman, Jay Leno and the Tom Green Show), Wayne Federman (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon), the late Dennis Wolfberg (Quantum Leap), Allen Enlow (Sopranos), Joe Bolster (Academy Awards) and Cathy Ladman (Roseanne).  Chicago City Limits frequently invited members of my group to be guest stars, performing a stand-up set, followed by improvising with the company in a series of games.

Allen Enlow & Joe Bolster; The Laff Maker.

Wayne Federman; The Laff Maker

Cathy Ladman, Susie Essman & Wayne Federman; A Day In New York

Johnny Solomon; The Laff Maker

Steve Shaffer; A Day in New York

Gabe Abelson & Patty Rosborough; The Laff Maker

Barry Neikrug ; the Laff Maker

Joe Vega, Rob Ross & Steve Shaffer; A Day in New York

Allen Enlow & Marian Allen; The Laff Maker

Steve Hytner, Hiram Kasten & Nancy Redman;The Laff Maker.

We had frequent guest stars of our own:  Eddie Murphy, Carol Leifer, Rick Overton, Sam Kinison and Chris Rock.  But it was Robin Williams who had the strongest affect on the group – both good and bad.

Robin was in Manhattan shooting “Moscow on the Hudson.”  By day, he worked on location.  At night, he hit every comedy club and improv company in town.  He was everywhere.  We were all thrilled when he first started playing with us, but that dissipated quickly as certain elements became painfully apparent.  From the moment he set foot on stage, the audience didn’t care about the rest of us.  If you were in a scene with Robin, he was leading.  A few of my players who had the improv chops to keep up, would sometimes mistakenly think they were in a teamwork situation, until Robin would whisper “Just follow me.”  That’s when it became apparent that Robin wasn’t doing true improv.  He just took his vast repertoire of characters and one liners and threw them into every situation, whether the scene warranted it or not.

Robin Williams & Jeannie McBride

Dennis Wolfberg playing Expert as Robin Williams watches.

I mustered up the courage to talk to Robin about some of these things and surprisingly, he was gracious and accommodating.  He agreed to only appear in the last third of the set, and I started pushing him towards verbal based formats where he just had to rely on himself.

There were nights when he would come just to watch and sit in the dark on the side of the room so the audience wouldn’t notice him.  He often made a point of talking to some of the members of the group after the show, expressing how he liked what they did on stage.  For many, having someone of Robin’s caliber complement their work, was a magnificent ego boost.  I had some wonderful conversations with Robin about the work I’d done with David Shepherd and Paul Sills.   Paul found himself in a similar situation to mine when Robin was a guest star in “Sills & Company,” an off-Broadway show consisting of Spolin games performed by original Compass and Second City cast members.  Paul had to quickly put the brakes on Robin doing whatever he wanted to on stage, and forced him to learn the games.  Paul once said to me that Robin was a “brilliant hog.”

Wayne Federman improvising with Robin Williams

Dom Irrera & Robin Williams improvising.

One night while I was introducing the improv set, there was an audible gasp from the audience followed by thunderous applause.  I knew immediately it wasn’t for me.  Robin simply walked on stage, slid his arms between mine and proceeded to unbutton my shirt as I continued to talk.  As his hands reached down towards my fly, I pulled myself away and bellowed “Ladies and gentlemen, you’re in for a treat.  Robin is going to play a game by himself called “Silent Wrestling,” which is a situation beyond words.  Let’s have a suggestion for why Robin can’t talk!”  Silent Wrestling was originally an event from David Shepherd’s Improv Olympics.  It is an extremely difficult game which forces the player to focus primarily on activity and space without any recourse to verbalizing.

Silent Wrestling Event rules

 

As Robin glared at me, I took the suggestion “Man comes home drunk in the middle of the night.”  I beckoned Andy Ashe to come on stage and accompany Robin on the piano.  I then reminded Robin once again “Remember, you cannot talk!  You can make non-verbal sounds, but you can’t talk.” 

Robin is no slouch when it comes to pantomime. He was brilliant at trying to put the key in the door, stumbling into the living room banging into various pieces of furniture, and almost urinating in one of the potted plants.  His work was exquisitely detailed and vibrant.  Rather than relying on non-verbal sounds, he made up his own non-verbal sound effects which immediately got laughs from the audience, particularly when he kept stepping on his cat.  

Then, he cheated.  Periodically, he would turn his head and do the offstage voice of his wife, who was wondering what was going on downstairs.  Soon, he had his children do the same, eventually getting into a dialogue with their mother.   As we kept glaring at each other from across the stage, my expression said “You prick.”  His said “What?  My character isn’t talking.”   The scene ended with Robin curling up in the cat’s litter box.  I had to admit, it was a brilliant one man performance.  As Robin bounced off the stage, breathing hard and sweating profusely, he grabbed me and whispered “That was hard!”

We talked about the format for a bit, as well as other events from the Improv Olympics.  Robin’s improv background doesn’t follow the path of discovering the discipline through group activity.  Growing up as a single child with hardly any friends, Robin entertained himself in the attic by making up characters interacting with each other.  So, he’s really a one man improv ensemble, relying on nobody else but himself, which is sort of antithetical to improv.

The last time I saw Robin, I gave him one of the old format books from the Improv Olympics. Robin thanked me, anointed me as the "Improv Sensei," and disappeared into the city, hitting at least several more clubs, cabaret and theatres before the night was out.

Robin plays Expert, as Rob Ross, Dennis Wolfberg, Lisa Mende, Abby Stein & Ron Zimmerman wait - and wait.

By the end of my tenure at the Comic Strip, I was burned out and it was time to move on, although the club has always remained my second home.  There is a common misconception that comedians are aloof and self-centered, but I found the comedians I worked with to be warm, loving, inclusive, and always looking out for each other.  I was an outsider, yet from the start, they embraced me and instantly made me feel welcomed.  Aside from the workshops and shows I ran, my fondest memories come from hanging at the bar watching the Tonight Show or Letterman as one of the members of my troupe were having their first national tv exposure.  Not a day goes by when I’m watching tv, that some member of my company doesn’t pop up on screen.  Smiling, I close my eyes and I’m back in that dim, dark, musky environment reeking of cigarettes and beer. The Comic Strip still intoxicates and excites me.

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 New York & 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. His screenplay credits include "Celebrity Pet" for the Disney Channel and the documentary "David Shepherd: A Lifetime of Improvisational Theatre."  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.