FROM THE ARCHIVES: David Shepherd's Search for a Popular Theatre

David Shepherd wrote this article in 1959 about his search for a popular theatre. It was published in Encore Magazine that same year. David created Compass, the first professional improvisation company in North America with Paul Sills, and the Improvisation Olympics with Howard Jerome. In addition, David Shepherd has created dozens of other formats during his 60 plus year career in improvisation.

 

THE SEARCH

by DAVID SHEPHERD

        

In my country, America, we say something is popular when it succeeds in winning the lead in its market. Cadillac has become more popular than Packard, for instance, even though few Americans can afford to buy either. Billions of dollars are spent to announce the winners until finally the taste of the consumer is determined by advertising itself. When the rocket ship designs of big cars are copied in order to sell little cars, then those designs become “popular” in one sense: their lower price makes them accessible to the public. But in another sense they become less popular: they simply do not express the public’s taste.

When plays are written to sell automobiles on T.V., or to capture a lead in the very costly competition between Broadway producers then the theatre must become an art of making things attractive, of flattering its patrons. Who can afford to invest in a product that is not attractive in every way when it costs you $100,000 to put your foot into the market? But even when this product proves to be a smash hit, we have to ask ourselves if it is truly any more popular than the rocket ship designs that are used to sell millions of Americans a new car every January.

David Shepherd in 1959

A popular play from New York is one which brings thousands from all over the country, anxious to spend from $2.50 to $50.00 a ticket to see it before it is made into a movie. The most popular theatre is whichever theatre is most difficult to get into this month. For the ladies who can get tickets through their clubs, theatre becomes not a habitual part of life but a very special event. For the administrators through their businesses, the theatre must be the one place in New York where they can stop thinking and let the lights and music work on them like an expert masseur. These men go back to their hotels assured of the popularity of the show if their clients have stayed pleasantly awake through-out.

Naturally, there is a rebellion against this state of popularity. The producer or director who wants a less drowsy, less flattering theatre often decides that the only plays worth doing are the ones that are the least popular. He looks for paradoxical plays and will accept even confused and ugly plays. This rebellion might nourish a small but important voice in the theatre if it were allowed to grow in seclusion. But usually the rebels are only waiting to be caught in the spotlight. That is, some fraction of their rebellion or confusion is found to be useful in the enormous salesroom. They disappear into the same well-paid circles they once condemned, and their disappearance further confuses and embitters those who remain.

As the mass media becomes more powerful and sophisticated, virtually all young dramatists and directors will make their peace and find their spot in the market-place of attractions. The trend is becoming visible in every country as T.V. follows movies around the world. It will make drama attractive to hundreds of millions of people who have none of their own. It will provide jobs for tens of thousands of talented people. But it can only impose tastes on those millions very different from their own. And it cannot help but change the function of the theatre in becoming a poor sister and laboratory assistant of the atomic explosions of T.V. and movies.

It is possible that in 50 years the theatre in New York will only be a testing ground for T.V. plots and outside New York only a technique for children and old ladies to express themselves? If it is not, we will have to accept an older notion of popularity than that which is current in America today.

What is this older notion? We are told, for instance, that the greatest theatres in history – the theatres of Sophocles, Moliere, Shakespeare – were, at their best moments, popular theatres. That is, they were accessible to everybody – rich and poor, farmers and courtiers; seats were easy to get, the stories were common knowledge and the ways of telling them were rich and various – dance, music, mime, song and many others. The men who wrote for those theatres had the same strong opinions and the same fear of censorship as our better dramatists have, but they learned to couch these opinions in a story and to tell that story in a way that would satisfy many different tastes at the same time. This kind of popularity is rare today. When I hear people of different occupations whistling the theme from The Bridge on the River Kwai in the street, I know an artistic miracle has occurred: the intellectuals don’t despise it for being middle class, or the business men for being cheap, or the working people for being long hair. At the same time a commercial miracle has occurred: the film has played in both the plush houses and the cheap houses, both uptown and downtown. It has managed to break through the barriers of habit, taste and income that have grown so high in cities all over the country.

There is even an older notion of popularity, one that may not be so hard to apply today. We are told of certain theatres which produced few important plays, but were important in the society of their times – the oriental theatre of story and dance, the medieval religious theatre, the Italian Commedia dell’Arte. These were popular in a different way. They performed wherever there was an audience – in the fields, squares, courtyards; they invented material for the occasion and they recruited talent directly from their audiences. This was folk theatre. It survives today, but not vigorously, in our fraternity reviews and historical pageants. When the movies can offer four hours of Biblical massacre complete to the last jeweled thigh for only 75 cents, who wants to struggle with three rickety acts and accompanying sets? Progress promises that we will have the five hour massacre soon and that we will be able to see it in our homes and vista vision. Let us hope that progress will also bring us this oldest kind of theatre, whether as a do-it-yourself kit or as a new game, so that some part of our leisure can be diverted into thinking in dramatic terms for ourselves.

I myself have made an experiment along these lines. While producing the Playwrights Theatre Club in Chicago, I found it impossible to get scripts that were relevant to the life of the city and that would enlarge or diversify the audience. I got a strong impression that the theatre was upside down. You always start with an old script and its needs, a director and his needs, publicity and its needs. Instead of publicity, why not start with the public, instead of a director why not stories that can be improvised economically? Instead of subjecting people to a precise day, hour, seat number and schedule, why not let a part of the evening take its own path while people smoke, drink and talk? In this way a theatre came into existence call COMPASS, which has played in many locations in Chicago, St. Louis and New York over the past three years.

COMPASS is a theatre of improvisation. It provides a way not for theatre to be big and spectacular, but for a few people to communicate face to face. It tries to turn the limitations of theatre to its advantage. Before you can even have theatre, people must first leave their homes and sit down next to other people whom they don’t know. These people, as a group, have a new but unknown personality and demand to see certain themes and topics that are on their minds. As this personality emerges it begins to affect the performance until a tension develops between it and the personality of the cast. This tension is the raw material of COMPASS. If the company spends part of each evening dramatizing its own attitudes and part catching the reactions of the audience, then the wall that separates the two is broken and they begin to converse in a common dramatic language.

Improvisation produces no literary masterpieces, but it does what many masterpieces fail to do. It wakes up the imagination of the actor and forces the spectator to ask questions: “Where is this scene? Why is that actor doing that? What’s going to happen next?” Often the actor himself may not know what will happen next. There is no playwright to spoon feed him with answers to every question the public has. Nothing is served up to the public on a platter – neither overwhelming feeling nor total knowledge nor a complete judgment of the world. The spectator has to work a little for his pleasure because he is watching a process and not a result. Scenes grow in front of his eyes, and he picks out the common experiences and familiar characters. When he himself is asked to suggest a scene or plot, he gets a new pleasure – the pleasure of taking a hand in the process. While the actors are preparing backstage, he’s discussing with his friends what they can or cannot expect to see on the stage.

This is a theatre of actions rather than dialogue, and the way things happen becomes more important to the audience than the conversations surrounding them. When actors can switch parts, when scenes can be stopped, started, re-routed and turned upside down, then the whole question of interpretation becomes visible and accessible. On the one hand, the actor has to choose a scene where there is no script. On the other hand, the spectator has to choose whether to buy a scene that has been made to his order. If these choices brought to light by the director in a kind of dramatic game, then what happens on the stage is no longer thought of as exciting or boring, but rather as well or badly done. When the spectator is partly responsible for the success of what happens on the stage, he gradually becomes as much of a specialist in theatre as he is in the mysteries of football or golf.

This is a theatre of stories, newspaper clippings, events of the week, daily activities, caricatures, scenes of family life and office life, of factories and resorts. The scenes pass across the stage like snapshots of life in the community. The actors have to know that life well enough so that when a customer says “I want to see a scene about a boy who runs away from home because he doesn’t want to go to a military school,” they can prepare the background to such a scene in 20 minutes. At rehearsal the roles are reversed: an actor may say “I have an idea for three scenes about the sputnik: let’s try it this week and see how the audience takes it.” Or a writer may come to the theatre and say, “I have an idea for a play, but it may be too abstract; before I write it, could you try these scenes about a husband and wife who have the following relationship…..?” Finally, the director may say, either in rehearsal or performance, “Go on with this scene but imagine that you lost all your money last week and haven’t the courage to tell your wife,” or “Let’s do this same scene, but this time in the home of a cab driver.”

COMPASS is only one solution to the problem of how theatre can be popular. Its principal technique, improvisation, is important for its own sake but is more important as a way for the cast to reach the audience. Its principal discipline, the bare stage, makes for a style but is more important as a way of opening the stage to the wishes of the audience. The most important consideration of all is to have theatres where there are none today – providing always that they make for a cultural ferment and not a sediment in the lives of the people who attend them. The theatre can still do many jobs that cannot be done in the mass media. For all their shattering effects, the mass media are still impersonal, and their audience is so huge and passive that it is becoming harder and harder to write well for it.

The search for popularity has kept the theatre in a constant state of crisis since it came indoors 400 years ago. What novelist, historian or poet need to concern himself with keeping hundreds of seats filled with dozens of bellies fed month after month? As soon as you choose to work in the theatre or write for it, you find yourself searching for that most elaborate or shocking of spectacles that will keep the last rows filled on a Tuesday.  But at the same time the search for popularity is what creates theatre. It may not be a very broad popularity if the search is made cynically by the producer or condescendingly by the writer, or vulgarly by the actor. It may not be a very important theater if the search is a political gesture to one class or a disguised attempt to sell soap. But if the search brings the most important stories of our culture to the greatest number of its citizens, if it brings people together instead of justifying their differences in attitude and taste, then it can be the most vital force that the theatre knows. 

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. 

        

IMPROV EVASION By Michael Golding

 

In my improv workshops with at-risk students, I encourage them to be open about their lives, hoping that will lead to emotional sincerity and a sense of realism in scenes. To gain their trust, I have to be open about mine. There have been times when the workshops have been therapeutic for me, particularly when experiencing loss.

A few years ago just as a new semester was beginning, my father passed away and I had to take a week off to attend his funeral. If I didn’t have that workshop to return to, I don’t know how I would have gotten through those first few months.  My students were loving and extremely supportive. Almost two years ago one of my best friends died, who was a major player in the Canadian improv community. I hopped a red eye flight to Canada for his memorial after a Thursday session and was back in class the following Monday, bleary eyed and exhausted. The students I was working with were incredibly nurturing and helped with the healing process.

Handiwork of my students.

My wife is a frequent topic of conversation with my students. They are fascinated by who could marry this wacky, hairy guy. Frequently, I’m bombarded with questions;  “Do you have kids? No? Why not?” (“Because I have all of you in my life.”). “Can we meet her?” (“Sorry, she has something called a job.”). “What do you tell her about us?” (“I’m not certain, but I think they know where we live.”). "Are you the same way at home as you are with us?" ("She WISHES she had that Michael Golding.").  “Have you ever cheated on her?” (“Let’s have a chat about boundaries.”).  

One time she did pop up in one of my classes, because she was driving me to the airport so I could fly to a festival afterwards. They reacted to her as if she was a celebrity; “She’s real! Oh my God, she’s so pretty!”  When I told the class that we were going to grab a quick bite at a nearby House of Pancakes before heading to the airport, one student slid up to me and whispered “Ah, man - take her someplace nice. Like a McDonald’s.” 

A year ago my wife and I separated.  It was not a mutual decision and the loss left me devastated. A month after she left, I was hit by a car while on a group bike ride, which broke my collarbone requiring surgery to have a titanium plate with ten screws implanted. That certainly shifted emotional focus for a while. The Vicodin and Morphine helped too. A month after the procedure, I was back in class.

While I have discussed the accident with my students, including sharing the x-ray of my titanium enriched collarbone, to date I have not mentioned the separation.

I continued wearing my wedding ring. Call it denial, but I just couldn't take it off. The first class I taught after my wife left I was brief when she would come up in conversation. “She’s in Canada looking after her sick mother,” was my standard response, and then I would quickly move on to another topic. Talking about my wife in class always gave me joy. Now, it was extremely painful. I continued being upbeat and humorous when she was brought up, but inside my heart was breaking. 

As the Thanksgiving break approached, the students asked if she was coming home or if I was going to join her. I lied and said I was going to rendezvous with her in Canada. Wished I thought that one through. After the holiday break I was inundated with “How was Canada? How’s your wife?” “Is she back home?” Again, I lied my ass off.

I continued wearing my ring for most of the next semester and again, was short with any inquires about my marriage.  In previous workshops, I frequently shared photos of my wife that were on my cell. As part of the healing process, I deleted them just as the spring semester was about to commence. Now, students were extremely suspicious that I had no pictures of her on me. I was digging myself deeper into a hole. They also noticed I was no longer wearing the ring. I claimed that I was acting in a short where I played a single man. The hole was about to reach China. Instead of telling them that my wife was in Canada taking care of her mother, I augmented it to “Unfortunately, her mother died, and she’s in Canada settling her affairs.” That was probably the first time I was (mostly) honest about my situation. My mother-in-law passed away suddenly last April.

The students gave me shit for not being with my wife during her time of need. Almost came clean; “Believe me; I wanted to be there with her. But given the present state of our relationship my presence would have been awkward for both of us.” Instead, I obfuscated with “I couldn’t take time off from work.” From the back of the class a student yelled out “lame!”

Losing my mother-in-law was unexpected and another emotional blow. My father-in-law had passed away the year before.  After my wife left, my mother-in-law and I found ourselves comforting each other and dealing with the grief over our departed spouses. It added a new layer to our relationship. She was an amazing friend to me right up until the end and she loved hearing about my students. It wasn’t until she passed that I felt the full force of the separation. Unfortunately, this was another item from my life that I could not share with my students.  Shortly after her transition, I finally took my wedding ring off for good.

Taking the ring off was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. For over thirty years, I would constantly play with it, twirling it around as I spoke. Now that it’s gone, my OCD won’t give me a break. My hand still reaches for it, and I’m repeatedly shocked when I can’t feel it. The imprint of the ring is still there and I find myself constantly gliding my fingers over the indentation. Occasionally in class I get lost in the sad revelation, but the nature of the students always brings me back to the moment. Inattention from me can quickly be interpreted as “iPhone break!”  Then, they’re all in their happy place and it’s an uphill battle to reel them back in.

Right now I’m two thirds of the way through a six week summer college course with at-risk high school students. Beyond mentioning that I’m married, I’ve given no further information. The group hungers for more; “What does she do for a living? How come you don’t have any pictures of her on you? When are we going to meet her? Do you tell her about us? How come you're not wearing a ring?”

A close friend recently suggested that maybe it's time to come clean with my students. She feels that they will be nothing but supportive. 

Or, I could get a larger shovel.

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.  

From David Shepherd’s Journals: Working with Non-Professional Improvisers

David Shepherd, who in 1955 with Paul Sills created Compass, the first professional improv company in North America, has always been drawn to working with non-professional improvisers. He sort out groups that had no theatre experience from schools, churches, synagogues, senior citizen and community centers. David encouraged some groups to play in foreign languages, reasoning the audience would follow along if the emotion was sincere.

The Improvisation Olympics, which David created in 1972 with Howard Jerome Gomberg, (and which spawned i.O. in Chicago and the Canadian Improv Games in Ottawa, Ontario) was designed to promote interest in theatre. According to David, “Improvisational theatre, which involves no scripts or sets or props, is an ideal way to get people interested in the theatre. Also, the Improvisation Olympics, which is associated with sports, is an ideal way to involve young men and women in the theatre.”

 

In late 1981, David brought the Improvisation Olympics to Chicago. With Charna Halpern as his co-producer, the two designed a series of tournaments that involved professional and non-professional leagues. Several years later, David wrote about his observations working with non-professionals in his journal.

Chicago Improv Olympic handbook

 

From David's Journal. April 1986

THEORY:

Non-professionals can be interesting to observers because of intimacy. Intimacy prevents big flaws of non-professional "acting": exaggerated feeling, self-consciousness, forgetting lines, phony gestures, unnatural responses, interactions too slow or too fast, unbelievable characterization, imposing an idea of the scene that's not organic to the scene.

A coach can lead a few players into an intimate transaction, for instance at a bar or beauty parlor, at least for a few minutes. To do this the coach must know the desired transaction (e.g. betting on a game or gathering information about a trip). The coach must also know how to lead players into the intimate: explain it clearly, prevent players from veering away from it.

EXAMPLES:

What’s happening in an intimate scene, players are performing for each other. Because the scene is already textured improv with innuendo, mockery, conscious exaggeration, apology, stoned agreement, etc., we accept it--even though it's done by non-professionals.  EXAMPLES: Polish cook and waiter fight in Polish; Colonel and friend discuss red cars and women; Connie puts Mark down, I relate to Scott Vehill about cleanliness.

The main advantage non-professionals have is authenticity. Their tiffs and laughter ring true; if you can catch them at an unguarded moment, you get dialog and action as interesting, I believe, as that of the professional. Another advantage: they don't burden the budget and may even contribute money to it. Another: if you're doing a piece about a local theme, a local player is more likely to get the point, the emotions, and the accent, than a professional imported for the production.

STANDARDS:

In 1984 I was in Los Angeles recruiting for teams to play into an ImprovOlympix. We already had the "Free Radicals" and the Canadian team, among others. "Why not a Russian team?" I asked, driving across town to a well known Russian restaurant. The owner listened to my story about teams of Chicago cops, rabbis, comedians, techs, inmates, musicians. He asked how we worked. I described a process: training of the team, commitment to competition, warm ups, taking a suggestion from the audiences, running with it, being scared, winning or losing, exactly what we’d been doing in Chicago.

In response, he sang to me, very slowly and loudly, the oldest, most traditional Russian folk song he could pick. His eyes and hands spoke about what he was doing: a national rejection of improvisation in favor of something known that's been tested, that expresses the same sentiment century to century, and that demands interpretation--tremolo, change of rhythm or volume, attack, dynamics.

So what can improvisation offer in response?

First of all improvisation represents the energy, not of individuals taking turns to speak or sing, but of a group. The product is only as strong as the group. If the group is not together; if members are not relating to each other, then the result is disappointing. On the other hand, sometimes the group plays far above its abilities. Improvisation also represents the insights and feelings of a group. You get up a totally new statement of a theme, or a totally new story, within minutes of meeting. There's an excitement in this speed, this forced growth of a seed that blossoms within an hour or two.

David Shepherd, center, working with a group of non-professional improvisers

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 Power and Joy of Guessing in Improv by Michael Golding

My Theatre Appreciation course for college and high school students relies heavily on improv formats.  While I stick to the academic objectives of the curriculum every semester, each new group I work with interprets the formats differently.  Rather than force the students to bend to my improv will, I uncover a new approach to meet them halfway. By incorporating their input, they help me to redesign the course for that particular semester, which inspires me to create new formats and embrace a different avenue to my pedagogical style.

My current class, which is a combination of high school and college students, views every format as if it’s a guessing game. While that is appropriate for certain formats, such as Viola Spolin’s “How Old Am I?” and “What Am I Listening To?” it can be intrusive as a class of close to thirty-five students in the audience are screaming out guesses as two to four students on stage are exploring a format.

The positive flip side to this is that the students in the audience are in the moment, as they are actively searching for something specific in the format that is being presented in front of them. Guessing is a game and there is joy in the tone of their guesses and I started to ponder how to harness that element of enthusiasm.

Knee deep in another Theatre Appreciation class.

Ordinarily when I conduct a format with two players, students in the audience tend to tune out if something engaging doesn’t occur from the start. They start looking at their cell phones, texting, or conversing with the student next to them. It’s the reality of the nature of my course, which runs from 3:30 – 5:30pm. Students are tired, particularly the high school ones who have already put in a full school day, and if something doesn’t involve them directly, they go to their happy place. I don’t have this problem when leading group warm-ups at the start of the class, because the exercises are physical and everyone is on their feet and focused. Until someone's cell phone rings. But, I digress.

I started experimenting with adding a guessing element to every format. The main rule is that the students cannot yell out guesses as the format is being explored. That occurs either after the format has been played, or when I pause it periodically to elicit input from the audience.  I’ll address the students with a series of questions, which are actually established improv games.

Questions may focus on;

Environment:  “Can you guess what the temperature is?”

Emotions: “Can you guess what the player is feeling right now?”

Character: “Can you guess what the character is thinking right now?”

Activity: “Can you guess how the players could be doing this differently?”

I’m still toying around with this approach, which so far has been successful in keeping everyone in the class involved. This could be the way to go this semester. A simple flip of terminology.

This is just a guess on my part.   

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. 

 

Harassment and Sexism in Improv by Michael Golding

 

Lately I’ve been reading multiple posts about harassment and sexism in the improv community. Considering trust is a key element to a successful improvisation, I find this highly disturbing.  A major contention amongst female improvisers fifty years ago was that if they were cast in a scene, they were more likely to play a mother, wife, girlfriend, nurse, secretary, than say a lawyer, doctor, boss, police officer or scientist. Not certain how far we’ve evolved in that respect.  

Years ago I had an actor in one of my professional workshops, who was clearly a misogynist, but considered himself a feminist, (because he had sisters).  For the purpose of this article, let’s call him “Dick.” If he was asked to suggest a role for a female player, invariably it was wife, girlfriend, secretary or nurse.

If Dick was in a scene with a female player, it was going to be a seduction scene, whether the scenario warranted it or not.  Those who were familiar with Dick’s modus operandi would either play along, adhering to the yes and philosophy, or find a way to shift the situation into another area. One time Shelly, a new player to the workshop, confused by the lack of collaboration she had with Dick in a scene about a fortune teller and client, asked him afterwards what his objective was.  “I was trying to seduce you,” Dick answered incredulously. Surprised, Shelly responded “Oh, is THAT what you were trying to do?  The class erupted in laughter. Dick was confused by the response of the class.  He later speculated that Shelly was clearly a lesbian, which is why she didn’t pick up on his offers.

When I called him out on this after the workshop he referenced a quote from Elaine May; “when in doubt, seduce.”  I referenced the wisdom David Shepherd and Paul Sills shared with me when I studied under them; “when in doubt, focus on the where and activity.” Regarding his casting suggestions for women which were gridlocked in the fifties, I pointed out that Elaine May once did a scene with Mike Nichols about a son telling his mother that he wanted to be a registered nurse, which was freaking hysterical to audiences of that era. Perceptions and approaches change. Dick wasn’t particularly enlightened by that observation.

Elaine May seducing Mike Nichols

  

A pivotal moment in the workshop was when Dick and Jennifer (someone Dick had a crush on) were improvising a scene about a married couple whose relationship was in its death throes. The set-up was that the relationship had gotten so toxic; they could barely stand to be in the same room with each other. That didn’t matter to Dick. Right off the bat, he started mauling Jennifer as she was packing to leave.  I stopped the scene and asked Dick what he was doing, considering the context of the scene.  Dick said he was playing Viola Spolin’s Contact game (players touch whenever they say something)  to elicit an honest emotional reaction from Jennifer.  Her reaction was honest. She was obviously uncomfortable being groped while exclaiming “This is why I want out! You don’t respect me!”

I decided to continue the scene from the moment we left off, with a change; I had Dick and Jennifer switch roles. It empowered Jennifer. Her physicality was clearly an attempt to control and dominate Dick, rather than seduce him and the hostility behind the husband’s actions was clear. However, Dick was receptive to being touched, despite the fact it had been established previously in the scene that the wife was repulsed by her soon to be ex-husband and he quickly segued from revulsion to arousal. I stopped the scene again. “What’s going on here, Dick?  The wife wants out.”  He’s changing my mind,” Dick reasoned, “I think this marriage can be saved.”

So I decided to continue the scene one more time, with another change. I replaced Jennifer with Cliff, who was twice the size of Dick, and had the scene proceed from where we left off.  His hands were all over Dick, who segued quickly from “I think this marriage can be saved” to “what the hell are you doing? I don’t love you anymore!” Cliff was persistent, forcing Dick to use one of Jennifer’s previous lines; “This is why I want out! You don’t respect me!”

I side-coached with one more direction, “switch roles.”  Back in the husband role, Dick acquiesced that the relationship was over, apologized for his behavior, and kept his hands to himself.  Suddenly the scene had more of an atmosphere of authenticity than before. Discussing the scene afterwards, Dick was surprisingly more empathetic to the role of the wife and how the husband refused to respect her boundaries, admitting “Yeah, the husband was being an asshole.”

Did Dick learn anything that day? I hope so. But it provided me with a new four step approach when dealing with harassment and sexism in male/female scenes:

·        Play scene as originally cast.

·        Have the players switch roles and continue scene.

·        Replace the female player with a male player in the same role and continue scene.

·        Discuss the results of switching afterwards. This is paramount.

Ninety percent of the time, the scene becomes more realistic – and maybe, just maybe, the harassing male player has learned something about boundaries, respect and trust.

I’ll check back on this in another fifty years.

In the meantime, enjoy Mike Nichols & Elaine May improvising the scenario of a son telling his Jewish mother he wants to be a registered nurse.

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.  

Life Story By Michael Golding

In my college workshops with at-risk high school students, I try to utilize their life experiences as much as possible when exploring themes, situations and characters in scenes, games and formats. The emphasis is on realism, which is often not the case with this population who lean more towards outlandish, unrealistic, and violent scenarios.

An in-class written assignment I use to elicit those experiences is called Life Story.  The set-up is that a producer bought their life story to be turned into a play. The student has to come up with a title, genre, and a few sentences describing what the play is about.

As I read through the papers, scene ideas pop out at me as I gain insight into who these students are. I write down notes on each paper to get the student to think a little deeper about the story.  This semester’s batch is particularly intriguing;

Life of Color (drama) A student deals with stress and anger through painting. Color saves me. Art saves me. Art takes all the bad thoughts away when I paint. I consider myself art. I myself am art. Art is everything to me. (My note: Lovely. Let’s come up with a scene where you encounter stress and anger, then deal with it through the activity of painting.)

 

 Beautiful Tragedies (drama/horror) A girl who lives with her grandmother and an aunt who is a felon, learns to deal with police, prison and the will to try and overcome it all. (My note: I’d like to see more of the characters who inhabit this world of yours.)

Addicted (suspense/drama) A girl who is being raised by a single mother, who she rarely sees, falls for someone that she knows is an asshole but can’t seem to let go. (My note: Let’s see a scene where she first met and fell for this guy.)

Roller (drama/romance) Girl is involved with a boyfriend who is into serious drugs and becomes aggressive when using. (My note: Can we see a scene about what he’s like when he’s not using?)

Viewing Things Differently (drama) A close friend’s betrayal and the repercussions that follow. (My note: Let’s see a scene about what the friend was like before the betrayal.)

Records (drama) A young teenage girl’s life depends on records, gets hired to work in a record store. (My note: Let’s do a scene where you apply for the job).

Ricardo (drama) Argument with brother leads to a fight that goes too far. (My note: Do you and your brother fight often? Over what? Are the arguments ever resolved non- violently? If so, let’s see one.)

There are students who don’t exactly do the assignment as described,  but still offer something interesting to work with;

Game Day (drama) A teenage boy comes up with an idea for a million dollar game and releases it on the internet. (My note: Let’s see a scene where you are selling this game to someone.)

Run Away Fugitive (action) Teenage boy breaks out of prison, steals a car, changes his appearance and goes on the run. (My note: What crime did he commit to be incarcerated? How does he survive on the run?)

The 411 (drama) People are always asking a teenage boy how to do stuff, because they assume he knows everything. Turns out, he does. (My note: Let’s explore various moments where people assume this of you.)

Money Gang Bang (action) Gang member gets shot in the forehead by a rival gang drive by. (My note: Let’s explore what leads up to that act and the repercussions afterwards.)

Shippers Found Dead (horror) Tech company uses zombies as slave labor to ship out merchandise. (My note: Can we come up with a scene that explores how the shippers became zombies?)

Once I’ve handed back the papers with my notes, I then get the students to come up with a who/what/where scene based on their story that can be explored through improv on stage. The student doesn’t necessarily have to act in their own scene. He or she can cast and direct it. Additionally, the student has to design a set floor plan, based on floor-plan symbols from Viola Spolin’s Improvisation for the Theater, which is a recommended textbook in my class.  The floor-plan provides the student with a sense of staging, set design and focusing on the where.

When the scenes are up on their feet, I begin to side-coach as the students improvise to uncover the beats. My directions hone in on specific improv skills, which are also essential life skills.

Side coaching directions:

1.     Five Second Delay:  Players have to wait five seconds before responding to each other.

2.     Contact (Spolin):  Players have to touch each other in a different way whenever they say something.'

3.     Inner Monologue:  Thirty second monologue on what is going on inside player’s character’s head.

4.     Gibberish:  Speaking in an unknown language.

5.     Explore activity:  Players have to add substance and detail to what they are physically doing.

6.     Focus on emotion:  Players have to explore what they are feeling at that moment and find a way to express it physically.

7.     Switch time:  Scene is taken either ahead or back in time.

8.     Switch location:  Scene continues in a different location.

Looking over the life stories from this class, various themes begin to reveal themselves to me; betrayal, friendship, single parent households, social inadequacy, anger, stress, work, fear of future, substance abuse, gang-banging, sibling rivalry. This group has given me a lot to work with this semester and they discovered that they have a lot more in common with one another than originally thought. Shared stories bring students together. The bonding process has begun.

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.  

Improv Mid-Life Crisis By Michael Golding

A little over two months ago I was struck by a car while cycling, resulting in surgery to repair a fractured collarbone. A titanium plate with ten screws has become a permanent fixture in my body. Now half man, half machine, I will be setting off metal detectors when I fly in the future. If a doctor’s note isn’t sufficient for security, believe me, I am prepared to show my scar. 

 

Unfortunately, I had to postpone a trip to David Shepherd’s home in Western Massachusetts to finish his improv archive project. David is the father of modern day improvisation and over sixty years of materials from his collection were going to be donated to an institution which will be accessible to the public. For now, the project is on the back burner. It will get done, hopefully within the next few months.

A major concern during recovery was whether I would be able to teach in the fall.  The college I work for has a high school outreach program, where I teach an after school theatre appreciation course for at-risk teens who receive college credit. I was offered only one course this semester, which meets two afternoons a week from 3:30pm – 5:40pm. The objectives of the course are explored primarily through theatre games.  I was uncertain that my stamina was up to the challenge and for the first time wondered if I was getting too old to work with this age group. Weeks of pain medication diminished my focus and passion. I simply wasn’t looking forward to the class. Was it possible that I was experiencing an improv mid-life crisis?

When I addressed that concern with my surgeon, he laughed and said “unless you’re teaching gym, you’ll be fine.” Obviously the man was unaware of the population I work with, or how physical I can be when conducting a workshop. Discussing the matter with my improv friends, Shepherd, Ed Asner, Nancy Fletcher (creator of Act Now, an improvised movie format for adolescent girls) and Howard Jerome (co-creator of the Improv Olympics and Canadian Improv Games) they were unanimous in their advice; pace yourself, sit down, and bark out orders.  Brave new world for me. Anticipating the round-trip commute to the high school in Compton on the notoriously congested highway filled me with anxiety and dread. The shoulder strap across my tender collarbone still causes discomfort, especially when I make sudden maneuvers or stops.

With improv consultant Ed Asner

It was a physical challenge conducting the first two sessions, lecturing more than I usually do, which only has a shelf life of a few minutes for the students. It may look like they’re nodding out as their heads slowly slump down, but I know they’re looking at their iPhones. I can see the glow from the screens on their faces. Maybe they’re Googling me or texting what am awesome teacher I am. Exhausted, I ended both sessions a half hour early.

I can’t sit still when teaching and my healing collarbone felt the strain. Many of my movements while instructing are reflexive, such as jumping on and off the auditorium stage, which I knew was ill advised.  As much as I wanted to phone the class in, I couldn’t. The students demand moment-to-moment attention. While I have conducted these type of workshops a gazillion times before, it was clear by the expressions on the students’ faces that it was their first time experiencing a learning-by-doing approach rather than listening to a long, boring lecture and it enthralled them. It certainly kept me focused.

By sharing that I was injured and showing them an x-ray of the titanium plate and screws on my cell phone the students perceived me as a badass. I wished my shoulder didn’t look like someone threw a pair of scissors at me to gain their admiration. In turn, the students were eager to share stories of family members who had hip and knee surgeries and what they were like before and after the procedures. All great ideas for future scenes.

Does this x-ray make me look fat?

By the third session, I had more of a grasp on who the students were. There are over thirty in the class, which is not unusual. All Hispanic. Normally, there is larger ratio of girls to boys in my classes. This time out, the ratio was reversed.

The boys ooze machismo. The themes they love to explore are hooking up, going to strip clubs, scoring weed, getting high and gunplay.  Because many are hustlers and have to live by their wits on the street, they’re natural improvisers. They don’t like to stick to the rules of the games and elicit laughs from the class by mocking them. None of this is unusual. They just need a lesson in the difference between play and game. With play, you can do whatever you want. With game, well, there is a structure with rules.

It quickly became a high wire act for me. You don’t want the side-coaching to come off as a reprimand, which either diminishes their enthusiasm or in their eyes a betrayal of trust. “Hey, I was just trying to shake things up,” one student moaned when I corrected him.  Sometimes, I wait until after the session, where I start my notes off with “You’re a natural at this. However…….”

An early observation with the boys was if they don’t realize we’re engaging in a game, they organically play by the rules; listening, agreement, teamwork. For them, we’re not playing a game until we are actually on the auditorium stage. If I warm them up while they’re sitting in the audience, it becomes more personal and conversational. I discovered that with the group story game “So What You’re Saying Is.” In the game, a player starts with a simple statement (“I went outside my house for a walk.”).  Another player would begin by saying “So what you’re saying is,” repeat the sentence he or she heard, and then add onto the story. The goal is to create a story with as many players as possible, chiming in when they have the impulse.

Example:

Player 1: I went outside for a walk.

Player 2: So what you’re saying is, you went outside for a walk, so you could get away from your parents.

Player 3: So what you’re saying is, you went outside for a walk, so you could away from your parents, because they think you’re spending too much time with your boyfriend.

And so on. There are other variations of this game, but this version resonates with the students.

I was amazed by how large and extravagant the stories became. Of course, all dealt with drugs, strip clubs, hooking up and getting high. My inner monologue suggests that in future sessions I should try to steer them towards exploring other themes that might motivate the girls to jump in. Or, I may have to break them up into groups of five, rather than letting thirty students fight for control and observe how the stories develop that way. My brain was percolating with possibilities.

The girls are shy, hesitant and rarely volunteer. Yet, there is thoughtfulness in the way they play, and when partnered up with some of the boys, diminishes their overactive testosterone a tad.  My sense is the boys don’t interact much with the girls outside of class or during the regular school day, so this is new to them – working with a girl as a collaborative partner, rather than viewing them as an object.

When I introduced Blind Walk, a trust game that is fraught with dangerous possibilities, the boys were surprisingly respectful and protective of the girls. In the game the group is in a circle and a blindfolded player walks back and forth across the circle. A student in the circle has to gently stop the blindfolded player from walking into him or her, then slowly turns the blindfolded player around, makes eye contact with another student in the circle, and gently launches the blindfolded player on his or her way towards that student. The blindfolded player has to be as relaxed as possible while walking, knowing that that the circle will protect him or her from getting hurt.

I was impressed. Normally first time out with this game, players are spun around furiously before being sent on their way, students in the circle are making jokes or yelling “watch out!” or someone in the circle might start backing up, or ever worse, step aside, as a blindfolded player walks towards them. Unfortunately, that admiration was shattered when a boy was sent across the circle. Lots of ass grabbing, head thumping, and crotch smacking. It’s early in the semester.

Now, as I bravely tackle the hellish round-trip commute, my brain is on fire running over my workshop plan and the results of it afterwards. It seems like my improv mid-life crisis was premature.  I have a lot of work to do with this group, and surprisingly, I appear to be into it.

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. 

.