From David Shepherd's Collection - The Rolling Stage

The Rolling Stage was David Shepherd’s first attempt at theatre after returning from India where he taught English at the University of Bombay. A bus and truck company with a portable stage that rolled out on wheels, The Rolling Stage toured resorts in the Catskills performing Moliere’s The Mock Doctor and experimented with improvisation. The failure of the company is what led David to Chicago, where he first encountered the repertory group Tonight at 8:30, followed by his two year stint as a producer, writer, director and performer with the Playwrights Theatre Club.  After Playwrights folded, David and the company went on to realize his vision of a popular theatre - Compass.

A few years ago, David drafted this outline for an article about The Rolling Stage, which incorporated his journal entries. As with many of David’s projects, he abandoned it and moved on to something else. I recently discovered the outline in his collection and decided to share it with the community.

Rolling Stage '53 to Chicago (find fit with other material)

8 x 11 notebook, Red binding, Red corner-- proofed 7/09 by David Shepherd

May 20, 1952

Met Jim Kerans at docks on return from India; decided to go ahead with theatre:

-It should be a traveling theatre (to avoid space rental and repairs and to play to audiences in different towns..

-It should play from Washington to Boston to 2 audiences:

            1) At private estates/ country clubs to assure profit

            2.) On beaches and vacant lots to assure a popular response

-Its first play should be a classic (to give us a chance to find a strong style) and its second an improvisation performed by us (to get something workable written and tested under these circumstances).

Brochure

Dear Sir,

            The first of our three summer shows is now open for bookings in the last two weeks of July. In case you are interested, we can offer you any of the following arrangements.

1. You can take our package for one night at the fixed rate of $200. In this you benefit both by the entire receipts from ticket sales and by the entertainment afforded by your guests

2. You can help us publicize the show in return for forty percent of the ticket sales.

Our business manager would be glad to give you full information, either by correspondence, interviewing, or through our New York agent.

Very truly yours,

            The Rolling Stage

June 22, 1952

Dear Mr. Keith,

            We would be glad to take you as business manager-press agent for the Rolling Stage at the following terms:

You will receive a weekly salary of $80 for your personal expenses and for the use of your car. In addition you will receive 5% of the first $2000 ticket sales per month, 10% of the second $2000, and 15% of anything above that. The ceiling of your total salary will be $1000/mo.     David G Shepherd

July 4, 1952: Possibilities

1) We close. I lose $3500. I gain equipment to start again.

2) We brainstorm for one week using ground as stage, car battery for lights, and stage to support poles for backdrop.

If we close, I give weeks’ notice and hope not everybody asks for his salary. If most ask, we rehearse Moliere more, do improvisation.

Decision of cast:

To rough it on $500 Budget.

Poster

A Gay Farce by the Rolling Stage

Saturday July 12, 8:30

At the Fountain Manor,  Ellenville

The Mock Doctor by Moliere

In the Open Air.

Paris 1942  insert earlier

Manifesto:  Blueprint for the New Free Theatre

The NFT should be small at first. The connection between actor and audience has been lost in the coy hypocrisy of the realistic theatre but can be found again by testing effects at close range. To counteract the sloppy diffusions of the modern sensibility, the NFT will be, if nothing else, vigorous and self disciplined.

The vigorous roots of drama are song and dance, which must be brought back, if not outright, then in precise and suggestive speech and movement.

List begun in 1948 of 'Pure Plays'.

Jarry: Ubu Roi

Early French

Le Viol de Lucrece--Obey

The Boor--Chekhov

India 1951--insert earlier

IMPLICATIONS: Divorce from the middle class, which now monopolizes theatre in almost every nation, and from its pretentions. Divorce from large cities, outside of which very little theatre is found in any nation, and from distractions. Divorce from theatrical convention from the past 300 years, in which only a small handful of popular plays have been written, and from its assumptions.

Statement for Rolling Stage--Not used '52

We are going to play without any lighting or scenery because we want to work up two or three styles of acting that are more effective than the ones found on stage today.

In other words, we are trying to erect a good popular theatre in this country. We cannot do it unless actors and playwrights put down less important things to help us.

We need new manuscripts on which to practice. At the beginning we don't expect they'll be any good since ours is in a century of poor drama, but we do expect that they'll be written in intense language around the important themes.

Washington, August 1952

We believe the easiest way to get the good plays we need is by attending to style; you will find exercises in this book which show what we mean by style. We believe that plays can be written on any subject, in any style, and to any length; in this book you will find copies of the styles of some major dramatists today.  In other words, we believe plays are logical statements; not bursts of inspiration,

October 6, 1952

It may be that all our conventions (little scenery or lighting, many  verse forms, musical accompaniment, etc.) will have to be tested first in a cabaret type theatre which will have the added attraction of also being a club where we can easily meet success or failures.

October 7, 1952

 Mirror Theatre will present and judge the members of the audience on stage, a theatre that will, say: "Look, this is the stage of your life, better than you yourself see it."

July 22, 1952 sequence?

What can be good about a play?

Ezra Pound-- "Drama is a dam’d form, tending nearly always toward work of secondary intensity, though the tendency doesn’t always set in strong enough to wreck the work."

August 14

As soon as the manifesto is printed and distributed, seeing that theatrical prospects open to the west and that my classless position is no longer useful,

take off with a $100 bill toward Chicago

Find my level, what I can do, what I am good for as a member of a multifaceted economy. An observer passing through America as a knife through butter.  A poet.

I mean a poet of actuality, of what I see and do, of the simple fact--no fantasies, no distortions, no symbolic interpretations--writing nothing that has not been memorized and recited before people, my people, whoever they prove to be.

Many Writers: Few plays

By Arthur Miller, August 10, 1953, NY Times

(Author of ‘Death of a Salesman’ and ‘All my Sons‘)

"Even optimists confess that our theatre has a struck an endless low by any standard. I cannot hope to explain the reasons for this, but certain clues keep recurring to me when thinking on the manner.

Is Everybody Happy?

We always had with us the “showman,” but we also had a group of rebels insisting on thrusting their private view of the world on others. Where are they? Or is everybody really happy now? Do Americans really believe they have solved the problems of living for all time? If not, where are plays that reflect the soul wracking, deeply unseating questions that are being asked on the street, in the living room, on the subways?"

September 17, 1953

Here’s the situation: The first act of the third draft of my Foreman of Malfi looks solid, almost interesting, almost a candidate for graduation onto the stage.

Chicago: October 21, 1953

The Sunbeam Corp turned me down for a job because I have too much education.  It fears that mechanical and repetitive assembly lines would not please me, and that I would only stay a day, or a week.

1953

Paul Sills anxious to override Bourgeois “crap” but also chooses to stand above class, speak to no one class, although has joined a group at University of Chicago, which is made up of middle class. Finds meaning in Cocteau’s Typewriter - or at least an adequate picture of middle class. Praises Brecht for going beyond the proletarian play.  Speaks of new script writers.  Some promising.  Will see again about writing a “1953.”

Roommate Jacobs contemplates three productions this school year (Typewriter, a second Buchner and Caucasian Chalk Circle), next summer a series of four or five plays from the German theatre (“the second greatest theatre in the world”). (Everything he says is exaggerated with determination.} University of Chicago has given up fighting incursion of Negroes to Hyde Park (where it owns vast tracts of property), has decided instead to welcome middle class Negroes.

Jack Higgins says he could use me for an instructor for kids, young adults, or adults, either in connection with schools, or at park field houses. Six hour day. Four day week. $2.11/ hour, Jan 1- May 1.

Playwrights Theatre Club summer season.

Cleveland: December 19

Playhouse: Mrs. Stewer (?) says Cleveland is a sleepy town after 9:00. Can account for success of Playhouse only in terms of age (35+). Most principal actors paid.  Admission $2.   Three Houses+School.

"Finian’s Rainbow" looked all amateur.  Not well directed.

Karamu Theatre  Dargan Burns (P R) sited unique character of Karamu, which still growing. All actors Amateur. White and Negro mix in cast and audience.

I954: Chicago Playbill: Playwrights Theatre Club presents:

“The Three Penny Opera” - (“Die Dreigroschenoper”)

by Berthold Brecht

Music by Kurt Weill

Translated by Desmond Vesey and Eric Bentley

 Playwrights Theatre Club fall program, which includes David Shepherd's play The Fields of Malfi.

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 Empty Nest Syndrome by Michael Golding

The danger in working with at-risk teens for as long as I have is that sometimes you forget that this is the first time they are exposed to a “learning by doing” approach and the type of interactive teacher that you are. This fact always comes back home at the last class for me, where the attendance is larger than usual.  Given the opportunity to leave early, the students choose to just hang around. They simply don’t want to say goodbye to you.

Handiwork of my class

 

The sense of finality usually hits me a few hours later, when it sinks in that I won’t see this group on a regular basis anymore.  This time, an aura of sadness enveloped me the second I got in my car to go home. While I was thrilled that my return commute on the normally congested highway was lighter than usual (and I outran an impending storm), I wouldn’t have minded a longer session and grooving on the endorphin rush a workshop leaves me with as I’m stuck in traffic listening to jazz.

This class got me through losing Willie Wyllie, co-creator of the Canadian Improv Games (CIG), and the weeks that led up to his passing when we all knew the end was near. I screened “In the Moment,” a documentary about CIG by Sandra Chwialkowska for my class.  I forgot that Willie was in the film, being interviewed alongside Howard Jerome, who co-created CIG with him. When Willie’s face appeared on screen, happy, passionate and vibrant – I almost lost it. 

The late Willie Wyllie speaking at the CIG's National Festival

The students knew about Willie’s passing, because I had to end a session early so I could get to the airport to fly out to Ottawa for his memorial. Barely a week after returning from Ottawa, Parliament was attacked by a gunman – which led to an engaging discussion in class about gun violence and terrorism, resulting in the students viewing me as a somewhat exotic person who travels to dangerous lands.

For over two hours twice a week, late in the afternoon, this class kept me focused and in the moment. Canada and my connection to CIG and Planned Parenthood Ottawa's Insight Theatre Company, which I created, became a concurrent theme alongside the goal of doing theatre. The Canadian elements came off as mythical and the connection to reality was me. After viewing the first scene from a TV adaptation of the Insight Theatre Company, where a mother and father were at odds over how to discipline a child who returned home drunk from a party the night before, the class was broken up into groups of three, where they were instructed to recreate the scene with an American, inner-city slant.

The students brainstormed the beats, based on what they just saw, and what followed were seven distinctly different scenes. One was done entirely in gibberish. Another, in Spanish. Several groups incorporated complex games, such as "1, 2, 3, Sentence" where players can only speak with one word at a time, then two, then three, finally full sentences - before reversing the order until ending the scene with one word at a time. Powerful to watch.

Poof! Students are gone!

So, as I chalk up another successful course, I’m not certain how many of my students will pursue theatre further or continue to improvise. But, I do know quite a few of them would like to visit Canada.  

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. 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.

Improvise Poetry! Find Your Voice with David Shepherd

For about ten years, starting in the mid-nineties, David Shepherd explored improvising poetry with various diverse groups. As is his nature, David encouraged their input, which led to an eclectic collection of games. In some instances, the games were used in a competitive format, similar to the Improv Olympics. Others, as a form of street theatre, where the audience became participants.

This is a rough outline written by David in 2003 for a proposed improvised poetry handbook. I've tried to reconstruct it as accurately as possible to represent David's objectives. It includes a series of games just begging to be used by any group who sees fit.

IMPROVISE POETRY!
 FIND YOUR VOICE with DAVID SHEPHERD

By “improvised poetry” we don’t mean poetry that’s written solo in the middle of the night.  We don’t mean pages & pages read, word for word, to as many people as the poet can get to sit and listen.

We mean poetry that starts with you, the spectator.  You tell us what theme is on your mind.  Or you give us a color, a location, a famous character, a time, the title for an imaginary poem, a smell, a political situation.  And then we fire feelings and pictures back to you.  Sometimes there are two or three or four of us making up what becomes your poem. 

Every group that’s done our Poetry Program has added something to it. Ten years ago we started in Washington Square, New York City-- surrounded by bongo players and drug pushers, undercover cops and NYU students, strong men and comedians.  All of a sudden the people listening  said, “Hey, I want to try that.” They walked onto our stage, and we gave them a game to play.

David Shepherd getting people to improvise poetry on the spot in Washington Square Park.

They won’t make it into the Oxford Book of Verse, but their poems were alive, warm, tingly.  Their words came out of the group, the moment.  We were amazed: there were no clunkers.  Through group creativity New Yorkers were finding their Voice.  And  finding your Voice is part of what  life is  all about.

In  Chicago: I found a group at Urbis Orbus cafe. They said, “Let’s compete—Men and Women, or South Siders/North Siders.”  And they did—weekly.  The teams played tooth and nail. It was fun.  Nobody’s feelings got hurt. You can play Adults against Teenagers,  or “O” Positives  against “O” Negatives. The names don’t matter.  Do whatever works--  so two groups take one suggestion from the audience and shape it into 2 poems.

Then I went to Toronto, where I worked with an Alternative High School.  Well, I got a dozen very alternative poets.  They’d invented a game called “Out the Window.”  You put together a giant panorama of sights & smells, and you call it forth using the most sensual vocabulary you can find.  You imagine it’s so close to you you can touch it: a surreal poetry game.

I went to Amagansett, Long Island, where our team traveled from home to home weekly.  That was fun because you get to see many different families, dogs, cats, gerbils, soups, beers.  Our team played Main Beach.  We’d give out a hundred flyers to promote the show; then at sunset play in front of a row of benches.  One of our players was doing a poem blindfold about Pat Nixon, and he walked off a sand dune.  We had to catch him.  The man who’d given us the Nixon suggestion was amazed at what we did with it.

I learned Improv Poetry is not about rhymes.  It’s not about elegant relationships or remote abstraction.  It’s not about publishing your rhymed memories.   It’s finding your Voice, stating your reactions strongly about everyday events and everyday behavior.  It’s a butter & eggs kind of poetry that any one can master and call their own.

HERE ARE SOME EXERCISES to get you ready to improvise

Close your eyes, take a deep breath and describe a series of things you see in your mind’s eye—one word each: skull, violet, brush, star, dingy, boxer…. Don’t hurry.

Do the same thing only describe each object in 2 words, eg “red banana.”.

Do the same thing only describe each thing in 3 words: “ deep, greasy pit.”.

Make up a minute’s worth of nonsense words that are light and fast, eg: “When I go a little way, I whistle a lot and keep my eye high to the sky…”

Improvise a minute’s worth of nonsense words that are heavy, like, “might makes right and strong’s gone down into crypts where monsters make mad songs.”

Improvise gibberish that tells a story, and switch from English to gibberish and back every 10 seconds.

Take a bland topic like “Toothpaste.”  Express yourself on it--finding your Voice in your emphasis, your rhythm, your feeling and your point of view. 

Sometimes a game or match between two teams is judged.

If you’re asked to judge:

before each improvisation, read the rules. They appear like this:

          Name of GAME for “X” number of players:___

          TIME LIMIT:___    NEEDED: first and last line (for instance).

What to watch for:

Body Movement:

Is the player’s body unlocked  (hands  not  in pockets, not clasped behind back)? Are the pelvis and neck loose?  Does the player use the body to express the rhythm & feeling of the poem? Give 0-1 points.

Emotion:

Does the player express the theme not through the head but through a feeling? And when that feeling is dropped, does the player pick up another feeling? Do you believe the feelings? Give 0-3 points.

Rhythm:

Is the rhythm repetitious, lackluster and halting, or is it strong, variable and expressive? Give 0-3 points. 

Senses:

Do the words evoke things you can see, smell, hear, touch, taste?  Give 0-3 points.

To the MC: you introduce the players, explain the games, and choose the judges. You call a player “out” (for instance when someone uses 4 words in the game “Three Words”). Encourage audience members to improvise with players. Make much of anyone’s success in finding their voice.

Blind Poet for 1 player plus guide.

NEEDED from the audience: a hero or heroine & a matching color.  Cover the player’s eyes with a scarf.  Spectators shout, “Bring on the blind poet!”  Guide the player on, then douse the player with the “oil of inspiration” and ignite the oil as a “muse of fire.” As the “flaming” player writhes and shakes, spectators shout out 3 historical heroes (eg: Elvis, Superman, de Gaulle). When the poet picks one, they suggest a color. The player improvises a story in epic style, weaving in the suggested color. TIME LIMIT: 90 seconds.  

SOME EPIC POETRY:

And then went down to the ship,

Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and

We set up mast and sail on that swart ship

Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also,

Heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward

Bore us out onward with bellying canvas

Circe’s this craft, the trim-coiffed goddess. 
        

HOMER  Translated by Ezra Pound

Q: Why is this game a favorite?

•   No rhymes have to be forced into the flow of images.

•   The stories are familiar (Britney Spears, Bill Clinton, Bob Dylan).

•   Without seeing, the voice takes on a new power and rhythm

•   A “fire” jolts the player.

Panting and screaming, the “blind” poet slips smoothly into epic poetry.

Blind Poet.

ON HOLD for two players. 60-second limit.

Get a topic for the Event from suggestions such as travel, money, health, sex, electronics, real estate, etc.  Suppose you’re given “travel.”  The game might start like this:

Player 1: Ting a ling a ling.

Player 2:  WAKING UP:  Hello. Who is this?

Player 1:  Sorry!  It is late, but you’ve just won a wonderful free five day trip to the Caribbean… Another call’s coming in.  May I put you on hold?

Player 2: Goes back to sleep and fantasizes about the trip.  The dream is the poem.

Possible suggestions:  an accident in the family, a lotto win, a request to interview the sleeper, an emergency medical report, a big deal, the reading of a will.

Text vs. Improv for 1 writer, 1 poem on paper, 1 improviser.

Writer goes first.  Read a poem of a dozen lines, or recite it from memory.  Improviser stands close, shaping the poem in his/her hands. Then the improviser expresses the same content in the same length of time. The audience votes on which is the better poem.

Here’s the point:

Sometimes written poetry shines (I myself like Villon, Brecht, Blake, Thomas, Molina). 

And sometimes improvisation shines.  Gary Goodrow reminds us of the minstrel who won a night’s lodging by improvising on the virtues of his lord--in a poem more challenging by far than if he just shut up and froze to death in the snow.

2-Bits for 2 players.

Spectators are told, “Anyone with 25 cents can play. Anyone can win.”

2 players ante up a quarter each.  Others who want to play throw in their quarters, too.  Ask the audience for a topic. The first two players do a 60-second improv on the topic. (at 50 seconds give a warning.).   Spectators chosen to judge score players on bodily movement, verbal rhythm, feeling and imagery.

Before the quarters get picked up, invite others to play the winner.   They match the bet (which is now about $1) as you take a topic for round #2.  As the game goes on through Round #3 and #4, the kitty increases.  When there are no more new players, the last winner takes the entire kitty.

Two Bits.

Sound Motion for 2 players

 

NEEDED:  a literary style and a time of day/weather.  90 second time limit.  For instance, Emily Dickinson on a cold morning.

Q: What’s the point?

A: This is usually done not as a burlesque but as an exploration of how word and motion can merge.

Tight/Loose/Refrain for 3 players.and percussion. By “tight” we mean poetry with a fixed line length that rhymes like John Donne.   By “loose” we mean poetry without fixed lines and rimes like Alan Ginsberg. 

 

NEEDED: 3 players.  Together  they  show how tight they can get in body and voice. Ask the audience to choose the tightest to play TIGHT.  Then they all play loose--with no tension at all. A second player is chosen to play LOOSE.  The third player is REFRAIN, who  drops a line after TIGHT and LOOSE play.  The audience chooses the theme and the refrain, which is usually bland, eg: “And that’s the way it was in Parqua Flats.”

The game runs like this: TIGHT, LOOSE, REFRAIN. TIGHT, LOOSE, REFRAIN. TIGHT, LOOSE, REFRAIN. Time unit: 90 seconds.

Urge players to make choppy or flowing movements, so one player’s fists, for instance, punch out words, while the other’s arms draw  forth flabby sentences non-stop.  This is a good game to initiate volunteers from the public.  Ask them to audition, showing how tight or loose they can be.  Auditions for any game lengthen your show, raise quality and involve more of the public. 

Tight/Loose/Refrain

Rhymed Gibberish for 1 player and a host to introduce him or her.

 

Bring on and introduce a famous foreign poet who speaks no English.  Ask the audience to request their favorite poem written by this poet. Translate their request into the language of the poet, who then “reads” or recites the poem. Unlike our other poetry games, which discourage rhyme, this gibberish must rhyme. TIME LIMIT: 90 seconds. Ask the audience to count the rhymes.

NB: The hallmark of written poetry, which takes hours to write and revise, is rhyme.

In improv poetry we don’t encourage rhyme because it usually distorts the flow of feeling.

Q: Who counts the number of times the player rhymes? 

A: Spectators.  Gibberish is not nonsense.  It’s a coherent language that only the speaker understands. Every gibberish word stands for something in the mind of the poet, eg:

            “Zarooska patievo kromti puss” means to me

            “Speedily into the jaws of death.” If the gibberish

            word “zarooska” appears again, it means“ speedily” to me again..

Chorus Chorus for the whole team plus volunteers. 

Against a guitar or a drum, the Leader sings a chorus while players and spectators  improvise new verses.   NEEDED: a chorus of 4 lines, eg:

Glory, glory hallelujah

Glory, glory hallelujah

Glory, glory hallelujah

His truth is marching on.

The Leader points to the player who will improvise the next four lines.  TIME LIMIT depends on how many are playing.

  

Primal Squares for 2-4 players.

NEEDED: a basic relationship for the players and 3 primal emotions, eg: father/son & hate-fear-pride.  With chalk or tape, mark the playing area off into 4 squares.  Label 3 of them with a primal emotion;   the forth is used any way the player wants.  Pick a player or spectator to do the claps that will move the game forward.

PRIMAL EMOTIONS include pride, hate, fear, anger, love, boredom, lust, disgust, envy, shame, grief, happiness. When they hear a clap, players jump from one square to another. They express themselves in the emotion of the square they land on, giving and taking from each other. TIME LIMIT:  90 seconds.  Use the biggest space you can find--a lawn, basketball court, football field.  Running from space to space deepens the emotions of players.

Three Words for 3- 6 players.

 

 Choose a taste or behavior.  Players are not allowed to talk about it at the same time. If 2 of them do, they are both “out,”  and you replace them.  A player who uses more or less than 3 words at a time is out.”   TIME LIMIT: 60 seconds.

Out the Window I See:   for 1-4 players.
NEEDED: one emotion and one smell.  TIME LIMIT:  90 seconds. 

With the emotion in mind, the player looks up like an X-ray beam through a window or wall, then closes his/her eyes and imagines what exists on the other side.   Use colorful detail.  When subsequent improvisers play, they don’t start a new panorama;  each adds onto the picture that already exists.    . 

The panorama created by the game is twisted, melted, smoky, putrefied, slick, changeable—depending on where the imagination of up to 4 poets go.     

              

Dada for any number of  players.

During a blackout players can move and talk. When the lights go on, they freeze in a tableau.  Locations are suggested by the audience.

Players choose a location to use, then fill that location with as much action, sound effects, talk and song as possible.

NEEDED: with a location a political or social theme like “S.U.V.s, sex education, pollution.”  TIME LIMIT: 90 seconds.  DADA cannot be played outdoors because there’s no way to control light.

Dada: played indoors.  Before you play, make sure you can black out. A player who’s on lights turns them off for about 7 seconds, on for about 2. The absurd nature of Dada can be reinforced by noise, music, dancers, etc. 

Blank (by Phyllis Yampolsky)

1) Solo:  Player enters arena, stands quietly (eyes open or closed), counts to ten and begins to speak from whatever point of consciousness s/he finds him or herself in at that moment.

2) Duo:  Same as above, with 2 people.  Before entering the playing arena, they will chose, by one inconsequential system or another, who will go first.  Once the speaking begins, each player contributes 1,2 or 3 lines by responding to the sense, sound, cadence or physical motion of the other.

As usual players get points for rhythm, feeling and visual creativity.

YES/NO QUESTION: for two players; time limit 2 minutes

NEEDED: the biggest question the audience can come up with—a question like “Is our country messed up?” which can be answered “yes” or “no.”  With a wave of your hand,  get all spectators to shout the question in unison.  Then one player answers affirmatively, one negatvely.  Get the spectators to roar again.  Another “yes” answer; then  a “no” answer.  A roar.  Negative/positive--and a final roar.   Give players points for the strength of their convictions, their verbal detail and their feeling.

To Find your Voice by Improvising Poetry: Stay with It for 7 Weeks.

(1) Learn the games.  Take home the ones you can do alone.    Do the exercises, too.

(2) Next time you play, find which game is your favorite, and do it over and over.

(3)  Next time: find your voice in the way you breathe and move. At home do exercises.

(4)  Are you ready to form a team?  If so choose a costume, wig, prop.  Play characters?

(5)  Add sound effects and percussion to monologs, improvised songs, rap.

(6)  Visit the place where you’re going to play and tell people you’ll need their ideas.

(7) Start improvising with the audience, then move to the stage and do your show.

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.