Head-in-a-Cart Takes an Improv Class: Week #8

Well, it’s over. And it couldn’t end without me disturbing my classmates with one of my monologues.  I arrived to class and found everyone stressing out about our graduation performance on Saturday.  I told them that if someone like me who wasn’t anywhere close to being a performer could do it, they, actors, could do it.  They just looked at me and continued whining.  Someone asked me if I was nervous.  I answered honestly: No.  I added that I had learned that it was best to feel it and not try to suppress it because by the time you have to perform that anxiousness has left your body.

After we warmed up with Zip Zap Zop and the thumper games, we got to work on the show. Some scenes went well but most of them sucked.  But it’s okay. The teacher said we’re at Improv 101 level.  My last thumper was “Jazzzzzzzzzz Hands!”

After the first word suggestion (I forgot what it was) and a couple of scenes, I stepped forward onto the stage with Richie, one of the better improvisers, and he immediately made me Mrs. Johnson, a little old lady he took care of and had drank an entire bottle of Pepto Bismol.  I channeled my grandmother and insulted him, telling him he had given me diarrhea and that now I was constipated.  The rest of the scene was him struggling to sneak my meds into a gluten free apple pie I wouldn’t eat and eventually threw on the floor.  The scene was funny, but we never found the Game.

The second scene I was involved in was problematic because I turned it into a transaction scene.  The monologist talked about having to participate in a parade wearing shoes that didn’t fit.  I started the scene and I offered the customer two pairs of Prada shoes size 3 and size 16.  He was size 10 but the shoe store only sold size 3 and 16.  That was the Game.  Someone stepped in as the manager and when the customer complained, he said, “Yeah, so what’s the problem?”  We couldn’t find or say anything to keep him from leaving so he did, leaving me and the manager to continue the scene.  Transaction scenes are very difficult to maintain.

The second word suggestion we got was “lipstick.”  I gasped and walked on stage automatically.  It was as if someone had pushed me forward.  I couldn’t believe I had just remembered something that happened to me that I had suppressed for a few years at least.  And now here I was in front of all these people and I couldn’t step back.  I had no choice but to tell the story because I couldn’t think of any other story about lipstick.

When I moved back to the U.S. after a stint in Puerto Rico and Mexico, my friend’s sister’s husband offered me a job working for him.  I didn’t know anything about working in a law firm but I said yes.  I struggled a lot on the job but eventually got the hang of it.  Well, sort of.  As much as you can without giving a shit about your job.  A year later one of his associates, a female lawyer with a predilection for very short skirts, threw a holiday party at her house.  My boss’s wife (my friend’s sister) met us at the party.  We didn’t stay very long because it was boring and we got hungry.  We ended up at an Italian restaurant eating delicious food.  My boss had a few drinks.  Since they had taken separate cars, she drove home and my boss and I walked back to the office’s underground parking.  I didn’t have a car back then, so he was going to drive me home. 

We got in the car and suddenly, he put his thumb on my mouth and gently glided it across my lower lip.  I was wearing bright red stick.  At that very moment, I wanted to be dead.  I wanted there to be an earthquake and for the high rise to fall and flatten us.  But it didn’t happen.  I pretended what just had happened didn’t happen.  He started to drive and periodically would squeeze my knee.  I kept on talking and talking, what, I don’t remember, while I pressed myself against the car door.  I figured if I kept on blabbing nonsense nothing else would happen.  When we arrived at my place, I said thank you and ran.  I could never make sense of it. I still can’t.

The only way I could deal with this was to pretend it never happened.  He did too.  Let me say it again.  This is the man who is married to a woman whom I have known since I was 13 years old.  My best friend’s sister.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t awkward at the office.  We were really good at pretending it didn’t happen.  I only told my sister and even forgot about it. Until today.

Throughout the monologue I kept on looking at my teacher and classmate’s faces.  I expected them to have shocked expressions but they didn’t.  They were just engrossed and I could tell they were really looking forward to what I would say next.  When I was finished, I turned around to join my team and I saw their faces.  Bulging eyes and open mouths.  The scenes that followed were all about lipstick and make up.  At the end of the class during note-giving the teacher told me that it was a very courageous monologue, full of material for scenes.  But again, my team failed to use any of it.

I’ll miss having the chance to become someone else once a week.  I had fun doing something that is so different than anything I’ve ever done in the past.  Something so unlike me.  I enjoyed using parts of my body other than my head.  It’s unlikely I will continue because at this stage I really have to focus on moving my filmmaking forward to the next level.  Unless, of course, something miraculously happens on stage on Saturday and I decide I can’t live without performing long form improv. It’s very unlikely.

Lesson #8: Most people aren't used to honest and painful storytelling but I intend to give it to them anyway.

Head-in-a-Cart Takes an Improv Class: Week #7

You’re probably wondering what happened to week 6. Or maybe not.  Anyway, I missed class because I was at AFI Fest hanging out with friends.  Priorities.

 

I felt badly that I missed the class and dreaded that I would be really behind.  Then I found out other people missed it too so I didn’t feel like such a bad, irresponsible student.

 

Before we got on stage to do warm up exercises the teacher explained the format of our graduation show and how it would unfold.  He is going to divide the class into two groups.  Each group will pick a spokesperson and a team name.  The team not performing will sit in the front row and participate as part of the audience.  The spokesperson of the team performing will introduce the team by saying “Hellooooooooo, we’re the Bananaramas!” or something like that.  Then he will ask for a one word suggestion from the audience, repeat it to the rest of the team and the team will repeat the word in unison. Then one person will step forward and do a monologue based on memories invoked by that word.  It’s supposed to be honest and full of details so that we can get plenty of material for scenes.  The scenes can be inspired by the original word suggestion or anything in the monologue.  After a 2 min. monologue, the monologist will join the rest of the group and then two people will step forward and do a scene.  This is not determined by whose turn it is or anything like that.  Anyone can step up and do a scene and anyone from the backline can step in and bestow a gift to help the scene.  So each group will perform a monologue, and 3 scenes and then solicit another word suggestion and another monologue and 3-4 scenes depending on the time.  During the last two-thirds anyone can do a monologue if they choose instead of a scene.  I know it’s confusing. I was confused too.

 

We warmed up with our thumpers and a game called Zoom Schwartz Elvis Profigliano.  I don’t want to forget my thumpers and for history’s sake I will list below. 

 

1.     “Scary Teri”
2.     Ouch ouch ouch and jumping up and down yelping like a puppy in pain.
3.     I gotta pee I gotta pee while I squeeze my thighs together.
4.     Oh shit that’s my ex!
5.     OMG I’m so positive! while I jump up

 I had more but I forgot them.

 

Then we did a quick scene to remind us to establish location and relationship right away.  My partner and I got the word “comb” and I said, “Honey, you’re losing your hair.”  He said maybe I should get Rogaine and I said no go to the doctor because I think it’s more serious than that. He vacillated and I said, honey you know I don’t like bald men.  He said “ouch.”  Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the teacher and thought, oh shit.  He’s balding.  So I said, you know it’s not personal.  It reminds me of my dad and it freaks me out. It reminds me of his clown wig cap and how he used to scare the shit out of us.  The teacher ended the scene.

 

After warm up we basically just ran the show.  Each team did the first third and then we did the last two thirds.

 

Our team got the word “Prius.”  I stepped up immediately to do a monologue.  It was going to be way too easy.  I knew it as soon as I heard the word.

I told them the word Prius reminded me of my ex.  I live in Silverlake and every other car is a Prius.  Everywhere we went there they were Priuses.  The weird thing is that I never noticed it until he brought it up.  So I had to listen to constant annoying comments about Priuses and hipsters and he making fun of hipsters on Priuses.  But of course I was in love so it didn’t bother me that much until now that I have to be reminded of him every time I see a Prius in my neighborhood.  But I’m okay really.  It’s been a year a half and I’m totally over it.  The worst thing about the break up was thinking my ex was this great dude that I put on a pedestal and then finding out that he was the total opposite.  A loser and a misogynist.  I always thought I was a good judge of character and now I just don’t know.  I don’t trust myself anymore.  But I’m okay.  Really.  Totally okay.  I’ve decided never to put myself in that situation ever again.  I am perfectly happy with my doggy and I am totally fine with a closed lady cave. 

While I was talking I looked out at the audience and saw sad expressions.  The more I talked, the sadder they got.  It threw me.  What I was saying was funny to me, but now that I think about it, it’s pretty sad if you don’t know me.  I talked way too much because I got confused and was expecting the teacher to end my monologue.  He said at the beginning of the class that he was going to be at the booth editing the scenes by going to black.  Not the monologues.  Luckily it fell within the two minute mark.

Most of the scenes people did were about Priuses:  a father who works at Greenpeace tries to force a Hummer on his daughter because they are a Hummer family (I pretended to be a Save the Polar Bears protestor in the background); a lesbian on her first Match.com date only dates women who drive Priuses.  The last one was about a guy trying to talk to his father about being heartbroken and the father calling the ex a whore and all kinds of names.  I didn’t do a scene.

When we talked about the scenes, the teacher told us that we did exactly what we were not supposed to do, basically stick to the one word suggestion.  He said sometimes you have to do that if you get nothing from the monologue or the scenes themselves, but in this case, I gave them a lot to work with and almost no one took advantage of it.  Not everyone gets going from A to C.  I found it interesting that the students who are the oldest do the best monologues.  So is it true young people have nothing to say?  I don’t think so.  I think young people are too self-conscious and afraid to be honest.  I’m not.  It’s basically all I’ve got.

For the next two thirds of the show I decided I wasn’t going to do a monologue and just participate in the scenes.  Our second word suggestion was Post-It Notes and another old fart did a monologue about how when you work in an office you accumulate a lot of free supplies, especially pens.  I stood back scene by scene not really getting inspired by anything they were doing it.  I was trying to go from A to C, but they kept on doing scenes about office supplies, going from A to A to A.  I finally got an idea and stepped forward.  When my scene partner stepped up, I jumped on him and yelled “SURPRISE!!! Happy 21^st Birthday little bro!”  handed him an imaginary shot then his present then a shot, etc.  He was overwhelmed and I kept on pressing that he open his present.  He did and was speechless.  I finally said, “It’s highlighters. And Post-It Notes. Even those that say “Sign Here.”  He looked disappointed and I acted like my feelings were hurt. I asked him why he wasn’t excited and he said he didn’t imagine his 21^st birthday bash to be just us doing shots at home.  He expected to go to a bar.  I told him I had limited finances and he said then why did you give me what looks like $200 worth of office supplies.  I told him it was to help him realize his dream of having his own office supply store like Lexor. (Here I called back a scene about the manager of Lexor, a supply store that gets its inventory from stolen stuff people misplace all the time, like lighters and pens.)  I continued to try to get him excited about becoming an office supply mogul and going to Shark Tank and getting Mark Cuban to invest.

Our scene inspired a monologue about a 21^st birthday bash drunken blackout and that inspired a scene about a son who tells his dad he wants to be an equestrian.  It was set in a barn while the dad brushed a horse.  The father was not very receptive and kept on trying to discourage the son by telling him how hard it was.  I then decided to act like a horse and pranced by them and then pinched the son.  The dad said, “You can never be as good as your sister, look at her.”  We then lost it because we all knew I was supposed to be a horse that bit him on the arm.  My intention was to throw them a gift because the scene was going nowhere.  As it turns out, it wasn’t really because you can never predict what someone is going to interpret it as.  You have to be very specific with what you do from the back line when you do a walk in.  Again, that was me trying to write it my way.

I was feeling very nervous about having to perform in front of an audience for the first time in my life.  I even contemplated bailing.  Of course I did.  But I know I won’t.  I can’t.  I need to do this.  I’m on a journey.  I don’t know what it is.  I’ll tell you when I find out.

 

Lesson #7:  Fear can fool you into thinking you don’t want something you really want.

Head-in-a-Cart Takes an Improv Class: Week 3

Shitty Illustration by Teri Carson (all rights reserved, that's right)

Part of the requirements to pass the Improv 101 course is to watch two long-form improv shows at UCB.  At the beginning of each class the teacher asks us what show we saw, makes note, and then solicits our thoughts and observations on the shows.  I made it a point to see a show on Monday night because I had an agenda:  to hint at my fellow students that they were not getting it by making smart observations about the process.  I know. It had only been two classes.  But it seems most of my classmates are not listening to the teacher.  Also, the teacher is a lot more patient than I am.

Before the teacher even had a chance to ask, my hand was already waving in the air like one of those annoying over-achieving know-it-alls in grade school. (Ok, that was me back then too.) I said that I had an “aha!” moment where what I was seeing clicked with what the teacher talked about during class, such as keeping things logical and in reality and the combination of normal and unusual characters in the scene.  I also told them that there was a lot of supporting, having each other’s back and rescuing the scene.  The teacher nodded and gave me kudos for my insights.  At that moment, I’m pretty sure I was his favorite student.  The others didn’t have much to say as it related to what we were trying to accomplish in class.  Oy.

Before I get into the content of yesterday’s class, I’d like to get something off my chest.

The first thing I did when I got to class was sit next to a girl I suspected was an actress and that seemed interesting enough to consider for a film.  I’ll call her Haley since that’s her actual name.  Class hadn’t started so we just sat there.  I turned to her and I asked her if she was an actor.  She said she was.  I told her a friend and I were both prepping to shoot films and I thought she might be good for a role.  She was taken aback and said thanks.  She’s very shy, insecure and awkward. I asked her if she was SAG and she said yes. Then I asked for a headshot and she didn’t have one.  Then she said, I’ll give you my agent’s number.

At first I was a bit confused and wondered if maybe she was well-known and I didn’t know it.  But then I remembered how it is with these actors in Hollywood that are just starting out.  They are all obsessed with getting reps and when they do they are told potential employers must go through them.  My ex-roommate, an actress, never got any good leads from her reps and eventually dumped them because they would tell her what to do and what not to do.  That’s not the way to take control of your career, especially when you’re starting out.  And then I was like, oh shit, how do I un-do my request?  So I basically took out my phone and started reading tweets.  I didn’t press her for the contact info and she didn’t offer it even though we were sitting next to each to her the entire class.

That’s such a red flag.  I’m not looking to collaborate with agents. I’m looking to collaborate with hungry, ambitious artists.  If I wanted to deal with reps I would try to cast name actors for fuck’s sake.  I feel bad for Haley but I guess everyone has to learn the hard way. 

So back to class.  We started with exercises.  You’d be glad to know that we are getting a lot better at the Zip Zap Zop exercise.  We did a new one that the teacher said most of us were going to hate.  It’s called Hot Spot and it teaches you to support your teammates.  He’d say a word, then someone got in the middle and started singing a song prompted by that word.  We were to be supportive by singing along and being enthusiastic.  Eventually one of us had to replace the person in the middle by singing a song that was somehow related to that song.  At first there were only three people playing.  I wasn’t self-conscious or afraid of the game, I just couldn’t think of any songs and I’m terrible with lyrics.  Eventually everyone got in the game and I got to sing You Are My Sunshine and London Bridge.  The exercises that followed were designed to help us understand support and keeping a scene contained.

I had a moment of horror at the beginning of an exercise.  We all stood around in a circle and the teacher said find a partner.  Both people to my left and right turned away from me.  I looked around the room and who did I see didn’t have a partner?  Yup. Mr. Pizza Maker Herpes Douche himself.  Luckily the exercise didn’t involve any talking.  We just had to form the letters and numbers the teacher said out loud working as a team.

We moved on to an exercise that to my surprise almost everyone found difficult.  It was pretty basic.  We made two lines and formed couples.  After a word prompt, the first person said a line to establish location and/or relationship, then the second person followed with the same objective in mind, and then the one that started the dialogue ended it.  Again, most of the exchanges were absurd.  Mine went like this:

(first time we had no prompt)

Me: Your honor, here’s the opinion you asked me to write for you. I suggest you read it before the hearing.

Alfred:  Thank you very much, you are a fine….(he couldn’t figure out who I was so I whispered “clerk” to him)
Me:  No problem. I feel very honored to be your clerk which is what I wanted since I was in law school.

(word: catapult)

Alfred:  I bought these two tickets to see the human cannonball.
Me: I think you should take me since I’m your sister and I want a career in the circus.
Alfred:  But I only have two tickets.

(word: towel)

Me:  Sir, let me show you around the spa. Here’s the Jacuzzi, the sauna and the steam room.
Alfred:  I hope they are clean.
Me:  Yes, we cleaned them after that hairy man was finished using them.

We continued working on support.  We did scenes where we were supposed to endow each other with gifts.  The teacher explained that it meant giving each other information about our characters.  He demonstrated by playing both sides.  He said he would tell us when to stop giving each other gifts and just go on with the scene.  The audience would give a word prompt and one by one, each couple gave each other compliments.  The teacher explained that even though his demonstration involved compliments, it didn’t have to be that way.  That it could be bad stuff too.  It just had to be information.

I got paired up with a young girl named Lisa.  On the first day of class I complimented her on her cute dress and she replied: “Thank you. I got it from my mom’s closet. It’s from the 80s.  Do you know the 80s?”  So I hated her a little bit.  Someone in the audience threw out the “Jack O Lantern” and she opened the scene with “Isn’t this pumpkin patch nice?”

Me:  Yes, you really like plants and gardening, don’t you?

Lisa:  Yes mom, same as you.
Me:  You’re confusing me with your dad.  He loved plants and so did you, which makes me wonder why you’re majoring in physics.
Lisa:  I love physics, especially the astro part.  Also since you’re an astronomer.
Me:  You were never interested in astronomy.  Every time I called you to look through the telescope you said you were busy with your dad in the garden.
Lisa:  Well, you’re a witch.
Me:  Yes, I have to do the witchy stuff so I can pay for your expensive Harvard education.
Lisa:  I wish you would do spells to help me attract boys.
Me:  I can’t do spells for myself or my family.
Lisa:  Oh yeah, what about the time you did the spells to scare off my boyfriends?
Me: That was only twice and that’s because they had no jobs and were short.

End of scene.

You see what she did? She didn’t support me.  I’m doing all the fucking supporting.  In fact, she undermined the scene twice.  Some people have a lot of trouble saying YES.

Next came my favorite part of the class because, in my opinion, it had to do with the essence of unique storytelling.  This two-person exercise required recalling memories.  The audience blurted out a word and one of us in front had to talk about a memory initiated by that word and then make up a line of dialogue based on the memory.  I was really paying attention to who was going to stand up next to get up in front.  Miss Fake Boobs went to the front and I thought what the hell and followed her.  She was covered up and wearing those Sasquatch looking white boots, which was weird since it was 94 degrees outside.  Someone said, “snow.”

Sasquatch:  It makes me think of winters in Michigan with my family and our yard blanketed in snow.

Teacher: Ok, make up a line based on that memory.

Sasquatch:  Wow, it has snowed so much. Everything is covered in snow.

Me re my memory:  It reminds me of the first year my family went up to our cabin in Lake Arrowhead.  It had snowed a lot and also it was when The Movie Channel would play the same three movies all day long: Hardcore, Ice Castles and The Shining.  We must have seen the Shining a half a dozen times that weekend.

My line:  Yes, it’s starting to look a lot like the Overlook Hotel.

Sasquatch re memory:  It reminds me of when we were snowed in and my dad would rent movies and he’d pause on his favorite part over and over again.

Sasquatch’s line:  Dad, I hope you’re not going to make us watch your scary movies all day long.

Me re memory:  It reminds me of how much I love to scare the shit out of my niece and nephews.

My line:  Oh, honey, but it reminds me of when you were little and you were so cute when you were scared and you’d run out of the room screaming.

The teacher explained that accessing memories and using them was what was going to make our scenes memorable and unique.  I’d like to think my classmates understood this concept, but I doubt it.  I think for most it’s way too difficult and complex.  I did it the first day of class.  Remember my fender-bender scene?  If you mention a dent in the car I’m automatically going to think “Asian driver” because a day doesn’t go by that I don’t have a close call with an Asian driver.  It’s part of my everyday life.  Of course, the teacher didn’t know and I got chastised for using race again.

Lesson #3:  Be supportive but also on the lookout for your partner to sabotage you.

Lesson #4:  Memories are vital and more precious than you think.

The Head-in-a-Cart Takes an Improv Class

 

Years ago…YEARS ago…. I took a theater acting class because I felt I needed to find out what actors did.  How could I communicate with actors if I didn’t know what it is they do other than memorize text?  It was a scary thing for me to do even though a few years before (during my Existential Period) I had joined a theater group in Mexico.  I didn’t really learn to do much except stretch out and run around in a circle at varying speeds.  Mostly we sat on stage talking, drinking red wine and smoking.  The drinking and smoking part of the theater was fun for me.  Not the acting.  I adapted Kafka’s Metamorphosis into a monologue and I recited it while I writhed on the floor.  My teacher said I was good.  Of course I wasn’t.  I was a bad cockroach.  A terrible cockroach.  No cockroach would have believed that performance even though I did put in a lot of effort into trying to portray what a cockroach would think and feel in that situation.

Ok, so my second attempt at theater was at a local community college theater class and after a few weeks the teacher told me I was a head in a cart.  Those were her exact words.   I didn’t take it personally since it’s true.  I was actually comforted that someone had found a way to describe me perfectly.  I’ve been a photographer since childhood and I’m at home behind the camera.  I never fancied myself a performer.  I’m an introvert and I live inside my head.  I couldn’t stop thinking and was unable to just act. Do. Be. Anything but think.  And I just don’t think. I over think. Every single little thing.  And the conclusion is always the same: I’M NO GOOD.  That’s why I suck at dating too.  And right now I’m analyzing this paragraph and concluding it’s no good.  Anyway, all I wanted was to become a better director.  Although the class helped me appreciate the skills of a trained actor, I dropped out with a third of the semester to go. 

And now here were are.  You know that cliché quote some famous dead person said, “Do something that scares you every day?” I do that. Well, not every single day but I don’t shy away from challenges or new experiences.  (Out of necessity, I have finally conquered my fear of Photoshop.)  I tend to run away from the comfort zone if I ever find myself in it.  The comfort zone is good at paralyzing you and if you’re paralyzed, you’ll never be able to make films without money.  You learn absolutely nothing in the comfort zone.

I first heard of UCB at a Sundance Comedy Lab I attended last year.  UCB this, UCB that, I met her at UCB, go to UCB, blah blah blah, UCB.  I didn’t even know that it stood for Upright Citizens Brigade.  I looked it up and kind of forgot about it until I heard it mentioned again at another panel and then another panel and then again at this year’s Sundance Shorts Lab.  Then I couldn’t shake it.  I felt there was something there I had to explore.  So I started to stalk the website for upcoming classes without having any luck.  I got frustrated and wrote to the person in charge of those things.  She told me I would have to continue to monitor the website and be patient.  And that’s what I have been doing for weeks: refreshing the page every ten minutes.  I finally got lucky this morning and saw a class I could take had been posted.  I paid and here I am.

Why would I want to try this again if I already failed twice?  Why would I want to get in front of people and try to make up funny shit to make them laugh?  (OMG! I write funny stuff for OTHER people to perform.) Why? It’s not that I want to be a performer.  I want to make unique comedies.  I want to work with trained, funny people.  I want to be able to speak their language.  I want make the best product possible.  So I’m jumping.  I’m jumping into the abyss as my former existential, cockroach-portraying self used to say.

I say it all the time.  The most courageous thing any human being can do is get in front of an audience and try to make people laugh.  If I can pull this off without diarrhea-ing on stage, I will be able to do just about anything else without being crippled by fear.  I know it.  But the most I can hope is that I will get some tools to make funnier and better films and meet funny people to collaborate with in the future.  That is the true goal.

My first class is next Wednesday, October 3^rd, my birthday.  I will let you know how it went.