When I was a kid, and felt like I needed to get out of the house, I would jump on my bicycle, pedaling along while contemplating the big important philosophical questions running through my eight year old brain, such as “Why can’t people just be happy all the time?” I would usually end up at the base PX (my father was a career Air Force officer) in front of the magazine stand, where one day I discovered MAD Magazine. In one issue, I found THE POEM THAT CHANGED MY LIFE. It was an absurd riff on something I had been made to learn in school, and it read:
“Thirty days has Septober
April, June and No Wonder,
All the rest have peanut butter,
Except for my grandmother
Who has a little red tricycle.”
And there was a goofy little picture of a grandmother on a tricycle. This poem was a revelation! Deep in my DNA I recognized a “masterpiece” -- a simple piece that turned conventional logic on its head and… made me laugh. Made me happy! I could do stuff like this I realized! I could make other people laugh. Maybe people can’t be happy all the time, but helping them laugh, as my grandmother would say, “It couldn't hurt!” And I imagined her on a little red tricycle, and I laughed again.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
TIME AND SPACE AND IMPROV
TIME AND SPACE AND IMPROV - Saturday, March 21, 2009
Spent a lot of time this past week driving around Los Angeles. Listened to two audio books – Walter Isaacson’s biography “Einstein: His Life and Universe,” and Alan Lightman’s
“Einstein’s Dreams,” a poetic rumination on the dreams Einstein might have had while experiencing the burst of genius which led to his Theory of Relativity.
Anyway, I had a really exhausting week last week -- too much to do, too little time to do it. Sound familiar? Not enough time to think, to ponder, to let the creative juices flow of their own accord to some new insight. NOT ENOUGH TIME!! That’s when a new insight hit. It’s not that I don’t have enough time. I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH SPACE!
That’s a great way to look at it. Space is more generous than time. Time is unrelenting. It marches forward. I have no control over time. But space – space is available. I can pay attention at any instant, be in the space that I’m in and honor it. Supported by the space inside me and the space around me, trusting in the space to reward me for my attention, I can open up to my own intuition. Confident that when I return to it, time will have moved forward and I will be more “here” than I was before, when I thought that I was a victim of time, rather than a participant in space. The old cliché in comedy is that "timing is everything.” But think about it. Comedy timing is as much about space as it is about time. An improviser, in order to find the right “timing,” is really being informed by the interplay in the space between him/her and the other players and, to a very large degree, between performer and audience. In
that space is the intuition regarding how to “time something.” By “playing” the space, the great comic actor gets his “timing.
Spent a lot of time this past week driving around Los Angeles. Listened to two audio books – Walter Isaacson’s biography “Einstein: His Life and Universe,” and Alan Lightman’s
“Einstein’s Dreams,” a poetic rumination on the dreams Einstein might have had while experiencing the burst of genius which led to his Theory of Relativity.
Anyway, I had a really exhausting week last week -- too much to do, too little time to do it. Sound familiar? Not enough time to think, to ponder, to let the creative juices flow of their own accord to some new insight. NOT ENOUGH TIME!! That’s when a new insight hit. It’s not that I don’t have enough time. I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH SPACE!
That’s a great way to look at it. Space is more generous than time. Time is unrelenting. It marches forward. I have no control over time. But space – space is available. I can pay attention at any instant, be in the space that I’m in and honor it. Supported by the space inside me and the space around me, trusting in the space to reward me for my attention, I can open up to my own intuition. Confident that when I return to it, time will have moved forward and I will be more “here” than I was before, when I thought that I was a victim of time, rather than a participant in space. The old cliché in comedy is that "timing is everything.” But think about it. Comedy timing is as much about space as it is about time. An improviser, in order to find the right “timing,” is really being informed by the interplay in the space between him/her and the other players and, to a very large degree, between performer and audience. In
that space is the intuition regarding how to “time something.” By “playing” the space, the great comic actor gets his “timing.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!
HAPPY BIRTHDAYS
Today is my birthday. Tomorrow Del Close would have been seventy-five years old. For years, until Del’s death, no matter how far away we were from each other or how long it had been since we’d spoken, Del and I would have two phone conversations in the space of two days, one on March 8th and one on March 9th -- happy birthday phone calls. I miss those calls.
As a young improviser at The Committee, my favorite moments were being on stage and hearing Del’s deep, loud laugh coming from the back of a full house, laughing at something I’d said that I didn’t know was going to come out funny. Today and tomorrow there will be no birthday phone calls. But I thank Del for continuing to challenge me to play harder and dig deeper to hear, however faintly, his laugh, still cutting through the crowd from the back of the house.
As a young improviser at The Committee, my favorite moments were being on stage and hearing Del’s deep, loud laugh coming from the back of a full house, laughing at something I’d said that I didn’t know was going to come out funny. Today and tomorrow there will be no birthday phone calls. But I thank Del for continuing to challenge me to play harder and dig deeper to hear, however faintly, his laugh, still cutting through the crowd from the back of the house.
Monday, February 2, 2009
THANK YOU, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – BLOG 2/01/09
The other night in a Laughter for a Change improv class, the students spontaneously created a parody of "King Kong!" That’s right, and in the third class of the session. And the whole piece, complete with final scene on the Empire State Building, lasted about a two minutes! It was hilarious.
In talking about it afterwards, I said that the only real problem was it was so noisy and there was so much screaming (the girl, the airplanes, the Great Ape) that it was a little hard to follow. Not enough listening, I said. One of the players said “But it’s improv. Isn’t the nature of improvising something that big and with that many people that it will be very noisy?” “NO.” I answered. “Not if you’re fully committed to the moment, as you guys were, AND listening to the other players and to the space at the same time. It’s like music.” I’ve thought about that moment a lot since then. Trying to put into words what exactly was necessary to really make that almost glorious moment truly glorious. Then this morning, Super Bowl Sunday, in the New York Times, there was an interview with Bruce Springsteen, talking about his performance later today at the half-time show and other big performances he does. “Those moments are an opportunity for a very heightened kind of communication” he said.
That’s what I’ll tell them next week when we re-stage our mini-epic improv version of "King Kong." It doesn’t have to be noisy. In fact, moments like that – in our little theater, in a two-person conversation or at the Super Bowl – are an opportunity for “a very heightened kind of communication.” Thank you, Bruce Springsteen, once again, for supplying the right words at the right time.
In talking about it afterwards, I said that the only real problem was it was so noisy and there was so much screaming (the girl, the airplanes, the Great Ape) that it was a little hard to follow. Not enough listening, I said. One of the players said “But it’s improv. Isn’t the nature of improvising something that big and with that many people that it will be very noisy?” “NO.” I answered. “Not if you’re fully committed to the moment, as you guys were, AND listening to the other players and to the space at the same time. It’s like music.” I’ve thought about that moment a lot since then. Trying to put into words what exactly was necessary to really make that almost glorious moment truly glorious. Then this morning, Super Bowl Sunday, in the New York Times, there was an interview with Bruce Springsteen, talking about his performance later today at the half-time show and other big performances he does. “Those moments are an opportunity for a very heightened kind of communication” he said.
That’s what I’ll tell them next week when we re-stage our mini-epic improv version of "King Kong." It doesn’t have to be noisy. In fact, moments like that – in our little theater, in a two-person conversation or at the Super Bowl – are an opportunity for “a very heightened kind of communication.” Thank you, Bruce Springsteen, once again, for supplying the right words at the right time.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
“DON’T FORGET THE CIGARETTE”
In a Laughter for a Change Improv class on Thursday night, one of the players created a character that was smoking a “space” cigarette. Good choice – the way he handled the cigarette gave a lot of detail to the character. It was a real example of how a space prop and physical acting can bring reality to an improv. In the midst of the improv, the player became so excited, gesturing wildly with his arms, that the space cigarette totally disappeared. His commitment to the character was there, but his attention to the “physical reality” of the cigarette he created flew out the window. I coached him – “Don’t forget the cigarette” and he refocused on it, harder than before. That’s when the scene got funny.
His attention was not on trying to create a funny character, but just to give reality to the physical choice he had made, and when he truly did that, the scene took on new life, the character got richer and the laughs started coming. With his attention to the space work, all this “business” with the cigarette came to life spontaneously. He discovered how to make the character real, which is to say funny, by staying true to the physical reality he had created.
Incidentally, the FDA has determined that smoking imaginary cigarettes is not harmful to your health.
His attention was not on trying to create a funny character, but just to give reality to the physical choice he had made, and when he truly did that, the scene took on new life, the character got richer and the laughs started coming. With his attention to the space work, all this “business” with the cigarette came to life spontaneously. He discovered how to make the character real, which is to say funny, by staying true to the physical reality he had created.
Incidentally, the FDA has determined that smoking imaginary cigarettes is not harmful to your health.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Laughter for a Change Improv School Opens
Last night was the opening night of the Laughter for a Change Improv School. I love the first night of new improv classes. You have a group of people who don’t know each other and in eight weeks will be a team -- friends, some friendships that will last a long time.
Once, in a twelve-week improv class I taught at UCLA (one three hour meeting per week), there were two students who met as strangers the first night and twelve weeks later -- engaged to be married. In last night’s class, at 7 o’clock there were fourteen strangers, slightly tentative, politely introducing themselves to each other, and three hours later, laughing, joking, discussing surprising connections of mutual friends, similar histories and shared beliefs.
Class finished at 10 pm, and at a quarter to 11, I wandered out with the half dozen former strangers who were still hanging out in the theater. No one wanted to leave – that’s always a good sign.
Once, in a twelve-week improv class I taught at UCLA (one three hour meeting per week), there were two students who met as strangers the first night and twelve weeks later -- engaged to be married. In last night’s class, at 7 o’clock there were fourteen strangers, slightly tentative, politely introducing themselves to each other, and three hours later, laughing, joking, discussing surprising connections of mutual friends, similar histories and shared beliefs.
Class finished at 10 pm, and at a quarter to 11, I wandered out with the half dozen former strangers who were still hanging out in the theater. No one wanted to leave – that’s always a good sign.
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