Austin Improv

I like Dude, Where's My Car better than Amadeus, and I've never even seen Dude, Where's My Car.

I really like movies.

Jeff wrote:I like Dude, Where's My Car better than Amadeus, and I've never even seen Dude, Where's My Car.

I've talked to people about this, a lot of people hate Dude Wheres My Car having not even seen it, it's actually pretty funny...

I saw Smoking Arm recently and thought it was some of the most interesting improv I've seen in a while. I don't think they've quite gelled as a group mind, but definitely look forward to seeing more. Wish there were more harolds in Austin.

I like the games, but think they tend to go on too long, maybe because they're easy/fun for the players.

slappywhite wrote:

Jeff wrote:I like Dude, Where's My Car better than Amadeus, and I've never even seen Dude, Where's My Car.

I've talked to people about this, a lot of people hate Dude Wheres My Car having not even seen it, it's actually pretty funny...

I enjoy dude, where's my car?

TexasImprovMassacre wrote:

slappywhite wrote:

Jeff wrote:I like Dude, Where's My Car better than Amadeus, and I've never even seen Dude, Where's My Car.

I've talked to people about this, a lot of people hate Dude Wheres My Car having not even seen it, it's actually pretty funny...

I enjoy dude, where's my car?

SWEET!
DUDE?
SWEET
DUDE?
SWEET?
DUDE!

I tried to stay away from this discussion, but my will was not strong enough. Here are my opinions:

Harold is just another form.

Harold is only difficult if you try to do it correctly. Improvise. It's more fun that way.

The group games are supposed to promote group mind, but my experience is that group mind is best discovered/achieved by warming up really sweetly for thirty minutes to an hour before the show starts.

DollarBill wrote:Harold is only difficult if you try to do it correctly. Improvise. It's more fun that way.

I heart Bill Stern.

Bill, Kaci kind of beat you to this one.

kaci_beeler wrote:In the end, it's just a structure.
It doesn't naturally have any weight or worth on its own. You give it weight and worth.
You are the key to its success or failure. It's just a structure, just like any other structure. Something to give us focus on that blank stage.

Marc, Brad beat you to hearting Bill Stern in response by snarkily hearting Kaci in response.

Beat beat beat beat beat.

Justin Davis wrote: Beat beat beat beat beat.

Ooo, five-beat modified Harold.

myfriendedward wrote:

Justin Davis wrote: Beat beat beat beat beat.

Ooo, five-beat modified Harold.

Exactly.

I had some other thoughts, but just haven't had time to jot them down.

In the meantime, though, I stumbled across KPR's thoughts on Harold and I enjoy them a lot:

http://blog.longform.ca/2007/06/06/our- ... to-harold/

Milquetoast wrote: By the way, Harold is mostly what you see out here in LA.

exactly. which is, i think, what has transformed my utter indifference and apathy for the Harold into something more akin to seething hatred. because it has so utterly homogenized longform in L.A. at the ridiculous altar of hero worship that has formed around IO West and Del (who i have nothing but respect for, let me get that out of the way right up front). and really does nothing but foment this utterly silly sense of cliqueishness that exists in the L.A. scene where there's not a lot of shared community or spirit of innovation and experimentation like there has been in Austin, which is where i think Austin improv derives its greatest strengths from.

i had the opportunity to perform in a "Harold" tournament at IO West during the L.A. Improv Festival (which was pretty much just troupes doing their brand of longform, but because i guess IO West has some fear about other forms of longform encroaching on the Harold brand identity, they have to lump them all together and call them the same thing). the troupes who were ACTUALLY doing Harolds tended to just bore me, as they usually do, while the troupes that stepped outside those bounds and did their own thing were much freer and showed a much better group mind and energy.

which pretty much summed up my attitude towards the Harold in general: boring to do, even more boring to watch.

Milquetoast wrote:It feels like there's less experimentation going on, but I haven't seen a show at Bang! yet. Maybe they're up to magical adventures.

meh. not really. i only got to seem them once (in the aforementioned tournament), but there wasn't anything there i'd call "magical."

DollarBill wrote:
The group games are supposed to promote group mind, but my experience is that group mind is best discovered/achieved by warming up really sweetly for thirty minutes to an hour before the show starts.

It's my opinion that the group opening/games are intended to:
a) Build group mind & energy
b) Deconstruct the suggestion and generate ideas
c) Give a potentially uninformed audience insight into the creative process

A can be achieved easily in greenroom warmups, B&C not so much...

the_reverend wrote: sense of cliqueishness that exists in the L.A. scene where there's not a lot of shared community or spirit of innovation and experimentation

Milquetoast wrote:It feels like there's less experimentation going on, but I haven't seen a show at Bang! yet. Maybe they're up to magical adventures.

meh. not really. i only got to seem them once (in the aforementioned tournament), but there wasn't anything there i'd call "magical."

When I was there, there was somewhat of a sense of cliquishness within theaters. However, shows at iO were very different from Second City and from The Groundlings (I imagine; never actually saw one) and from a lot of smaller, independent theaters. UCB and Westside Ecclectic didn't exist then. How has the scene gotten so much bigger, yet the style so much less diverse? That sounds weird.