Austin Improv

Anyone here taken a mask class? Anyone want to teach one? Masks are freaky.

As someone who has read IMPRO, I would be interested in this as I'm sure it will bring to surface all the horrendous nightmares I experienced reading the mask and trance section of the book.

I'm going to San Francisco in August of this year to TA for the Keith Johnstone weekend intensive. Last time I was there I took a mask workshop with William Hall and it was awesome. This time, since quite a few other Austin improvisers are studying at BATS (at least 10 people are heading out there) I'm trying to set up a day-long mask workshop with William Hall and the Austinites. In the meantime I'm planning on organizing some mask-making events and maybe some preliminary workshops so we've got some of the basics down.

Look for the mask-making event in the next month.

Masks are very very freaky.

um i took a mask workshop at the bla bla national bla bla theatre institute....

i felt dirty







it was freaky

i made the two devil masks on the wall at my house. i made them with plaster bandages*. it was quite fun. i'm more than happy to make a mask for FREE if you supply the mula and hardware.


*plaster bandages are extremely cheap

My only knowledge of any sort of masks and improv collaboration is through reading Impro. And to be honest, the Masks and Trance section of Impro scared the living daylights out of me.

Let's do it! Let's do a mask workshop, I would be more than willing to take this crazy ass leap into the semi-unknown!

Aside from a few one day mask workshops with Dennis Cahill and Sean Kinley at the Loose Moose, I took a mask workshop with some grad students at UT. You spent the whole semester with one mask: choosing the mask, finding its personality, picking out clothes for it, playing scenes in it, performing monologues, and then wandering out around campus in it. And these masks were freaky grotesque masks: assymetrical and oversized. It was a little freaky, but not as powerful as I had hoped.



William Hall's mask classes are the #1 best.

Here's a picture of me at William Hall's mask workshop in October at the Applied Improv Network Conference.

I thought the Mask part of "Impro" was interesting, but it didn't seem like something I would be able to do. Actually, I thought it seemed hokey and silly. I guess it's because I don't believe in the idea that a mask has a "spirit" that could possess me.

Anybody else have this perspective before working with masks and had that perspective changed by their mask experience?

I worked with Eric Stolz on the set of Mask.

It was not pretty. Cher gave me a foot massage.

Masks are unique in that it's the only way you can look in a mirror and see someone different from yourself. That is a strange and powerful experience.

dood chris... that's not really ture is it? you worked with mongoloid forehead stoltz? way cool. hopefully you got it on with laura dern.

smerlin wrote:Masks are unique in that it's the only way you can look in a mirror and see someone different from yourself. That is a strange and powerful experience.

That's not true. I once looked into a mirror and saw a guy who immediately challenged me to a staring contest. I remember yelling "Blinker's gotta fuck sometime!"

So, yeah, rum works too.

I've looked into a mirror without wearing a mask and seen someone other than myself. True story.

so does anyone want me to make them a mask?!