Austin Improv

I know some of you have been wondering about the AIC awards and potluck for this year. Never you fear, it is happening! However, we are completely redoing the way we present awards.

I started the awards three years ago because I wanted a way for us to be able to recognize all the awesome work we're doing. I imagined it as an outpouring of love and selflessness. For the most part, it has been that, and pretty fun and wonderful. But I think it has also caused a few moments of people feeling left out, overlooked, and not awesome. Also, all those frickin awards took forever. So here is the new plan. It gave me feelings of joy and awesomeness when Asaf first proposed it:

Instead of formatting the show to be like the Oscars we would make it look more like the Kennedy Honors.
Each year, the AIC will select three deserving entities (groups, Theaters,
teachers or performers, etc.) who would be paid tribute to through an award and their peers. The AIC community as a whole would individually be able to submit three names, and those groups or people that received the highest number of nominations would be our honorees.

The three honorees would be announced online ahead of time and people in the community would be commissioned to be part of a fifteen minute tribute to that honoree. Each tribute would begin with a short speech that might give an overview of their accomplishments, influence, etc. This would be followed by three preset presentations: sketches, videos, songs, or even an improv piece inspired by the honoree.

There would be a host that would move us from tribute to tribute. The one
giving the speech in each tribute would introduce the acts in that tribute
and then hand the award to the honoree.

It makes me happy just to think about it. Asaf will be sending out ballots shortly.

Everything else should work much the same way- we're finalizing a venue, but we'll still have potluck and love.

I am trying to think of an alternative to the traditional love notes we've had in the past-they're awesome, but there are so many people I know a lot of folks feel like they spend the entire evening trying to write nice things about everyone else. If anyone has any ideas in this regard- either a way to accomplish something similar at a differnt time or in a different way, or any other fun activities for the potluck that would help people get to know folks from other theatres/schools/cities, start talking and collaborating and hatching schemes....

Volunteers will be needed fro certain tasks, once we have the venue set I'll wrangle up some folks.

As this community gets bigger, and we all get more entrenched in all the bad-ass stuff we're doing at the sweet-ass places we've built, the potluck is a chance to reconnect with each other and build on that good vibe we all started four years ago.

If you're reading this, your attendance is humbly requested.

acrouch wrote:As this community gets bigger, and we all get more entrenched in all the bad-ass stuff we're doing at the sweet-ass places we've built, the potluck is a chance to reconnect with each other and build on that good vibe we all started four years ago.

If you're reading this, your attendance is humbly requested.

Definitely. It almost seems like AIC has grown too big for the old awards format, and that's a wonderful problem to have.

NO SARCASM

Looking forward to a large group hug. Improvlove.

Yay! I love the new tribute format.

RE: replacing Love Notes

What about setting up something similar online - a space where all the known AIC names are listed and you can anonymously post things to that name's account (you could sign your post if you wanted to).

Also, we could get a big cake that says, "THE AIC LOVES YOU" and then everyone gets a slice.

???

I'm gonna have to think this over a bit before I give a full response. Initially, I am not
fond of the idea of honoring--what will probably be--the same old troups entities etc...
that already get a lot of honors, kudos etc...in the community. At least with the old
awards, more people get recognition for at least being nominated. Not saying that
we should do things the old way...but Kennedy honors...? Have we really gotten that big?

But c'mon! The love notes have got to stay. Just tell people to write their notes in advance
of the fest. Seriously. Thirty minutes at home and whoola! and if you've forgotten someone
then write it at the fest.

I have to agree with Ceej on this one. It's an interesting idea, but I'm confused as to how this won't make as many people feel left out. Also, love notes is as good of an idea as anything else. I don't hold it against anyone if they didn't put a note in my envelope.

Please don't get rid of the love notes. It's my favorite part of this whole thing. I still have all of mine from years past and still pull them out on occasion.

My take on it is that people put out envelopes, and if somebody puts a nice note, fantastic! If not, no big deal - I don't expect that people will know everybody else anymore. Please keep the love notes!

HerrHerr wrote:I'm gonna have to think this over a bit before I give a full response. Initially, I am not
fond of the idea of honoring--what will probably be--the same old troups entities etc...
that already get a lot of honors, kudos etc...in the community. At least with the old
awards, more people get recognition for at least being nominated. Not saying that
we should do things the old way...but Kennedy honors...? Have we really gotten that big?

But c'mon! The love notes have got to stay. Just tell people to write their notes in advance
of the fest. Seriously. Thirty minutes at home and whoola! and if you've forgotten someone
then write it at the fest.

I agree with this. I suppose that it shouldn't matter to me, because I never really get nominated for anything... and now that it's an even bigger community the likelihood of personally getting nominated is probably nil. Yet, I really liked the award categories... particularly the silly ones like "the most likely to win this award" award and "best dressed." I also really liked the sketches people would put together for giving each award. What I'm saying is, the joy for me wasn't the possibility that I might win an award (since it never was a possibility), the joy was in watching the silliness of an award ceremony.

BUT it was time consuming, so if it needs to change I'm cool with that.

The love notes however... well I don't see any good reason for them to change. They're anonymous anyway (often), and always make me feel loved and appreciated.

I liked the love notes. Looking forward to it.

As to the Awards:
I feel like the more you try to include a lot of people, the more people will feel left out if they aren't included. Also, it's next to impossible to know specifically what people outside your theatre are doing in terms of being "playful and accepting" or doing "best absurd scenes," we just can't all watch that much improv when we're doing it already.

Winners will be retired from any future consideration for being honored, so maybe some old familiars will take it home at first. But it doesn't even have to be that way!

I challenge everyone to nominate the most deserving but perhaps not expected entity they can think of.

Who or what makes you smile every time you encounter them?
Who works tirelessly to promote improv everywhere?
Who has changed your career in improv for the better, through encouragement, opportunity, or instruction? Think of those questions as you make your decisions.

As to the fun part of the awards, which is watching the skits and things: this system provides a lot more of that, and a lot less of the boringness.

I know that there will never be a system of recognition and celebration that everyone embraces. All I ask is that you approach this with an open mind, in the spirit of celebrating our community and all of its facets.

As to love notes:
Don't worry, they won't go away! I just know that a lot of people were beginning to think of it as an obligation rather than a pleasure. If nobody has any clearly more awesome suggestions for achieving the same end in a less hectic way, they will simply continue exactly as before.

I have a list of 175 improvisers who I have sent out AIC ballots to. If you did not receive one, then I do you not have you on this main list. Please send me a private message with your email and I will forward the ballot to you.

I would like to say WHY I like the new format.

I anticipated winners giving up their right to be honored the next year, so I was looking forward to years of new people being spotlighted.

I ALSO like watching the presentations of the awards. They're fun and silly and there seemed to be a diverse group of people doing them. And yet there were some winners whose work I didn't get to see often. The new awards give AIC members a chance to share with the rest of the community why the winners are so awesome, to do it in a fun way, and to have time to prepare that presentation (tho not soooo much time this year if we don't yet know the honorees).

That's the idea.

Also, I am resending the ballot. I forgot to include a field for you guys to enter your name so that I see who has and hasn't voted and for commissioning people for the tributes.