Chapter 2: Producing The First Show
It costs an improviser alot of money every week to hone their skills. If the practice or performance group does not have a free place to practice, the cost involving a coach + rehearsal space can get to about $100 for three hours of learning for a group. This amount is then divided by the amount of improvisers who actually show up to a practice that week. Anyone_ who has ever organized a single practice session has balls. They are putting trust in other improvisers (who they haven't really worked with or know) who say they will be there.
Mathematics:
Rehearsal space: $18 an hour X 3 hours:
$54
Current Rate for a Quality Coach: $50 for 3 hours
Most rehearsal spaces want money up front. So, usually The Scheduler will lay this money out of pocket first. Most improvisers are strapped for cash. Aside from the practice group they are usually spreading money out to an improv class ($250-$300 for 6-8 weeks) or two classes and other things in life.
One of the Unborn Group (FIRESTORM)'s members, Lou, had a job at the time that allowed him to access his workspace anytime he wanted. The office featured a 20' x 20' section of a bigger room that can handle 9 improvisers. Starting in late January 2002, our practices were held there every Sunday night, 7-10pm (no bonding meal afterwards). With every practice we were saving money. It would average only about $6 a person a week to get 3 hours of extensive notes & exercises from our coach, James Eason. (who needs classes?) We got to know each other. We did some of the worst harolds known to man and some interesting scenes. Our focus was sharpening our Harold skills. Eason had a great improv mind and pushed us further. I could see there was more that he wanted to do, or more that he should get the chance to do, like work on a new form with an improv group that didn't want to do the harold. I made a mental note of that and we continued to practice with him.
We got the commitment from Kings County... I asked for some of them to come by after one of our practices. We made the arrangement for the show via their head guy, Jonas, I never met most of them. Jonas showed & I handed him Kings County...'s 1000 postcards. * I over estimated on the postcards. A good number for a weekly show with 4 performances a month is about 1000. I had 2000 made for our April show.
Postcards legitimize what you are producing. Postcards can be made inexpensively if you have a little design skills and a computer w/printer. [*
www.kinkos.com has an amazing program you can download that takes your designed Word document and turns it into a "Kinkos Document Form" or .kdf. THis is like a cheap version of Adobe Acrobat. It takes your design and converts it to a kinkos file. (If you bring in a design off of your Word .doc, most likely the margins & fonts will be fuck city. Convert it, then bring or send it to kinkos. PS- they are open 24 hours a day!)
The cool things about do-it-yourself postcards is that they are A-cheap & B-
have no minimum on how many you can have printed. If you use a professional service for professional postcards, your minimum order must be for 1000 cards @ $300 a pop. My system was 1000 b/w postcards @ $45 a pop. The is no minimum, if you need only 4 postcards[according to my cheap setup], kinkos will do the order.
1000 EXPENSIVE POSTCARDS
Have them "professionally" designed: $100-$300
Have them "professionally" printed: $170 (color on one side)
TOTAL FOR 1000 EXPENSIVE CARDS: $370
1000 IN-EXPENSIVE POSTCARDS
Design them yourself & print out one copy of each side: $0
Buy a pack of 250 sheets of 110lb Cardstock (Hammermill), lettersized: $9 [at Staples choice of white, light blue, yellow]
Make double sided copies: $0(at your day job) or $35 (at kinkos)
Cut your double sided copies into fours & you have 1000 postcards.
(kinkos has a great cutting machine that the staff uses that gives the cuts sharp edges, looks more professional. DO NOT USE THE CUTTING THING THEY HAVE IN THE COPY AREA THE CUTS LOOK LIKE SHIT)_ $0.75 (at kinkos)
TOTAL FOR 1000 IN-EXPENSIVE POSTCARDS:$50 or less
Jonas hung around. We talked about what I was billing our show as:
Above Kleptomania: Saturdays midnights in April @ Surf Reality "See Firestorm & Kings County Foundation for Dramatic Studies, perform by themselves for the first two thirds of the show, then combine for what can only be described as an "improv comedy orgy." Jonas asked me what the "comedy orgy" was...
When I was a young student at the UCBT, I was addicted to harold nights. There were plenty of nights where I'd catch most of the shows in a row. I have seen every house team (& now defunct teams) perform multiple times. Watching all types of improv teaches you alot. (like the way a football coach watches films of other teams play.) You see what works, what doesn't, people who take risks, people who piss on the rest of their team to look good, teams that work amazingly well together, teams that just don't. The UCBT student card lets you in to see 8 improv teams perform for free every thursday night, fucking awesome. (this includes the student show, which watching will teach you even more)
Improv troupes have good nights, great nights, & flat nights. Every team has one of the three, no matter who they are. In particluar, I saw a great Thursday night show that featured Respecto & Mother, I was in such a frenzy after the 2nd group was done, I felt what teenage girls must have felt at a New Kids On The Block concert, I wanted more. I wanted to see them again. I wanted to see those people back on stage for an encore. I wanted to see them work together, the two teams, joining forces in creating an even funnier piece then what I just witnessed. They don't do that at the UCBT harold nights. I thought if I have this same feeling, then surely there were other audience members that must have felt the same way if they saw an improv show. (*I found out only recently, that this is a standard at an Improv Olympic, and I thought I was inventing the light bulb.) I originally planned on having the two teams combine for several scenes going on at the same time. But what it has become is a jam off of an interview of an audience member. Keong Sim suggested the interview part. Up until August 2002, we were all jamming off of a one word suggestion. Now the interview is a staple part of any AK show.
Flipside was started over this very IRC. The thread was something to the effect of "lets get together & perform for ourselves." Joe Catanzariti & Rachel Biello are the founders of it. The energy multipled like crazy. Looking for a location, even a name for this idea all over the IRC. I'm not sure if they'll admit it, but Flipside was a direct reaction to the mass rejection by the UCBT at the harold auditions of 2001. The practice groups weren't going to wither away. They were going to continue working on the craft of improv, with the hope that they'd improve and get noticed and get to live the dream by being put on a UCBT harold team. Every practice group in the city was getting to perform. Peoples faces were smiles at the fact that they performed in front of people, what they had already spent at least $900 [6 months or 3 levels of learning at the UCBT] to learn, how to improvise long form in front of people . Flipside was originally held at Arthur's Dress Shop on the Lower Eastside. (About a block or two from Parkside Lounge) It was a groundfloor storefront black box theater. No backstage. The backstage area was outside on the street. Groups would pay upfront to perform. (had to cover that rental cost) It seated 40? The admission price was low and the Saturday night shows were marathon in length. The only show I saw there featured 5 different improv teams, a one man show experiment, and a 20 minute monologue about the host's weirdest sex story from college. The show(s) were over 3 hours. By the end of the night, the audience was a mix of parents, other improvisers, friends, and a foreign couple watching in a cigarette filled room improv art. Had a taboo/underground feel. Basically, improv quality-wise, it was a whole night of improv Practice Groups performing. Rachel's group was the most prominent of the practice-turned-performance groups. Back then CORPA had: Rachel Biello, Marlena Bittner, Rob Cacy, Michael Jeffrey Cohen, Carlos Franzetti, and Erik Tanouye (amazing Jeff Campbell joined a couple months later) Their team featured some of the smartest improvisers I have ever met. Their openings and harolds always seemed to be on another level. I always admired the fact that they were "directed" by Kurt Braunholder and not "coached" by him. His work showed clearly. There were other groups always going up. I approached Rachel & Joe after my first visit and talked about our shared feelings about improv outside of the UCB. Their show was up and running successfully and weren't looking for help. The fact that the show is still going strong for almost a year is awesome. My hats off to Joe & Rachel. [If I had a free Saturday night, I'd check out the show at its current location.]
(cont'd)
