Shortform

I missed the jam last night, hope everyone had fun.

Books I’m interested in

A Guide to Keith Johnstone’s Gorilla Theatre

Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual

Not much on the radar until after the holiday, so I’m going to go on a brief hiatus.

Holiday times are busy! Have a great holiday and I’ll pick this up again in January.

Show notes:

In the holiday lull. Looking for more opportunities to practice.

Seeing improv everywhere - Rereading my favorite novel and paying attention to when the characters need to improvise

All that reminds me of the old project management adage “plans are worthless but planning is essential”

December’s open jam is 12/6, looking forward to it! Join us if you’re near Portsmouth NH then

Some notes on a game called Party Quirks, that has quickly become a favorite. Also we held the last class of 101, and some notes about the future.

I came across this great Ted talk on improv.

Mr. O’Connor advocates teaching improv as part of the school curriculum. I couldn’t agree more. It reminded me also that I never really discussed my long term goals with improv, so I touch on those a bit.

This is a quick episode where I discuss how I didn’t prepare properly for a performance. I’m learning about being mindful in advance of getting on stage.

In the last session for Improv 101 our instructor introduced us to Guessing Games.

These are so much fun to play, and there are some many things happening at the same time.

Typical guessing games:

The rules of improv, I guess (see what I did there?)

Matt, my partner in my first go at the Interrogation guessing game gave me “Your mom was worried sick, she chewed off all her fingernails” line. I was playing the mom, and he the dad, and we were interrogating our son (Kyle, another student) who had stayed out too late.

That was a great way to make my character look good. A common, or at least understood thing that people under stress do. Plus it has a visual component so was a great cue for me.

I was able to use that and find the game within the game (basically repeating something for affect, usually 3 times). That game in a game is all next level stuff that I’m just starting to grok.

But that’s the point of guessing games. Yes, and establishes the reality, maintain it. Do this by identifying who you and your partners are. Make your partner look good gives them raw material to craft in the performance, and feed back into the relationship.

Managing the keeping the scene alive, character relationships strong, helping your partner guess the right things (again everyone wants him/her to win the game), trying to find the game within the game for the lols. All this is a lot to manage, live, in the moment. It was amazing to perform like this, and I think I’m starting to really understand the acting bits of long form improv.

Shortform is so fast, furious and funny. Long form is that, and storytelling. To me, at least at this point of my education.


In this episode I speak about how I developed an interest in Improv many years ago, and a bit about what’s lead me to start practicing lately. Come, here tales of beer, friends, friends visiting exotic locales, animation, video games, fighting corporate training policies, terrible commutes, and getting away from the computer.

A brief description of my first improv jam A great mix of people with various levels of experience. Fun times!

An introduction to the shortform microcast. Wherein I begin to chronicle my learning and practice of shortform improv comedy.