[SccHarpGirl]

I was just wondering if anyone else was involved in theatresports or any other kind of improv. We just started a theatresports team this year (I joined) and we have our first meet coming up on Wednesday. I have no idea how the meets work, having never done a competition before. Our instructer was a little vague about exactly how everything will run...

To anyone who has the opportunity to participate in theatresports or improv: DO IT! it's a ton of fun, more fun (IMO) than acting because you get to make it up as you go along.

Bye now,
Noelle

[Art]

What exactly is it?

[SccHarpGirl]

It's basically improvisation with competition. Your team competes against another team. You each get to play a certain number of games (In High school you get to pick which games you want to play, in professional improv you get assigned games). The games are scored by difficulty level. You have to start off each one by asking for an audience suggestion to base the scene off of (Say, an object or a person or a relationship), then you form the scene. Each game has different rules: One of my favorites is a restricted motion game called "He said, she said". It's a two person scene, where your motion is defined by the other character. If I say "My, it's cold here" my partner would follow it up with "She said, shivering" and I'd have to start shivering. There are a whole bunch of different kinds of games, ranging from physical restriction (like he said, she said), to verbal restrictions (one game you have to do lines going in alphabetical order: Your first line must start with A, your partner's with B, your next one with C, and so on), to ones with their own rules (one called Foreign Poet: one person has to talk in total gibberish, another interpretive dances, and then a third has to "translate". The "poem" must be based off of an audience suggestion. Another cool one is a crime scene game, where one person is accused of a crime (an audience suggestion), but he doesn't know what it is. The "police officers" interrogating him know what it is, and they have to allude to it in the questioning. The suspect has three minutes to figure out what it is that he's accused of. Makes for a HIGHLY entertaining scene.)

It's a blast to play and also a lot of fun to watch because the audience is so involved.

[Art]

Oh wow. If I had that in High School, I would be all up ons. That is wicked awesome.

[SccHarpGirl]

I may go to Unexpected Productions in Seattle with a friend tonight to watch improv

[Thespia]

We always just called it...acting.

[SccHarpGirl]

We lost our meet, but only by two points, 52-50. But the other team was so good that I was surprised that we came that close.

Next meet next thursday night!

[SuperMonkey]

We used to have something called Comedy Sports but the guy in charge this year is too lazy to start it up again. Meh.

[SccHarpGirl]

I just noticed that the banners in this post are for both Unexpected Productions (the company that's training us) and Jet City Improv, the other big improv group here in Seattle. Interesting.

[Skeeter]

Hey, I do Improv! Heck, I've even been paid once for a show. That was cool.

My university has a thing every second Friday called 11:07 Comedy Improv. Two teams of three compete, though there is no prize involved. We also have workshops every Thursday. Unfortunately, it's been kinda going downhill over the last year: attendance is down, enthusiasm is mediocre, and the general quality of the improv is nowhere near as good as last year. We've got a new girl in charge for next semester, though, and I'm optimistic about it. We should be getting the quality back up.

[SccHarpGirl]

Fantastic! Best of luck with it!!

I was told that my team came in 10th, and I'm wondering how that happened because there were only 7 teams competing.....we must be super talented!!

Seriously, I know we didn't come in dead last, but we weren't anywhere close to first either.