Improv vs Impro

I've made my journey to New Zealand.  I've been here for about six weeks. So far it's been different and challenging to get my foot in the door, but I haven't noticed a ton of differences.  The biggest, most glaring and obvious difference is the Kiwis call it "impro".  Like Keith Johnstone's book.  Impro.  So far, it's just about the same thing.

Since You've Been Gone

Ah, it's been a while!  So much has happened since my last posts.  Blogging for me is something that happens when I REALLY WANT IT to happen.  I have to wake up in a certain mood, wanting to do everything all at once.

Announcement

I want to say that I am no longer involved with GirlProv.  Professional differences led me to realize the group was not where I needed to be.  Not sure where I'll go now, but I still have Stitch so it's all good.  I will no longer be advertising upcoming GirlProv shows on this blog, but I do have a link to the GirlProv blog where you can find their info.

I still love the girls and I support them.  You should see them on April 14th in the Thunderdome Championship!

Shows in April

I've been so frustrated with blogspot recently.  I had an awesome post all ready to go about how confident I'm feeling, and I related that to the KU basketball team...but alas, technology baffles me.  Maybe some day I'll post that post with out-dated comments and old pictures of NBA players' college days.  Out of spite I refused to try and fix it beyond what I tried.  I know it only hurts me, but WHATEVER.  You'll just have to come see my shows to see for yourself what I tried to post last week.

Pictures of a Cute Puppy!

This week I spent most of my time taking care of a foster puppy. Any by that I mean he woke me up at 4:30 am making baby Wookiee noises.

This is Strider.  He's a 4 month old lab/shepherd mix who was found running wild with his 6 siblings.  They all came to the shelter incredibly shy and exhibiting fear aggression.  I fostered this baby until he was adopted on Friday.  In just 5 short days he went from completely terrified to the point of losing bladder control when I touched him to being a sweet, curious little guy.  He still needs lots of socialization and work on his manners, but I trust his new family will provide him that.

A comic about comics doing comedy

A friend of mine posted this comic to my Facebook page and said "Oh, so this is how these things go."  To which I responded, "Pretty much".

The image itself is too big for my page and if I shrink it at all it's unreadable, so follow this link!

Enjoy!

The Dick Joke

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about the role of vulgarity in improv.  It gets the audience's attention immediately.  It's fun to do (if you're comfortable with it).  It's easy.  But here's the problem with vulgarity:

It's easy

Too easy.  You can talk about your penis all night.  Cool.  Chances are at least 50% of the audience has one and can relate to that.  So they'll laugh and their girlfriends may chuckle.  But that's it.  The excitement of "OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE HE SAID THAT" has worn off and it's not exciting ever again.  Shock value is fleeting.  It wears off quickly.  After a while it's old and irritating and offensive. Vulgarity for the sake of shock value in an improv scene takes away everything else the scene is about.