The Science Of Improv

Back in the good old days when I was blogging regularly, I wrote from time to time about Face2Face Improv, the live comedy troupe of which I was a member.

Back in early July, Face2Face had its last show.

A few days after F2F’s 10th anniversary(!) show, artistic director Gene Banks announced that he was shutting down the troupe. Since it was an official business wholly owned by Gene, the Face2Face Improv troupe ceased to exist.

Several of us, however, weren’t quite ready to be done.

And thus, Comic Science Improv was born.

Comic Science performs shows in a similar vein to Face2Face — short, games-based improv scenes based on audience suggestions, much like the old Who’s Line Is It Anyway show on ABC. Performances are appropriate, and entertaining, for all audiences. The core of the troupe consists of Face2Face veterans, but new faces are already making their way into shows.

I’m serving as the first director of the new troupe, and I am so incredibly proud of the work that everyone has been doing. We’ve launched several new games, performed at a new venue, and everyone is really bringing new things in their performances. We’re working to get the word out — We have a Facebook page, a and a Pinterest account, and are working to get a web page online. We were also featured recently in The Huntsville Times and al.com, which was pretty cool.

So, point being, you should come see us perform. We’ll be at the following venues in the next month or so. More details can be found on the Facebook page:

— Acting Up Academy on Whitesburg Drive on Saturday, December 8, at 7 p.m.

— The Tinsel Trail at Big Spring Park in downtown Huntsville on December 15.

— Santa’s Village in downtown Huntsville on December 23rd.

— Acting Up Academy on Whitesburg Drive on Saturday, January 5.

(Also, we may be auditioning for a television show soon, but if that happens, it’ll merit its own post.)

Come check us out! We hope to see you soon!

See Me Be Funny Free!

As many of you know, I’m an actor in a local improv comedy troupe, Face2Face Improv. We do short game-based comedy sketches, based on suggestions made by the audience. Tell us who you want us to be, and we’ll act it out for you! If you ever saw the old ABC television show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” it’s like that, only better, since the suggestions are coming from you!

I have a limited number of free tickets for shows this month, and I want to give away them all! The tickets are for our weekly Tuesday night shows at Sam & Greg’s Pizza and Gelato Shop on the courthouse square in downtown Huntsville. Showtime each week is at 7:30, and the shows last about 40 minutes and are appropriate for all ages.

If you’d like to see me perform, I’ll be hosting the show on June 12 and performing in the show on June 19. (There’s a small chance I may be in the June 26 show, but I don’t know that right now. If I’m not, you can still go to that one, and it will still be hilarious.)

If you’d be interested in a free ticket, contact me!

Scenes From A Show

We had two great Face2Face Improv shows this weekend, one at Thespis Theater in south Huntsville on Saturday night, and our glorious return to Decatur after more than two years on Friday night at the new Coffee and Play House venue there, which was, let me say, incredible.

Our oh-so-talented videographer Caleb McPherson brought his still camera to the Friday night show, and got some great pics. There’s no way to really know what it’s like being at a Face2Face show other than, well, to be at what, but I share this as some random glimpses into what we do.

Face2Face Is On Groupon!!

OK, so I’ve talked a fair bit on here about Face2Face Improv, the incredible Huntsville improv comedy group I’m lucky enough to be  a part of.

For those that haven’t seen Face2Face before, we make up short, funny scenes on the spot based on suggestions from the audience. (And for the more timid in the crowd, we don’t bring anyone on stage or force anyone to do anything; you’re more than welcome to just sit back and enjoy the show.) We do a family friendly show of live entertainment. If you’ve ever seen the old ABC show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” we’re kinda like that. Only better.

And now is your best opportunity ever to check us out — we’re on Groupon!!

Today and tomorrow, you can get tickets at half-price or less to any of our shows that are good until next June. Buy now for cheap, and use it at your leisure anytime in the next eight months!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Life Is Improv

My fellow Face2Face Improv troupemate Wendy Morgan recently wrote a blog post titled Principles To Learn To Be An Effective Actor.

Now, I don’t know enough about scripted acting to speak to how good her principles are for that, but I can tell you that, for improv, her “secrets” are dead on:

1. Listen to who’s talking.
2. Affirm people if at all possible.
3. Care about the other person.
4. Everyone needs to shine.
5. Give, Give, Give.
6. It is not about you.

The cool thing? While these are great principles for acting in an improv scene, really, when you come down to it, that’s not a bad set of rules for life, either, is it?

Congratulations, Steinhausers!!

One of my Face2Face castmates, Jason Steinhauser, got married this weekend, and it was awesome.

The whole event was just very “them,” from Jennifer’s beautiful purple dress to the groom’s cake — a giant stack of donuts — to the Auburn game playing during the reception.

Congratulations and best wishes to the Steinhausers!!

Life On Mars

We have a new Face2Face Improv clip up online, from a scene I did with Jeremy Shelley a while back. We’re supposed to be two astronauts on Mars, and when the host rings the bell, we have to change our last line to something different.

But I also wanted to share the other big Face2Face news — the new Face2Face Improv website is now online!!

I’ll be in a show tonight at Sam & Greg’s Pizzeria and Gelateria across from the courthouse in downtown Huntsville at 7:30 p.m.; we do shows there every Tuesday night. Tickets are $5, with children 8 and under free.

We’re also planning a bigger-format show at Thespis Theater in south Huntsville for Saturday, September 17.

Come join us!

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For those that haven’t seen Face2Face before, we’re a comedy improv troupe. We make up scenes on the spot, based on suggestions from the audience. (And for the more timid in the crowd, we don’t bring anyone on stage or force anyone to do anything; you’re more than welcome to just sit back and enjoy the show.) We do a family friendly show of live entertainment. If you’ve ever seen the old ABC show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” we’re kinda like that. Only better.

I can’t embed them here, but there are videos of some of my work with the troupe on Facebook that should be publicly visible. Ticket information for shows is here.

Improv-ing The Travel Experience

I thought I’d share this video from a Face2Face Improv show a few years ago that was recently posted online:

This game harkens back to the ‘old days’ when slides and slide projectors were common fare when visiting relatives. More often than not … they tended to be boring.

Here, the show moderator receives from an audience member a description of their recent trip. After a basic, uneventful interview, the moderator chooses an actor to pose as the audience member, who then proceeds to show everyone the slides from the trip.

In this clip, Jen Lohrman Britton narrates a trip to Haiti. Thus the benign description, thanks to Jen, transforms into a much larger calamity of laughs.

We do shows every Tuesday night at Sam & Greg’s Pizzeria/Gelateria on the square in downtown Huntsville at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5; children 8 and under are free. I’m there almost every week, usually hosting the show. Come check us out.

Classic Lines From Face2Face

For years now, I’ve been saving great lines I’ve loved from shows and rehearsals of the improv troupe I’m part of, Face2Face Improv. For the longest time, I’ve had the idea that I would design a t-shirt with some of the best of them. And now I have. I thought I’d share the results here.

A lot of stuff we do really has to be in context, and, with the nature of improv, if you’ve missed the context once, you’ve missed it forever. But these were some that I thought were amusing even without context. (Or that really make you wonder what the context was.)

(By the way, you should totally come see us. You can check the Web site for our schedule, or you can just come to Sam & Greg’s Pizzeria and Gelateria in downtown Huntsville on any Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for that 40-minute show are only $5, and kids 8 and under are free.)

Here are a few more that I didn’t have room for:

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Funny…

“I’m building a fort from marshmellows touched by God.”

“I don’t like to toot my own horn, but — toot toot!”

“I went to Mars. I’m so coy.”

Tuesday night was like the last moments of the series finale of Lost. Or the end of Wizard of Oz — “And you were there, and you were there.” But better.

I knew that Meghan Kenny was going to be there. Meghan was a part of the Face2Face improv troupe a couple of years ago, before going off to college. This past summer, she was back in town, and so joined us for some Sam & Greg’s shows, and it was great having her back with us. She’s back in town for the holidays, and so I knew she was going to be in Tuesday’s show.

I walked in, and saw Amber Farmer. Amber joined the troupe around the same time I did, and was with us for quite a while before moving to Nebraska. Tuesday night was the first time she’d been in town on a show night for quite a while, so she was excited about coming to watch. Sitting with her were Jen Lohrman and Trevor Britton, two current members of the troupe getting married in about a month.

Further back was Jeremy Shelley, one of the most senior members of the troupe who has been on sabbatical for about a couple of years while working on another degree.  He took advantage of the holiday to work in a show in mid-December, so I was expecting to see him in the audience for that show.

The audience was packed, with faces both familiar and new.  The show was great.  Matt Buchman did a great job as host, and Meghan, Wendy Morgan and Mathis Sneed were on fire.

But at the end of the show, I was selfish.

I snuck up the stairs to the balcony, and as Matt was wrapping things up, I took the bell from him. Called the four people in the show back on stage. And then I called Jeremy, Amber, Jen and Trevor up from the audience.

And all nine of us played.

“Played” in the sense of, “they played in tonight’s show,” but also “played” in the sense of having fun, like kids with cool new toys. I have no idea what the audience thought, but it didn’t really matter. Never have so many of us shared a stage at one time outside rehearsal, and people got to work together who haven’t shared a stage in years. I wish I had a video of it; it was just one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments for the troupe. We’ll probably never get to do that quite like that again, and I’m glad the moment happened and I got to be in it.

I wasn’t in Tuesday night’s show myself because I didn’t know if I’d be done with a family Christmas celebration in time, the last of several official or unofficial family Christmases I’d had in the last week or so. And, really, Tuesday night’s show was itself a family celebration. Face2Face is an amazing group, and I’m blessed to be a part of it.

I enjoyed closing it out, introducing the other eight members of the troupe on stage. And, then, though several of us still weren’t there, it just felt special to close it with, “We are Face2Face Improv.”

It won’t be quite the same, but we should have another incredible show tomorrow night at Sam & Greg’s Pizzeria and Gelateria in downtown Huntsville (7:30 p.m., $5, children 8 and under free). I’m hosting, and along with F2F regular Cydney Thomson, will have Meghan and Jeremy back on stage together. It should be a lot of fun, and we’d love to have you there.

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For those that haven’t seen Face2Face before, we’re a comedy improv troupe. We make up scenes on the spot, based on suggestions from the audience. (And for the more timid in the crowd, we don’t bring anyone on stage or force anyone to do anything; you’re more than welcome to just sit back and enjoy the show.) We do a family friendly show of live entertainment. If you’ve ever seen the old ABC show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” we’re kinda like that. Only better.

I can’t embed them here, but there are videos of some of my work with the troupe on Facebook that should be publicly visible. Ticket information for shows is here.