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IMPROVATHON update #2: Special Guests!
Can you feel it? That’s steady rumble of mad Bright Inventors prepping for THE IMPROVATHON!
Aimee Goldstein is ascending to yogic nirvana to cleanse her mind . . .
Shannon Hill is trying to keep her eyes open for long stretches of time . . .
Benjamin Lloyd is improvising on treadmills . . .
Eric Walker, Jr. is improvising with the ghost of Del Close . . .
Kiersten Adams is doing improvised monologues whilst hanging upside down in playgrounds . . .
Owen Corey is improvising with strangers on the Broad Street line . . .
Suzanne Anderson is practicing intersteller subcrustaceanous improv (we don’t know what that is) . . .
Shea Sonsky is improvising in the hidden language of dogs and cats . . .
Patrick Poole is still learning what a sweep edit is . . .
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR AMAZING ENSEMBLE BY CLICKING HERE!
Anything to get ready for . . . EIGHT CONTINUOUS HOURS OF IMPROV!
Each hour will go like this:
Brief welcome by BI member (1 minute)
Brief pitch by WPSI staff (2 minutes)
Genre spoof with Bright Invention + special guest (20 minutes)
Long form improv by Bright Invention (30 minutes)
Click here for your free tickets!
But wait! There’s more!
We have some amazing special guests lined up to play in with us!
10 AM: Jack Presby
Jack is currently appearing in episode 1 of Global Curation, the pilot episode produced by ACRidea, that should drop next week. He is also an improvisor with Time Bandits, because improv ain’t just for kids . . .
11 AM: Cait Garozzo
Cait is the Senior Manager for Learning & Development at West Philadelphia Skills Initiative. She spends her early mornings weightlifting and drinking serious coffee. The rest of her free time is spent collecting and reading literary fiction, taking her perfect dog swimming and hiking, listening to podcasts, cooking with her husband, and eating lots of ice cream.
12 Noon: Mary Carpenter
Mary has been improvising in Philadelphia for the past 27 years with ComedySportz, Dangerous Fools, 'Til Death Do Us Part, and many other ensembles. She is an actress, director, teacher and writer as well, who has recently published the book: Do Or Do Not: How To Improvise Like A Jedi. Her next upcoming project is I'll Have What She's Having in May at CSZ Philadelphia.
2 PM: Joy Weir
Joy Weir has been an actor and improviser since 2011. She is also in the upcoming Tongue & Groove performance of "In Bed" on February 7th, 14th (both performances), and 15th. You can also catch her as Rose in Enchanted April at Playcrafters of Skippack opening April 2020.
3 PM: Ralph Andracchio
Ralph Andracchio is an 11 year improv veteran and has traveled all over the US performing and teaching classes and workshops for hundreds of students. Former Artistic Director of Philly Improv Theater, Ralph currently holds the role of Education Consultant for Liberty Improv Theater. When not teaching or performing, Ralph owns his own business and is a transformational life coach helping clients of all kinds make big, bold changes in their lives through the lens of applied improvisation. You can visit him at www.informationcoaching.com.
4 PM: Josh Park
Josh is the Senior Manager for Employer Services at West Philadelphia Skills Initiative. Currently, he lives in Fishtown with the smartest and cutest 7-year-old the world has ever known. He enjoys listening to local music, watching the Phillies, and finding new adventures with his son.
5 PM: Brian Anthony Wilson
Recent Theatre: Looking Over The President's Shoulder (Act II Playhouse), The Resistible Rise of Artuo Ui (Lantern), Gem Of The Ocean (Arden * Barrymore Award) & Thurgood (Olney Theatre Center). Film/TV selected credits : Glass, Oceans 8, Creed, Limitless, The Arrangement, The Postman / Mare Of Easttown, Dispatches From Elsewhere, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, Siren, Bloodline, Gotham, Blue Bloods,The Sopranos & The Wire.
These amazing guests will play in one of our genre spoofs - but we will need YOU to tell us which one to do from this list:
Disney princess movie
Soap opera
Reality show from audience prompt
PBS kids show
Hallmark Christmas movie
Spaghetti Western
Film Noir
Horror
High School play
Remember: we won’t stop improvising until we raise $1,000 for The West Philadelphia Skills Initiative! Save us from ourselves by attending and donating to this amazing organization!
Bright Invention’s
Improvathon 2020
Saturday, February 15th, 10 AM - ???
Inner Rhythms Music and Therapy Center
37 South 42nd St.,
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Please note: there is a staircase up to the venue, which is not wheelchair accessible.
IMPROVATHON update #1
IMPROVATHON 2020!
IT'S BACK! BRIGHT INVENTION'S FEAT OF EXTREME IMPROV! THIS YEAR WE WILL BE RAISING $1,000 FOR
THE WEST PHILADELPHIA SKILLS INITIATIVE!
Save the date!
Saturday February 15th, 10 AM - ???
Inner Rhythms Music and Therapy Center
37 South 42nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104Non-stop improv with a new show each hour!
Special guests playing in!
Please . . . for the love of God . . . think of the improvisors . . . donate early and often . . . Donate Now!
Reserve your free seats!
Thanks to our partners!
Theatre Philadelphia hosts Philly Theatre Week: a 10-day celebration of artists, organizations, and audiences that have made Greater Philadelphia one of the most vibrant theatre regions in the nation. Audiences will have an opportunity to try over 100 unique events from our theatre community through a series of productions, readings, interactive events, and much more!
Inner Rhythms Music and Therapy Center serves the West Philadelphia community with music lessons, music therapy, and affordable rental space for therapists, musicians, events, and workshops.
The West Philadelphia Skills Initiative (WPSI) was created in 2011 as an innovative response to the dichotomies of Philadelphia’s economy. In spite of large swaths of substantial growth driven by anchor institutions and private employers, Philadelphia remains the poorest big city in America. Our work bridges this gap by building a talent management solution that connects Philadelphians seeking opportunity with employers seeking talent.
WPSI works closely with its employer partners to understand their talent challenges and aspirations. We recruit, assess, select, train and place residents in career-ladder jobs that offer stability and opportunities for advancement.
Since WPSI’s inception, program participants who had previously been unemployed for an average of 53 weeks have gone on to earn more than $30 million in collective wages while increasing employers' productivity and excellence.
The Total Artist
Lee Breuer
When I was in my second year at The Yale School of Drama, our acting class had an intensive with avant gard stage director and creator, Lee Breuer. He was the stage celebrity of the moment, having made ripples around the the world with his production of Gospel at Colonus, and was working then on his musical The Warrior Ant. He had the kind of restless, rebel energy I related to, appearing before us with a shaved head and dressed in blue jeans with paint on them and an old white t-shirt. He looked like he was taking a break from renovating the basement of the building we were in. Plus, he shared an artistic lineage with my mother, the dancer, choreographer and teacher Barbara Dilley. So I felt especially close to him.
“What is an actor?” he asked this group of 16 actors, bent on fame and fortune, convinced the world was their oyster, brimming with world-class conservatory training. We were stumped. “Come on people!”, he bellowed, “what is an actor?!”
THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS
Someone, I forget who, it might have been me, but maybe not, ventured . . . “Um, someone who . . . who interprets dramatic text, under the direction of . . . of . . . a director?”
“NO!” he nearly screamed. “An actor is a total artist who has something to say!” And I felt a gentle dagger land inside me, warming me, killing something old and useless, planting something new and terrifying, changing me forever.
ME IN A DREAMER EXAMINES HIS PILLOW AT YALE, AROUND THE TIME I MET LEE.
Over the next 30 years, the implication of those words have guided nearly everything I have done as a theater artist. In my brief, six-year stint as a struggling New York actor, I designed a theater group called The Total Artist Group (or TAG - nifty, right?). It was based on the empowerment of actors to be more authoritative in their creativity as they worked together in an ensemble over time. TAG was to be a company which partnered with clothing shops and furniture stores to advertise their products in our productions. Even then, I was thinking of innovative ways to solve the age-old money problem. But TAG never left the page, and just after I had finished writing it all down, I left New York.
In my life as an acting teacher, my bottom line has been to give my students the tools and the support to make their own creative choices, within the boundaries described by the script and in partnership with a director. And it is this concept of the actor as the total artist which has led to the creation of Bright Invention, and my commitment to long form improvisation.
After years of performing scripts and working with directors, I finally found scripted acting limiting and repetitive. The actor in a play is asked to repeat a performance again and again over the life of the run. Deviations from the rehearsed performance are not allowed; indeed, they can be catastrophic, since a well directed play is a well-oiled machine with many parts depending on all the others to work the same way each night. I came to understand that there is no greater version of the actor as total artist than actor as improviser. The actor/improviser is both author and actor. In my teaching I have named the four virtues of the actor, and no one needs them more than the actor/improviser: Courage, Empathy, Creativity and Faith.
WITH TIM MOYER IN INTERACT’S PRODUCTION OF THREE IN THE BACK, TWO IN THE HEAD
I also came to understand that my commitment to the actor as total artist was threatening to some in the theatre community, in which actors are expected (generally) to be compliant, agreeable, and to have no other priorities personally or professionally that supersede the production they have been cast in. It began to feel to me that theatres felt they were doing me a favor I should be grateful for by casting me in a play. I am sure I lost two significant jobs in part because of my stubborn refusal to be the kind of actor I was expected to be (People’s Light & Theatre) , and to pass along the requisite expectations of compliant acting to my students (Villanova University). You see, being a total artist means you get to be “difficult” when your spirit is offended by activities in the room, or you know you need to explore in a certain way, even if the authority in the room resists it.
The truth is, this paradigm of the compliant actor is driven more by capitalism, and less by any ill will anyone has for actors. I learned that plays are products sold to audiences, and that the priority for the producing entity is to keep production costs down. Total artists are expensive. They ask you to slow down. They meander off in unexpected ways to see what’s out there. They engage in challenging discussions and they demand to be heard. Total artists are have been known to say “no” occasionally - a heresy in the professional theatre. Compliant actors are efficient. They do what they are told, are easy to work with, don’t ask too many questions and say “yes” nearly automatically.
IMPROVISING WITH JOSHUA BODEN IN THE DEEP END, OUR TWO-HANDER.
Ironically, the kind of acting I am invested in now requires saying “yes” - all the time, and to everything. What makes that “yes” so easy to come by is that it allows for the creation of an original performance, co-created by the improvisers on stage in that moment, emanating from the totality of who they are. That “yes” creates the most authentic performative expression of me that I have ever experienced, and paradoxically, I must share it utterly with my stage partner.
During the time Lee Breuer was in residence with us at Yale, I was working on a solo clown multi-media performance piece called The Birth of Benjamin Lloyd. I was dressed in a giant diaper and (as I recall - the memory is bit dim now) I did a kind of stand up routine mixed in with some movement and dance. It finished with a video of my mother (who Lee knew well) and I playing together on a stage in New York City when I was six or so, accompanied by Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? and me doing some wordless movement. I was very nervous about the piece, as it represented the first time I had ever performed in anything I had created, and it dealt with some vulnerable territory.
Lee came and saw it. Afterwards he bounded up on stage and was unexpectedly over the top effusive in his praise for it. Like, he couldn’t get the words out for how excited he was by it. He saw something it would take me many more years to see. He saw my total artist.
What Improv Teaches us about Community
BRIGHT INVENTION ENSEMBLE MEMBERS SHEA SONSKY AND KIERSTEN ADAMS AT THE STEEL CITY IMPROV THEATER GETTING READY FOR THE POST-SHOW JAM WITH AMAZING PITTSBURGH IMPROVISORS!
OFF WE GO
It’s Saturday morning and I’m recovering from driving 10 hours over the past 24. Members of my ensemble Bright Invention and I went to perform at the Steel City Improv Festival in Pittsburgh PA. The four of us tumbled into my cranky Subaru Outback Thursday bright and early and enjoyed the middle of the Keystone State as we passed through farmland, exits to the state capital, and finally, five hours later, the rolling hills approaching Pittsburgh. We napped (well, some did - I was driving), told stories and bad jokes, played I Spy and Would You Rather. We stopped at a couple of the fine rest stops along the way and indulged in bad food.
Our hotel was a corporate behemoth in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh - an art deco relic that had once been a Federal Reserve branch. In the basement, next to the fitness center, giant safes with lapped plates of thick steel stood open and empty. Our rooms were bland but we felt like Important People. We were staying in hotel! And - the festival organizers had left us bags of SWAG at the front desk! The Steel City Improv Festival is a CLASS ACT.
KIERSTEN AND SHEA CHILLIN’ PRE-SHOW.
At six on Thursday we Ubered to the Steel City Improv Theatre, and each of us fell in love with Pittsburgh a little. The gorgeous pre-fall weather helped, and the slanting warm sunlight. But I was captivated by the swelling hills on all sides and the blend of mid-century rust belt grandeur with multi-cultural hipness. At the theatre we were met by shiny, happy Pittburghians in Steel City Improv yellow tees, who showed us around the very cool, funky yet well-appointed theater and green room where there was - yes - more SWAG. We hung out in the green room, took selfies, warmed up a bit, felt giddy, tried to calm down, met other improvisers, drank soda and water, ate more bad food, watched the theater fill up, and - before we knew it, the act before us was coming off stage.
Our set was a 30 minute '“mono scene”, which means we picked a location from an audience suggestion and the the entire scene occurred in that location in near continuous time, with the the same characters coming and going, and new ones popping up now and then. We used “pop-out monologues” to introduce new characters by speaking in character directly to the audience then entering. The word our audience gave us was “haberdashery”, so our set took place . . . in a haberdashery. There were two generations of hat makers, new ideas competing with old ideas, visitors from Minnesota, neighbors from the Caribbean, and laughter and enjoyment from the audience. It was that particular improv blend of thrilling and terrifying. Afterward, we had a group hug and agreed that we had done well.
Over the course of the next 2 - 3 hours, we went and got some good food, were interviewed by a local journalist, watched the other teams perform, and then, in what might have been the coolest part of the evening, we hung out with improvisers from Pittsburgh and Detroit, ate pizza, drink libations and participated in an improv jam with them in which this cheerful group of 47 (we counted) were divided into three teams, and each team took a turn delighting the others with 20 minutes of montage improv.
THE GREEN ROOM WAS ACTUALLY . . . GREEN!
During this heady time people we didn’t know came up to us and told us how much they liked our set. We sat with improvisers from Pittsburgh and chatted, laughed, and connected. We discovered that we do indeed know what we’re doing, that we’re actually good at it, and that we are part of a tribe much bigger than our little ensemble, filled with others who also good at it, who love to share, say yes, and build stories together.
It was close to 1 AM when we all collapsed in our beds back in the hotel, tired, happy, and full.
When I created the organization now called Bright Invention I knew two things needed to be a part of it: improvisation and ensemble. As much as I loved being a scripted actor, I was keenly sensitive to the way I made these deep bonds with the casts I was in, and then those casts evaporated when the show closed, and I was left feeling bereft and lonely. I have been on a lifetime search for long-term, reliable human connection (aren’t we all, really?) Being in plays was in some ways an exercise in repetitive heartbreak, so I was determined to create an ensemble which was together over time, regardless of the vicissitudes of each person’s professional life, through the personal ups and downs we all navigate. In this way, our commitment to each other went beyond each individual’s “talent” or creative achievement. The economics of our work are irrelevant to our connection to each other. We are invested in each other’s complete wellbeing, and our rehearsals are sometimes group support for one or another’s trouble. In Bright Invention, we have helped each other with mental health resources, housing leads, creative dilemmas with outside projects, relationship woes, parenting challenges, and the list goes on. Some of us refer to us as “family” and mean it. For others, we are dependable group of talented collaborators. Each of us makes the bond to the group that is right for us. We come and go, and the ensemble changes its configuration each year.
WE CALL THIS ONE, TAKEN AT A REST STOP ON THE PA TURNPIKE, THE “ALBUM COVER.”
I believe we come together for live performance for several reasons, but one we don’t talk about enough and lift up for celebration is the mere fact of being in a room together with people we haven’t met before and sharing an experience. Improv capitalizes on this aspect of live performance in that it relies on audience participation and is spontaneously created. Community is created at improv shows through the immediacy of the performance. Knowing we are making it up right in front of you pulls you into the shared present moment more (I submit) than if you were watching us present something we had carefully rehearsed over weeks.
So now I’ll really go out on a limb. I believe that this spontaneous connecting through shared, safe and joyful experience is an essential requirement for our human wellbeing. I believe that if we don’t get it, we get sick. And yes, I mean that literally. And I believe that we now live in The Age of Isolation, making our efforts to create opportunities for this kind of connecting urgent and acute.
Most improv groups exist over time, as ensembles. They are usually called “teams” or “groups” but I like “ensemble”. To me, it emphasizes the togetherness. And not just improv groups. Many young performing artists are forming collectives of various kinds through which they devise all kinds of new and exciting shows. My Advanced Improv class has a core group of students that have been meeting with me to study improv for over two years. They have created their own ensemble and it is vital and important to them. Ensembles recognize that the performing artist seeks compensation in a variety of ways - not just money. We seek the compensation of dependable, safe and creative community. For that, many of us will make the time to connect each week, work on projects, or drive out and back to Pittsburgh for 30 minutes on stage.
HAPPY IMPROVISERS AFTER A GOOD SET . . .
For us, community isn’t a nice abstract concept to cultivate through neighborhood associations and alumni groups. It is at the center of our creative process and a pillar of our emotional and psychological wellbeing. We learn not to take it for granted, and that it only gives as good as it gets. My community shows up for me when I show up for them. The inevitable comings and goings help keep us fresh, welcoming and inclusive. The creative life can be so lonely, and it’s full of rejection, uncertainty, and hardship. But when we share it with each other, indeed, when we create joyfully out of it, our journey through this creative life ceases to be a desperate solo, and instead becomes an extraordinary chorus sung among friends.
Short videos of Bright Invention members playing in the improv jam post show at the Steel City Improv Festival, including Ben walking a murderous platypus and getting busted, Kiersten and her artist lover, Shea telling her son to stop eating other people’s dandruff, and Eric working on someone’s teeth . . .
"How do you do that . . . ?"
One of the most frequent comments we get after our shows is . . . “how do you do that?” Our audiences are interested in which parts of the show we know about in advance and which parts we don’t. So we thought we’d take you behind the curtain for bit, and share a show with you on video.
Most actors rehearse and perform scripts. Improv actors rehearse and perform forms (or formats). A form is a sequence of performed events, and that’s what we practice and memorize - a sequence of events. A script is also a sequence of events, but with a script what happens in those events is predetermined. Not so with improv.
SUZANNE ANDERSON AND KAITLIN CHIN IN AN IMPROV SCENE AT BRIGHT INVENTION REHEARSAL
Our form is a called The Sun and its Planets. It is unique to Bright Invention, and it was developed over a year or so, led by Artistic Director Benjamin Lloyd. It follows one central relationship through three “acts”, as the pair in that relationship evolve and meet some interesting and occasionally hilarious people along the way. That central scene is “the Sun scene”. The other actors who appear around it are “the Planets.”
Here is the Sun and its Planets sequence every member of Bright Invention knows by heart:
SUZANNE ANDERSON AND KAITLIN CHIN IN AN IMPROV SCENE AT BRIGHT INVENTION REHEARSAL
BENJAMIN LLOYD AND SHEA SONSKY IN AN IMPROV SCENE AT BRIGHT INVENTION REHEARSAL
Sun scene act 1 (actors A & B)
Dueling monologues (actors C & D)
Sun scene act 2 (actors A & B)
Dueling monologues (actors E & F)
Sun scene act 3 (actors A & B)
Final monologues ( actors ? & ?)
Ideally we have six actors for this form (we can do it with four): two as the Sun scene, and four as the Planets. The content of the form is inspired by a conversation we have with our audience before we begin. We perform this form again and again . . . and we’ve never done the same show twice!
Now here's what we don’t know before we perform The Sun and its Planets:
which of us will be the Sun scene and which of us will be the Planets.
who the characters will be in the Sun scene, how they are connected, where they are, and what they are working out together.
who the characters will be in the Sun scene, how they are connected, where they are, and what they are working out together.
who the Planet characters are, when/if they will appear in the Sun scenes, and what they do or talk about.
who will do the first dueling monologues and who will do the second dueling monologues and who they will be and what they will talk about.
Want to learn more? Consider joining us this summer for our Summer Improv Jam on Thursday nights!
Meanwhile - here’s a video of The Sun and its Planets as performed on April 6th, 2019. It features Benjamin Lloyd, Kiersten Adams, Aimee Goldstein, Eric Walker Jr., Shea Sonsky, Bob Stineman and Suzanne Anderson.