Saturday and Sunday marked Jim Nemeth and Planet Improv's second in a series of seminars targeted at bringing the Improv elite of Chicago to teach the yearning masses of Detroit. In this pursuit, Miles Stroth, was brought to the beautiful shores of Rochester Hills on the expansive campus of Oakland University to brain dump on us unsuspecting ignorants. Miles Stroth has been pursuing the art of Improvisation in Chicago for the past twelve years. Del saw improvisers as a tribe with himself as the “mojo man” and he named Miles Stroth his “War chief.” Miles now teaches Del’s level Masters class at the ImprovOlympic. There’s an old saying: If you want to learn Improv you have to go to Chicago. In Chicago you have to go to the ImprovOlympic. At the ImprovOlympic you have to go through Miles! And go through him, we did. He chewed us up and spat us out, and in the end, we were remade.

It all began on:

Miles was late, through no fault of his own. A late plane got us underway closer to noon than 11:00 am which we planned, but everyone was ready and rarin' to go once he got there. We warmed up as a group right before his arrival, so that when he got inside it was time to get down and get dirty. Saturday was spent on exercises designed to set us up for Sundays work on the Deconstruction.

We started our work with wants. Walk on stage, CLEARLY state a want ("I want that shirt."). The second improviser agrees to give it to you, and then doesn't. No justification. When they are called out for it, they apologize, agree to comply again, and then don't. Improviser with want continues to get upset, and then lulled, upset and then lulled as their partner agrees to give them what they want, doesn't give it to them, and then offers things to lull them out of anger. The trick is to not justify why you don't give the wanting improviser what they want, but to just not give it. Apologize for not giving it, agree that they should have it, and then don't give it. The absurd is perfectly acceptable. ("You're right, you want the shirt, I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm doing. I'll give you this shirt. Nap Time!!" -Thunk).

When then talked about mapping. In this case we mapped high emotional situations into very low stake scenes. For example. Breaking up with someone was mapped to returning a mattress. So all of the emotions of breaking up with someone was played in a scene where someone is just returning a mattress. Vocabulary from the high emotion situation can be borrowed and inserted into the low stake scene. Some examples of he scenes we tried are:

Doctor telling someone that they are going to die mapped over a mechanic talking about someone's car (Clif/Matthias)

Asking Someone to marry them mapped to passing the salt (Lou/Chuck)

Admitting that improviser molested someone's daughter mapped to leaving a mess in the kitchen (Steve/Courtney) "I spilled some milk in there" -ugh!!

Asking someone to take them off life support mapped to changing the TV channel (Cassandra/Amy)

Then we talked about having a conflicting emotion than your partner on stage, and agreeing that the emotion is CAUSED by your partner and not some outside source. This deepens your emotional response and relationship with your partner. The conflicting emotion is, obviously, and immediate source of conflict. The conflict also forces the improvisers to deal with why they are still together. Points that Miles really stressed are:

Why are you the way you are?

How do you effect each other?

Why are you still having this relationship?

What brought you to this?

A couple of other ideas that we touched on included

If you have nothing when you walk on stage, pay critical attention to your partner. Assign an emotional value to whatever they are doing and saying and react. This crates instant conflict.

Not having to explain everything your partner says. If your partner says something completely nonsequitor, agree and move on.

The slow setup to the hit. Heavy emotional scene that deals with a lot of information and relationship that hits with a hardcore line.

Ex.
"Son, sit down."

"Sure Dad."

"I know your mother's and my break up has caused you some stress, and I thought we should talk about it"

"Yeah"

"Son, sometimes people have differences, they grow apart. Your mother wanted to go back to work..."

......{Sometime later, after a true and honest interchange}

"So, we're different. Your mother has her wants, and I like to Fuck Little Boys" *WHAM!!!!*

(That was me being hit with the line by Miles in the example...WOW!)

Creating a character from an object. Take any ordinary object and figure out what character would have it, and begin to react as that character, using the object as a starting point.

See everything through an object. All of your wisdom stems from an object or activity. It isn't necessary to even come up with anything witty. Just state it as fact, and believe it.

"Son, c'mere. I know your having problems with your lady, and I have some advice. Look at this bowling ball. This love is like this ball..."

We wrapped up with some discussion and question and answers, and looked for a place for dinner. All questions regarding any extracurricular activities and their outcomes can be directed to Lou, Dawn and Katie, who killed our instructor. Granted, they were just doing as they were told. This set us up for:

As Steve warned, today was a brain dump, a mindjob, a new way of seeing improvisation.

Miles hit a number of topics, most of which opened new doors of improvisation to the assembled masses. How to lead a scene, how to setup your partner to know what you need from them in the scene. How to "Yes, and..." while waiting to see what your partner needs, and all of this was under the pretense of the Deconstruction.

Scene A - A serious and informative scene that should have strong emotional and character work. This is the basis for the rest of the piece. (5 or 6 Minutes)

Thematic Scenes(2) - Take two of the general themes from the first scene and heighten them. Put them into a situation that would make them much more emotionally adverse and comment on what you saw in the first scene. (2 or 3 minutes each)

Scene A(part II) - The first relationship returns and responds to the comments by heightening the themes that were commented on in the Thematic scenes. (1.5 - 2 Minutes)

Commentary Scenes(5 or 6) - These scenes are supposed to comment on the actions or words or the characters in Scene A. It can comment on either part, and should be different from the thematic scenes, in that they need to be specific. Themes are left behind for the concrete words, actions or history of the characters. (1 - 2 Minutes each)

Scene A(Part III) - The first relationship returns again, for a light comment on what has been said, and as a place holder for the last section of the piece.

The Run - A series of scenes, tangents and hits that encompass everything that has gone before it. Any and every character can return, any mentioned character can surface, any misspeak can surface as a tangent. Miles said that when a run gets up to speed, there shouldn't be any pauses, and that any slacking of the pace can kill it. (8 minutes Total, 30 sec. to a minute Each)

Scene A(Final) - Returns and closes the Deconstruction with a last commentary and wrap up of what they've scene so far.

The deconstruction makes you think. Miles took many of us to a new level of thinking with his rant on getting your partner to give you what the scene needs. "Not being in your head is Bullshit, you have to learn to be in your head and on stage at the same time. Longform is a thinking for. 70% of the time you are off stage. You should be using that time to figure out your scenes. A deconstruction doesn't allow you the time to 'Build' a scene. You have to go out with some thing, or be ready to support whatever your partner comes out with. And that's 100% either way."

He demanded that we think and play in extremes. Take the theme and put it where it doesn't belong. Take the action, want or words, and misplace them into a situation that is inappropriate for them. He taught us to use a swinging door instead of a tag out, which makes the scene transitions smoother, and doesn't rely on someone to tag back in for the original scene to continue.

Our final topics of discussion for the seminar were Movie Techniques, and walk-ons. Movie techniques imply how to tell the audience through a small, implied window how the stage is dressed. Miles explained that it was necessary for the dressing to be important to the scene. The painting should describe what has just occurred, or something that is about to happen, and should always be relevant to what the scene is about. After scene painting, he talked about making a movie edit, where you describe then ending of an old scene and the beginning of a new scene as if through the lens of a camera, panning, zooming and swirling.

Walk-ons should heighten a scene in the direction that it is moving, and a walk-on should walk on and get off after heightening. If you don't know what the scene is about, don't walk into the scene.

This is where the official seminar ended and we decided that since we had fewer improvisers for the show than originally planned, we would do something a little different, an Armando Diaz.

Suggestion -

Armando Monologue - Based on the suggestion, 'Armando' (one of the improvisers) comes forward and gives a monologue which should be rooted in reality and his own experience.

Scenes - The remaining improvisers peel the monologue and do scenes based on Armando's monologue. These should include Thematic, Commentary, and Tangent scenes.

Armando Monologue - Armando returns to continue his monologue, commenting on what he just saw, and moving the ideas forward.

Scenes - Same as above

Armando Monologue - Same as above

Scenes - Same as above, characters should start circling, as well as themes.

Armando Monologue - Same as above

Scenes - Same as above

Armando Wrap-up Monologue - Armando makes a final appearance and circles things together with a final mention of the original suggestion.

If this is done as a performance piece, it is usually split up into to acts. Each act being a new Armando. The second Armando can also include Characters, Themes and Comments about the first Armando as things begin to circle back in.

With this in mind, we attacked

With the suggestion of "Bed, Bath and Beyond" for our first half, we tackled the Armando with both hands. We started like an old squeeze box, but soon the music and the blood started pumping, and we got right into it. Our second half started with the suggestion of "Traffic", and by the end our characters, themes and ideas were circling like vultures in the breeze, and the audience, for what it was, loved every minute. Or so they said.

Special Thanks to:

The Participants: Matthias, Joey ByBee, Cassandra Savacha, Courtney Presley, Dawn Franklin, Katie Suhayda, Steve Melosie, Amy Probst, Adam Burkett, Gerry Gerry McAvoy, Dave Craze, Mark Mikula, Lou Houchin, Clif Highfield, Jesse Callis, Denise Swindell, and Jim Nemeth

Our Sponsor's at Oakland University: OU, Kerro Knox III (Who's in a better place now - Australia) and Brian "Smoov B" Dambacher.

Planet Improv, The Improv Olympic and, of course

MILES STROTH