Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

On Sunday, I attended the first class of intermediate improv with ComedySportz in Philadelphia.

The first face I saw when I came in the door was Colleen, who was hanging out in the hallway waiting for our instructor. We got caught up; I told her about my wedding plans and she told me about her job for Historic Philadelphia, where she, as she put it, gets to "mess with tourists."

One after another, more classmates arrived, including Lori, Geoff, Boris and Carol. Shortly before class was supposed to begin, an unfamiliar face arrived. Her bleached hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing a red T-shirt that said, "100% Real" with cropped blue jeans and a pair of wedge shoes, along with bright red lipstick.

Carol was the first to introduce herself. She said her name was Liza and joked that, since we all knew each other we'd have some sort of clique. We assured her that it wouldn't be a problem.

Our instructor is Mary Carpenter, who I'd seen perform before at ComedySportz. She's tall but not as tall in person as she'd looked on-stage. She's got an athletic build and light brown hair. After she said hello, she led us into our rehearsal space, which surprisingly, was the actual auditorium where they hold performances. We would be working on the actual stage.

She had us all take chairs and told us about herself and about the course. She told us she's been with ComedySportz for 14 years and has been teaching for 12. Then she went through what to expect from the class. She wanted to make it clear that this was not an audition but that if we wanted to audition, we'd be informed when they were held.

Then she had us get up and get started. The first thing we did was a pretty simple name game. We got into a hand clapping pattern in a circle. You'd say your name and then somebody else's name, and then that person would say their own name and then another name.

While we were in the middle of this game, our final class member arrived. She explained that she'd gotten lost. Her name is Megan, and she was wearing an oversized tie-dye T-shirt, her light brown hair pulled into a ponytail.

The game was fairly easy, I thought, but anyone who was rhythmically challenged had difficulty with it.

Then we did Psycho Circle, starting with just Zip, Zap, Zop and then throwing in Bunny, Viking and Alien. As you might remember from the beginning class, this is a game where you pass actions around the circle. When it comes to you, you can do a variety of different actions and then pass it on to someone else.

Mary had us go around the circle and introduce ourselves and tell why we were taking the class. A lot of it sounded familiar, but it was new to Mary, Liza and Megan. Also, we got to learn something about them.

Megan had been doing improv for a number of years. She actually helped run an improv group in college but said she hadn't done it since graduating and recently decided to get back into it. Just from looking at her, it can't have been too many years since she graduated from college, maybe five at the most.

Liza revealed that she had taken improv classes when she was a child of about 9. At the time she wanted to be an actress, but she'd given up on that dream. Now she was interested in pursuing it again.

After talking about expectations for the class, Mary had us get up and do some more activities. We played Firing Line. This is the word association game that had thrown me off the first time we played in the beginning class. You stand in a line, or a circle, and take turns moving down the line, standing in front of each person in turn. Each time, the person you stand in front of says a word to you, and you have to say the first word that comes into your mind, no matter how hard it was.

I'm quite proud of myself that I only said "elephant" once. That's sort of my panic word, which I say when nothing else comes into my head.

When Mary asked for our impressions of how it went, we told her that it went a lot better than the first time we tried it. She said that she still saw some hesitation and urged us to get out of our heads and say whatever came out.

Then we did word association in a circle, just like Psycho Circle. That went a lot faster than it did in the beginning class, too. I had a lot less trouble saying whatever weird thing came to me and not trying to edit it.

We moved fairly fast, partly because there are only eight people in the class. If you give everyone a chance to do a certain game, it goes faster than it would with a larger class. But I also think we were moving fast because Mary thought we could handle it.

Another game we played was Mr. Know-it-all, where a team of four people acts as one person. An interviewer asks them questions, and they answer by forming sentences, one word per person until the thought is completed.

When I got up with four other people, we were an expert on cat food, cats being the running joke of the day. Just like the first time I played it, I had a lot of fun with this game, throwing in surprising words where they fit. For example, they asked us what was in cat food, and I had the opportunity to throw in the word "sawdust".

According to our expertise, cat food is made by throwing the ingredients into a vat and stomping it with your feet. You don't want to make it at home, because you don't want to ruin your shoes. And that humans should absolutely, positively consume it regularly.

At one point, we were answering a question about a scientific approach to making cat food, and when it came to me, the nonsense word "fragilistic" flew out of my mouth. The rest of my team kept going, as if it was a completely normal word.

Mary wouldn't let it drop. Her next question was to explain the word "fragilistic". Our joint reply was something like, "Funny you should ask that; I made a multisyllabic word up."

The other group were expert in denim and revealed that they're coming out with denim leggings soon.

Mary asked us what stood out about what was said on stage, and people commenting about things they liked, including the sawdust and leggings comments. She said that yes, specifics were important and that we should get to the point quicker, not draw it out with filler words. As she reminded us, we're in the intermediate class now, and it's time to take it up a notch.

Then we did Spelling Bee, a game that's very similar to Mr. Know-it-all. Again, four people act as one. They're given a word to spell. They say the word together, spell it one word at a time and then use it in a sentence, one word at a time.

Amusingly, when we were suggesting words to spell, someone threw out "fragilistic." And they even spelled it right!

Cats kept coming up. At one point, there were gay cats living in boxes somewhere. They were a running theme.

My team got a word that we weren't sure about the meaning: phoneme. Our answer was something like, "Phoneme is a word with deep Latin meanings." Which is fairly close to the truth.

After that, we talked about the game and she gave us some pointers. She pointed out that sometimes people were staring off into space or down at the floor as they tried to think of a word. She encouraged us to look at each other and get more involved instead of zoning out.

We got in a circle again and did something called Juggling. We first established a pattern, where we would say "you" and point at someone. Everybody put their hands up and, as we were pointed to, put the hand down. That way we made sure everyone only got picked once.

We were supposed to remember that pattern, and we repeated it a couple times. Then we established a new pattern, where this time we pointed to someone and said a fruit or vegetable. We did that pattern a couple times, and then she had us do both patterns. She started the "you" pattern and then started the fruit pattern. We were supposed to make certain that we passed it along to the next person, even if we had to repeat it until they paid attention.

After that, we established a new pattern, this one being a color. We did all three together, which was a real challenge, but we made it through.

But we weren't done yet. We added one more pattern. This time, we said someone's name and then took their place in the circle. After we had all exchanged places, we did the patterns again. Of course, now the people we had been passing to were located at different parts of the circle. So we had to remember who they had been, not just where they had been standing.

Surprisingly, we made it through, passing on all four patterns. Mary told us that it was the first time she'd seen a group do all four so soon.

This is when Carol spoke up and said Dave had always praised us for how quickly we picked things up, and she always thought he was "soaping us", as she put it. It's true; he complimented us a lot on how quickly we picked things up. Now we know it's not just him who thinks so.

All in all, it was a great first class. Megan jumped right in, and it was as easy working with her as with the people who had taken the beginning class with me. Liza was more hesitant, but she's also much more out of practice. I will say that she always gave it a shot and kept going even when it got hard. I think once she gets to know us better, she'll feel more comfortable.

After class, we were all gathered in the hallway, talking. Liza went outside to smoke a cigarette. When I saw her out there by herself, I drifted outside and asked her more about her previous improv experience. Everyone else followed suit, and a group of us stood talking on the sidewalk for awhile before going our separate ways.

I feel good about this class. I'm really excited. It was easy to jump back in, and I think we've got some great people. I can't wait to see what happens.

More Musings from improv class:

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Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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