Friday, February 27, 2009

Brendan’s critique of our new routine:

First, let me lay it out.

We begin by gathering a crowd of at least 5. I ask people to stop by saying:

You came for the show? Good, come join our invisible audience.
Have you look in the mirror lately...? because you are a vision of an audience.
Psst... don’t tell her [meaning Stina] but the show is free for you.
(Make a lame joke) You can tell that I make up all this material on the spot because of how lame that joke was.

Stina chimes in with her own lines.
After we have two people, we let them know that the show will begin when we have 3 more people, and they can help us gather a crowd.

Once we have 5 (or more) people, we pitch ourselves:

We are improvisational storyjugglers! You have never seen the likes of us on the street before. We are about to tell you a story made up as you watch. To prove it, we’ll take a few suggestions from you and tell a story based on those suggestions.

We then get 2 people’s names. After the first name, we annouce

I’m sorry, [sir or ma’am], but you are the villain of our story. [to whole audience] Whenever you hear [name], I want to hear your harshest booooo [hissss for people who have lost their voices screaming during Mardi Gras]

After the second name, we announce

Congratulations, [name] you are the hero of our story! [to whole audience] Whenever you hear [name], let’s hear a great big Huzzah!

Then we have them respond to the names a couple times. At last we choose someone from the audience to give a suggestion, like their favorite magical animal or something they would say on a date. Then we tell a juggling story using the names, suggestions, and huzzahs and boos.

That’s Act One

How it went:
Okay. The audience started out titilated at the booing and hooraying. Our story was very average. It’s hit or miss with our stories. Sometimes we have an incredible twist that just happens or a detail that stands out, but sometimes they're kind of blah. I think because we were concentrating on how we could incorporate our two main characters, we fell into a kind of blah story and didn’t feel as free to take the risks that sometimes result in amazing unexpectedness, and sometimes result in driving our audience away with our mumbledy-jumbledy.
So we used their names. A lot! They Huzzahed and Hissed all the way through. By the end though, they sounded less enthusiastic. I didn’t include acts two or three because we didn’t get past halfway into act two when our audience meandered away.

How we can improve:
1. Make it special. We definitely overused the trick up our sleeves. It was only fun maybe 6 times to cheer for their friends.
2. Stop Juggling. Stories are equal parts plot and storytelling. While we can offer some inflection while juggling, unless we can look at our audience, we can’t convey everything. So somehow we need to look at them.
3. More audience interaction. If the rest of the audience gets to cheer and boo, perhaps we can make the villain say “Muahaha” and the hero say “Hip, hip...” (to go with Huzzah)
4. We need to work towards a punchline. I don’t know how we can practice that improvisationally except to work on it and work on it and be aware of the need for it.
5. Give a hat line after the first story. Use it to entice them to stick around for the second.

Once we test them out, I’ll tell you about our third and second acts (we might cut it down to two, though).

It’ll be a while until that happens though, as we’re leaving New Orleans in a few days for some hitchhiking to Houston. Wish us big hats and lucky thumbs!

By the way, if you’re looking for information about busking laws in New Orleans, call the Eighth Precinct. Their beat is the one that encompasses Jackson Square and Royal Street. The laws governing busking in this town are general ones of fire lanes and vendors’ rights. If nobody complains, you’re generally fine.

2 comments:

Anim Cara said...

Story arc maybe what's missing. Sometyimes you find it by accident. Remember the more trouble you heap, the more questions you leave briefly unresoplved the more interesting.

Anim Cara said...

Sounds like you have your dad's syndrome; you overdo a good thing. If he gets a laugh he tries to embellish and it wrecks it.