We're back from the break feeling refreshed, and we can't wait to have you back with us for everything we've planned for September and October!
We started our week back with our hot favourite ### Make Friends with the stage!! @ Wednesday, 09th September
It’s fine and dandy to run a workshop where we claim to make the stage friendlier, but the question I’ve been asking myself is, what makes the stage unfriendly? I threw to the folks gathered at the workshop, as I have in previous editions, too, to get clues on what makes the stage scary for them, and the responses have been insightful.
“What if nobody laughs?”
This, however, has been the most common response.
Even as seasoned improvisers, we tend to chase the high of being acknowledged for our skill and wit on stage. I can’t imagine the pressure and stress it must put on those who haven’t spent much, or any, time on stage.
There are two things to unpack here. One, the pressure to be liked. Two, the pressure to perform well. Both are perfectly capable of turning a stage into a pretty unfriendly place.
But I’ve been thinking about stress differently, lately. Stress itself isn’t necessarily the problem. In fact, a certain amount of stress is useful. Healthy, even. It tells us that something matters. It heightens our awareness, sharpens our senses, gets our bodies ready to respond.
It’s how we react to stress that can be problematic. A racing heart turns into nervousness, which turns into famous last words, "I'm going to mess this up." And before you know it, instead of responding to what’s happening on stage, we’re busy responding to our own response to stress.
So, in this week's workshop, we played some extreme awareness and listening games. We tried a hyper-focus game (come talk to me about Bing Bong Bing). We practised emotional reactions on stage. On the surface, these might seem like very different exercises. But they were all, in some way, about the same thing: noticing what is happening, and responding to it.
Because that’s what the stage keeps asking of us. It's also kinda what life keeps asking of us. Something unexpected will happen. Someone might say something we weren’t prepared for. A scene might go quiet. We might forget something. And, yes, sometimes nobody laughs.
Since we can't control any of that, we can work on our response to the situations. Maybe making the stage friendlier isn’t about making it less stressful. It’s about helping ourselves, and newer performers, discover that stress doesn’t have to be something we fight. We just acknowledge, breathe, and react.
Then, we had our Regular The Silliest Show Tonight
Friday, 11th September
We did a 10-person Maestro.
What's a Maestro?
It's an elimination-style competitive improv show.
What do they compete about?
On whose scenes were the best.
Like, the funniest?
No, just, nice scenes. Good stories. Like, did you feel connected to the story or the characters. Stuff like that.
Ah. What do they win?
A framed 500-rupee note.
Oh. Do they take it home?
Na, it's a rolling trophy. It hangs on our wall at the Underline Center.
Lame. I'd want to take the trophy home.
Umm... but you don't improvise. You gotta learn how to improvise, first.
Lol, I can learn how to improvise?
Yeah. I wasn't born on the stage.
Haha, can you imagine!? How does one learn improv?
We've got a course. Starts this weekend. It's called the 101. 4 slots left.
Has this conversation been building up to this plug the whole time?
Yeah.
Are you pleased with yourself?
I will be, if you pick up a ticket for the course.
Wow. Just... where do I buy a ticket?
District, probably. I don't know. Mohit handles all this. Talk to us on WhatsApp.
But, I'm already here!
Fine. Fair enough. Here.
Last up, we had a very fun time at PowerPoint Roulette
Sunday, 13th September
PowerPoint Roulette has got to be one of my favourite formats! There's so much fun stuff going on; there are slides that make no sense, topics that don't match the slide decks, judges who are scoring the quality of the presentation, and finally, an audience that's waiting to grill the improviser with questions about the invented talk.
Sunday's show had Anubha Aunty, ex-business partner of Seema Aunty of Netflix fame, walk us through the essentials of a marriage proposal. Saloni eulogised her fallen dosa, and Pratham gave a wedding toast where he asserted that math has no place in love. And two brave audience members stepped up: Aman, a very reluctant presenter of the breaking news, and Teshu, who travels worldwide (though she has actually never stepped out of the country once).
The most exciting performers of the evening, though, were the audience. They improvised questions more than the improvisers made up the presentations. Backstories were invented, scandals were made-up, and a disgruntled friend of a disgruntled customer showed up! (All of this, the audience did by themselves. We didn't prep them, we didn't even have to tell them that they can take liberties with the questions. They just did!)
It's beautiful when things fall in place. 15/15 points to the audience for stepping up. <3