Muprov Musings: Exceptionally Average Improv

After an extended break, we are back to talk about our recent experience at the Fringe. John Mistele is guest! Sorry for the audio quality on this one! 

The Glorious GOAT we are interview this week is none other than Lisa Rowland! We have always looked up to Lisa when she was our teacher, but assumed that she was just the best improviser that we knew. As we have traveled the world and seen more improv, it turns out that she is one of the best in the whole world too! Lisa has served as the artistic director of BATS, was the only improviser chosen f...

The second part of the interviews that I got from Flock Festival, this episode features the voices of the international guests who had come from far and wide to take part!  It includes interviews with: Liam Webber Chris Mead  Maria Ramis Auri Itämäki Isabel Brodie Adria Lerma Katy Schutte Phill Spear Lê Kim Thanh Julia

This special live episode, I interview great improvisers while they play the dutch game of Sjoelen. Flock Theater in Amsterdam is the best improv theater that I have seen anywhere in the world, and I hope these episodes will shed some light on how it runs! This is the first in a two part series of interviews from Flock Festival in Amsterdam, with the first one focusing on local talent and members...

Dr. Mark Smith joins the podcast for the first episode of our GOATs Series, where we interview great improvisers to try to understand how they got to where they are today. Mark is the artistic director of the Liverpool Improvisation Festival, has a very substantial body of work in improvised and scripted theater, and he wrote his doctoral thesis on how improvisation can be applied to devised theat...

A duo show, recorded live at the Unscripted Shakespeare Festival featuring Hal Munger and John Mistele! This is the audio of the show that we are bringing to the Edinburgh Fringe this year. Julian is adjusting to his new job, so he will be back on the podcast soon to begin an exciting new series but in the meantime I hope you enjoy the Flicker of the Flame: Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/w...

For the final episode of our A New Play series, Julian interviews Hal about directing A New Play. 

Apologies for the upload delay, Hal was running the UnScripted Shakespeare Festival! We are right back at it debriefing the final two nights of A New Play! Our intro music by Sebastian Blue Hochman famously comes from night four! Night Three watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y_G9zNJv3Q Night four watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5lApi_65io

We rewatched nights One and Two of A New Play and talked through how they went! If you haven't seen them go check them out! A New Play Night One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjeb4BI1o-0 A New Play Night Two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2qDjmWah6g&t=19s  

Our third episode about the physical improvisers gets deep into the specific techniques that we developed for A New Play. Many of these techniques never made it into the performances, so this is the first time they are available to the world!

Live interviews with the cast of Taxi Tales from the Liverpool Improvisation Festival! Taxi tales was an incredible show created and directed by Dr. Mark Smith that tells the story of twelve taxi rides over the course of one night. An enormous thank you to everyone involved with LiF for making this such a magical experience!  You can find out more by following @liverpool_improv_festival on instagr...

Lana Tleimat, the assistant director, producer, stage manager, costume fabricator, and pain sink of A New Play puts on one final hat: podcast guest. 

Physical Improviser Kaelyn Ong comes on the podcast to talk about her experience working in A New Play and what she has done since. We explore the role of physical improviser as amplifier and Kaelyn talks about how she treats physical improvising like animation!

Jayda Alvarez, one of the five character improvisers from A New Play, joins the podcast to answer all of our questions! Jayda brought a lot of her theatrical knowledge to A New Play, so this episode is not too dissimilar from the early conversations we had in making it.

So how do you improvise a show where the structure itself is improvised? Simple... Know all structures! 

Anna W is back by popular demand to talk about her signature move: monologues! She is truly a monologue master so listening to her talk is pure joy. Monologue's ended up being one of the defining features that distinguished ANP-prov from regular improv and I am so glad we were able to do such a deep dive on them. Such a nice episode! 

TW: Child abuse and sexual assault. This episode is a rare LIVE interview with two of the most brilliant impro minds out there! Impro Amsterdam reliably curates the best improvised shows that I have seen anywhere in the world, and standing out from the pack this year was Festen. Based on the movie by the same title, Festen takes place over the course of a family dinner during which one member of t...

In practicing for A New Play we sought to expand the world of what is possible to improvise! To do this we broke away from the traditional "rules" of impro and rebuilt our own looser guidelines to play by. In this episode we also talk about how you can safely explore and expand the comfortable boundaries of of contact, combat, content, and intimacy. I you are interested in having your shows feel m...

In this episode we explore the subtle difference in thought process the separated A New Play improvisation from other types of improv. If you are wondering why this is such a challenging form, here is your answer, but the payoff for learning to play in this way is enormous :)

Sasha Sokolova joins the podcast to talk about the biggest innovation of A New Play: The Physical Improvisors. If you want some brilliant insights in to how to add movement, visual artistry, and technical elements to your improv, tune in to here what Sasha has to say! To apply to take the 3 day workshop at the UnScripted Shakespeare Festival, got to https://www.thornandpetalstick.com/festival and...

Read along with this one: https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/5/25851/files/2016/02/taoteching-Stephen-Mitchell-translation-v9deoq.pdf or listen to the full text: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7sIyojwbx9eaKqkoPL3DDH?si=1dadcab6edf44c79  

At the far reaches of the possible, A New Play, is unlike any other improvised piece of theater. In this first episode we break down the vision for creating the show, and the ways in which we dreamed of expanding the the art form of improvisation. If you also have the dream of elevating improvisation into the realm of theater, tune in to this season to see how we tackled each problem and made this...

Everyone's favorite award show :0 This one is a little self indulgent, but was delightful to make! Congrats to everyone who won a Mu-ie this year!  Thanks to Limited Resources for inspiring this episode (and honestly the whole podcast)  Also, I realized we missed the Tesuji of using the delayed Tesuji point to bring it to a tie... That is why it is such an important concept.

Goodbye Slasher, Hello reflections on what we learned! 

This show is fantastic! Improv people always warn you not to do transaction scenes but they don't give you the gory details about can happen if you don't follow their advice ;). The show starts out as a sort of normal silly improv show about pickles and arcs into something intense and amazing! Hal and Julian both think that it is the best audio show that we have done so far and if you make it to t...