Muprov Musings: Exceptionally Average Improv

Calm vibes only on this episode as we chill our way through an invaluable improv tool. If you have never enjoyed a surgical run before, get ready for one of the best ways to get an inside scoop into our minds. It is half way between a practice run and a GIGASPINE and makes for great listening! 

We are going back to the basics! Shout out to Ken Adams and the storyspine. Lets platform some scenes! 

Most failed scenes are one side-coach away from being great. On this episode we talk through three simple coach lines that can save the day. If you practice it enough with a coach, the voice in your head will begin to remind you all by yourself! 

Improv is all about flexibility and change, so how does the way we teach it change over time as each generation gets to improve on the past? Enter Ness Arikan— who learned improv in this fundamentals curriculum, and now is the current instructor to this same workshop. She has reworked the whole curriculum and can give a rare inside look at the cutting edge of teaching fundamentals! The next genera...

Gosh this is like five episodes packed into one... Back in the day we taught a whole second version of this class where we deep dived each of them, but lets start with a fundamental understanding.... If you have strong opinions about acronyms then then you will love this episode. Let us know what team you are on in the comment ;) #TeamCROW #TeameCROWE #COWREmpromise #hardCORE #CREWcrew

People talk a lot about supporting your partner in improv, but how do you actually make that happen? Well, everyone is different so it really depends on who your partner is! Here are some ways that we practice the meta-stuff and learn to tailor our support to the people that we play with! Folk singer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDrKeGqV6qY Time God: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnvYmgiqrt4...

Sometimes the best thing to do is be obvious. Why not take the path of least resistance? It can be hard to feel confident enough to do things the easy way but at the end of the day that is what fundamentals is all about! Improv Wisdom, By Patricia Ryan Madson: https://www.amazon.com/Improv-Wisdom-Dont-Prepare-Just/dp/1400081882   A New Play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2qDjmWah6g&t=4306s...

Fundamentals go deep! This episode goes from 0 to 100 starting out with the familiar mirror exercises building from Blocking to Yes And, but then taking it two steps beyond the idea of "Yes, and." Experienced improvisers can skip over some of the initial steps but hopefully it is fun to see the whole trajectory laid out!  Mirror Study: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1108155108   Hofsta...

Whether you are a total beginner or a veteran, if you want to reach the next level of improvisation the best way to do it is to go back to the fundamentals! Rather than going for a traditional intro series, we will pull back the curtain and talk about teaching muprov and how to design a course to teach these fundamentals. You may know some of the exercises, but I bet you will be surprised by the w...

This episode is a short one ;). Hear our takes on Impro Amsterdam, Birthdays, running, and Tob/Bottom. Stick around to the end of the episode and you might win a prize! We have a lot of fun! Join us next week for the first episode of our Muprov Fundamentals Series! 

Fire, Earth, Water, Air. After 100 years it is finally time to put your fists together and let those eyes glow. Thats right, magic is real and you can become the improv Avatar. Similar to our episode on The Ordeal, this one explores a forbidden technique on the the frontier of what is possible.  This episode is shorter than normal because we are saving Sign-Off-Palooza for next time! 

We break down our own way to understand status and do some status duels! If you have never heard of status, learn it, if you have heard of it, learn our way and find yourself a powerful opponent! Hal had fun dueling for the real life status in this episode as well :). 

Miranda stays on the podcast to debrief the Tailor of Malta. (So listen to episode 09 if you haven't). Seeing how improvisors analyze their own shows is a great way to apply that learning to your own improv! Stick around for the sign off to get the low down on Swedish dish-clothes, Homebrew Syrups, and drinking Sap. 

John Mistele, Miranda Johnson, and Will Gutzman join the podcast to put on a special Shakespeare show full of hats, shipwrecks, and gnomes! I won't spoiler the ending but boy are there surprises in store....

You know the drill if you have been here for the Hero's Journey, but before we can do our epic show for you, there has to be an even-more-epic practice run! In these practice run Hal and Julian play all the characters and in keeping with our tradition, accidentally ran a little over time... it is okay though because every minute is GREAT!

The GIGASPINE is back with JOHN MISTELE! These Gigaspine episodes in which we talk through how to build a whole show are my favorite thing that we do on the podcast and this one lives up to the high standards set by the Anna Wang in Hero's Journey 07! If you want to get a better narrative intuition, there is really no better way than hearing first hand how we actually solve the problems of what co...

Hal is the “guest” this week to explain how they created their patented Shakespearean Narrative Flowchart™. We kind of get into the weeds on this one and pull back the directorial curtain on how you can boil down existing scripts into improvisable narrative structures. Once the sausage is made you get this simple flowchart: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19399esYCwajyfkgl6sbIS4FiAPQ2i0iL7yRp3N...

Every show has to start somewhere, but on this episode Julian and Hal break down how some real Shakespearian Comedies begin and how that unsettles some of the usual heuristics for evaluating the openings of narrative improv shows! The Statistical side of Mu gets some love in this one :). I am going to leave off the flow chart till the next episode!

Jayda Alvarez joins the pod to talk about dramatic irony! Put the comedy in your comedies by turning out to the audience and saying your inner thoughts!

Happy Holidays! The Shakespeare train keeps on chugging, so turn out to the audience and let out a guttural cry and a stream of inner thoughts! 

We dive into the Elizabethan language and grammar! For the grammar rules you can follow along with this page: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1teSwA7-5kqL7FJa6J-FU9DyITS1Y19zDumy75gRgufg/edit  

What a treat to have THE Lisa Rowland on to kick off our Shakespeare series! She is truly the Shakespeare GOAT and no one would be better to give the overview of what this format will be like!  Stay tuned! Over the next nine episodes we will be teaching you everything you need to know to put on your very own totally-improvised, Shakespeare Play! I hope this episode gets you pumped up and ready to...

Anna Mistele joins the podcast to talk about stage intimacy and how to safely practice intimacy and touch in an improvised setting! Adding intimacy to your practice plan can really help people feel secure and confident with finding their own boundaries and learning each others!  To see this work in action check out: Example one: Skip to 20:03 if you want to see your hosts do a grounded intimate sc...

Matt Chapman, clown extraordinaire, movement magician, and champion of introducing himself joins the Podast to give many words of wisdom on commedia, clown, game, movement, and teaching! This one was a really fun conversation for us and I hope you have fun listening! 

Bye Bye Hero's journey... HELLO COMBAT!!! We got a little carried away with the technical stuff in this episode. Rather than a conversation about stage combat, it is more of a detailed list of how to do space object (mime + sounds) combat with various weapons and superpowers! I am going to try to upload the the video of this one on youtube in the coming days because the visuals will definitely hel...