Pine Trees*

Today was the first day of Improv camp. And I can tell you right off the bat that I learned one very important thing.

But first, let me chat Improv club.

Mondays 3 to 4 is my school's improv club. It's lead by the fearless Mr. Snodgrass, an English teacher and a player over at my town's local improv joint. The club's members are scraggly** group of about 8 or so teens. Most from my own circle of friends and those that weren't were quickly added.

For that hour each week, we played a vast range of games from Freeze to Montage to Spotlight. I always looked forward to it, even on the days I felt crummy. Especially on the days I felt crummy.

Our rag-tag group excelled at all the games. Sure, some of us were better than others***, but for the most part, we rocked the stage (erm...hallway...)

We all had our favorite games of course, but it never really mattered to me if we played Park Bench or Scenes From a Hat because I knew I would be able to go up there with anyone of these punks and have a decent scene.

Now I can go back to camp.

The group is larger this year, some familiar faces, a ridiculous amount of dyed hair...

They're a rowdy bunch and just like my club, some are better than others.

This I had expected. Larger groups tend to be noisy and hard to handle, there are always a few that shouldn't really quit their day-jobs.

But here is what I learned.

I'm extremely fortunate to have Improv Club.

I had no idea how much they had my back until I came to this camp.

The first game on the list for camp was Name and Action.

Okay.
It's not a game. It's an icebreaker.

You say your name and put it with an action starting with the same letter.
Trampling Thunderbird
Napping Nicole
Elbows-crossed Eli
That sort of thing.

We didn't finish that game.

Nobody was listening, the people didn't care, the instructor (poor guy) sat out. Chaos.

We played some other things before break too.
Human Knot- Everyone gave up
Machine- People weren't accepting ideas
Ninja- They wouldn't shut up about it so our instructor gave in

After break we moved to stage games.

Mr. Know-it-all - Questions all about murder. Answers that made little sense.
Directed Story- Stories were short and often changed topic.

At the end he asked which one they liked better.

Not surprisingly, I was the only one who said Directed Story.

Back at Improv Club, we had some good times with both. We followed the rules of the game and as a result had a good time. Mr. Know-it-all was good, yeah, but for a performance you only get what the audience asks. Sometimes they aren't very creative.... "My dog can't go inside the store, what should I do?" Directed Story is great because of how it's played. A great big adventure told by a group of people.

It's not really that the people here at camp suck, they just are new. They don't know the difference between looking like an idiot, being an idiot, and acting like an idiot.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: I'm really lucky to have worked with the people I did at Improv Club. They were all super talented in their own ways.







*Get it? I was being a little...sappy!

**Okay...we aren't really 'scraggly' whatever.

***No, this is NOT a subtle way of saying I'm better than everyone. You guys should know me better...