RobertTheBruce.net

I’m driving up to Philly tonight for two shows at the Philly Improv Festival with Safeword and Mister Licorice. Wish I could stay the whole weekend because there’s a lot of greatness going on, but I have to come back for the BIG shows this Saturday.
Join us for an improv doubleheader this Saturday at [...]

We did mantra scenes last night in my intermediate class and the effect was profound. People who have never studied acting looked like they’d been doing it for years. The actors look incredibly real and that captivates the audience. There’s something about authenticity that sucks people into your world.
I have them repeat “I love you” [...]

Tonight is Halloween, my favorite night of the year. Something about wearing costumes brings out the playful side of people. Everyone is naturally friendly, outgoing, and fun. Costumes provide natural ice breakers and role playing is rampant. The ‘high’ feeling of going out on Halloween was something I experienced only rarely before I started learning [...]

At my class on Tuesday, we played a game whose name escapes me. The gist is that you have two people in a scene and three bouncers behind them. When either of the players decides that they’re not having fun in the scene, they snap their fingers and the bouncers drag the other player off [...]

I compiled this list to give out to my intermediate improv class. I call them ‘ways to have more fun’ because I think the idea of ‘rules’ in improv is a destructive one. This is not a manifesto and it’s not very original; most of the ideas I took from Mike Subelsky, Mark Sutton, [...]

I saw The Terrordactyls tonight at the Charm City Art Space. I think I was the only person that wasn’t in one of the bands in the lineup. I’ve done improv shows like this, where nobody shows up except for a handful of other improvisers.
It’s hard to do shows this way and I think it’s [...]

One of the most powerful techniques I’ve learned in improv is repeating a mantra over and over again in my head during a scene. I learned this from Keith Johnstone and he recommends starting with “I love you” or “I hate you.” It doesn’t really matter, as long as you repeat some words over and [...]

A good discussion on being shy vs. being introverted at Ben Casnocha’s blog got me thinking about my own experience. Whenever I take the Myers-Briggs test, I always come out heavily on the introvert side.
People don’t believe me when I tell them that I’m introverted and they say “but you do improv and you’re always [...]

Last night’s show in Philly had one person in the audience. It felt like Flight of the Conchords but hey we still had fun. Here’s hoping to a bigger crowd for tonight’s show.

Mister Licorice and Safeword were accepted to the Philly Improv Festival! I’m very excited to be going as I heard great things from the Gus people that went last year, not to mention all the cool Philly Improv people I’ve met this year.
Mister Licorice also has two shows this weekend in Philly, one on Friday [...]