Another improv-a-licious weekend. GGG show, Whirled News Show, Advanced Storytelling Class, and GGG rehearsal.

The new GGG opening number is hot hot hot. I’m hoping to upload it to the website soon so everyone can enjoy. We use the scripted song and choreography to open the show with energy and confidence. Hopefully it can get us off on the right foot. We’ve also been playing with new improvised openings. I like creating improv structures that are also problem solving strategies. It’s exciting.

The Whirled News show this weekend was really fun. I learned a lot from the first show. I think reading the audience comically and reading the audience politically are two different things. For the first weekend, I think I over-prepared–reading up on news items, making sure I knew the in-depth story. But in the show I think that alienated me from the audience, who have a decently informed point of view, but weren’t studying cnn.com all week. In the second show I concentrated more on the existing article (not what I knew about the subject of the article) and tried to pull a character or situation directly from that. It worked a lot better.

I’m still puzzling over the ending though. What is a proper ending to a thematically but not narratively connected long form? My usual skills with endings aren’t working so well. I think it’s something about pacing and call backs, but I don’t have it just yet. Tune in for the next few weeks and maybe I’ll get it.