The End of the World Show: Rehearsal Process

This post is part of a series about creating the End of the World Show. 

With a refresher read of Directing Improv by Asaf Ronen (contains a lot of useful tips about show process) and a re-listen to the Billy Merritt episode of the Improv Resource Center podcast, I was ready to undertake rehearsals for the show.

I decided to try something new with the process. Everyone in Pittsburgh is very busy, and often involved in a few projects. To get people to say "yes" to the time commitment of EotW, I settled on this rehearsal schedule:

• 2 intense weeks of rehearsal, during which I ask you to make this show a priority. We'll rehearse ~3 days a week.
• Then the show opens and we won't rehearse again

I got people to sign up with the promise of a fun, ambitious show in 2 weeks, but I did not have a lot of time. 

The rehearsals were a mix of:

• Developing core skills: learning the short form games, learning the set list and the flow of the show, how to transition from one game to the next
• Character work: actors would be playing the same characters for every show (in the "frame story," in the improv those characters could play anyone). We worked on playing ourselves but slightly exaggerating qualities based on how we would really react if our own world was ending.
• Some exploration: continuing to evolve and improve the show format

Gray Matter: A new show series starting this Friday

I am starting a new show series inspired by Messing with a Friend. 

In her show, Susan Messing performs each week with some of her famous and talented friends. 

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In this show, I perform when I can with some people who are kind of well known in Pittsburgh improv circles. 

I think it's going to be really fun.

Here's my spiel:

Grey Matter is distributed throughout the brain, taking the lion's share of its oxygen and controlling muscles, sensory perception, memory, emotions and speech. Gray Matter features veteran improv performer, coach and teacher Brian Gray performing with a variety of top talent from all over Pittsburgh, using all of those key functions to breathe life into characters created before your very eyes. This month's guest is Woody Drennan! 

Come see Woody and I do some improv together this Friday at 10pm. We are opening for what promises to be a really amazing play staring Ayne Terceria that was featured in the Pittsburgh New Works Festival.

What?! Right, I know. 

End of the World Show: Exploratory Rehearsals

This post is part of a series about creating the End of the World Show. 

With collaborators roughly in place, I needed to figure out what was actually going to happen on stage. I had a vague outline in my head, but these things never work how I think they will.

I emailed out to 22 people in the community who I thought could have the time and interest to help workshop the show. I got a pretty positive response -- a good chunk of them were willing to help. The idea was to help me when you have time to figure out what this show can be!  

What did these early rehearsals look like?

Much of what we did was workshop games. I've played a lot of shortform games, and I wanted to take a handful of them and figure out how they would or could work in this Alien Show concept. 

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I don't have photos from the exploratory sessions, unfortunately. But here is the cast ironing out some kinks in 2 Min Challenge.

For example, on of the first games we looked at is 2 Minute Challenge , Challenge  or whatever your group calls it. Here's a great description from our friends over at Friday Night Improvs. I came to rehearsal with a few thoughts:

• This game could be earlier in the show. The humans want to just tell some stories.
• At various points, something goes wrong. Either the overlords intervene, or maybe they react and the humans intervene, or the humans always intervene as they learn each others' personalities and what the aliens respond to. These "interventions" are our challenges.
• The game can still retain its fast pace, it's increasingly silly challenges and so forth.

We tried a lot of combinations, and ended up with something that didn't even look all that close to what I imagined. It was story based, but often the interjections were helpful. There was usually a mix of how the challenge was interjected. And the humans told their stories more collaboratively than competitively as is the point of the short form version.   

I loved this spirit of workshopping games for a different purpose. We had a little bit of time, and we worked together to create something once we saw what it looked like.  

We touched on some of the other major aspects of the show, but most of these early rehearsals were workshopping games.