This weeks week of improv was packed as it was the first show as a troupe so we had to have rehearsal time as well as the main event! So let’s go through the week and all the adventures that we went on this week as a troupe. On Monday we met for our final rehearsal – this was to go through the games one more time, to focus on characterisation, make sure we all know what we are doing and just clear the last jitters up – but as you will soon find out, even having the most polished rehearsals anything can happen and you have to be prepared for any situation.

On the afternoon of the show on Wednesday  we had everything prepared – all the props were branded and ready, we all had our outfits sorted, and timings worked out and then at the last moment something happened that meant we had to change the show style.  We got a message from one of the members of our group saying that she couldn’t make the show she had to go to the hospital. Now i won’t go into depths about that but it meant that we were one person down for our show so myself, Kevin and James had to go into quick turnaround mode.

Luckily for me I had time to re-record audio and get that sorted before the boys turned up at the venue and then when they turned up we formed a plan for how the show needs to go and the format in which we now have to use as we had designed some of the games for four people we had to alter the timings and game styles a little bit to fit into it now only being just a trio, we were also put on as the first group of the evening because short form is the way to ‘warm up the audience’ as most people do styles of long form.

For a first show it went well apart from the tech guy messed up our audio which was really irritating as it knocked me off my zone in my performance and made me fluff up on the first game and it also lead to the show i personally feel not running smoothly. I have decided between this show and the next one we do I am going to figure out a resolution where we can be in charge of the audio as even having tech rehearsals it still didn’t go to plan even though i checked a lot and to be honest i don’t want that to happen again as it really put a downer on me personally on our debut. I had worked really hard making sure the audio was saying the right thing etc and then to have it not be in the right order was insanely disappointing and made me feel like we came across as amateurs. Whilst these sort of issues can happen and probably was the best thing to happen in the first time we do it, i still am really not happy about it as a team we had planned for ages how it should run smoothly and this really put a downer on the night for me.

As for the actual groups performance and not the mess ups from the tech, i think it went well, we got laughs and Each of the games got laughs which was nice to hear. We worked well as a team and it is good to see how fast we can change and react to a situation.

Case Study – Brendan Urie 

Everyone has a regime before they perform to an audience and for me, listening to the music of Brendan Urie (Panic At The Disco) really soothes me / puts me into focus mode.

I find listening to Brendan before a show an inspiration because I find him very talented and listening to him belt out music in headphones before I approach the stage gives me  a confidence boost, puts me in the right frame of mood and gives me the energy that I need to perform.

The music I listen to tends to depend on how I am feeling but the majority of the time I will listen to the album Death of a Bachelor because out of a lot of the music that Panic have released over the years I feel this is one of the top ones that really challenge his talents as a performer and really proveswhy he is such such a unique performer and one that I look up to. He doesn’t care what people think, dares to be bold and takes risks and create something extraordinary and different.

This is relatable to Improv, you need to be in this frame of mind to perform well- some of my best scenes have been when I have been thinking outside the box and come up with unique and creative characters that others dare to do. Whilst these don’t always happen in every show, ever so often there will be one character that will make you look at what you have accomplished and think “yeah that was pretty alright!”

I don’t think my revving up for a performance routine is ever going to change now and look in the positives direction of Brendan to keep creating music that pushes genres and uniqueness.