Saturday was a full day at the improfest, in more way than one.

To start with, we had a workshop scheduled with Patti Styles - which was pretty damn good. Parking was pleasant, the afternoon was wonderful, and the workshop was great! All in all, a great start to the day... even if it was 3 in the afternoon.

The lesson was great, and it was gratifying to se so many of the activities that I use in the "Improve Your Improv" workshop being utilized by Patti... great for the students, and great for me as a trainer, to get a refresher on why the exercises are used, as well as giving me a new outlook on them. It was great to see the work done with the Boris, which would come back to haunt me later... (but haunt in a good sense, not in a "the grudge" sense).

Following that, we had the Gorilla Theatre show to open the night at 7pm. leading up to the show I was simultaneously excited and terrified about the show. Excited because we would be performing with some great, talented improvisors with (hopefully) a big, supportive crowd. Terrified because I had never met these people and we didn't have the chance for even a brief run through of the format before we took the stage.

We did get together for a very brief "getting to know you" session just before we had to run off for a tech rehearsal (no rehearsal really, more of a stage set-up thing), which was pleasant, but I didn't really get to know much about Patti or Derek (Flores), or even Stephen (Youngblood), who I had worked with before. - Luckily, we ran into Derek & Stephen while grabbing some dinner before the show, and that was a great way to just chat and catch up.

Of course, when we hit the stage, it was great fun. The first few scenes were veeeerrry shaky... oh boy, shaky, yes. The first scene, which was a word at a time story, as fell completely apart. But from there the show built, and there were some truly great scenes along the way. Patti put me in a Boris, for which I will be eternally grateful. It has been a bugbear of mine trying to get a Boris played properly for years... and finally I got to be in on... a Boris which didn't suck! Thanks Patti :)

It turns out that 45 minutes is not enough time to do 6 performers directing 6 minutes each, particularly when Derek decide to direct an epic viking scene which runs 5 minutes over time... however, in the end the audience seemed to really like the show, and I had a ball performing in it. And yes, there was a big, enthusiastic, happy audience for us to play to. And I kissed Derek.

I loved the Visy Theatre, and hope we get a chance to play there in future... maybe It Came from Somewhere Else next year?

Well, after the high of the Gorilla Show, I got to sit back and watch a couple of shows for the rest of the night.

First up was You got the part with Impro Melbourne. It was a great fun show, and the individual performances really blew the audience away. The setup is that the performers are auditioning for a play, with the whole audience as directors... and the payoff is that the second half of the show is the play they were auditioning for.

Overall very high in entertainment value, although the actual players in the show were dismissive of their solo scenes at the start (a bit of a chance to show off), it renewed my passion for solo scenes... something I really want to work on with EDGE. The solo scenes were so effective as they were playing such strong characters, most of whom had great pathos... or at least weren't afraid to be assholes to the director!

Rick Brown managed to steal the show in a show full of show stealers, including Lliam Amor and many other culprits. In the end, the longform was a story of hope, love, confusion, and grass growing (but with more excitement).

Rounding off the shows for the night was "Tabloid: the musical" by Impro Australia (the Sydney mob). And while completely lacking anything to do with Tabloids, it certainly was very musical.

As an improvisor, I find that musical shows (and games) are just a gift from god to make the audience fall in love with you, and this show was no exception. The playing, music and singing were all universally good, with Rebecca De Unamuno making a great main character, and John Knowles a great foil as her Dad.

But for me, the show was completely stolen by what by rights should have been a minor subplot... the feuding sisters of Linda Calgaro and (I think) Lisa Ricketts. Hilarious, great characters, lots of pathos, and drop dead amazing accents. I was literally ROTFLMAO. Great stuff.

I mean. overall the show went on a little long, the plot got a bit lost, but the show still kicked ass.

So, that just left the after show party... what you thought that the blog would end there? How wrong you were. The after party was an interesting beast, like a frankenstein amalgam of a student share-house party and an improvisor  comedy-scholng fest.

I don't know what it is, but getting improvisors together tends to lead to a sort of "who's got the biggest dick" competition. Except it's whose the funniest, and the girls can join in. I guess I should be thankful that it's not just a "whose got the funniest dick" competition, I suppose. I generally prefer quiet chats to full blown part interaction, so I was feeling well and truly out of my depth. Say for instance, Lliam was to try to be wittier than me, my first urge would be to say "You win!" and slink out of the room. Seriously, what chance would I have? But I digress.

So the party split fairly evenly between the "whose the wittiest" improvisors side, and the "who stole our beer" student side... with the stolen beer being a major downer and killing the party. (For my part, I'm not exactly sure who was responsible, but I did see a chap with a beard handing out bottles at one point).

After the students shut down the stereo at 1pm (getting mercilessly mocked for it... and for good reason), and the aforementioned beer incident leading to somewhat homely, if not ugly, confrontation on the footpath. And I got the feeling that the reason Derek kept saying "I'm an asshole" in the show on Sunday night was because he was playing from his perception of Saturday night (playing from truth and all that)... but correct me if I'm wrong.

So, in the end, the party dissolved into globs of improvisors trickling off to hotel rooms / pubs / wandering the streets, but in spite of all that it was a good party... and a great chance to hang out with some cool folk who are not only funny and witty, but also share a love of impro. Good stuff.