If you’ve ever visited Austin as an improvisor, you’ve probably visited The Hideout Theatre. It’s been one of the mainstays of the Austin scene for many years. And although great shows have gone up consistently for all those years a lot has changed recently. There’s been a much larger reach from the theatre to get involved not only with the other theatres in Austin, but theatres and festivals around the world. This is not coincidental to the fact that the four members of Parallelogramophonograph have taken a more active role in the theatre. Of all the groups in the world, PGraph is one of the leaders – in my opinion – in not only innovation within their shows, but in their openness and excitement to share ideas with folks everywhere and anywhere. Although the group, and many others from The Hideout have traveled the world, they’re starting on a new journey to bring a little of the world to Austin. I was lucky enough to get a few thoughts from Roy Janik about the project and about how you, reading this article right now, can get involved.
The International Improv Experience is a very ambitious idea, but also one that is very accessible for people around the world. A lot of our readers aren’t familiar with the project. How does it work and how did the idea come about?
In the past few years, Parallelogramophonograph (PGraph, my 4 person improv group) has been lucky enough to do a lot of international traveling- to Montreal, to Vancouver, to London, to Paris, and to Australia. These trips are always bittersweet, because we make these amazing friends that we may not see again for years to come. But the trips are also amazing because you start to get a sense for just how universal improv’s growth is, and how much we all share in common with each other.
When I was planning the 2014 Hideout season, I wanted to do something that would enable me to work with all these lovely people again, and to give Austinites a small taste of what we’d found when traveling. The name “The International Improv Experience” sprang to my mind unbidden, and I slotted it in without really knowing the details. So it’s a show based on a mission statement, not a format.
We’ve tinkered with video collaboration in the past. PGraph has a sci-fi show called Eris 2035. In that, we send an open call to improvisers around the world to record “video letters” to loved ones in space, which we then incorporate into the show. So we knew that that idea worked on a small scale, at least.
The way the International Improv Experience works is this: Participating groups issue video challenges, which they send to me online ahead of time. During the show we select a country at random, play one of their videos, and then do whatever they’ve challenged us to do. After the intermission, we do a longer narrative inspired by a particular country’s storytelling tradition (explained in another video).
To make things more focused, I’ve outlined general types of challenges for groups to submit- scene challenges, guided tours, challenges related to landmarks, animals, language lessons, and so on. You can see the example page here: http://hideouttheatre.com/international-improv-experience-welcome
The Hideout has definitely been part of the international community for a while now. How has that collaboration with theatres around the world help grow The Hideout and the Austin Community?
It’s been accelerating lately, and you can see it in small ways. The most obvious way is that we get a lot more international visitors. Tim Redmond from Australia and Jonathan Monkhouse from London have both come over to be a part of our 40+ hour improv marathon. Scott Hunter just visited from Vancouver. Jules and Heather of 10,000 Million Love Stories in the UK came for The Improvised Play Festival and taught workshops. And we’ve got several more visits planned before the end of 2014.
Another HUGE way that traveling and being a part of the international community has helped has been in the direct exchange of ideas. The Fancy-Pants Mashup, one of our more popular ongoing shows, is based on a show we participated in when visiting ProjectProject in Toronto several years ago. An energetic warmup we picked up in London a month ago is now being taught to the kids in our summer camps.
Every single time we travel or reach out to a theater outside of Texas, we make friends and we learn something.
The project is obviously a lot of fun for people sending in videos. What are you hoping your audiences will take away from the project?
I want audiences to leave with a sense that by coming to our theater, they’ve tapped into something greater than just a pleasant night’s diversion. It’s something every improviser knows, but it’s hard to convey that, or to make the audience care about that. But with these videos, audience members can see for themselves just how charming, diverse, and widespread the international community is.
This isn’t the first large scale project from some of the folks creating this. As more young theatres are beginning to find their identity, what advice would you give them for trying more bold projects of their own?
The most important piece of advice I can give is to ignore the well-meaning naysayers- those people that are on your side but have a billion reasons why you shouldn’t do that dramatic/narrative/genre/weekly/experimental/cross-theater/international (take your pick) show. You know the excuses: Your city’s audiences aren’t sophisticated enough, your regular fans are expecting comedy, plot is too hard, you need to build up your own audience before reaching out to other groups, you’ll burn out, we tried that 3 years ago and it didn’t work, etc, etc… ESPECIALLY ignore that naysayer if he lives in your own head.
It’s funny. We’re trained in improv to face our fear, but fear keeps creeping in. If it can’t get a foothold in the improv itself, it’ll creep into the admin side of things. At the Hideout, I hesitated adding more shows to our schedule because I was afraid doing that would dilute our audience. But every time I do, it’s been totally fine.
On the more practical side, here’s a quick list of pointers we’ve found useful for launching larger/more ambitious projects:
- Do what you’re inspired to do. If no one is jazzed about an idea, even if it’s been successful before, table it.
- Make sure your concept has a hook you can explain on a poster that makes sense to someone who knows nothing about improv.
- Don’t overcomplicate the format of your show. Even if you’re doing a sprawling Dickensian epic, aim for hitting the appropriate tone and characters rather than the specific chronological beats of a story.
- Be willing to change everything. Once rehearsal starts the show will reveal itself, and you need to be willing to let go of your initial, perfect concept.
- Set the audience’s expectations as early as possible, especially if the show you’re doing is unusual for your group. If you’re doing a tragedy, don’t promise a hilarious night of laughs on your poster. Tailor your hosting to fit the tone and style of the show as well. With a lot of shows I direct, I will straight up tell the audience “The show you’re about to see is unlike anything The Hideout has done before, and here’s why.”
Of course we couldn’t have an article about a video project without a video. Here’s the project.
Kudos to Roy and all of the Hideout staff and performers for not only putting together such a large project, but reaching out to share with the rest of the improv community.
If your theatre would like to get involved, create your own videos or if you’re in Austin, head on down and catch the shows live.
Currently Bill is an instructor at The Torch Theatre and producer for the Phoenix Improv Festival. He tours teaching and performing across North America.
