Session 1 of GET PHYSICAL! for the iO Theater Summer Intensive is sold out. A second session has been added on Saturday, July 30th.
Contact the iO Training Center to reserve a spot: classes@ioimprov.com or (773) 880-0199.
GET PHYSICAL! for regular iO students happens on Saturday, August 20th. Hope to see you there!
I plan to lose 30 pounds just from teaching this workshop 3 times in a row. Realistic?
- Jay
I am teaching my GET PHYSICAL! improv workshop especially for iO Theater Summer Intensive students.
Friday, 7/22, 12pm-2:30pm. $20.
Contact the iO Training Center to sign up: classes@ioimprov.com or (773) 880-0199. Not a summer intensive student? You’ll get your chance in August! Stay tuned…
When plugged into the Improv Matrix we can do anything we want. So why are we standing in a line talking – again? From blocking a simple 2-person scene to creating full-cast spectacle, emotion will be our guide to creating scene work – that moves. Talk less, do more, go further. GET PHYSICAL!
“I LOVED your workshop!! It was awesome, and I still have the carpet burn to prove it! :-)” – Amanda Chapel Hill, NC
“Jay’s energy is infectious and his ability to read and critique scenes is one of the best I’ve worked with…his coaching is like injecting improv adrenaline straight into your mind veins.” – Bethany Chicago, IL
“Thanks a bunch for a GREAT class! I learned and re-learned a lot thanks to your brave, profanity-laden insights.” – Steve Chicago, IL
“I loved the positive energy and positive approach…Longer longer longer. More more.” – Hannah Oxford, England
“Trust…trust your fellow actors to support you; trust them to come through if you lay something heavy on them; trust yourself.”
I am thankful and proud to be a spirit guide for this white-hott (yes, 2 Ts) Harold team at iO Theater. Emotionally honest and effortlessly hilarious - you should see them ASAP.
Mike Daflos, John Douglass, Otis Fine, Matt Higbee, Christine Klein, Maria Randazzo, Megan Redfearn, Joey Romaine, Adam Rubin, Jamison Webb, Mary Beth White
Print 2-For-1 Tickets good for any Gold Star show here: GOLDSTARTIX
UPCOMING SHOWS:
“It’s the game of life. Do I win or do I lose? One day they’re gonna shut the game down. I gotta have as much fun and go around the board as many times as I can before it’s my turn to leave.”
- Tupac
“If you’re not having fun then you’re the asshole.”
I read an interesting article from Fast Company, “Are You Hiring and Breeding Greedy and Selfish Employees?” The (almost absurdly) Greedy and/or Selfish behavior listed included:
To which I responded:
I work with improvisers and am married to an improviser. Comedy from thin air is our business, and as such we live and die by each other. Teamwork is our currency - Ensemble our god. Years of improv training and performance have reinforced Partner First. And it works! If everyone is looking out for everyone else - everybody gets taken care of.
Sound artsy-fartsy? Ethereal? Ideallistic and impractical? A non-improvising friend and long-time business owner introduced me to the idea of A Culture of Abundance. His (somewhat paraphrased) analogy:
If I put out a cake in the cafe and tell everyone to have at it, it’ll be gone in a matter of seconds. Like piranha on a cow carcass. But, if I put out a cake every day it won’t take long before everyone realizes they don’t have to punch each other in the throat for a free slice of cake. It’s here everyday - there will be cake tomorrow.
If you’re holding fast to the idea that for someone to succeed everyone else must fail (within your own company and/or team, no less!), then Yes, you are hiring Greedy and Selfish employees. And Yes, you are rewarding them.
To take this a step further, can you create an external Culture of Abundance?
Charna Halpern is the owner of the iO Theater (formerly ImprovOlympic), a wonderful comedy theater at which I perform and coach. The signature performance piece at iO is an improvisational form called the Harold, developed by improv demigod Del Close. Del passed away in 1999, and many years later the Harold is performed (with varying degrees of proficiency) all over the world. But rather than waste time and energy blocking kids in Corpus Christi, TX or Antibes, France (look it up) from performing Del’s labor-of-love, Charna has made sure that her theater, iO Theater, is THE one and only place to truly learn this amazing art form. The Source. Regardless of their improv experience elsewhere, Ponce de Leons from all over the world flock to Chicago to drink from iO Theater’s fountain.
This has inspired me to be the absolute best, and therefore feel confident in giving freely of my time and ideas; to create A Culture of Abundance. Challenge yourself to do the same?
- Jay
“If you come to a negotiation table saying you have the final truth, that you know nothing but the truth and that is final, you will get nothing.”
“Every interpersonal situation has a solution in which everyone wins.”
