improvarama

Improv Prompt Four characters take the stage. The first three have the task of creating a new line of poetry to add to the accumulating lines of poetry until a logical or satisfying conclusion is reached. Make no attempt to make this funny. The fourth person, having heard the first three lines, creates a two line chorus. They will then repeat this chorus each round. "Why not make it funny?" "It might BE funny. The guideline though is to make no ATTEMPT to make it funny. The harder you try NOT to make it funny, the greater potential it has." -- doug smith

Do you ever wish that you could record your dreams? I remember when VHS tapes first came out thinking that it would be great amid all the programming and saving of spotty TV shows (in questionable resolution) if we could also record our dreams. Think of it -- we could pause, rewind, rewatch, re-experience our favorite dreams (that kiss! that adventure to Mars!) while simply erasing the ones we didn't like. We still can't do that (yet!) but we could, as soon as we awake, write down what we remember about our dreams. I do that when I can.  Will we misremember some dreams? Sure. I have no doubt that maybe I influence the way the dream was going as soon as I start to write it down. There's point of view, and then there's perspective. Still, it's fun to capture the best dreams and if part of it is imagined so much the better for our creativity. Isn't it all imagined anyway? What are dreams if not our imagination having fun? They might be processing our inner thoughts...

Search for any TV listings -- I like to work from an image of a page from TV Guide, but any TV listings will work. Randomly pick the description of one show -- don't cherry pick or look for sensible listings -- the improv challenge is to work with whatever you choose. For added fun, ask someone in the audience to pick and read the description to you, without telling what show it describes. Work with that description AND...GO.

You don't have to look into my eyes, but it works better if you do. Of course, those eyes can be alarming. Like a character actor (which I sometimes am) sometimes one eye will look right at you and the other, not quite. None of us are symmetrical, but as Groucho would say to me, you're abusing the privilege. Or am I? "You keep telling the same story." "What story is that?" "The one that sounds like a Coen brothers movie." "Which one?" "All of them." "Starring Steve Buscemi?" "All of those." "Dude." "That one, too." "Now I've lost the story." "Dude, you ARE the story." I was thinking about another story. It was about the possibility of cousins. It was about the possibility of an unknown grandparent. It was a story about how an all-consuming love consumes all, and then like a zombie just won't completely die but just goes on consuming. That's not fun. "Pe...

Do you like to argue? Whether or not YOU do, you probably can think of someone who seams to enjoy disagreeing. Arguments are contagious. I've gotten pulled into many arguments that eventually went nowhere and didn't contribute any progress to anything at all. So why argue? We argue to prove a point. We argue to convince. We argue to change behavior. But, how effective is that? Not very. Whenever I catch myself arguing now, I pause long enough to breathe deeply and think of a question. And then another question. And then another question.  It's harder to argue with a question. And with a question, we both might learn something. -- doug smith What have you learned today?

If you paint, paint a lot. If you write, write constantly. If you sing, sing everywhere. Creativity thrives in the doing.  -- doug smith

  Each character believes it to be a different time, epic, and era and must deal with unexpected darkness. Bonus: add sound effects. Double bonus: bring the time together at the end.

in a dream she wrote a revolutionary  novel one chapter at a time like visions trickling thru her hair wondering "what did he mean when he said that..." and writing it all down turned the storm walls of calling into the dream walls of joy "what if novels didn't have to be sad?" she said -- doug smith

  I've changed morning pages to evening pages, when I do them, because other things have gotten in the way of writing first thing in the morning. I still do sometimes, but mostly the journal writing comes at night.  Is that a good idea? I'm not sure. I've written so many volumes over such a long time. They prod me, the comfort me, they process me, they inspire me. It's some little bit annoying to think that no one will ever read them. For goodness sake, I don't even have time (or the inclination) to read them so why would anyone else? Unless there is value in the work and a joy in the treasure hunt.  That could be fun. Lately as the ticking of mortality peppers the soundtrack of my psyche, I think about once greatly well known people who you hardly ever hear about any more because they are gone (no, dead not gone. They didn't go to Cleveland for the week and they aren't missing.) Bernard Shaw. Gertrude Stein. Salvadore Dali. Ginger Rogers. Hellen Keller. Th...

Scene for two people in a public place, like a restaurant, or an office break room, or a place of your choosing. Prompt: "I couldn't help but look thru your window, and I saw what you did." Go.

  You wake up on the floor of a strange basement. You see two doors. Behind one door you hear strange noises. Behind the other door you can see a person or body of a person on the floor. Go.

  Learn to improvise and a thousand other important things suddenly become much easier to learn. -- doug smith

 "It's not a walk in the park," goes the expression, except that this was. This was an epic walk in the park because of when we did it and where we were in our relationship, a relationship that wound up tighter than it had ever before (because this was a second time around) and then unwound in front of us only to weave itself into a cozy, loving, shared understanding. I don't understand it. But there you have it, it seems to be a shared understanding. We don't say everything that's on our minds these days, but those days, in that walk around Allaire State park, we said everything. We said it with our voices. We said it with our smiles. We said it with our bodies. We talked it all thru and it felt exactly right. What do you do with perfection when the threads come loose? What do you do with the magic when the trick is discovered? What do you do with the walls that rebuild and double? "Would you change anything about this?" "No. Because then it wo...

Scene Prompt: Six adults must fit into a car better suited for fewer, smaller people. Your mission: sell the car to the world's most reluctant world leader.

  In the end we left because the bathroom was about to collapse into the garage. That wouldn't be good, and it wasn't my garage. It was the neighbor's garage and one day he showed me how the ceiling of his garage showed clear signs of imminently falling on his car, his bike, or his head. He was concerned. Other than that, we liked the apartment on Wedgewood, even though it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Even though the steps up to the second floor were rickety. Even though the kitchen appliances were right out of the 1980's and small. It was our place and that mattered. We weren't exactly chased out of the previous place -- a beautiful and spacious home in Gunbarrel. But we had to do something. In the end, after living thru the whole move, I know that I should have talked about it more. There were options to discuss. Maybe it wasn't necessary for both of us to move. Maybe I could have subsidized the rent for a while (afterall, I did pay double ren...

Here's your shortcut to instant drama: Always say exactly the wrong thing and be easily offended. Yeah, that should work every time. And even when it doesn't: drama. -- doug smith  

 the unbroken line steers thru you unaffected unphased sense of purpose                            denied on purpose                   over and over again: you dream of something meaningful, light not (yet) focused covering you which is to say        uncovering you layer after layer           the sounds like velcro           unclothing disrobing           revealing hey is that you? is that the you you wanted to reveal?                                      or, does that you, catch you, as      much by surprise as the rest of us? douglas brent smith

  Sure it's important. You do want to be comfortable. Maybe  you like to have a bit of status afforded to you in those highly meaningful moments. "Don't you mean hours?" "Well, maybe minutes, not necessarily hours..." "But they do all add up." "Yes. But I have another concern." "What's that?" "Bumping my head. That doesn't look like a lot of clearance. I wouldn't want to be deeply involved in reading a big article in the NY Times only to rise suddenly and crash into the ceiling." "It's never fun to crash into the ceiling." And that was only one shortcoming. We did consider renting that place. There were so many wonderful artistic touches. Rooms that seemed to be sculpted into the floor plan. A balcony with a view of much of the house. A rear deck with exotic tiles. Shelves like artwork.  But as we decided we realized it was an old place and we are not master carpenters. We're not even subm...

  How could you ever be bored when there are always new pictures to draw, new questions to ask, and new patterns to discover? -- doug smith

When the robots come you'll want to hold a human's hand. -- doug smith

we do not always (read: seldom) have choices or                opportunities to call chances for how                the outcome arrives alive in expectations we       genuflect gyrations to promises unkept and either swept or      wept away you swept me off my feed all      enthusiastic and smiling (a smile that      feels endless) ending spending our hearts ration of       rational being beating so out of tempo either          two hundred beats per minute or paused to a stop          --- douglas brent smith

Here's my new album,  "Garden of Change"  Here's my new album, "Garden of Change"