Back at Improv Boston

After an almost three month hiatus surrounding the birth of our lovely daughter Anica, I was back at Imrov Boston for the last two weeks, and what a pleasure it was, let me tell you. As actor Aaron Crutchfield so aptly put it, the company is like a dojo, where you practice your craft in its most immediate and tangible forms. And he’s right: in improvised theater (as in the music that goes along with it), we play out dozens of story ideas in our 75-minute shows. There’s no time to think critically or let internal editors stop us from where our instant vision takes us. “Offers” as they are called must be delivered and supported with absolute conviction and belief. It’s like being in a real-time sketch pad that washes itself away every few minutes.
Aaron played both shows my first week back along with Don Scheurman, Elyse Becker, Paul Dome, and Cliff Zawasky… a great cast of seasoned veteran fast thinkers. This past weekend’s shows included Paul again, along with Erin McGhee, Katie Proulx, Mat Gagne, Matt McLaughlin, and renowned improv guru Joe Bill.
Both weekends reminded me of what an important part of my work underscoring improv theater is: it keeps the improvisational approach relevant, and I can sense this bubbling feeling when I get back in my studio to compose music that will stick around for a few minutes. I’m not sure I can describe what the connection is, but I know that when the improv mentality is fresh, I can produce more music faster than when I haven’t been there for a while. Front and center for me is the simple idea (and this goes back to my studies with Bob Brookmeyer) that you have to have material captured in order to edit it, and you have to trust your array of editing approaches enough to be sure that you can take rough, raw material and turn it into something special. The surprising result is that often the first thing that comes out is the best anyway… but I’ve got to be in the right frame of mind to make that happen.

Teaching & Writing

A last minute teaching assignment took me once again to the hub of animation in the U.S. Naturally, though, I was too wiped after teaching teachers about bringing music into their classrooms to stand up and that eliminated the possibility of going into town.

I don’t know what it is about teaching all weekend with nary a break that makes it hard to stand up, think, or decide on dinner. Nevertheless, I wandered into Barnes and Noble on Saturday night in some strip mall somewhere near Potter Springs. I think that’s where I was. It’s all a blur, as it always is. I’ll be back again at the beginning of next month.

My return brought me headfirst into the Maine winter and the snow right now is delightful. Arresting, really. And I’m couped up in my studio, happily making music for the upcoming Portland Stage production of “Iron Kisses”. So I’ve been taking stabs at composing gossamer and wispy music of grief and melancholy. Good thing those are flavors I love to live in. Director Risa Brainin has been a joy to work with, and the three-thousand miles between us haven’t stop us from getting inside each other’s thinking and moving towards a rich collaboration. Samples later…