Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Night 5
Vancouver first. Atlanta second. Bellingham third(?)! It was a pleasure playing with all the new improviser friends at this year's festival.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Night 4
Good Valentine’s Day to you, avid readers! I’m Billy Tierney reporting live from the desk of room 407 in the Chateau Granville on Granville street downtown Vancouver, Canada. Phew! Say that 80 times fast! Last night’s semi-finals show was, forgive me for saying, bomb-ass. Atlanta (3 seed) took on Orlando (2 seed) in the first half of the show and avenged their one point loss earlier in the tournament with a two-point victory to move on to the finals, which take place this evening. Orlando wow’ed me with a Word at a Time Song as one of their games and Atlanta did a nice little ditty that I will dare to call a Blind Focus Narrative Collage. All in all, a great start to a great show.
We, Bellingham (4 seed) looked to upset undefeated Vancouver (1 seed) in the second half and opened strong with a Switch Right, Switch Left scene that netted 13 points from the audience judges. Vancouver answered back with a decent 14-point scene that for no reason in particular I cannot remember (and since the other two are still sleeping, that’s the way I’ll write it). We chose to do a sentences scene for our second scene and were challenged to involve the theme “Sanctuary” somehow. DK introduced the game and asked the audience what they thought of when they heard the word “Sanctuary” and we were given the suggestion of Yoga Retreat. We had a very fun sentences scene that culminated in DK asking me to take my shirt off, attempting to take my shirt off, taking his own shirt off which concreted the acceptance I needed to make to take my own shirt off – we played the rest of the scene that way and I must say it was quite enjoyable. That scene netted us 14 points, putting us 13 ahead of Vancouver – primed for the upset bid. Vancouver then played a “bungee-jump” scene with Graeme and Michael talking in one voice and earned a sterling 14 points from the audience, giving them a one point advantage going into the ‘team challenge’ last round.
Vancouver challenged us to a scene that would teach them something and so I cockily assured them that they would learn from watching DK and Galen play in a Genre Coaster scene. I received the relationship of “Boyfriend/Girlfriend” from the audience and the scene got underway. DK played the man and Galen the woman and I froze their scene throughout to get the new genres from the audience. They went from a neutral scene to Western to Bollywood to Martial Arts to Sci-Fi to Romance, fitting together a nice little story arc and ending. This scene netted us 13 points and we held a 12-point lead going into the final scene. We challenged Vancouver to do something Tricky in their scene and Michael introduces that the trick they will be performing is to use us in their scene and get triple fives from the audience. He gave us control over calling Cut-To for their scene and asked that we play with them if we felt it necessary. The scene was a lot of fun and we did join them, playing side characters and whatnot. Although the scene struggled a little at the end, it did in fact net them triple fives from the audience judges leaving the final score Vancouver 43, Bellingham 40. There was a little snafu on the scorekeepers side which altered the energy a bit at the end of the show, putting Vancouver up by 5, then tying us at 43, then tying us at 38, then having Vancouver win 43 to 38… point is, we gave it our best shot and lost, but wouldn’t have changed anything if we could go back. It was a great show and we were happy to be part of it, what an awesome festival it has been so far.
The stage is set for the Finals of the 2011 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Vancouver will be taking on Atlanta tonight for all the marbles in the a full show of improv awesomeness. Afterwards will be a Valentine’s Kiss and Tell show that’ll be a mash-up of players from different teams. It’ll be a blast! Until tomorrow, Happy Valentine’s Day!
We, Bellingham (4 seed) looked to upset undefeated Vancouver (1 seed) in the second half and opened strong with a Switch Right, Switch Left scene that netted 13 points from the audience judges. Vancouver answered back with a decent 14-point scene that for no reason in particular I cannot remember (and since the other two are still sleeping, that’s the way I’ll write it). We chose to do a sentences scene for our second scene and were challenged to involve the theme “Sanctuary” somehow. DK introduced the game and asked the audience what they thought of when they heard the word “Sanctuary” and we were given the suggestion of Yoga Retreat. We had a very fun sentences scene that culminated in DK asking me to take my shirt off, attempting to take my shirt off, taking his own shirt off which concreted the acceptance I needed to make to take my own shirt off – we played the rest of the scene that way and I must say it was quite enjoyable. That scene netted us 14 points, putting us 13 ahead of Vancouver – primed for the upset bid. Vancouver then played a “bungee-jump” scene with Graeme and Michael talking in one voice and earned a sterling 14 points from the audience, giving them a one point advantage going into the ‘team challenge’ last round.
Vancouver challenged us to a scene that would teach them something and so I cockily assured them that they would learn from watching DK and Galen play in a Genre Coaster scene. I received the relationship of “Boyfriend/Girlfriend” from the audience and the scene got underway. DK played the man and Galen the woman and I froze their scene throughout to get the new genres from the audience. They went from a neutral scene to Western to Bollywood to Martial Arts to Sci-Fi to Romance, fitting together a nice little story arc and ending. This scene netted us 13 points and we held a 12-point lead going into the final scene. We challenged Vancouver to do something Tricky in their scene and Michael introduces that the trick they will be performing is to use us in their scene and get triple fives from the audience. He gave us control over calling Cut-To for their scene and asked that we play with them if we felt it necessary. The scene was a lot of fun and we did join them, playing side characters and whatnot. Although the scene struggled a little at the end, it did in fact net them triple fives from the audience judges leaving the final score Vancouver 43, Bellingham 40. There was a little snafu on the scorekeepers side which altered the energy a bit at the end of the show, putting Vancouver up by 5, then tying us at 43, then tying us at 38, then having Vancouver win 43 to 38… point is, we gave it our best shot and lost, but wouldn’t have changed anything if we could go back. It was a great show and we were happy to be part of it, what an awesome festival it has been so far.
The stage is set for the Finals of the 2011 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Vancouver will be taking on Atlanta tonight for all the marbles in the a full show of improv awesomeness. Afterwards will be a Valentine’s Kiss and Tell show that’ll be a mash-up of players from different teams. It’ll be a blast! Until tomorrow, Happy Valentine’s Day!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Night 3
Reporting from room 407 at the Chateau Granville, downtown Vancouver Canada, I’m Billy Tierney. After last night’s six matches, the jockeying is over and the teams are set for the semi-finals tonight at the Improv Centre. Vancouver, Orlando and Atlanta secured the top three seeds and Bellingham and Calgary tied for 4th. I haven’t received official word but the Calgary folks apparently aren’t sticking around for Monday’s final, and Bellingham beat them in the second match of the night yesterday so the 4th seed is looking to go to Bellingham. There was some great improv yesterday on the Improv Centre stage, including a Gibberish/Speak scene from Orlando, a Crosstalk scene from Bellingham and a couple of gems from Atlanta. At this point in time, instead of recapping who beat who and the wins/losses, because really who cares (?), I’ll get into the semi-finals teams themselves.
Orlando’s three are Lyle, Chase and Mike and they bring a controlled energy to the stage and seem to have a lot of fun playing together. The Gibberish/Speak scene they did last night was fantastic because Chase and Mike played the game so well. When the bell was dung to switch them from Gibberish to English and vice versa they flowed from one to the other seamlessly and found a number of very satisfying moments. Their theatre, SAK Comedy Lab, plays with a fair amount of musical improv and that has come across in their time here in Vancouver – and Chase is a music Major! We’ll see how they do tonight during Karaoke, am I right?
Vancouver is definitely rolling through this tournament, and I’m not here to point any fingers but I will say they are playing well and being judged by Vancouverites who love their city (read: biased). They’ve also had core team attendance issues so the actual players on the team have changed night-to-night. I must say, I do enjoy watching Vancouver improv – they know how to bring the funny.
Atlanta, oh, dear sweet, aggressive Atlanta. Whether it’s an arms interview, a one-voice interview, or a flock dance Atlanta brings the commitment and intensity full throttle every time. The play they exude on stage is a dance of trust, risk and “let’s see what you do with this offer!”. George is a tall, skinny, gaunt faced, standoffish man who, despite not caring what you think, makes every moment entertaining. Upon arrival to Canada was detained by several border agents and when asked, “What are you going to be doing in Vancouver?” he responded, “Whatever I want.” Ed is a hockey fan who loves life in Vancouver and seems to be the pillar of solidity for Atlanta – the foundation for narrative arc and non-fuckery. Z brings a unique energy to the stage is balls-out game for anything done on stage. I’ve seen him make out with and get humped by George (I kissed him myself in the Bellingham vs Atlanta match) and his and George’s connection and trust displayed in both their arms expert scene and one-voice interview scene impress me still right now. By the way, when we played them in that match two nights ago, they played a No Laughs scene with us in which, when a player broke the dramatic tension of the scene by causing the audience to laugh they would be ‘tapped’ out of the scene by getting slapped across the face by the incoming player – it was tons of fun!
We’ll see what happens tonight but my prediction going into it is that we’ll have no effing clue who will be moving on to the Monday night Valentine’s Day finals – as all the scenes are judged by audience members there is a certain element of didn’t see that coming that exists. Until then, good readers, live well.
Orlando’s three are Lyle, Chase and Mike and they bring a controlled energy to the stage and seem to have a lot of fun playing together. The Gibberish/Speak scene they did last night was fantastic because Chase and Mike played the game so well. When the bell was dung to switch them from Gibberish to English and vice versa they flowed from one to the other seamlessly and found a number of very satisfying moments. Their theatre, SAK Comedy Lab, plays with a fair amount of musical improv and that has come across in their time here in Vancouver – and Chase is a music Major! We’ll see how they do tonight during Karaoke, am I right?
Vancouver is definitely rolling through this tournament, and I’m not here to point any fingers but I will say they are playing well and being judged by Vancouverites who love their city (read: biased). They’ve also had core team attendance issues so the actual players on the team have changed night-to-night. I must say, I do enjoy watching Vancouver improv – they know how to bring the funny.
Atlanta, oh, dear sweet, aggressive Atlanta. Whether it’s an arms interview, a one-voice interview, or a flock dance Atlanta brings the commitment and intensity full throttle every time. The play they exude on stage is a dance of trust, risk and “let’s see what you do with this offer!”. George is a tall, skinny, gaunt faced, standoffish man who, despite not caring what you think, makes every moment entertaining. Upon arrival to Canada was detained by several border agents and when asked, “What are you going to be doing in Vancouver?” he responded, “Whatever I want.” Ed is a hockey fan who loves life in Vancouver and seems to be the pillar of solidity for Atlanta – the foundation for narrative arc and non-fuckery. Z brings a unique energy to the stage is balls-out game for anything done on stage. I’ve seen him make out with and get humped by George (I kissed him myself in the Bellingham vs Atlanta match) and his and George’s connection and trust displayed in both their arms expert scene and one-voice interview scene impress me still right now. By the way, when we played them in that match two nights ago, they played a No Laughs scene with us in which, when a player broke the dramatic tension of the scene by causing the audience to laugh they would be ‘tapped’ out of the scene by getting slapped across the face by the incoming player – it was tons of fun!
We’ll see what happens tonight but my prediction going into it is that we’ll have no effing clue who will be moving on to the Monday night Valentine’s Day finals – as all the scenes are judged by audience members there is a certain element of didn’t see that coming that exists. Until then, good readers, live well.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Night 2
Reporting from Le Chateau Granville, Vancouver Canada, I’m Billy Tierney. The second evening of the tournament blitzed the Granville Island audience members and sacked their seat-filling asses. I don’t know the official numbers, but at least one of the three shows sold out and the other two boasted near capacity numbers as well. In the first match of the evening The Upfront wrangled their first victory from the needy mouths of the Seattle team (joined by the ever-entertaining Alistair Cook) by a handful of points. In this match, Seattle was challenged to do something involving transformers or transforming and Alistair set up a game in which the host would, at any time during the scene, do the Transformers changing sound, at which point the scene would switch between two or three audience-given genres. It ultimately wasn’t enough to yank the victory from our sturdy grasp, but a noteworthy and fun-to-watch game nonetheless. Vancouver maintained their undefeated status by beating Atlanta by a narrow margin in the second match. During that contest Vancouver set up a scene three ways by getting two locations and used the verbiage, ‘First, we are going to do a short, unfunny scene and then we’ll revisit it using our locations suggestions’. This was a concise way to introduce the game and felt satisfying as an audience member to hear it explained so succinctly. Atlanta introduced a new game during this match that was SO MUCH FUN to watch. It’s called First Date Hell, in which the caller of the game dings a bell and calls out an emotion and the designated one of the players immediately takes on that emotion (because their crazy!).
During the second show of the night, Orlando stayed perfect with a win over Calgary, who suffered their second loss of the tournament. We received our second defeat of the tournament in the following match, in which Atlanta earned their first win by spanking us by nine points. The match was closer than the score indicated, however, as we had a lot of fun and provided a badass show for the audience. In the last show of the evening (11:45pm start!) Vancouver solidified their tournament dominance by beating Orlando and moving to 4-0.
Tonight, we’re up against Calgary in the 8pm show and Orlando in the late show and these two matches will largely decide our tournament fate. Wish us well, Bellingham viewers!
During the second show of the night, Orlando stayed perfect with a win over Calgary, who suffered their second loss of the tournament. We received our second defeat of the tournament in the following match, in which Atlanta earned their first win by spanking us by nine points. The match was closer than the score indicated, however, as we had a lot of fun and provided a badass show for the audience. In the last show of the evening (11:45pm start!) Vancouver solidified their tournament dominance by beating Orlando and moving to 4-0.
Tonight, we’re up against Calgary in the 8pm show and Orlando in the late show and these two matches will largely decide our tournament fate. Wish us well, Bellingham viewers!
Here are the standings as they… stand?... now:
Bellingham 1-2
Seattle 0-2
Vancouver 4-0
Calgary 1-2
Atlanta 1-2
Orlando 2-1
Seattle 0-2
Vancouver 4-0
Calgary 1-2
Atlanta 1-2
Orlando 2-1
Friday, February 11, 2011
VTSL Tournament - Night 1
Reporting from Vancouver, Canada, I’m Billy Tierney. The wildly popular St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Theatresports tournament is underway on Granville Island (we’re talking improv here, folks). It took two weeks of grueling competition to determine which team will be the face of Vancouver during the tournament, culminating in a riveting finals match on Wednesday evening. The international portion kicked off last night as the Vancouver Theatresports League welcomed five teams from various international cities into their luxurious new space. Enough cannot be spoken about the quality of stage and equipment (and talent!) in the new Improv Centre, yet a very impressive statistic is that the theatre and the bar are separated by FIVE walls of sheetrock.
All five international teams, including The Upfront Theatre, took the stage of competition on the opening night and dazzled the audience with their make-em-ups. In the first match, The Upfront Theatre – representing Bellingham (0-1), embodied by myself, DK Reinemer and Galen Emanuele – played against the recently crowned “Champions of Vancouver” (my name for them, not theirs) and lost the match 35 to 41. In this shortened format, the 90-minute show is split up into two halves; each featuring a match. We played in the first match of the first show and were able to get three team scenes in before it was over. The energy was great and the atmosphere positive. The Champions of Vancouver team, made up of Graeme Duffy, Michael Teagan and Dave Milchard, were a blast to play alongside. The audience judges were kind but obviously favorable to the home team, as their first scene garnered triple fives. This is concrete observational judgment.
After our match, we ‘chilled’ and watched the rest of the evening’s matches. Calgary (1-1) represented by The Improv Guild, lost to Vancouver (2-0) in the second half of the first show. Orlando (1-0) represented by SAK Comedy Lab, inched past Dad’s Garage Theatre from Atlanta (0-1) by a point, 38 to 37 and Calgary crushed Unexpected Productions of Seattle (0-1) by a “huge margin”. The teams that fell last night are surely going to be looking to exercise revenge over the next couple evenings and we may witness some jovial offers to purchase more liquor for the teams with better records. From Vancouver (in the Chateau), I’m Billy Tierney.
All five international teams, including The Upfront Theatre, took the stage of competition on the opening night and dazzled the audience with their make-em-ups. In the first match, The Upfront Theatre – representing Bellingham (0-1), embodied by myself, DK Reinemer and Galen Emanuele – played against the recently crowned “Champions of Vancouver” (my name for them, not theirs) and lost the match 35 to 41. In this shortened format, the 90-minute show is split up into two halves; each featuring a match. We played in the first match of the first show and were able to get three team scenes in before it was over. The energy was great and the atmosphere positive. The Champions of Vancouver team, made up of Graeme Duffy, Michael Teagan and Dave Milchard, were a blast to play alongside. The audience judges were kind but obviously favorable to the home team, as their first scene garnered triple fives. This is concrete observational judgment.
After our match, we ‘chilled’ and watched the rest of the evening’s matches. Calgary (1-1) represented by The Improv Guild, lost to Vancouver (2-0) in the second half of the first show. Orlando (1-0) represented by SAK Comedy Lab, inched past Dad’s Garage Theatre from Atlanta (0-1) by a point, 38 to 37 and Calgary crushed Unexpected Productions of Seattle (0-1) by a “huge margin”. The teams that fell last night are surely going to be looking to exercise revenge over the next couple evenings and we may witness some jovial offers to purchase more liquor for the teams with better records. From Vancouver (in the Chateau), I’m Billy Tierney.
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