Week 6: Denver’s Next Improv Star
March 7th, 2010The top 10 in “Denver’s Next Improv Star” performed last night. No crazy twists this week. Our guest judge was Adrian Holguin, performer and assistant director at Impulse Theater (another improv club in town). He’s been doing improv since 1990 and knows his stuff. I’ve hung out with Adrian before. He’s a really nice guy, and I was anxious to see what he’d be like as a judge.
For the first half, we had two different challenges. The first one was an individual challenge. I wasn’t expecting that since we’ve been doing group things the past 4 weeks in the first half. We all stayed on stage and had to come up one at a time, get a location where you can get stuck, get stuck there and find a way to escape in less than a minute. I had a high chair - it was fun to be physical. Some other ones were a grocery cart (Dave), trunk of a car (Talitha), rock climbing (Spencer), grandma’s clothes (Royce) and elevator (Cheryl). Adrian picked the best two, and he chose Talitha and Royce. They then became captains and picked teams to perform with for the rest of the first half. Royce picked Dave, Matt, Taylor and Arash. Talitha picked Spencer, me, Cheryl and Brian. My group went second. When we came out, we had to do a variety of scenes. The judges were looking for purpose in the scenes (why are we seeing this moment right now?) along with various edits and characters. I thought our group did a really good job. I focused on making sure that I played different characters, and I succeeded! In our feedback, Eric pointed that out, saying he saw me play people he’s never seen before. BAM! Unfortunately, Eric didn’t have the best comments for one of our teammates, Brian. He said that he killed a scene and wasn’t bringing a lot to others. I think that put him in his head for the second half. The top 3 for immunity were Royce, Cheryl and Taylor, and Royce won immunity.
In the second half, we were split into pairs. Dave and I were paired together - yay! I was pumped to play with him one on one since we’ve never done that yet. We went second. The details for our challenge were long and wordy, so I don’t exactly remember everything. However, in a nut shell, we had to do one scene and stay the same character, allow things to happen organically and if things go weird, will we let them naturally happen and not force to either accept or deny them. Adrian is quite the word smith, so I’m thinking he wrote up the details for the challenge. Our suggestion was a word that has multiple meanings. The first one we got was boat. The audience started booing at the audience member who gave that suggestion. I thought “great, what a great way to start a scene, with booing!” But someone else shouted nose, so we went with that. That inspired both me and Dave for characters. Turns out we were Pier 1 thieves. The judges liked our scene, saying we kept adding more to what the other person was bringing. Eric complimented me on my physicality in the scene, but he didn’t understand the purpose of the scene. Oh well, we had fun! The other pairs were Brian and Matt, Talitha and Royce, Spencer and Cheryl, and Taylor and Arash.
The bottom three were Brian, Arash and Matt. Eric said that Brian wasn’t adding to the scenes and not doing any where work. He also had the same criticism for Matt. Eric said that Arash played his Persian character again, and that he and Carl have seen that multiple times and he needs to expand his characters. Matt was sent home. That seemed to shock some people since Matt has been doing well in the rest of the shows. He had an off night, and that unfortunately can get you sent home. Matt will be missed - he was a goofy and fun guy.
The top three were Dave, Cheryl and Spencer. He liked everyone’s performances throughout the show, complimenting them on their characters, energy and always bringing something to their scenes. Eric said Dave just barely inched me out - so I guess that made me #4 for the top performers of the night. :) Cheryl won! It was her first win, taking home $100 to Cilantro Fusion (Mexican restaurant). She was good in my group for the first half, and I heard hers and Spencer’s scene was the best pair one of the night. Good for her - it was great to see a female improviser take home the prize, especially since there’s only four ladies now.
On the 13th it’ll be the Top 9. Tix are still available, so get yours before they sell out by calling 303-758-4722 or go to www.bovinemetropolis.com. See you then!
*Y*