Tips on improvisational comedy.

    He was resident director of Chicago's famed Second City and house metaphysician for Saturday Night Live, a talent in his own right, and one of the brightest and wackiest theater gurus ever. Jeff Griggs was a student of Close's at the ImprovOlympic in Chicago when he was asked to help the aging mentor (often in ill health) by driving him around the city on his weekly errands. The two developed a volatile friendship that shocked, angered, and amused both of them--and produced this hilarious and ultimately endearing chronicle of Close's last years. With all the elements of a picaresque novel, Guru captures Close at his zaniest but also shows him in theatrical situations that confirm his genius in conceptualizing and directing improvisational theater. Between comic episodes, Jeff Griggs gives the reader the essentials of Close's biography: his childhood in Kansas, early years as an actor, countercultural exploits in the 1960s (he toured with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and designed light shows for the Grateful Dead), years with the Compass Players and then with Second City, and continuing experimentation with every drug imaginable, which pretty much cost him his health and ultimately his life. He was comedian, director, teacher, writer, actor, poet, fire-eater, junkie, and philosopher. Being a really good actor does not necessarily guarantee that you will be a very good improviser, Close liked to say. Being an actual, complete, hopeless, wretched geek in real life doesn't disqualify you from being a solid improviser, either. He approached improv the same way he conducted his life--in bizarre, dark, and dangerous fashion. Guru captures it.

    and David are internationally known, award-winning, master improvisers from Chicago's legendary scene. This in-depth look at the techniques, principles, theory and ideas behind what they do is both authoritative and entertaining. Since their early years playing the iO (formerly Improv Olympic) and the Second City mainstage theater (where David won a Joseph Jefferson award for best actor in a revue), TJ and Dave have been performing for over fifty years combined - fifteen as a team. David worked with improvisation guru Del Close, in development of the The Harold, the preeminent longform theatrical structure, and both are multi-award winning actors.Steven Colbert says, "One of these guys is the best improviser in the world. And the other one is better."Other endorsements: The New York Times says they are "the premier improv duo working today," while Time Out New York wrote of their long-running TJ and Dave show: "BRILLIANT, HEARTBREAKING, MIND-BLOWING, INSPIRING! The best 50 minutes of improv comedy we've ever seen ....DRINK THEIR KOOL-AID."

    It is a guide to advanced improvisation. This sequel to the best-selling improv book "Truth in Comedy" is designed to help improv performers move up to the more advanced levels of improvisation. Accompanying the book is a DVD featuring performers in action demonstrating the instructions and ideas covered in the book. The DVD includes performances by four popular improv groups: Upright Citizens Brigade, Beer Shark Mice, Armando Diaz Theatrical Experience, The Reckoning and assorted short clips with Peter Hulne. Also on the DVD are interviews with many celebrity improv artists including: Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Amy Poehler, Stephnie Weir, Tim Meadows, Andy Dick, and Adam McKay.

    Albee there is a theme beneath the surface, in this case the corruption of money and the rottenness of this bigoted exurbia where conformity to its illiberal standards and its hypocritical show of respectability is all that counts. The scene is the suburban home of Jenny and Richard, beautifully played by Barbara Bel Geddes and Barry Nelson. The only thing that seems to stand in the way of their happiness is a lack of money. The action starts in an entertaining comedy of manners style. Then abruptly there enters a Mrs. Toothe in the menacing and fascinating person of Beatrice Straight who offers Jenny the opportunity to make more money than they have ever had, to buy a greenhouse and all the other luxuries that they require for their garden and their lives. Richard's realization that their newfound money is being earned by his wife's whoring comes almost simultaneously with the return of their fourteen-year-old son from school and a champagne cocktail party which they are giving to impress their country club friends. As a result, his horror, disgust and rage has to be kept under wraps in order to keep up essential appearances until tragedy strikes, and Richard realizes that the assembled wives are all involved and their husbands are aware and condoning." More than that, they are prepared not merely to justify but defend the ends through which their means are attained and the devastated Richard, left in agonized despair by the ironic events that charge the final moments of the play, must face the fact of his own share in their communal guilt.

    Impro for Storytellers aims to take jealous and self-obsessed beginners and teach them to play games with good nature and to fail gracefully.

    Improvisation is as much about technique as it is what's inside your head. Improv Therapy takes a look at the improviser's mind and what blocks improvisers on stage, and gives them practical advice to overcome their issues so they can become the improviser they always dreamed of being. Written by Jimmy Carrane, host of the Improv Nerd podcast and co-author of Improvising Better: A Guide for the Working Improviser. He teaches his award-winning Art Of Slow Comedy improv classes in Chicago.

    It includes over 130 theater games, plus exercises and instructional strategies. First developed by Spolin, the originator of modern improvisational theater techniques, these games have been tried and tested for over fifty years.

    Book Details: Format: Paperback Publication Date: 5/1/2002 Pages: 112

    He played a sold-out show, and I had front row tickets. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before.Micah said some things to the audience near the end of the performance—some personal things about his own life. I wasn't normally the type of person to follow clues, but Micah's songs and his life before stardom seemed interesting.I was curious about the mysteries of his past. I thought I might try to find out more. I had no idea that the search and events that followed would change my life forever.

    Estranged from her husband because of her infidelities she is losing her husband Edwin to another woman, who happens to be his best friend. Grace Trufant learns she is pregnant and not sure of the paternity of the child. The threat of single motherhood is not a situation she will entertain. Grace plots and schemes to keep ties with her former lover Brian and her estranged husband intact until the arrival of her baby. Once again she is back to her old tricks but fate plays a greater part in the plan. Tragedy, death and unexpected meetings throw salt in the game as Grace maneuvers to take advantage of all situations. Grace is not the only woman with FeMALE TRAITS in this one. Felicia Hubert, wife of successful accountant Stacey Hubert, has plans of her own. Thinking the grass is greener on the other side as she goes through a mid-life crisis proves to be too much for her to bear. Check out the moves in FeMALE TRAITS II.

    Major topics include: characterization, narration, character-based plotting, dialogue, drama, point of view, significance, and revision.

    Her mother tries to hold the family together, but her father buries himself in his work while her older brother and sister deal with the loss in their own self-destructive ways.Meanwhile, Pantera, whose last kidnapping case ended with a dead girl and no suspect, does everything possible to find Samantha before her case becomes just another cold case—or worse. “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.” Shakespeare, The Tempest

    

    Suggesting that Sandy seek adventure as a mail order bride, neither of the sisters imagined that Sandy would soon find herself heading west and into the arms of a handsome deputy. In the small town of Wicklow, Montana, Deputy Jim Miller has just mended his own broken heart after his wife, Ella, abandoned him and his twin daughters three years ago. Knowing that the twins need a mother, and missing the company of a woman, he takes the advice of his housekeeper and places an advert in The Matrimonial Times. But as Jim and Sandy grow ever closer, a knock on the door brings a surprise and unwanted guest from the past. With their happiness threatened, can Jim and Sandy overcome the odds to find their happy ever after, just in time for Christmas? The Deputy's Christmas Bride is book 2 in the Brides of Wicklow Series. All Maddie Walker Mail Order Bride books are stand-alone stories and can be read independently of one another.