Last week, the podcast was all about improvisers suffering burnout and what we can do to avoid it. You can hear that episode here: podfollow.com/improvchronicle
I confessed that I got burned out after last year’s Robin Hood International Improv Festival. I was more than just a bit exhausted afterwards and struggled to get back to things. So, it may come as a bit of a surprised that later in the week, we announced that the festival is coming back for its third year at the beginning of this September.
Why would I do that?
I recently read the book “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek. I liked the book because it forced me to think differently. It also has some decent, researched theory behind it. To help make a festival happen again, I needed a good “why”. The big “why” is because I love seeing improv grow in my home city - and I know the festival and its aims help with that. I also know that we learned a lot from last year as a team. Me and my Co-Artistic Director, Liam Webber, know more now we’ve done two years of festival running. We’re working on ways of looking after each other - the whole festival team is. If we want folks to go away having had a great experience, that’s only sustainable if we are also looking after ourselves well. We are so lucky to have a wider festival team who I know really care. We simply couldn’t do it without such amazing people.
Liam (L) and me (R) on stage at RHIIF 2023. I have no clue what we were doing here. (pic: Rae Dowling)
So, really, why am I doing it?
It comes back to the aims of the festival and the sort of improv community so many of us feel could be built in the city of Nottingham. Spreading the knowledge of what improv is and what improv can be. Making the scene more open, diverse and curious. Less likely to shut down new ideas and more willing to listen and learn.
Bringing the best of the world’s improv to Nottingham and the best of Nottingham’s improv to the world
The festival itself is about bringing great improv to the city so the community can see what improv can be. Liam and I had the fortune to go to cities around the world and see great improv. We both got to see shows at iO, Magnet, UCB, CIC, Second City and at great European festivals and cities. We got to do workshops with great teachers around the world. Liam is living for a period in Sydney and is involved with ITS, the theatre there. Not everyone has the opportunity to do that, and the point of the festival is to bring opportunities to improvisers (and hopefully future improvisers) in Nottingham, no matter what their background is.
The “why” is also about making connections. Liam and I already know wonderful people we can invite to do workshops but wouldn’t it be great if lots of people in our improv community had those sorts of connections? The festival goes beyond just what happens on stage. It’s about the friends, connections and possibly collaborators that people can meet while there. Also, our open applications process means we get applications from folks we’d not otherwise get to encounter.
For me, the measure of success for the Robin Hood International Improv Festival is that we should be able to step away as Artistic Directors at some point, and the festival should be able to run easily because there should be plenty of people who could step in and run it. The festival isn’t a case of the circus coming into town and then leaving. It’s about a lasting impact on the community - and that impact should really mean that eventually Liam and I aren’t needed. The festival isn’t the “Liam and Lloydie show” - it belongs to the people who come to it. To be the sort of festival we want it to be, it really has to be that way, especially if we don’t want to burn out.
Find out more about the festival and join the mailing list for updates here: https://www.robinhoodimprov.co.uk
What Else Is Happening?
Improv church is in session
“Since February 2023, Vine Church in Dunn Loring, Va., has hosted “improv church” as a way to get new members through the doors. The event, on the last Saturday of every month, brings inprofessional actors to do improvisational comedy based on a concept, anecdote or word from the evening’s sermon. While the scenes are inspired by the sermon, they aren’t explicitly religious, and the actors are given free rein to riff”https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/01/improv-church-methodist-virginia/
Shows and workshops
Torch Songs
Come learn how to sing your heart out in New York with this one-off elective I’m teaching at The Magnet Theater on Saturday 16th March. This emotion-filled workshop looks at songs of unrequited love. A torch song in musical theatre (and beyond) is a song about a someone you can’t be with or something you can’t have. Picture yourself lying across a grand piano in an underground bar at 2am with a scotch in your hand and a picture of your unrequited love in the other! At the time of writing there are just 4 spots left in this workshop. https://magnettheater.com/class/electives/11380/
Have a great week!
Lloydie