...and other playful posts
See the list of posts by clicking this oraange thingy
Here is a link to the video series "Thanks For Taking My Call"
The Playful book is coming!
You can learn to be spontaneous just as you would learn a golf swing, or dance step.
The book Meet Your Playful Self traces the 30 year development of paths you can follow into your intutive/playful self and includes 47 detailed, specific exercises for teachers, managers, actors, improvisers, or ...Anyone!
Take a peek at the book!
Meet Your Playful Self
Playful People of ARK Improv 1981 - 1994
Time seems to separate us, one from the other, yet there is joy in spirit that is eternal.
Read more about the workings and wanderings of some playful people who sailed for some years at the Ark Improvisational Theatre.
 Andy Moore & Rob DZ Franklin - Andy was at the Ark in the days when we moved into the building on Basset St. in Madison. (Now the Wash Basket). Rob was in the Arktoo company that performed at the Liquid Lyric Lounge on Park St. Here time and circumstance...Read more...  JEFF KAHN won an Emmy award for his writing on the Ben Stiller Show. As an actor, he has appeared in The 40-Year Old Virgin and Tropic Thunder, as well as the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage. Tomato is his first book... Read more...  EVAN GORE co-wrote "Fear of a Bot Planet" the fifth episode in season one of Futurama. It originally aired in North
America on April 20, 1999. The episode was written by Heather Lombard and Evan Gore and directed by
Peter Avanzino...Read more...
 The Late CHRIS FARLEY. Nearly everyone is fondly familiar with Chris' successful and funny life in stage, television and film. Few know of his growth, struggles beneath the "funny". The book...Read more...  Jimmy Doyle is a Second City alumnus and Sit n Spin regular Jimmy Doyle has been called "cranky, cracked, queer (and Catholic)" by the Chicago Reader. He’s still cranky, cracked and queer, but Episcopalian now. Sort of. Married? Working? MUST BE NICE. Following his sold-out preview performance at the Comedy Central Stage... Read more... |
 Holly Wortell is a longtime friend of Bonnie Hunt. She has been a regular on each of Hunt's sitcoms (The Building, The Bonnie Hunt Show, and Life With Bonnie), all three times playing a vain, promiscuous character named "Holly". In addition, Read more...  Jessy Lee Montague Everything's Jake (04/21/2000)Jake, Bloodblue (Desert Dog Records 1999) - Jake is a four-piece combo from New York City, fronted by singer/songwriter and guitarist, Jessie Lee Montague. Bloodblue marks the second release from the band, and shows a brash rock sound, highlighted by Jessie Lee's strong presence. Bloodblue is...Read more...  Ron Bieganski the Artistic Director of Free Street Theatre has performed or directed with the Ark Theater, Steppenwolf Theater Company, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane and Co., JellyEye Drum Theater, Debra Hay, Danny Lepkoff, the Madison Chamber Ballet,...Read more...  Kohl Mineris a poet, playwright, performer and native of the Ho-Chunk Nation. In the 1980s and '90s, he performed with In the Heart of the Beast and produced a number of solo works here before experimenting with life in New York and Los Angeles. He returned to Minneapolis earlier this year...Read more... |
 Juan Avila (left] was at the original ARK. A few years afterward he was followed by his brother Alexis Avila,(right) who joined another company: Arktoo... Read more...  Brian Stack became a sketch writer on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 1997, and served as a writer, actor and editor on the show and after O'Brien's move to the Tonight Show in 2009. Stack played many recurring characters... Read more...  Steven Ackerman Steve is director of CIMSS and professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic science at the University of Wisconsin. Steve has recieved these awards: Jan 2009:American Meteorological Society's Teaching Excellence Summer 2004: UW-Madison Vilas Research Associate...Read more...  Joan Cusack was born in New York City to an Irish American Catholic family. She was raised in Evanston, Illinois. Her mother, Nancy (nee Carolan), is a former mathematics teacher and political activist. Her father, Richard Cusack, as well as her siblings Ann, Bill, John and Susie, have also been actors. Joan is an alumna of the University of Wisconsin,Madison. She is married... Read more... |
The central thread tied into discovering playfulness was not the plays or schools you may never heard of, but the people, the dear friends, teachers, and lovers along the way. Nearly all of my close and lasting friendships have been spun though a fascination I had as child for shadows and puppets. I met all the many, varied, and playful as they joined to explore an even larger spirit of play to arrive at the point of writing this book to share our discoveries with you. The Ark
 The thread spun and wove itself with a real focus on improvisation, or performing without a script in Madison, Wisconsin in 1981 when Elaine and I formed the Ark Improvisational Theatre.    During the summer of 1980 we decided we wanted to do our own theatre, but could not find the means to do it in New York, so we bought an old Chevy van and overloaded it with a ton of books and some clothes and moved to Madison, Wisconsin. Within six months we had formed the first population of performers for what would become our theatre the Ark Improvisational Theatre   The Improvisational Ark was now afloat in Madison where we gathered most of the company from the population of students at the University of Wisconsin. It was a time when things just clicked. The big wooden ship offered a safe place to create and explore outside the flood of academia. The first performance of Ark Improv was in the Ratheskeller of the University of Wisconsin Student Union and I can remember being admonished by Elaine for having put jelly beans in my ear for some cheap comic effect. Those years where filled to the brim with the first members of the "collective we" who are the catalyst for this book. Each week we met two nights to rehearse and experiment and then performed a live show on each Tuesday night. Improvisation became a jolly obsession that filled our lives with laughs, tears, conflict and fun. The most extraordinary meetings with remarkable people unfolded in a way that appeared quite
unremarkable at the time. Today, when describing the work of Meet Your Playful Self and the Ark, the names of
those that have launched successful careers are brought out to give reference and credibility to what you read.
I am always at loss to find a word that describes what the experience of what the Ark offered these famous ones.
I usually settle with two words: taught them- I taught them.
The good-bys and partings were always some of the worst of times. There were last shows when the person leaving was allowed to dominate most of the show. You will discover in the process of doing this work, close bonds are cast with people in ways and along paths that are solid and full and, it is not easy to let go of the people you have shared them with. |
The picture above is from the book taken at the ARK
The worst of times were always followed by the best, as soon as people said good-by and
left out one door new people come in another. They would walk in as unremarkable new faces, with new hopes
and dreams wanting to join the collective we of improvisers. One such most unremarkable meeting was with a man
who would become one of the most successful and famous members to walk through the doors. He arrived late one
night; the new face of Chris Farley.
Chris was a raw talent, a man that could spin most any situation into a raucous, funny event
and would go to any length to do so. He could go to the very edge of rude and crude only because he could do so
without malice since he carried with him a giant loving heart. He made his first steps into harnessing this
tremendous energy into the skills of improvisation at the Ark Improvisational Theatrein Madison, Wisconsin.
After working there for about two years he went on to Chicago to work at Improv Olympic and Second City.
I was sorry to see him go. My feelings about his departure are quoted in the book The Chris Farley Show and I will quote them here: I was happy for him, but at the same time I thought is was too soon. I thought that he needed to be
more in contact with the source of his creativity before he went to try it on the professional level. I always
knew he would make it, but I don't know that he was grounded enough in the technique of acting to have something
to hold on to. He was immensely talented, but that talent was sort of at the whim of whoever needed the next
laugh.
I ran into Chris over the next few years and he always beamed with gratitude for his years at Ark. Hearing of his death was surely one of the very worst of times. I learned so much from Chris.
I think of all the people I have worked with over the years as a collective we.
Chris remains a vital part of this collective we, and his energy can best be passed on by sharing
with you the lessons he left behind. He was one who could awaken the playful self in all those around him. The observations developed into a series of exercises that consistently bring people
into an intuitive place where what is happening is not being directed by the
intellectual process but as an intuitive shift into the moment.
As more people experimented with the process it became apparent that the leap/shift
was not only for those who wished to perform in front of an audience, but also for
people to simply experience a freedom from thought; a playful creativity while communicating
with others; when what is happening, takes on a life of its own that is as
exciting, and often as funny, as it is unpredictable. Well...it is sort of like meditating on one's feet! It was in the course of teaching
at the school house that Dennis began focusing on improvisation as a craft and
experimenting with specific techniques actors could employ to get into and stay present an intuitive zone.
Over the next three years he taught classes in which he experimented
and examined the specific techniques involved in improvisation as presented by
Viola Spolin, Sanford Miesner, Kieth Johnstone, and many other writers
and teachers with an objective: to whittle down,
hone in, to focus the techniques into the simplest possible tutorial.
This experimentation with technique evolved new approaches which seemed to enable his
students to be better improvisers and improvisers to be better people.
Finally, in 1999, Dennis began to put together a company to bring this work before an audience.
The first company to be formed as result of this experimentation was ARKtoo in Madison, Wisconsin.
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