Before Schwa each week we choose the form we'll do that night. Whenever the numbers are appropriate I always suggest doing a form where we are all onstage the entire show, either as characters or as inanimate objects. When I first suggested it a couple months ago Craig said the form was called "Dragon's Teeth."
Tonight's show it was Danny, Craig, and I with Vince sitting in. I suggested we do a Dragon's Teeth with only transformational edits in between scenes and everyone else was on board. The form forces everyone to be present in every scene and so lends an immediacy to the show which other forms don't. It's like running down hill. At a certain point gravity takes over and if you try to stop you'll fall.
The show was incredibly fun. We were all sweating about half way through and we covered a lot of ground. My favorite scene was one where we were all in a choir with Danny conducting. We were only singing single notes and making simple harmonies but it sounded great. My other favorite moment was just an edit. We edited out of a sweat lodge scene into a gym scene by doing a smokey dance type of thing.
It always feels good to try something difficult and to succeed. The show wasn't perfect but it was good. We all had fun and we were doing different stuff. Difficult stuff that isn't easy to navigate. We put some severe limitations on ourselves and had to figure out, on the fly, how to benefit from them instead of being restricted by them.
I love performing on Deep Schwa. It was a dream of mine for years which I now get to realize weekly. I feel like I grow and learn and experiment each week. This week was exceptionally satisfying. I was so happy to get to play with Vince, he fit right in, and brought some much needed freshness. I haven't played with him in a long time and I've missed it. At one point he played a girl being suffocated by a workout machine.
Improv wins.
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