Document text
48 °F Forecast | Road Cams Thursday, February 26, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend February 5, 2004 Improv theatresport teams hit the boards Friday By BILL VARBLE Mail Tribune An event aimed at bringing the passion of big-time sports to theater audiences makes its Southern Oregon debut Friday in Ashland. Five improvisation teams will compete in The Big Games, the region’s first improv tournament in a format known as theatresports. Teams of contestants using ideas from the audience must create skits on the spot. "Whoever wins goes on to the next round," Joshua Heuertz says. Heuertz, the artistic director of Ashland’s Green Room Improvisational Theater School, says the tournament will go on all spring, with shows timed to run in synch with Ashland’s First Friday art event. The four-month, five-show series takes place at the Dance Space in Ashland. Something like football teams geared up for the NFL playoffs — or maybe the actors on television’s "Whose Line Is It, Anyway?" — five teams will vie for top honors in the festival, which is to wrap up with a grand finale Saturday, May 29. Advertisement "It’s like ‘Whose Line,’ " Heuertz says, "except that we keep track of points." The names of the teams provide a tip to the prevailing mood: the Knee Jerk ReACTORS, Gag Reflex, Menage a Trois, The Lord of the Scenes and the Three Mask-eteers. "Each team has an identity," Heuertz says. The Mask-eteers, for example, will be allowed to use masks. The Menage might come out flirting or hitting on each other. Menage member Eve Smyth, who studied improv in San Francisco before moving to Medford, says she was attracted to the genre by her own fear. "I studied acting in college, and thought improv was the most terrifying," she says. Others say it’s useful for learning poise and reacting under pressure. Judges will have score cards, a la Olympics judges. Winners will be announced at evening’s end. Two teams will be eliminated by April. The field will be narrowed to two teams by the finals. "It sounds complicated, Heuertz says. "But the audience doesn’t have to know anything. A master of ceremonies will take them through it." The event is based on a concept developed by theater professor and improv guru Keith Johnstone in the 1970s in acting classes at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Canada. Carrying the banner today is the Loose Moose International Improvisational School, of Calgary, which offers classes that draw students from around the world. Johnstone’s goal was to inject into theater audiences some of the excitement of crowds at sporting events. Early participants included actors looking for practice between jobs, writers looking for new ways to pitch stories and even lawyers aiming to hone the ability to think on their feet. Today there are theatresports leagues in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and other American cities as well as England, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Australia and elsewhere. The GRITS group is Oregon’s first registered group. For more, visit www.theatresports.org . Groups adopting the format must pay royalties, in GRITS’ case $150 a year and 3 percent of the gross. "We’re glad to be the first registrees in Oregon," Heuertz says, "but we hope there’ll be more so we can compete." Smyth says that in a sense, improv goes against human nature, since we have a natural tendency to edit ourselves. "We have this voice that says, ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ " she says. "You have to get that out of the way. You have to dare to fail." If you go What: The Big Games theatresports tournament. When: 8 p.m. Friday with more shows March 5, April 2, May 7 and May 29. Where: The Dance Space, 280 E. Hersey St., No. 10, Ashland. Tickets: $10 at the door, $35 for a pass to all events. Call 261-8386. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback 3 WEEKS FREE! ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S RESOURCES Oregon Road Conditions & Cams SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Food for Thought Wellness Connection Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Prime Times