So, it has happened once again; I am WAY behind on my blog. I’ll start to correct that with this entry.

Shannon and Jo were kind enough to come out the last weekend in February with the primary purpose of doing me the favor of coaching the Fools. Shannon and Jo both have over 10 years of improv experience (that makes them old), and this was the third time in five years that they agreed to come out and run a special practice for my group.

The actually even came out early to help coach our school’s acting class. The theater guy is a friend of mine, and when he found out that Shannon and Jo were coming out, he asked if they would be willing to teach a class for his students. They agreed, and although the acting class is not about improv, there is enough common ground that Shannon and Jo were able to easily fill 45 minutes. They made the kids think about body language through a series of exercises using different styles of walking; they made them interact in a created space (like an elevator), and they made them think about line delivery through having the students say the same exact line in several different ways. I think they did a pretty good job.

They had more time to work with the Fools – we went from 3:30 to about 5:00, and we had 8 of the 10 Fools in attendance. Shannon and Jo did a really amazing job with the kids, especially with making them work with heightening. Heightening is a concept in improv where you make what is going on “more.” You make the relationship more intense, or you make the location more extreme, or you make the something done or said on stage of immense importance. It is a central concept of improv, and it makes scenes/skits more interesting.

Most of the exercises that Shannon and Jolene worked on were focused on heightening in some way. They made the kids do lots of physical action, which carries energy with it. They made the students start a small action and make it grow bigger, and the student had to remember all the small movements that were going on along with the main motion – it was a great exercise for body control and awareness. They ran the Fools through several games where the goal was to heighten “to the grotesque” (as Shannon put it). This included one-on-one showdowns where the students were trying to make the action of a solo scene more intense each round, and exercises where a particular object or something said was THE most important thing to a character for that scene. It worked really well, and I was impressed; I really wish Shannon and Jo could coach monthly – we would be a tremendous improv group.

After the festivities wrapped up around 5:00, we let Meredith take care of her classroom stuff and then headed out to Akron for supper. I thought it would be fun to take Jo and Shannon to Mustard Seed Market for supper. The Mustard Seed is an all-natural grocery store that also has a cafe, and they occasionally have live music as well. This night (Friday), they did have a solo guitar player/singer who provided nice ambiance music for the dinner. Shannon and Jo both seemed to enjoy their meal, and Jo bought a pound of Fair Trade coffee to go home with. Mer and I bought some cookies, and Shannon had none (he gave up junk food for Lent).

After we got home, Shannon and I took on Jo and Meredith in “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night” – a game about guessing the title of a book or the name of an author based on hearing just the first line of a book. Shannon and I took an early lead, and we were even up by 5-2 at one point (you need to get to 8 books). Sadly, Jo and Mer got 3 lines that actually had the title of the book in the first line, and they ended up winning 8-7. It was sad. On that note, we all went to bed.

Saturday was a nice day, so we headed up to Peninsula,which is the most New-Englandish town in the area. It is a small town in the Valley, and is built around the Cuyahoga River, and the buildings are largely tasteful (in my opinion). We had too much food at a local restaurant, The Winking Lizard. We poked around the small bike shop next door for a little while, and then went home, where Shannon and I napped while Mer graded and Jo read.

Once we were all conscious again, Shannon and Jo and Mer got ready to be all cultured. They were going to Cleveland to hear the Cleveland Orchestra perform several works, including Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. I am not a big fan of classical music, so I decided to stay home and try to download a Superman animated movie from iTunes. That took my whole evening because of various updates and software downloads and the like, and then it turned out that my laptop is too old to show iTunes videos. It was a rather frustrating evening. Shannon and Jo and Mer had a wonderful time. Severance Hall, where the orchestra plays, turned out to be beautiful and a wonderful venue (it was the first time there for all three). The music was excellent, and Shannon was pleased with the Beethoven (apparently the Cleveland Orchestra is known for its performances of Beethoven works). They had a good time, with the exception that Severance Hall is in an area that is thin on restaurants, and so they had no supper.

All in all, it was a good, if quick, visit. This summer I’ll have to work on them coming out for a four- or five-day weekend so we can hit Amish country and other sights (in the never-ending excitement that is touring NE Ohio).