Shoulder to the Boulder 

“Being surrounded by creative people and 

knowing that you’re all in it together, and

you’re putting on a show, you’re all 

pushing this huge boulder together – 

every Saturday 

you do something that you’re scared to do – 

I think I will miss that feeling.”

-Kristen Wiig, discussing what
she'll miss about SNL

Those are some of the things I love most about Improv - the camaraderie, the teamwork, the group mind.  Plus, following the fear and saying "yes" to what scares you.

It's so fun.  Take an Improv class already!

Sincerely,

The Boss of You

Play More

I love that little stage, pictured above.  It's one of my favorite places to stand in this city.

That scheduling break I had been angling for back in the fall didn't actually come to fruition until my last Improv class ended in late February.  My March calendar was - unfortunately - filled with worry, which I found out can consume your free time as easily as Improv can.  It wasn't until the past few weeks that I was actually able to take some deep breaths and explore this new-found phenomenon: free time.

What did I discover?

I discovered I miss Improv.

Ha.  Well, good to know.  While I'm not about to overload my schedule once again with classes and performance groups, it's helpful to realize that I really like this time-suck of an activity.  It energizes me, challenges me, makes me laugh.  And it's worth seeing if I can't find that elusive balance - one where Improv is a regular part of my schedule, without dominating my schedule.

* * *

As I was considering all these things, I got an email from the creative director of my theater.  She wanted to know if I could be a guest performer in a main-stage show this week, playing with a team who's performed together for 5+ years, a team comprised of people who have all been my coaches / teachers at some point.  It was an out-of-the-blue honor to be asked, totally trippy, a little mind-bottling.

I was super nervous, but I said "Yes!"

Because that's the first rule of Improv.

Hostel Crowd

Newspaper stand, Broadway

 
On Friday night, I had an Improv show at a youth hostel.  Throughout the day leading up to the show, I kept thinking about the horror movie Hostel, and feeling twinges of nervousness about getting - you know - murdered or terrorized or something.

Strange, considering that I've never even seen the movie Hostel.  But what I have done is spend 9 months working in an actual youth hostel, which was a very pleasant, wonderful, non-terrorizing experience.  (There was that one stabbing crime that I unfortunately kinda witnessed and had to give a statement to the Dutch police about, but that was an isolated incident.  Promise.)  (Also, one time I had to help muck out the hostel's septic tank, one of the grossest and foulest-smelling experiences of my life. But again - an isolated incident.  Really, most of my time there was perfectly lovely.)

So it was odd that my fears about our hostel performance should be founded more in fiction than real-life experience.  Luckily (and quite obviously) there was nothing to be afraid of - the hostel was a cool place, everyone had a good time and no one got murdered.

Afterwards, my teammates and I walked a couple blocks to grab some pizza and discuss formica table tops, Israel, and the pitfalls of perfectionism.  On our way out of the pizza place, we were struck with an idea for a video/sketch.  We stood on the sidewalk for a while, brainstorming and scribbling notes into a moleskin, wondering where we could purchase shiny black leotards and neon pink belts for cheap (crucial for the success of the sketch).

Sometimes I wonder why I do Improv - why I keep choosing to invest time, money, and energy into this fleeting performance art.  And then moments like Friday night happen, and I remember, "Oh, right."  It's because Improv leads to some of the most random, fun times.  (And rarely leads to murder.)

Monday Night

Monday night was a heart-full kind of night. Bittersweet, happy, nostalgic, gratifying.

I had an Improv show, but not just any show: the last class show of the highest-level class offered at my theater.  I did it; I finished the training program; I'm an Improv 'graduate'! 

6 weeks of classes + 2 weeks rehearsal time + 8 weeks of shows = 4 months we've been working at this thing, my classmates and I.  

(Add to that all the time spent in lower level classes + plus required electives + plus practice groups + yadda yadda.  You get the point.  This was a long time coming.)

I've been looking forward to this class being over.  Though a good experience, it was also a tiring one - claiming two nights a week for the past two months.  I wanted those nights back, I wanted free time, I wanted flexibility in my schedule again.

But - as the end approached - I got all sad and sentimental.  I was going to miss my classmates, miss working with them and laughing with them and seeing them regularly.  It's not goodbye forever - I'll see them around.  But it won't be the same - can't be the same - as these past 4 months when we were teamed up in pursuit of this common goal.

But back to Monday.

The (super silly, super fun) reggaeton warm-up exercise our teacher taught us. The theater, packed with friendly faces. The Monoscene, the strongest one we’ve done to date. My line that came from nowhere, from the ether (maybe the best line I’ve ever said in an Improv show?) and that ego-fueling feeling of standing on stage, listening to the laughter you just effected. Walking off stage, my part done. The joy of getting to watch the rest of my classmates be their freakin’ hilarious selves.

After the show: hugs and smiles all around. The feeling of accomplishment, the relief of ending well, ending strong. The walk around the corner to the bar, catching up with a long-lost friend. Drinks all around, words of affirmation, Cajun french fries, Knicks vs Nets on the tv, talking about the past, wondering about the future. Re-hashing. Mingling. Meeting new people and talking about Spain. Learning what a ‘water back’ is and talking about love. Looking around and loving all the people I saw sitting there.

Staying out way too late for a Monday.

Going home smiling, thankful.

Very, very thankful.

Class Notes

Shepard Hall, City College

My weeknights are filled with extracurricular activities right now.  Here's what kept me busy this past week:

1) Hebrew - We're reading through 2 Kings; this week we got up to King Josiah and his sweeping reforms. Very exciting stuff. If you find biblical history to be exciting. And I do.

After 2 Kings, we'll move to Isaiah.  I'm SO excited to dig into this book: although the Hebrew will be harder to translate (prophecy being filled with idioms & poetic imagery), there are so many familiar, oft-quoted texts in Isaiah.  So many we recently heard or sung during the Christmas season.  Looking forward to reading them in their original context.

At the end of class this week, as my teacher and I were chatting, she started to ask, "So when are you..." - her standard preamble to one of two questions. Always the same two questions, lovingly asked and sometimes preceded with the disclaimer, "Now, I don't want to "Jewish mother" you, but..."   So I readied myself to hear either (a) ...when are you going to Israel? or (b) ...when are you going to seminary?  

It was the latter, this time around. I answered as I always do, "I don't know.  Maybe some day."  Maybe some day.

2) Improv - I've been in an Improv slump lately, of Pauline proportions.  Meaning, when I get on stage, I don't do the things I want to do, and I do do the things I don't want to do.

I can't seem to break old habits (reverting to playing the same types of characters, making the same types of choices in scenes) and though I can picture where I'd like to take things (being bolder, playing freer) I don't see myself making much progress in that direction.  It's frustrating.

I read something somewhere once (I'm not 100% that it was even in relation to Improv) that said when you feel like you're hitting a wall, the answer isn't to quit.  It's: keep butting your head against that wall until you break through it.

I don't think that advice works for every situation, but I'm willing to try it for this current wall, which I suspect is made of fear, and thus worth shattering.  Onwards, again, into the wall...

3) Voice lessons -  We'd been working on Christmas music before the break, so at my first voice lesson of the new year, a new song was in order.  My teacher suggested Stars and the Moon from Jason Robert Brown's "Songs for a New World."  I wasn't familiar with it, but now I kinda love it!  The first chorus actually reminds me of my relationship with God, sometimes: 

"He said..."I'll give you stars and the moon and a soul to guide you
And a promise I'll never go
I'll give you hope to bring out all the life inside you
And the strength that will help you grow.
I'll give you truth and a future that's twenty times better
Than any Hollywood plot."
And I thought, "You know,
I'd rather have a yacht."

I don't want an actual yacht, but my metaphorical yacht is all the dreams I'm clinging to with closed fists, convinced that This. Is. What. I. Really. Want.  Unable to trust that God might have something twenty times better.

Oh, life.  So much to learn.

Vintage

Jewelry store in Chelsea

I had an Improv show on Saturday night.

The only thing remarkable about this fact is that it is so unremarkable. 

I have Improv shows all the time now.  I've had forty-one (41) this year! (I know this because I like to track them in an Excel spreadsheet.  I'm anal thorough like that.)   So, you know.  No big deal.

Except that I remember when it was a big deal.  I remember my very first Improv show, and what a big deal that was.  How nervous/excited/jumpy the whole thing made me.

That rush may have faded, but the thrill is not entirely gone.  It was still pretty fun to take the stage on Saturday night.  Still pretty fun to smile into the lights, to pretend to be someone else, to laugh at my teammates, to hear the applause. 

And then to head with my team to the pub around the corner, to grab food and talk about things other than Improv (read: boys), because - no big deal.

But still a fun deal.

Real Talk?

Sometimes...some days...happiness is a dive bar on 7th Avenue, where everybody knows your name.

Thanks, lovies, for hugs, affirmations and whiskey. I needed that.

And now - to bed, she said.

Late(ish) Night on the LES

I had an Improv show this week.

It was held in the back room of a bar, down on the Lower East Side.

The show started at 10pm, but my team didn't go on until about 11pm.  Which is admittedly not rock-and-roll late, but is still kinda late for a Wednesday.  No?  I think yes.

En route to the bar, I was tired, and a little grumpy about being tired.  I whined my way down Houston Street to the tune of "It's late, I wanna be at home, I wanna be asleep."

But there's an energy in that part of town, at that time of night, that isn't easily ignored.  There's neon lights and basement bars, hipsters and regulars, knishes and noodles, high-end gelato and run-down bodegas, skate-boarders and shifty characters, an historic past and an ironic present.

And the energy - the aliveness - interrupted my whining to remind me that I was really so very lucky.

Lucky to have performance opportunities.  Lucky to be able to stay out late, and go where I wanna go, and do what I wanna do.  Lucky to live in a city that never sleeps.

That hasn't always been the case.  It won't always be the case.  I'm a lucky girl that it's my case for now.

I'll sleep later.

Working Title

I had a bit of an Improv overload this past weekend.

Thursday night: was in a show
Friday night: saw two shows
Saturday: rehearsal; was in a show; saw two shows
Sunday: rehearsal; saw a show
Monday night: rehearsal

As I headed to the practice studio on Monday, I was grumbling about this seeming time-suck. 

"Is this all I do?  I want my free time back!  I'm tirrrrrrred!  I want to sit at home and eat a Trader Joe's burrito and watch Cheers on Netflix!"  That's about how my grumbling went.

So I gave myself a talking-to (as I'm wont to do) and tried to re-frame these thoughts.  I reminded myself that I wasn't giving without getting.  Because doing a lot of Improv + watching a lot of Improv = the recipe for improving at Improv.  All those hours weren't being wasted; they were spent working at something I profess to enjoy.  And when we do the work, when we log the hours - there is some pay-off, there is some return on our investment.  I mean...right?

Yes.  Right.  In theory.  But there is still the question: just what am I working at?  Improv is - by nature - ephemeral.  A scene, a performance exists in the moment and then it is gone.  It can be remembered, but it can not be repeated.  It is unlike a painting or a piece of writing - I cannot point to something physical and say, "Hey, look what I did!"  I could tell you about a show I was in, but recounting Improv shows always, always ends with the phrase, "Well, I guess you had to be there."  You have to be there, in the moment.  Outside of the moment, what remains?

What remains (get out your crackers, here comes the cheese) is relationships.  Relationships.  As I trudged to the practice studio on Monday night, I reminded myself of the previous Monday, when my teammates and I had sat outside a bar on Seventh Ave, nursing drinks and laughing until well after midnight.  And how on Friday evening - after fleeing a terribly, awfully awkward first date - I made a beeline for the theater, knowing I would find people there who would help me laugh it off.  And I did.  And we did.  And that made things a little better.

I love this community of weird and wonderful people.  They are worth spending time with, working at this weird and wonderful art/comedy thing that we do.  I may not have a real clear vision of the end goal of Improv, but I feel the blessings of the day-to-day.

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." -e.e. cummings

What's New, Pt. 2


When I signed up for Musical Improv class, I simultaneously signed up for voice lessons. Because why not dive-tackle this super-scary insecurity head on, right? 

Eeeeek. Right.

I scheduled a lesson with a voice teacher who came highly recommended by a friend.  KB teaches out of her home in Astoria, so I snuck out of work a bit early one Friday afternoon, hopped the M-train to Queens, found her house, drummed up all my courage and rang the doorbell.

KB was every bit as friendly and disarming as my friend had promised. We exchanged brief get-to-know-you pleasantries, then KB sat down at her piano and said, "Ok, now I'll have you sing a vocal warm-up."

Sing?  Just like that, she wants me to sing?  I mean - sheesh, buy a girl dinner first, am I right? 

I would have been happy to continue talking about singing for awhile longer, to discuss in detail how I'm not a good singer, and how I have no singing experience, and how singing in front of people rather terrifies me. But apparently KB actually expected me to get down to the business of it.  So I reluctantly, fearfully, hesitatingly sang a scale.  And then KB said the sweetest words to me:

"You're not tone deaf."

Phew!  Huge sigh of relief.  Huge.  The lesson proceeded and I learned about proper breathing techniques.  And practiced projecting.  And then, towards the end of the hour, I got to sing an actual song! (!!!)

KB asked if I knew "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" (sure do), so we sang through that a few times.  "A kiss on the hand may be quite continental..."

My Improv coach has been wanting me to work on accents for awhile (my best attempts all end up sounding Israeli, so I usually just avoid accents entirely in scenework).  I mentioned this to KB, so she had me sing through "Diamonds" while practicing various accents.

"A kiss may be grand, but it won't pay the rental..."

"Now do Southern Hick."

"On yer humble flat, or help ya at the autahmat..."

"Now Brooklyn."

"Men grow cold, as goyls grow old..."

"Mary Poppins!"

"And we awll lose our chahms in the end..."

"Eliza Doolittle!"

"Bu' square-cu' oh pear-shape, d'ese rocks won' lose d'eir shape!"

"Marilyn Monroe!"

"Dihhhmonds are a girhhl's best frehhnd!"

Super fun.  I like voice lessons. :)

How My Weekend Went

Friday morning, I started reading Tina Fey’s BossyPants on the way to work. This was a mistake: my commute is not that long, and once I started reading I did NOT want to stop. So I was grumpier than usual when I had to get off the subway, put the book away, and go to work. (Thumbs down to the beige cubicle; thumbs up to BossyPants.)

Friday evening, my friend JJ was celebrating her birthday at Marie’s Crisis, a piano bar in the West Village. I arrived just as the piano-man started playing “What I Did For Love,” from Chorus Line. The place wasn’t so packed yet (it was just after 9pm), but everyone in the room sang LOUD. With EMOTION. I think we were all working some stuff OUT, there, with that song. Our voices filled the place, from the low-hanging ceiling beams to the wood floors, from the front window overlooking Grove Street to the bar in the back, where the bartender “refuses to make margaritas or martinis” (we were told). A fun night singing show tunes with feeling.

On both Saturday and Sunday evenings I had shows at an Improv festival out in Long Island City. Good times with good people. In between the shows, however, I had a killer, disgusting, debilitating, stupid-pants migraine.

I consider myself a fairly tough cookie when it comes to sickness – I’ll get myself to the grocery store for soup, I’ll pick up my own medicine, I’ll keep-on-keepin’-on like the strong, independent gal that I am. Heck, I walked on a fractured foot for two weeks before finally taking myself to the doctor.* But when it comes to migraines – and specifically the fun-times repetitive up-chucking that comes along with them – I’m felled. I want my mommy. I slump on the bathroom floor and whimper like a puppy.

No bueno.

So there was that.  And there was work that got in the way of my reading, and there was too little outdoors time, and not enough alone time.  But there was also show tunes, and laughter with friends, and MTA-miracles that got me from home to Long Island City in 20 minutes, and Improv team bonding, and fake-ninja-fighting in a parking lot (part of our warm-ups for one Improv show).

So, all in all: a mixed-bag of a weekend.  But not totally terrible.


*Wait, is that toughness, or stupidity?

What's New, Pt 1

Central Park, in its spring-a-ding-ding finery

I started a new Improv class a couple of weeks ago.  I usually get nervous when starting new classes, but I was extra apprehensive about this one.  

Why?  It's a MUSICAL Improv class.

Meaning I have to sing.

In front of people.

Zoinks.

I've long been insecure about my singing voice.  Super insecure.  And I've also considered it one of the great ironies of my life that my mind works to easily memorize lyrics to thousands of songs, but my throat doesn't work to sing them.  It keeeeels me.

I'm a girl with a song in her heart, but that song rarely gets air time. Unless I'm alone in my apartment. Then I put on show-choir concerts for the cockroaches.

Given my fear of singing in front of actual people, I initially didn't give Musical Improv much thought, beyond "Not for me."  But... But. I kept hearing such glowingly positive things about it. 

I knew the teacher (from a prior class) and knew her to be lovely, glittery, supportive.  Friends said her class filled them with "life-affirming joy." (really!)  And I'd seen roughly a gazillion Musical Improv shows that all looked like so much stinkin' fun.

I decided that I wanted a piece of that fun-pie.  Voice insecurities notwithstanding.

So I signed up.  And showed up.  And you know what?  So much fun.

The voice insecurities are still there (more on that later) but the fun overshadows that.  The fun wins.

Found: Adventure

Wanted to share with you's another cool project by a local improviser.  Have you read about this yet?

BrooklynFoundFilm began on December 30th, when improviser/ writer/ comedian Todd Bieber took his cross-country skiis to Prospect Park.  New York was covered in snow that week, and while skiing through the park, Todd found a film canister.

(Part 1)

He developed the film and decided to try to return the pictures to their as-yet-unknown owner.  He took to the internet to see if anyone could help him determine who are the people in the pictures, and thus who is the person who took the pictures.

(Part 2)

The internet responded to Todd's video.  "We're in.  Game on.  We'll help!" said the internet.  Todd received advice and offers from help from all over the world.  (Love how far-reaching connections can be forged online.  The internet in it's best light.)

It took awhile.  Two months, about.  But Todd got a lead in the case, and it led him all the way to Europe.

(Part 3)

I just really love this story.  I like how he starts with an acknowledgement that, this year, he wanted more "adventure" in his life.  So when the opportunity for adventure presented itself - though to some it may have looked like just a dinky film cannister in the snow - Todd recognized it as a ticket to ride.

I also love how his story pulled people in.  He couldn't have gone it alone, it wouldn't have been the same story.  The people he encountered along the way - who offered both funny/helpful advice, who offered places to stay, who offered prayers - these people gave the story breadth and depth.  They made it bigger.  They made it less about the end goal and more about the journey.  As Todd says at the end of the second video: "...it's pretty cool to know I'm surrounded by nice strangers.  And we're all in this adventure together."

You know?

(You can read more about Todd's quest here.)

In Review

This weekend was...not awesome.  But I got by with a little help from friends' encouraging messages, and improvisers who made me laugh, and Shake Shack, and an elderly Scrabble opponent who never ceases to amaze/surprise me.  All bright spots.  I'm so thankful.  And that's all I want to say about this weekend.

Wanna know what was awesome, though?  The Spidey Project.  I wasn't sure I felt up for it, but those tickets were not easy to come by.  So I went.  And was glad. Because it was an awesome experience.  Because the crowd had such a positive, supportive vibe.  Because the story was funny and because the songs were well-written. Because someone had a vision and he made it happen, and I got to watch it succeed on stage.  Awesome.

What I've Been Up To: Making Stuff Up

At the Colin Quinn show a few weeks ago

This past weekend was the first in a while that I haven't had an Improv show.

Between class shows and new team shows, it's been a busy couple of months. Before January, I had been in only had seven (7) Improv shows, total, ever. Since January, I've doubled that tally to fourteen (14).  I'm a' getting kinda used to this thang.

It was sort of nice to have a weekend off from performing, although I didn't get the weekend off entirely. Between attending friends' Friday night shows, my Saturday afternoon practice group, and Sunday evening rehearsal, there was plenty of Improv seen and done.

All that to say: Improv is keeping me busy.  And tired.  But laughing.  A lot.

Snow: Still, More, Again

Tromping home through the snow

After work last night, I sat in my apartment listening to thunder, sleet, and snow in succession.  I was supposed to go out for an event with my new Improv group, but "out" sounded nasty and I debated staying "in" instead. Living in the city, though, I don't have a real good "need to stay off the roads" excuse. So on came the boots and off I went.

My teammates and I saw a show, then huddled in the corner of a dive bar just south of Penn Station.  Through the window behind us, we watched as 8th Avenue slowly disappeared under a white blanket.  It kept snowing and we kept ordering rounds of $2.50 PBRs, talking about our high-school selves and our families of origin and other facts you could file in the category "Things You Might Not Know About Me."

It was nearly 2am by the time I got home, and it was nearly 6am when I got up, for my Thursday morning group.  Ouch.  But then I saw an email that group was cancelled, and had a voice-mail saying work was delayed, due to the snow.  So I went back to sleep.

Oh man.  I love going back to sleep, don't you?  It's one of my favorite things.

Other favorite things include full snow days, but The Man at The Firm didn't see fit to give us the whole day to play, just a 1.5 hour delay.  Too bad, but I'll take what I can get.  And what I got was a good night, a slow morning, and that blessed opportunity to go back to sleep (at least for a little while).  Nice.

Autoschediastical*

Lower East Side

Practice for my new Improv team started this week. We met in a studio space at a guitar school in Chelsea.  Our coach (who I think is going to be g-r-e-a-t) brought us banana-chocolate chip muffins.  Things are off to a good start.

There are eight on the team: five of us were in class together last year (a happy reunion for the Dream Team) and three are new to me (but they also seem g-r-e-a-t). 

For our first session - rather than jumping right into scenework - our coach had us spend some time on get-to-know-you type exercises.  For the final one, she took out her iPod, plugged in some speakers, and announced that we would be doing a dance diamond.

Which means: we stood in a diamond-shaped formation, and while incredibly dramatic/emo music played, we danced.  Whoever stood at the top of the diamond led the choreography, until we shifted direction and then followed a new leader.  Synchronized, spontaneous movement.

Eight adults.  All dancing dramatically.  To emo music.  In a guitar studio in Chelsea.

Have I mentioned how much I love Improv?

*Is a real word.

Wired

Before Improv class resumed this week, I'd had a two week break over the holidays.

Taking a break from Improv often fills me with doubts.  I begin to forget the basics, I begin to forget what it's all about, why I like it.  Before class I felt nervous and jittery - I was scared to make a mistake, scared to be vulnerable, scared that I didn't belong.  I half-considered skipping it.

But when I got to class, as soon as we stood for warm-ups, I remembered why I love it.  And as class progressed and we got to try some trippy new exercises, my love increased.  I wasn't ready to leave when our three hours together ended. I thought, "I want to do more Improv!"

Before I even had time to consider how I might fit more Improv into my schedule, I got an email notifying me that I'd been selected to be on a team in our theater's training program. Which means additional weekly practices, and six upcoming shows.  More Improv!  So exciting.

My Level 2 teacher (who is eight shades of nifty) once said something to the effect of, “Improv is the biggest waste of time that someone can choose to invest their life in…but it’s just so exciting.”

It is weird, it is foreign, it is strange. It may even be waste of time, this standing in front of people with no script. But it is so exciting.

Request and Dedication



Dear Casey Kasem,

I know you are retired and no longer have a radio show, but I'm wondering if there is any way you could still send out a Long Distance Request and Dedication for me?  Your LDD's really helped me express my feelings in the early 90's, and I think one could help me now.

You see, Casey, I'm in an Improv class.  And I know everyone says this about their Improv classes, but mine truly is the best.  Unfortunately, it took me a little while to wake up to this fact.  I'm afraid I took my class for granted for too long.  (Approx. 4 weeks)

But last night, as we were playing a game of "Pass the Clap" (which has absolutely nothing to do with VD), I realized what a talented, funny, flawed, honest, weird bunch of individuals my classmates are.  And I thought, "Hot damn, I love these people."

Casey, my eyes were opened.

I don't want to let another 4 weeks go by before I tell them how I feel.  And so, Casey, I'd like to dedicate Modern English's "I Melt With You" to my Level 4 class.

Though we are of varying ages and heights, and come from different places and backgrounds, and though we are riddled with glorious imperfections and quirks and corrective eyewear, we make a pretty good team.

In fact, Level 4 class, I want to meet your mothers.  Start going to the gym regularly because of you.  Invent a secret language with you.  Change my email password to your initials.  Get a house together at the shore this summer.

Basically, I wanna stop the world and melt with you.  Our future's open wide.

Thanks, Casey.

Signed,
Kristy

Joyful Noises
December Photo Project Day #21

Found: Carolers!  On the steps of St. Bart's

We had a substitute teacher at Improv class this week.  One of the warm-up exercises he had us do was a standard Improv game called "Throw Knives at People."  (I don't actually know its official name, but that sounds about right.)

The game goes like this: everyone stands in a circle, and one person throws an imaginary knife at another person.  Hi-ya!  That second person catches the imaginary knife (Oomph!) and throws it at someone else.  Hi-ya!  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  Additionally, the two people on either side of the person who has just caught the knife (Oomph!) are charged with stabbing that person, imaginary-samurai-sword style.  Aaargh!

As the knife gets passed and the swords get slashed, players practice making eye contact (useful later in scene work) and heightening intensity.  The game gets increasingly loud and increasingly fake-violent, building up the energy of the group (also useful later).

"Throw Knives at People" isn't usually my favorite warm-up game (I prefer its more gentle cousin, "Bunny Bunny") but I got into it on Monday night.

Afterwards, the substitute teacher looked at me and said, "By the way, you have a really great horror-movie scream."

I will take that as a compliment.  Thanks, Teach!