Off the Cuff

[00:00:01] Hey everyone Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the A.P.E.X Hour. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations onstage. We will also be some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on use them. And. You can find us here every Thursday at 3pm or on the web at suu.edu/apex. But for now welcome to this week's show here on Thunder 91.1

[00:00:48] Hey welcome to this week's show. This is Lynn Vartan and this week is all about comedy. Here at SUU we had a great event this morning here in this blustery day here in January on campus. And we had our own talent here from Cedar City with A.P.E.X event. So often we have people come from away and we celebrate all the people from around the nation and around the world. But today we get to celebrate Cedar City. And we were celebrating it with off the cuff our local improvisation comedy group.

[00:01:24] And I have one of its members maybe two later on in the hour.

[00:01:28] Quite quite possibly.

[00:01:30] I hope so. We hope we have one and maybe two and who knows who will show up but we're going to be talking about off the cuff and it's history and who it is and what they do and get into some discussion. So tell us about the group and yourself.

[00:01:46] Well we just celebrated our 15 year anniversary this past week.

[00:01:53] That's so cool I can't wait to ask you more about that.

[00:01:56] Yeah it was a lot of fun. I have been with the group since 2005 so about 14 of the 15 years.

[00:02:06] And how did you first get involved with them.

[00:02:09] Well when I was in junior high school and high school I was interested in improv and I started doing actual improv while I was in high school. I lucked out and got onto our high school team and it became one of my favorite things to do and was also part of my theater career as well. So when I came to school my goal was to find something to do in the realm of improv as well. And luckily my friend Clint who had come down here to go to school as well he had told me about this group that was just forming called off the cuff and that he had played with them a few times And so I knew that when I came down here I was going to seek those guys out and try to be involved in some way.

[00:03:03] And so now when you said you got involved in high school was that that was here or no you grew up somewhere else.

[00:03:09] Salt Lake. I went to Murray High School haha. Yeah.

[00:03:14] And then did you come to school here. So there's a big SUU connection. Southern Utah University off the cuff there's a big link there.

[00:03:22] Yeah. Really everybody in off the cuff right now except for one of our members. Nate are alumni of SUU.

[00:03:31] That's amazing. I mean what an incredible feather in our cap and how fun to celebrate that that connection and have you guys back on campus.

[00:03:40] Yeah I mean off the cuff technically started wall the founders were still in school as a way for them to have more opportunities to perform improv. And they started out by just wanting to do it for like a semester. You know they were they were pretty. They didn't have any expectations about it they were just like what if we did a show for fun and see what happens. And then 15 years later it's still going. So.

[00:04:10] Yeah. And so now the group consists. Tell me a little bit about the makeup. The group consists of how many players.

[00:04:17] So we have a core management team which is myself Wendy and T.J. Penrod who are two of the founding members. Leah (inaudible). And then Nate who I just mentioned Nate Makley who might be joining us today if he doesn't think that the studio is still in the centrum.

[00:04:38] He's listening. Nate come to the student center.

[00:04:40] That was my subtle way of hinting if he was listening. Be like hey it's not there.

[00:04:46] And then beyond that so Leah is our technical and sound person during the show runs lights and sound. And then the rest of us are performers. Then we have a regular performer Dave Armour who is also one of the founders. He plays every Friday as well. And then we have a rotating cast of a number of different people who are guest players who play either with us in the show regularly or to fill in if somebody can't be there for the show. And that's that's why the 15 year anniversary was so cool is because essentially we invite back everybody who's ever been asked to play with off the cuff over its 15 years guest players core members management all of that. And this year we got over about about 50 people crack on the back to perform. So it's kind of like a family reunion.

[00:05:42] That's awesome. And tell me about the 15th anniversary was two day event is that how it worked.

[00:05:49] Yes so when we did our 10 year anniversary we realized that at that point we had we'd had so many people come through off the cuff that it was getting to the point that there was no way we could fit it on one if we were to fit it on a one night. It would probably be like five hours long because we would have like 60 people onstage and we're like Well everybody's got to play once.

[00:06:14] Exactly that would be crazy. Everybody gets one sentence.

[00:06:17] Yeah everybody gets to play one game and then sit there for six hours. No. But so we we split that into two nights on our ten year anniversary and we realized that the 15 year was probably going to be the same situation.

[00:06:31] Yeah.

[00:06:31] Because obviously everybody that we've played with have lives now a lot of them have families lots of commitments so many of them can't come to our yearly birthdays because we do have a birthday celebration.

[00:06:45] Oh you do.

[00:06:46] Yeah but the 10 in the fives are the the big one that everybody wants to come and support. So we knew that the 10 and the 15 and then the 20 in the future will be insane. And so yeah we split it over Friday and Saturday. Three hour long shows each.

[00:07:06] Wow. How do you structure. I mean I want to ask you about the regular weekly shows. While we're on the anniversary how do you structure a show like that. I mean do you sit around a table and kind of say OK we know 20 games we're going to do these three here. How Does how does the planning work.

[00:07:25] So for our birthday shows Wendy Penrod is kind of the mastermind behind figuring out the numbers situation. So. Because up until the day of we've got people who are like confirming or canceling things like Hey remember how I said like three months ago I was going to come to that show. Yeah I'm not coming now. Sorry that it's tonight. And so we often it has to be changing constantly but Wendy's kind of been the one who's like just so great at it.

[00:07:54] Yeah.

[00:07:54] And so she plans out like what type of game is being played. And by that I mean like how many players so we identify games by 4 player games 3 player games two player games all player games that kind of thing. And so she'll she'll do the math to figure out. Okay so in the first half we'll have a 4 2 3 3 3 to 4 right and what we do which is different than our regular shows is that we'll put all the games that we have in our repertoire into a cup and then all of the names of the players into a cup and we just pick a completely random.

[00:08:32] Completely random for the birthday shows.

[00:08:34] So we'll just pick the four people who are going to be in the game. Some of them have probably maybe never even played with each other before that day and then we'll just pick a game and be like alright cool so now we're doing Oscar winning moments I guess.

[00:08:50] And is that more nerve wracking or less nerve wracking. I mean they must it must be in a way easier if you don't know anything it's kind of like whatever but then again you might end up with somebody that's harder to play off of.

[00:09:01] Well we that's how we used to... Funny. We used to run our show like that weekly where we would just pick games randomly and pick who's playing the games randomly on a smaller scale actually. So we've gotten to the point where we're not super worried about it during the regular show because we've got enough mixture of people who have played with us who then went on to continue doing improv in other places and other people who like stopped doing improv. So there's an average to good chance that we will at least have a couple of people in the games that are good or still practice improv regularly and so we have faith that they're able to help each other out to come through.

[00:09:49] Yeah yeah.

[00:09:51] It's a team activity. Yeah that's.

[00:09:53] I know the team part of it is so intriguing to me how all the personalities meld than anything like that. I want to ask you about that. But just briefly back to the birthday thing so it was two nights and as I understand it was completely sold out.

[00:10:08] Yes we had packed houses both nights. There was standing room only.

[00:10:11] Oh my gosh That's so great. And then you already started planning for the 20 year.

[00:10:17] Oh gee I was like well let's let's plan for the 16th year. First let's take it one day at a time. But yeah we it's definitely on our on our radar for sure.

[00:10:31] Well cool. I'd love to talk a little bit about about the Friday show because I'm one of the things we really want to make sure to point out is is to really promote that that you are. You guys are on every Friday.

[00:10:43] Yeah we we there are only a couple of times in the year that we don't have shows consistently which is December we all usually take at least two weeks off the Christmas holiday and the new year.

[00:10:58] Yeah.

[00:10:59] Mostly just because we understand that nobody's here in town anyway.

[00:11:02] Everybody's traveling.

[00:11:05] And then we sometimes will take a week or two off in May during the like transition between.

[00:11:12] School and summer. Yeah.

[00:11:14] Because it's usually our slowest time of year.

[00:11:17] Interesting.

[00:11:17] And that's a time that we'll do like renovations on our theater or repairs maintenance that kind of thing.

[00:11:25] Yeah.

[00:11:26] And and it's just the break between the college crowd leaving and the festival crowd coming.

[00:11:33] Right. It's interesting to me that that would be I'm always curious with different different people's careers and jobs and organizations. When are hot times of the year and when are slow times then I wouldn't have expected that. But it makes complete sense particularly in Cedar City because we do have that that changeover between the academic population and then we have a huge festival population coming in for our Shakespeare show.

[00:11:57] Yeah yeah. So are our big time of the year is definitely during the school year.

[00:12:03] The fall is usually our best time of the year followed probably by the spring and then our summer is usually the slowest season because while we do have the festival crowd let's just say some of them are aged to the point where a 10p.m. show is a little bit late for them right. Hang out. I mean I'm 33 years old and I'm to the point where I'm like hey guys why do we still do this.

[00:12:28] Let's start at 7. So tell me. The show starts at 10:00.

[00:12:32] 10:00p.m. yeah doors usually open at 930 at our theater and the seating is first come first serve you say. People can come 930 if they want to like really choose their spot.

[00:12:43] Yeah a lot of people like to come to the theater because they've identified the seat that they like to sit in or there's two types of seats. The ones that people like to sit in the most are the comfy theater style seats that are you know cushioned and like you find in a movie theater. And then there are some in the front which a lot of people like to sit in as well because they're closer to the stage which are just regular kinds of chairs.

[00:13:07] And about how many do you seat.

[00:13:09] On an average day we can seat about 100 people in just our regular theater.

[00:13:15] Oh that many.

[00:13:16] But for our birthday show and other big events we have a temporary wall that we take down. So there's a wall that separates the audience from like the path to the bathroom.

[00:13:27] Right.

[00:13:28] So that nobody has to feel like super self-conscious. Everybody I'm going to the bathroom And instead we take that wall down and we set up more chairs and at that point we can say we can usually fit around 150 to 180.

[00:13:44] No kidding.

[00:13:45] 200 if we really cram them in there.

[00:13:48] I do know that it was that that it sat that many. That's fantastic.

[00:13:51] Yeah. We've we've played Tetris a lot to figure out the best format and way to get people in there.

[00:13:58] Right. And this show costs 7 dollars.

[00:14:02] 7 Yeah.

[00:14:04] That's a steal. That's less than a movie.

[00:14:07] And we also while you're at our show we have what used to be called Tweet for seats but then we expanded it out to other social media. So for some reason we started calling it Wendy's social media extravaganza. And if she were here she would hurry and run up to the microphone and shout that at us. But she'll do it at the show. But where during the show if you want we encourage you to be on your social media on your phones as long as it's on silent and to like tweet or post funny quotes or things that you think you want to comment on or take pictures and then tag us in it. And then at the end of the show we go through all of them and then we reward people who gave us the best ones free show next week.

[00:14:51] Oh my gosh what a great idea.

[00:14:53] So if you don't want to pay seven dollars every single week you should just come and tweet a bunch and you'll probably get it another free show that's so cool. We've had people who have just they were the only ones tweeting ever so. I don't think they paid for a show for like two months they just kept winning over and over.

[00:15:11] That's a great idea. And then you just tag. I mean it's just that either a tag or a hash tag or whatever.

[00:15:17] Yeah. So if it was Twitter or Instagram you would just do the @otccomedy Because for some reason that shows up better than if we use hashtags. I don't know why #otccomedy doesn't show up as readily for us than just the at-sign because that's actually tagging the account.

[00:15:35] Okay.

[00:15:36] Then on Facebook it's just off the cuff comedy improvisation. It's the whole it's a page that should come up if you're if you like if you're already a fan of the page. If you're not a fan of the page go to Facebook and off the cuff comedy improvisation in Cedar City so there might be other off the cuffs that come up at the one that's in Cedar City and like the page and then it'll pop up when you type stuff.

[00:16:01] Yeah fantastic. And the Web site again otccomedy. So there are two C's there right.

[00:16:09] otccomedy.com.

[00:16:09] Perfect You can check all that out. Well we're going to come back and talk about what improv actually is for anybody who's curious and may not have been to a show but in the meantime as always I have a song for you. And this first song is called about you and the band it's called G flip. So this is the A.P.E.X Hour KSUU Thunder 91.1.

[00:20:34] All right well welcome back to the A.P.E.X Hour We are growing in number here in the studio. My name is Lynn Vartan and we are talking all things improv comedy with two of the members now of off the cuff. We're going to welcome back Rev and Say hi to Nate.

[00:20:53] Hi how's it going.

[00:20:55] It's going great.

[00:20:55] We've multiplied.

[00:20:57] watch out world.

[00:20:58] We're like tribbles. Yeah yeah yeah. From Star Trek. Rabbits are OK cockroaches.

[00:21:06] Or Gremlins. I.

[00:21:06] Wasn't going to imply that there was any kind of mating happening. I was just going to say that we were multiplying.

[00:21:11] You know I'm not a scientist so I don't know how they multiply.

[00:21:15] What tribbles.

[00:21:16] Anything.

[00:21:17] You don't know. OK. How do you have three kids.

[00:21:21] Mystery.

[00:21:22] Well it's multiplying in way.

[00:21:24] I just woke up and they were exactly.

[00:21:28] Well now that I've got to of you I can just probably let you riff for the rest of the hour.

[00:21:33] And we'll get nothing done.

[00:21:34] Yeah.

[00:21:36] Well we're here to talk in this break about what improv is and I mean I think everybody knows when improvisation is but what is improv comedy to you. How do you define it. When people ask you like hey what about this thing that you do.

[00:21:52] Well. So I mean that's.

[00:21:55] That's kind of hard to define but usually give like an example.

[00:21:58] Like I Mean a lot of people will say whose line is it Anyway the show.

[00:22:02] Right.

[00:22:03] Most common thing that people have heard of when it comes to improv.

[00:22:06] Honestly we're trying to move away from saying it because it does give an impression about what improv is supposed to be where as improv is much broader than that. So who's line is it anyway is actually one type of improv. There's two schools of improv. Short form improv and long form improv.

[00:22:27] Oh I didn't even know that.

[00:22:28] Yes. What you saw today what we did today is short for improv like Whose Line Is .

[00:22:34] I Mean there's a specific structure sometimes like a built gimmick if you will.

[00:22:37] We play games in a shorter kind of games and things and then long form is what you'll see a lot in like Los Angeles and Chicago. And we do it occasionally as well which is more of a theatrical style with less assigned gimmicks and more discovery during scene work and it goes for much longer like the scenes will be there won't be breaks in between scenes they'll just kind of move into new things and it can go for anywhere from 30 minutes to I've seen a show go for two hours one time.

[00:23:07] Wow I'm much less familiar with that form.

[00:23:10] Most people are.

[00:23:11] Yeah. How do you you know because I know in the short form you're getting feedback from the more and more cues from the audience or how does it work in long form. Do you.

[00:23:20] Some where you visit the audience it just depends on the structure. Like there's a form called the Armando Diaz where whoever's doing they do monologues so they always introduce himself as Armando Diaz the Armando and they'll do a monologue and then we will do scenes based on that monologue and they will come back and do a monologue based kind of inspired by the scenes as kind of a back and forth.

[00:23:41] Conversation between a monologist and the improvisers essentially.

[00:23:45] Oh that sounds really fun.

[00:23:47] But audiences still react in pretty much the same way.

[00:23:51] You will find occasionally that like long form can sometimes be more like audiences that are super engaged and interested in what's going on and not necessarily as laugh out loud funny.

[00:24:01] Right.

[00:24:02] It just depends. But I've also seen long form shows that are funnier than any short form show I've ever seen. And people were rolling in the aisles and you know wetting themselves.

[00:24:12] So the structure of long form can get away from like necessarily being a comedy show. We have a good friend of ours Nick Armstrong has a group called kind strangers that does genreprov.

[00:24:24] Yeah they do nice Tennessee Williams.

[00:24:27] An improvised Tennessee Williams.

[00:24:28] Improvised Shakespeare groups were part of on those improvised rock operas.

[00:24:33] Wait wait wait wait Improvised Shakespeare so how does that work. Do you speak it. I mean you're speaking old English.

[00:24:38] There's different ways to accomplish sounding Shakespearean if you will.

[00:24:42] There's actually a really easy cheat to sounding Shakespearean and that's basically taking any phrase that you would normally say and making it and just saying the same thing.

[00:24:54] But as elaborate and long as possible.

[00:24:57] Explaining everything in the sentence is like my dog. I took my dog to the park. It would be like I ventured forth upon them the streets with my ground beast of fur and brownness to the field of public transport.

[00:25:17] Yeah that's fantastic.

[00:25:19] That's the cheap way of being like this is Shakespeare now.

[00:25:23] Rock opera was that another one that I heard.

[00:25:25] We know. Groups that do employ musical entire improvised musicals.

[00:25:29] How does that work.

[00:25:30] Well there's a show in Los Angeles called Opening Night the musical and their whole their whole thing is that they get the title of a play or a musical that hasn't been made from the audience and that this is the both opening and closing night of that performance and they have a pianist who is able because you know musicians improv is very close to like music.

[00:25:56] They were versed in a lot of like music styles and he'll play.

[00:26:00] Yeah.

[00:26:00] That the singers obviously are talented singers and understand music and working with each other so they just.

[00:26:05] And they've played so long together.

[00:26:07] they'll do Choreography in the back because.

[00:26:10] Oh my gosh.

[00:26:11] They're just like oh this is that kind of number.

[00:26:13] They just understand how each other work and like the structure of music and musicals

[00:26:17] I mean like improv really when when I mean coming back to the question is to me improv. I mean it's it's playing pretend onstage and being real and honest with other people on stage for an indeterminate amount of time and just seeing just reality discovery is what it is.

[00:26:41] Yeah if you do it right it's a lot of discovery.

[00:26:43] A lot of people also you know assume that improv is supposed to be funny because you commonly hear the word improv comedy.

[00:26:51] Right.

[00:26:52] They're attached to each other. We actually have a friend who said the worst thing that ever happened to improv was somebody put the word comedy after it only because while it does lend itself to being funny a lot of the time because we're not planning anything and silly things happen. Some of the best improv I've ever seen was dramatic improv where they were very real and they're like the audience was crying just.

[00:27:19] Allow yourself to get to a very real and vulnerable place.

[00:27:22] Cause you still approach it the same way as just being honest and in the moment with your partner on stage.

[00:27:28] That's amazing.

[00:27:28] Yeah.

[00:27:30] I have two questions One do you have a preference either have you long form short form or do you enjoy them both the same.

[00:27:36] They Both they both have merits.

[00:27:39] I view them kind of like they're kind of like two genres right. It's like I like science fiction movies and I also like rom com. But I also like action movies or whatever. And while they may not be the same thing I can enjoy both of them.

[00:27:58] They're fulfilling in different ways.

[00:28:00] Short form can be a lot of fun just because it's so zany and kind of madcap.

[00:28:07] Yeah.

[00:28:08] And you're kind of forced to do some things you probably would never naturally do on your own. Like if you're playing a game of accents and somebody tells you to now speak in an accent. A Hungarian accent. You're like well I would never have thought to do this in a scene but I'm doing it now.

[00:28:23] Here we go.

[00:28:24] Sure hope this is kind of close.

[00:28:27] Well and then my other question is in your Friday regular Friday shows do they ever venture into the dramatic or do you stick pretty hard core comedy.

[00:28:37] It has happened. But usually it's predominantly comedy.

[00:28:40] Yeah it hasn't happened during our regular show for a while. It all happen during like our Red Rocks Improv Festival.

[00:28:46] Right.

[00:28:47] Where groups will come in or we will have during one of our scenes something like that will happen. But yeah our Friday night show is generally funny all the time just because again short form kind of lends itself more more than long term to being stuck in the comedy right only because of like how I think of forcing you to forcing you to now be a chair in a scene or something like that that's obviously not going to be super conducive to being dramatic.

[00:29:19] Right. Right.

[00:29:20] There was a group that came to our festival this last year called Debbie Downer and the way that the two guys that founded it both had lost parents within that same year and so they use improv as a form of catharsis to.

[00:29:33] Not. Within that same year.

[00:29:34] But yeah when they recently went formed it.

[00:29:37] Yeah.

[00:29:37] And so they used they were funny scenes but it was also them kind of like addressing that. And then this year they had when they invited Wendy Penrod to perform and which she talked a lot about like her pregnancy difficulties that she's having. That was really funny stuff but there's also Very beautiful real heartfelt moments.

[00:29:57] Yeah. Well I want to ask you more about the festival and your classes a little bit later. One other thing on which I'm sure you get asked all the time is about preparation and rehearsing for improv. And so I know it's kind of a standard question but I'm sure there are people that are curious about it. So it's improvisation. How do you prepare.

[00:30:18] So we liken it to a sports team. You know you a sports team runs drills and they practice but they can never know exactly what's going to happen in the game. But that doesn't mean they don't practice right. They'll still run drills they'll run plays if it's a football team or something like that and you know figure out the motions so that they're getting used to it. It's like that in improv as well. So obviously we don't know what the show is going to be. That would take us a lot of work for us to plant people in the audience and write scripts out every single week. Right. So believe some people thought we did that and was like wow they're giving us way too much credit. Right.

[00:30:59] Really people Actually asked that.

[00:30:59] He Thought every week we wrote and rehearsed and memorized a two hour show.

[00:31:03] Oh my gosh.

[00:31:04] I don't know why he thought that was easier. He was like.

[00:31:06] Who's got that kind of time. You just become familiar with each other like styles I guess. Like the moves they were going to make And like their structures that you learned kind of thing what works best what doesn't work.

[00:31:19] So we'll just like we'll just do scenes with each other or we'll practice some of the games that sort of thing and see how it goes and then talk about it afterwards be like hey I think this choice is what let us down to this weird area that made it hard so.

[00:31:33] I don't understand what you're trying to do with that move.

[00:31:37] OK you weren't you weren't very clear with that move and so I took it this direction and I could tell that now threw you off slightly.

[00:31:43] So knowing the people you improvise with well like that helps a lot because you know what kind of like characters and styles. And.

[00:31:50] Yeah.

[00:31:50] You know.

[00:31:51] So is it a regular time that you get together like we in this space.

[00:31:55] we get together.

[00:31:56] And when you're in your venue and then it is it kind of serious like Okay we're rehearsing or is it more just we're getting together and getting to know each other.

[00:32:07] It depends on the week. Mean most of us have been performing with each other now.

[00:32:11] For years.

[00:32:13] Well yeah for me it literally has been 14 years.

[00:32:16] So.

[00:32:17] But a lot of troops that are forming will actually apart from the rehearsal though like mandated hangout times so they can get to know each other.

[00:32:26] Really.

[00:32:28] because that's an important part of it.

[00:32:28] And and you know there's also people who coach and improv. So like a team will have a coach sometimes that will just be there to give them feedback. And like.

[00:32:38] Oh cool.

[00:32:39] Kind of help them develop with doing on stage.

[00:32:43] Do you guys use a coach at all.

[00:32:45] We have coaches that are in L.A. and.

[00:32:48] They all come in and they do holding workshops with them and.

[00:32:51] Periodically.

[00:32:52] we're Always trying to add new like tricks and tools to our craft and stuff like that.

[00:32:56] Other than that we also kind of rotate as people who will kind of just sit out and watch everybody else.

[00:33:03] Oh cool right.

[00:33:04] Give some feedback because like I said most of us have at this point that the core group of off the cuff I've been playing with each other are known each other for years.

[00:33:10] Well that's another question I had. It seemed in today's performance I mean I've seen several of you before and then maybe a couple of new faces. How do you break in a new member. Like a hazing ritual.

[00:33:23] Yeah yeah we we we strip them naked. Cover them with tar and then we throw pillows on them. So This kind of goes to our classes which I know we're going to talk about a little bit later. But all of our players that we've kind of come to have been people who have participated in our classes or workshops at some point or another because what we look for before we put somebody on stage is just we like to see how they play with other people.

[00:33:55] Aha.

[00:33:56] And so if if people ask us How can I how can I get to be a part of performing on stage with off the cuff. That's that's the easiest yeah.

[00:34:07] Come to the classes and we see where you are from there. Right.

[00:34:10] Right. So aspiring improv comedy people out there. That's how you heard it there. That's how to get involved.

[00:34:17] And I mean here's the thing also. And again this kind of goes to our classes even if you don't want to do improv that's totally fine. I totally get that it terrifies a lot of people. It can be a scary thing. But as Wendy said earlier today I do believe that anybody can do improv and be good at it but if you don't want to do any of that you're the kind of person like I'm not a performer I don't want to go into that world because it's very lucrative. No it's not good. Is improv I've found just in general is really helpful for everyday life.

[00:34:56] Out of the core rules which we talked a little bit at the show was super beneficial for you as a person if you really embraced and implement them.

[00:35:03] It makes people honestly it just makes people better in general like some of the greatest people I know are all just improvisers and that's not just on stage. Offstage as well.

[00:35:17] Yeah.

[00:35:17] Because they have learned and adapted and taken in these tenets of that they're always saying.

[00:35:26] Positive and they're open and loving and.

[00:35:29] Always saying yes or being like you know accepting and.

[00:35:33] Adding onto what's going on.

[00:35:36] Committing fully to it leaving ego at the door because judgment is the biggest killer of improv.

[00:35:41] Judging yourself for judging other like improvisers.

[00:35:44] And respect in general.

[00:35:47] Well that's a perfect because when we when we get back I want to talk about the classes and the festival and get back to those four rules that I'm so fascinated about which you kind of alluded to. But now it's time for another song and this song is called bite the hand by Julian Baker and once again this is KSUU Thunder 91.1.

[00:39:04] Hey everyone. Welcome back. This is KSUU Thunder 91.1 the A.P.E.X Hour and we're in the studio with members of off the cuff comedy improvisation group based right here in Cedar City. We've been talking about their shows and we're going to get to some of the other things that they do but their website is otccomedy.com all one word And you can check it out. And they have regular shows on Friday evening at 10:00p.m. a great great date night thing to do.

[00:39:36] Yeah it seems like that seems to be a very popular thing. I mean you see guys guys walking in with girls, girls walking in with girls, guys walked in with guys all sorts of people

[00:39:48] People are definitely walking.

[00:39:50] People Definitely walking in. sometimes in pairs.

[00:39:51] Well One of the things I love to get into is some of the other things in addition to the weekly show which I didn't know a lot about what you do but you guys offer a ton of classes.

[00:40:05] Yeah we right now we've been doing we've been doing a class every so we'll do a class a five week class then we'll take like two weeks break and then we'll do another five week class.

[00:40:16] OK so they are five week commitment.

[00:40:18] Yes. Just one day of the week though Wednesdays from five to seven.

[00:40:22] So it's always Wednesday. OK.

[00:40:24] So it's not like a huge oh man five weeks and you have to be there every single day for hours at a time.

[00:40:31] I mean I think that that's a perfect time. It's like just a nice you know little block in there five weeks is like a really nice kind of length you know that's awesome.

[00:40:40] And it ends with. So they have five weeks of the class and then on the Friday following the last class they get to do a show a showcase show before our show on Friday. So they'll have their show at like 7 o'clock in our theater completely free for anybody to come and watch. They're encouraged to invite all of their family and everything and they get to show off what they are and about how about what are the sizes of the classes. We try to cap it off at around 12 ish does it. We've gone a little over that before. If if there's a whole lot of interest it's just tough to go too far beyond that because then not everybody gets a lot of time to actually play in the class. Do the exercises.

[00:41:22] And you're really getting into some great person. Let's see the emotional building personality building you know you're getting into some deep things and I'd love to ask you something about it. We mentioned a little bit the confidence building class that's the one coming up.

[00:41:38] January 30th. Yeah. So a week from yesterday. So this Wednesday will be the first of the first week of the confidence building class being taught by one of the founders T.J. Penrod. And yeah the class focuses completely on finding where you can be comfortable on stage how to kind of break out of your shell a little bit and figure out what your voices and improv and then kind of just you know dip your toes into the world of improv.

[00:42:11] And it sounds like it could even be a great class. I mean even if somebody is not like well I really want to get into performing but just kind of want to get more comfortable sort of in your own skin being out there conversing talking improvising like you were saying we do in daily life. I mean seems like it could be a really great thing for that as well.

[00:42:30] The big aspect of improv that I really like. There's a saying that you are enough right. Everyone is uniquely infinitely unique and right. Nobody has their life experiences and their views so that makes who they are and what they have to say Interesting because there's no other version of that.

[00:42:49] I love it.

[00:42:49] We want to hear your voice because nobody else will ever be able to do your voice so if you don't share it with us we're never going to get to...(inaudible.)

[00:42:57] We just try to help people find the courage to do that on stage.

[00:43:01] And I could imagine that maybe some parents are listening and maybe they have a teenager who you know is just sort of feeling out their way and that this would be something that would be appropriate for teenagers high school students.

[00:43:15] I would think so.

[00:43:16] Oh yeah we actually have we have a kid who's been coming to all of our classes since we started doing them. Who am I. I'm not entirely sure what his age is now but I know that when he started he was only like 12. I think we've talked all the way down to elementary school kids. Now that's a specialized kind of job obviously but we can usually handle middle school through high school in our regular classes.

[00:43:46] But I think that would be beneficial. Like I know in high school I was cripplingly shy so.

[00:43:51] I can't believe that yours like you're so outgoing.

[00:43:54] So I go I was very very like low self-esteem so I really think if I would have had some of these things I think I would have been.

[00:44:01] I'm still an introvert.

[00:44:02] Yeah.

[00:44:05] It just sounds like A great thing for free for everyone but for young people in particular you know who might be dealing with either confidence or shyness you know to get out there.

[00:44:15] Even if you want to like be come a better public speaker show if you want to do better at like presentations in class.

[00:44:23] Yeah.

[00:44:23] If you want to just be better at like job interviews and things all of those areas I've I've noticed marked improvement for myself if not other people as well.

[00:44:34] Just being comfortable in your own skin.

[00:44:36] Yeah fantastic. So that's the confidence building one and again that's going to start next week. Is there still space available.

[00:44:43] There is yes.

[00:44:44] So if you want to register for that class or are interested go to our website otccomedy.com. Go down to the classes section. You'll see where you can click to register for the class. It is fifty dollars for the five week course plus a show.

[00:45:00] That's a great price.

[00:45:01] And you also get into shows free.

[00:45:02] While you're in the class you get into all of our shows for free.

[00:45:05] Fantastic.

[00:45:06] Watching improv really helps you learn improv.

[00:45:08] Yeah.

[00:45:09] And then if you have any questions like for instance you want to join but you can't drop 50 dollars immediately because I know that college students for instance know super rich. I'm not even in college anymore and I'm still 50 dollars. It is tough for me. So we do offer payment plans if you just talk to us. We will set something up for you you can pay like ten dollars a week if you want to. By the time you're done the 50 pay half price half later.

[00:45:40] You can also.

[00:45:42] Work Study things where you can if you would like to volunteer hours.

[00:45:45] Ask us questions about possibly interning with off the cuff because we offer those as well. You can email info at OTC comedy dot com and just introduce yourself and what you're looking for. And we would. We'll get back to you. Almost immediate. Well I mean when we can't say immediately but we're usually really fast at getting back to people.

[00:46:08] And that's great. So you have some intern possibilities available as well. It sounds like.

[00:46:13] So essentially what they would do is in exchange for taking the classes they would work at our shows they would run concessions or run tickets that sort of thing.

[00:46:22] Perfect.

[00:46:23] Yeah.

[00:46:23] And so the confidence building one you have like an improv 101 in games. You also have classes on relationships emotion and point of view. Can you talk about those a little bit.

[00:46:36] OK so here's the thing. Improv there are so many schools of thought as to the best way to do improv. Yeah there are some people who are very sure of their way and say that it is the right way to do improv. And then there is a more recent trend in improv so that's kind of the older older improvisers from the 80s who have kids who are kind of like.

[00:46:59] Yeah there's certain schools that teach us very specific structure be it character based like scene based or teach it as the end all be all of how you're supposed to do it.

[00:47:10] But is it since 2000 and up essentially there's been this big movement of everybody just deciding you know what. There's not one right way to do this and everybody should kind of figure that out for themselves.

[00:47:23] I think the best way for you. Yeah.

[00:47:25] Taking classes picking and choosing the things that you like from that class that work well for you and then being like oh this other stuff is cool but throwing it away. And so our if our theory and off the cuff the thing we like to focus on is relationships in scenes and in addition to that though there is a lot of other elements that can go into it. And so we like to teach a lot of the different elements that can make your scene work more rich and more intricate and then allow for greater chance of success. And so we have classes like emotions because emotions is kind of what I like to call the cheat card of improv which is if you don't know what you're doing in a scene make a strong emotional choice about what just happened and see where that takes you right. Is it can help.

[00:48:16] Have a feeling about something right.

[00:48:18] Right.

[00:48:18] Or a feeling about someone right. Because that also have relationships in their point of view is like OK so am I a higher status or am I a lower status. How. How do our characters relate to each other it we are starting the scene and you're all the way on the other side of the stage and I'm right here why are we like that.

[00:48:39] A couple on a date that are like 5 feet apart says a lot about how they feel each other feel about each other than like.

[00:48:46] People who are like a foot apart from each other.

[00:48:49] I never thought of that in relation to to the scene.

[00:48:53] There's so many things like the temperature of the room sounds in the room right like there was this one show where there was a cricket that was trapped and the door wouldn't shut up that effects like everyone hears that and they're aware of that.

[00:49:05] We saw a show in L. A. that was at a theater that a nightclub had just opened up next door. And so so they were trying to deal with it because the music was so loud that it was hard to hear the shows. And these two guys who are amazing improvisers their team is called Ranger Danger and the danger ranger. They did. They've made the best move possible which was they decided to be bouncers at a nightclub for the entire show. Essentially And so they just had to be like. So what are you doing this weekend. Shouting over the music and stuff.

[00:49:40] Like your environment. Yeah. Those things all factor in.

[00:49:45] And I mean you know as much as we don't like talking about it as much but politics can come into play as well. One of the fun things to do is you either play what your politics are or what's even more fun is playing the opposite of what your politics are because then you get satire.

[00:49:58] Right. Right.

[00:49:59] Good times.

[00:50:00] Cool.

[00:50:00] Yeah.

[00:50:01] And then you have an annual festival that you host here.

[00:50:06] Yes we do.

[00:50:06] Tell us about that.

[00:50:07] So that happens in September every year it's usually around the 20th of September I could actually probably get the actual date right now. Hold on one second.

[00:50:17] And the name of it is.

[00:50:18] The Red Rocks Improv Festival.

[00:50:20] Red Rocks Improv Festival.

[00:50:22] Coming up is our 10 year.

[00:50:23] 10 years. And you have a tab on your website for it so you can find out more about that.

[00:50:29] I think this year's is going to be the 19th through the 21st September. Yeah. And it's it's 10 years running we have groups we've had people come through our festival from L.A. San Diego Chicago Phoenix Tucson Pocatello Salt Lake all over.

[00:50:50] Wow.

[00:50:50] We just open up submissions and people submit and They bring teams.

[00:50:54] That I was curious about that so that's how it happens. You open up submissions and people can apply to come.

[00:51:01] There's A website called The Improv network which is where all of us improvisers go to link together and also to submit festivals and put our stuff out.

[00:51:11] The Improv network.

[00:51:13] Yeah. And then do you guys sit in a room and adjudicate who gets the come. How does that work.

[00:51:19] Yes so what it used to be is that that was the case where we would it was usually myself T.J. and Wendy who would sit and be the adjudicators and pick and choose. Now we kind of pick and choose ones that we for sure want just based on knowing the people who submitted and then we send all the rest of them to an outside committee of unbiased people.

[00:51:45] That will watch and rate them.

[00:51:47] And then they'll rate them and send back what they thought and then we'll pick from that.

[00:51:51] Cool. And the festivals a few days. And is it evening performances all day long.

[00:51:56] evening performances usually starting at 8 o'clock going all the way through midnight each of the nights Thursdays sometimes shorter just because not as many people can come.

[00:52:06] Right.

[00:52:06] On a Thursday. But yeah and it's usually it's seven dollars each night for the entire night.

[00:52:12] Wow that that's a steal.

[00:52:14] If you only want to stay for a couple of hours. That's totally fine because you're going to see a lot of really great improv in that short time. If you want to go in for the long haul you can absolutely stay from 8:00 until midnight. You can be as exhausted as everybody else's and it's a lot of fun.

[00:52:30] what a great way to see improv from other places.

[00:52:33] Yes it's different styles and different.

[00:52:36] You know we had puppet improv one year.

[00:52:38] Oh wow.

[00:52:39] Yeah where they would do a mixture of sometimes they would have puppets and sometimes one of them would have a puppet. The other was just a regular person and they just impress.

[00:52:46] One of them was an actual puppeteer that's on Sesame Street.

[00:52:50] oh my gosh.

[00:52:51] So.

[00:52:52] She is one of the new puppets on Sesame Street.

[00:52:56] That's amazing.

[00:52:57] And then we've had like we've had the genreprov we've had there's a lot of.

[00:53:01] This last year we had an improvised Harry Potter. There they're all there was there was a group that came over for years that would do improvised Twilight Zone episodes. And then during the day we do have usually some workshops that happened like two people come down and teach different forms as well.

[00:53:19] And this is going to be the 10th year. So this festival has been going on for 10 years. And again if people want to check out more about it they can look on the Web site we want to make sure to plug that again. It's OTCcomedy.com And you can find out about the regular Friday night shows you can find out about the classes. And you can find out about the festival and you can buy tickets in advance if you want to. That's perfect. Yeah. So yeah cool. Well I have one other question. Well one I want you know I love these four rules. I think I've asked them like three times today. So there are four rules of improv. And actually I think there are four rules of life in a way. And what are those rules.

[00:54:00] I mean there's other stuff beyond it but usually there's guidelines.

[00:54:04] This is our philosophy. This is off the cuff's philosophy which is always yes and you will hear that in almost any improv group yes and is a big rule.

[00:54:13] Keeps things going. Makes things go to the next thing.

[00:54:17] You have a chicken on your head. No I don't.

[00:54:19] It's just something that just yet just about acceptance and adding on to it.

[00:54:23] So it's not necessarily saying absolutely yes to everything but it's about accepting what has been said all day and building.

[00:54:29] Beautiful in life as well.

[00:54:31] Like a tennis match you can't play unless the person is hitting it back to you. So.

[00:54:35] You automatically win if no one hits it back.

[00:54:37] Well that's boring

[00:54:41] So always yes and commit fully.

[00:54:43] Commit fully.

[00:54:44] Anything you're going to do do it 110 percent.

[00:54:47] I love that.

[00:54:47] Nobody got to where they are. Nobody won an Academy Award. Got up there and said Well thank you. I gave it about 25 percent right. Yeah. Michael Jordan never.

[00:54:57] It was not like nobody nobody. Any acceptance speech was like I really phoned that one in.

[00:55:02] Yeah.

[00:55:02] Yeah. Give it give it your best give it the play at the top of your intelligence.

[00:55:07] Preach preach. I Love that.

[00:55:09] Leave your ego out the door is the third one. This one feeds into all of the other ones because you can't yes and and you can't commit fully if your ego is in the way

[00:55:18] Most of the time when improv goes wrong it's because of ego.

[00:55:21] It's because either you're judging other people and their choices or more importantly and more often you're judging yourself.

[00:55:27] Right.

[00:55:28] Which holds you back.

[00:55:29] And then respect is the final one just respect each other respect.

[00:55:33] The audience.

[00:55:33] The audience respect the craft respect like where you're at in the theater.

[00:55:39] Yeah I just love those I feel like they could be Maxim's for life for everyone really.

[00:55:45] Generally Like if I try to apply him to my life as much as possible.

[00:55:48] I actually. So Wendy and T.J. Penrod. I was the Minister for their wedding when they got married. And I actually used those four as the rules of marriage.

[00:55:58] That's amazing. Absolutely. I mean you know that's fantastic I love it. Well I can't believe our time is almost up. I do have my favorite kind of last question that I ask everyone and it's like sort of what of these just fun kind of how you're feeling type questions. The question is is what's turning you on this week. And so I'll give you a second think about it doesn't have to be it could be anything it could be a movie could be a TV show. Could be a book it could be an album we've had people say all of the above but it's just a fun way for our listeners to get turned on to new things. So let me ask you what is turning you on this week.

[00:56:41] Do you Got something Rev, I mean I do.

[00:56:44] Yeah. So right now because I'm teaching English class I got the opportunity to read for the first time I haven't read it yet. I am Malala which is a fantastic book.

[00:56:59] OK. Remind me the author Again.

[00:57:01] Malala can never pronounce her last name.

[00:57:04] OK but she won the Nobel Peace Prize.

[00:57:08] Right. OK.

[00:57:10] Many not many years ago a couple of years.

[00:57:12] Yeah.

[00:57:13] And she was the one who shot in the head by the Taliban.

[00:57:15] Yes right.

[00:57:16] And survived and now lives in England and is a big proponent and fighter for women's education and women's rights in the Middle East.

[00:57:26] Right.

[00:57:27] And it's a beautiful novel written from her perspective. She's got such a fun way of relating her experiences. And it's very natural and I can't recommend it enough.

[00:57:40] Oh OK great. Thank you for that.

[00:57:42] Yeah man I wish I had gone first because mine is so much less.

[00:57:46] Is yours Going to be the team of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

[00:57:48] That's yeah there's a few new comic books that I'm really I'm a huge fan.

[00:57:52] But the beauty of this I've been you know like if you ask me I'd be like here New York housewives.

[00:57:56] I'm also playing Smash Brothers right now. So That's cool.

[00:58:00] But there's a few new comic series and I'm really digging.

[00:58:03] OK what are those.

[00:58:04] Young justice and the new guardians of the Galaxy series. OK.

[00:58:07] So who's on the new guardians of the galaxy.

[00:58:10] Oh it's Starlord.

[00:58:12] Right.

[00:58:12] Groot. Beta Ray Bill Kuspit Ghostrider Moon Dragon and phyla Bell.

[00:58:19] Well the names alone are well worth a look. Okay well thank you so much. I mean what a joy it was to have you. I feel like we could have kept talking for more and more you guys are so good at keeping the conversation going and letting us know all the great things that you're doing. Remind our audiences that the off the cuff shows are every Friday night at 10:00p.m. here in Cedar City. You can buy tickets ahead of time or you can go and tweet and hope that you maybe are part of the social media.

[00:58:47] Wendy's social media extravaganza.

[00:58:50] We can give away a free show every week yeah

[00:58:52] That's fantastic. And you can find out everything about the shows the classes and the festival on their website which is otccomedy.com. Thanks so much guys for being in the studio.

[00:59:03] Thank you. It was wonderful.

[00:59:03] Yeah.

[00:59:03] Well we'll sign off for this week. This is the A.P.E.X Hour Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the A.P.E.X Hour here on KSUU Thunder 91.1 Come find us again next Thursday at 3pm for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus. Find out more check out suu.edu/apex until Next week. This Lynn Vartan is saying goodbye from the A.P.E.X. Hour here on Thunder 91.1