Indiana Thespian Workshops 2023

I got the chance to work with high/middle school students today with a couple of workshops for the Indiana Thespian State Conference at St. Mary's College in South Bend, IN.  

Morning

The day started with waking up at 5 AM and driving to South Bend.  I was all set to use a Starbucks gift card but found at that Starbucks wasn't open that early in the morning; however, Dunkin Donuts was open so I got my donuts and coffee from there.  C'mon Starbucks, really? Homie woke up every morning because it was "Time to make the donuts"!  You're too sophisticated to wake up that early to do the same?  #LostBusiness.  The drive was pretty uneventful as I listened to YouTube and YouTube Music along the way to keep me company.  

Navigating a college campus in the dark is difficult.  Hardly anything resembling signs are lit well and of course the names of the buildings are always on the side you're never on.  So, I ended up by accident parking in the right place using a PDF map and stumbling my way over to where my first workshop was - at 8:15 AM ET.  

To be honest I wasn't too optimistic that I would get a good attendance for my Intro to Improv workshop as it was really early.   As I showed up to my room, I saw three students sitting outside eating and talking.  I greeted them and opened the door to my room.  I was immediately disappointed.  The room was a boxy, traditional college classroom complete with desks and chairs. All of that equipment would severely limit how much room we would have to move around.  I immediately sprung into action and rearranged the room by pushing desks against wall and chairs underneath.  I was pretty proud of myself as I opened the room pretty well - until the students walked in.

I had 40+ students and chaperons stuffed into this room.  Our first warm up with to do a circle warm up but with so many people, someone suggested a second circle in the middle.  At first I was against it but then figured "Why not?"  So, we got a second circle in the middle set up.  As I was going to start my first exrcise, the door opens up and an adult peeks in.  She asks, "Do you have room for more?"  I say, "We'll make room.  Bring 'em in!"  "We have 11", she says.  I think about it and say "Yep.  We'll make room."  I turned to the room and said, "Make room for a third circle!".  

I scrapped all of my plans and said, "We're doing a three layer Zip Zap Zop".  I explained how I wanted them to play it; they would pass energy by making eye contact with another player and pass it along.  The goal was to try to get through all three layers each time.  It worked like a charm.  I debriefed the exercise and discovered a new way to do a tired exercise and make it exciting.  Plus, I got to demonstrate the idea that listening important; had I not listened to the suggestion, I would have never found this version of  the game.  The rest of the workshop got us to the point of improvising some games and was well received.

Mid-Day

I took lunch in the student center by paying for a morning brunch buffet.  It was pretty good.  The area has a very open atmosphere and every seemed nice.  I did notice that there were a lot of women in the dining area but I didn't pay any mind to it.  I ate my food quietly at a table and by myself while watching politically charged YouTube clips.   As I walked out, I noticed a big sign pointing to a lunch for the conference.  I was like, "Cot damn it.  They provided food and I didn't know!"  Luckily it was a boxed lunch so I took it and decided it would be my dinner later on.

I then decided to check out the vendors and recruiters at the events and struck up conversations with a bunch of them.  I'll spare the details here but I got three interested parties into bringing me and/or a group of mine out to expand their curriculum with improv workshops.  I also got a chance to reconnect with a former artistic associate from Salsation who had worked their butts off to become a professor and leader of a program at one of the universities.  We exchanged pleasantries and talked a lot of shop around our journeys from the point we played in Salsation together to getting to our current positions.  As a teacher, it was nice to feel that I was a bit on par with his academic roadmap.  I have super respect for "real" teachers especially in the public school system as they have such a hard job taming the craziness of youth while trying to embed some knowledge into the hard heads of these kids. 

Afternoon

I also took the time to beg for a new room as I knew I'd have a lot of people for my second, more advanced workshop.  I connected with the right folks and my wish was granted (I owe them a beer or two since we had to swap out another class for mine to get the room).  The second workshop was just as killer as the first one and held a couple of surprises.  The first being that when I went around the room getting names, pronouns, and reasons for being there, I had a few students come back to the workshop due to how much the really enjoyed the first one.  That warmed my heart and boosted my ego to end.  The second was I was able to stuff a lot of games and participation into a 1.25 hour workshop and walk out there with most kids really enjoying themselves.  An hour fifteen isn't much time to go into more advanced concepts bu tI feel I pulled it off in a cohesive manner.  It also helped that I had one of the aforementioned teachers wanting to collaborate take the class so I got to show my value to him and give him a taste of what I could do with his students.

Before I went home, I decided to hit the student center again just in case they decided to serve dinner.  I once again saw a huge queue right outside the dining room area so I went inside and saw a full Italian spread waiting to be served by the staff.  I ended up striking up a  conversation with the manager in charge along with many of the servers and was able to get a to-go box filled with goodies for the ride home.  

Summary

Overall, this was a pretty fruitful day.  I've got some gigs out of it while getting paid to share what I already know.  I reconnected with an old friend and made some new ones.  All in all, it was a success.

Dodging Bullets:A Retrospective

Growing up I felt that I was lucky to have people love me.  I thought that I would never have a girlfriend, ever get married, and have someone other than my mother who loved me unconditionally.  So, I took it upon myself to jump at the first opportunities that came along figuring that it wouldn't last long; thus, I'd need to get the most out of the experiences as I'll end up lonely and alone eventually.

I was pretty nihilistic at that time in my life.  And it was middle school through high school. Sue me.

One of the clearest memories I have was of a girl that I fawned over for my entire junior year of high school.  She was really pretty, really nice, and we would talk forever in my American history class whenever we were allowed to.  The fact she paid any attention to me was a blessing.  The fact that I could make laugh was a sign of things to come in my adult life - I might have a chance to be with her even if it were for only a brief period. There was only one snag in my plan.

I spent a lot of time trying to quietly convince her to break up with her boyfriend.  She would spend time in each class we had together telling me the problems they were having and since I had this strong belief that I could transcend being in the Friend Zone just by showing her that I was so unlike her boyfriend at the time because I was nice, a great listener, and really smart (I was actually pretty cute too but I couldn't see it at the time).  I never had the courage to ask her out (she had a boyfriend, right?) or to tell her how I felt but I carried that unrequited crush through the end of the year into the next. We graduated and moved onto creating our own lives.

I always held a sweet spot for that time in my life and stayed in touch with her off and on through the years.  We became friends on social media and noticed she didn't really keep up with it.  I'd occasionally see a picture of family or of animals or of skylines.  I didn't gain any real insight into her life - just figured she'd reach out eventually as my social media was always active (granted, it only shows my "improv life"). We (I assume) were friendly from a very far away distance.

Then Trump gets elected.

Radicalization of an Old Friend

During the last few years I started noticing occasional pro-Trump posts from her pop up in my feed.  I was caught off-guard a bit.  As background, I'm obviously anti-Trump but don't actively proselytize it, but if you engage me in talk, I'll let you know my stance. However, my vision of this person I knew over 20 years ago began a change to a negative portrait.  My cognitive dissonance was in full effect.

I started checking in on her social media a bit more.  She started posting a lot more and many of her posts were either sharing pro-Trump memes or links to unsourced right-wing websites that supported her political leanings.  Gradually she graduated to posting up her "own thoughts" on the current political landscape; most of these musings were more like ultimatums that, like everybody else, she never really knowingly followed through with:

"If you support XYZ, I will unfriend you now!"
"IF you think I'm racist because I support freedom and liberty, unfriend me."
"The patriots of this country will rise up on those who believe in infringing my rights as an American.  Don't tread on me.  I will tread back.  Der der der. 'M'r'ca!" (I added the last couple of sentences)

With every post, I ask myself, "How did an educated, beautiful, sweet person change into an ugly, misguided, uninformed conspiracy theorist hellbent on putting her hopes into a narcissistic, ineffective,  twice impeached numbskull like Trump?"  

I still have no answer. 

What Now?

We still don't talk on the regular so I naively hold out hope that she'll come to her senses eventually.  I am sure she's thinking the same for me - not me per se - but rather people who don't agree with her politics.  I struggle to not taint my memory of her versus what I've seen her become.  I do welcome a day she and I get to reconnect in person and see just how different we really are in a conversation.  I won't hold my breath that day'll come though with our collective track records.

#IKnowMyWorth (The Origin Story)

If you've ever followed any of my social media, you would have seen by now the hashtag #IKnowMyWorth trailing some recent announcement, rant, (not so) humblebrag, or "astute" observation.  Recently, an article was published where I got a subtle nod about its usage and I it inspired me to write about why I use it so ubiquitously.

#IWILLBEGREATERTHAN

TJ & Me

A few years ago I was in a long-form musical team with a fantastic group of actors.  I would say I was a novice to intermediary player at the time and was still getting used to the idea that I could maybe have some success doing the whole improv things.  The more senior players on the team played multiple shows a week for the theatre we were playing at and forced me to have to buckle down to answer "What kind of player am I?"  We were so full of talent; we had the zany guy, the super smart and wickedly funny girl, the power duo that could anchor the entire show by themselves if they wanted, and the stupidly skilled musical genius who can stop a show with a rousing number.  I needed to figure out where I fit in.  Through the rehearsal process, I met TJ Medel.

TJ was new to this level of improv gawdliness too.  He was (and still is) super talented in his ability to not only act but to hold the attention of a crowd.  I felt like I could learn a lot from watching and playing with him and we could rise together in the ranks of the improv malaise known as "Making It in Chicago".

One night we were driving back to his place after rehearsal and I had noticed through social media that he had been using the hashtag #IWillBeGreaterThan on a pretty frequent basis so I asked him about it.  The short story was that he had a falling out with someone who told him he wouldn't amount to anything by pursuing his artistic passions; it hurt him so much to feel so disrespected and unsupported, he used that pain to fuel his artistic endeavors to become successes and show her that he will "be greater than" anything she could've expected or even dream of him doing.  I completely resonated with that story because I operate along the same lines in taking adversity and turning it into something positive as a big FU to those who doubted me.  Little did I know how that story would manifest a new hashtag later down the line.

The Set-Up

Meme captured and designed by Angela Heid

Fast-forward to a couple of years ago.  I hooked up with a new crew of actors doing long-form improvisation over at a major theatre in Chicago on a regular basis (yes, I'm keeping it vague on purpose!).  Artistically I was now at a different personal space having worked hard to establish a number of indie teams and toured a bit around the nation performing and teaching workshops; thus, I've had time to hone in on what my "voice" was, i.e. be able to succinctly articulate and perform the kind of improv I enjoyed doing.  The group I was playing with had a varying degree of talent ranging from experienced to beginner, and due to how the operation was being run, coaches were swapped in and out roughly ever 6-8 weeks.  My hope was that by showing that I could handle myself on stage, being supportive and attentive during rehearsals, and being social off-stage, I would be given an opportunity to show what I could do as a coach. And guess what - the opportunity DID present itself!

Sort of.

I had spoken with the powers-that-be about me helming workshops on musical improv for the team.  I knew it'd be a good fit since I had already been teaching it on a regular basis and had experience performing it for the last 10 years.  I was given a date and was ecstatic about doing it.

The date was a few weeks away from the initial planning and I had begun formulating an approach for the workshop.  As we got closer to the date, my Spidey Sense was going off and told me to go check out the team calendar they had set up with all of our show dates, rehearsals, and workshops reflected.  I went to the date of my workshop and saw an entry there - but with someone else leading it.

#DaFuq?

The person leading the musical workshop was totally capable of doing so but they had pulled them in from outside of the rank-and-file team members to help; this person lacked the personal history with the actors to assess individual skills and cater the workshop to take advantage people's strengths  while helping their weaknesses.  In time, yes, they would get to know these pesky details but why not go with someone who was already up to speed?  I had sacrificed a lot of personal time, money, and effort to be a contributing member to the team and felt like I got slapped in the face.  They didn't even bother to notify me about the change.

So, after allowing some time to pass, I put together a simple message asking the producer, "For the musical workshop, I see that X is leading it.  Is that correct?"  I got back something to the effect of, "Yes.  They'll be leading that workshop."   I waited roughly half an hour for some kind of elaboration or reasoning behind the decision.  It never came.  So, I wrote back, "Thank you", closed the window, and decided immediately that it would be the last time I would be working with the team.

I forgot to mention that were doing a ton of regular rehearsal to play in shows in large teams for roughly 15 minutes every other week on an off-night.  Over time the quality of instruction was inconsistent and rehearsals felt sluggish due to early morning start times and actors being actors the night before performing, rehearsing, or just plain actually having a social life outside of improv.  I was spending roughly 8 hours a month rehearsing to play a maximum of 30 minutes (with up to 10 other people).  To add insult, even though though we were supposed to be headlining all of our shows, we would have openers that would either have more stage time than us or would actually play after we got off stage (way to headline, y'all!).  All of these small inconveniences and personal grumbles compounded over time, and I was ready to allow some other transgression to make me throw in the towel on the whole endeavor.  That workshop substitution move satisfied the requirement.

The Punchline (#IKNOWMYWORTH)

I KNOW MY WORTH!!!

If there is one thing I've learned is that success is the best revenge.  When I was younger I would obsess about getting even with people I felt wronged me; I would put together elaborate plots of intricate payback in my head and play scenarios over and over in my head in great detail.  Vast amounts of energy were spent plotting the demise of others - most of which never came to fruition.  With the passage of time and gaining life experience (along with some much needed therapy), I've learned to manage my anger more and channel it into more productive ways.  Now I admit that this isn't necessarily the best approach for my mental health overall but I get turned on by the idea of getting a fire lit under my arse to overcome adversity and imagining my haters talking schnizz behind my back despite their bets efforts to block me.  They may not actually be foaming at the mouth to wish ill will on me, but I use the semi-fictitious narrative to propel me forward (I really need to go back to therapy).

I decided at this point to commit myself even more to reaching milestones that automatically garnered respect from my peers; that included teaching/coaching in major institutions, performing and leading lucrative workshops across the nation, producing new shows, and picking up hard-to-find skills in the community such as musical directing.  In conversations with my close friends about my feelings, I kept repeating, "I know my worth. I don't need this."  After what felt like the billionth time saying it, I suddenly remembered TJ's story and thought, "We've got similar MOs [methods of operation].  I'm going to pay homage to my homie."  Thus, #IKnowMyWorth has become branded on a majority of my social media posts so that sucka producers are aware that I've got the ambition to overcome them when they decide to become gatekeepers to my future.

Spoiler-Free For 30+ Years

I am special. Somehow, at an early age, I had developed an immunity to people "spoiling" a show or movie for me. You can tell me everything that's going to happen and I'll still go see it because the art of storytelling is held by few and many details are left out in the telling of a story. Most people can tell you the "what" of a story but many times they leave out the "how" & the "why" which is what I get to experience for myself.

Case in point: I remember my Dad taking my brother to go see the Clint Eastwood classic  "Firefox", a 1980's Cold War spy thriller where an American Vietnam war pilot is trained to steal an advanced Russian warplane from the heart of the Soviet Union.  I was so envious they had the chance to see it (it was treated "R") that I settled for the next best thing - I had my Dad tell me the entire movie. I sat on the floor of his room for an hour patiently as he explained the intricate plot points, the interactions between the characters, the motivations behind those characters, and the results of decisions made throughout the movie. By the end of the storytelling session, I felt as if I had seen the movie myself.

I eventually rented the movie from the video store and watched it. My Dad's telling of the story was incredibly accurate and have me a deeper understanding of what I was watching. His rendition of events couldn't capture what I thought at the time were some of the best special effects on a movie; I really thought all of the scenes with the plane were so good that I was truly there. I didn't feel that I lost any enjoyment of the source material even though I already knew what was going to happen. I've read Wikipedia summaries of the show "Lost" while watching the episodes during DVD-binging marathons, have had kids tell me the plot points of "Knight Rider" episodes while I was on bio breaks, and have pieced together movies based on parody movies I've seen elsewhere. I never once felt like I missed out on the chance to discover something new for myself.

These days people lose their bloody minds of you "spoil" things for them. To me that level of investment over a movie or TV show is too much. A good story is a good story no matter how is conveyed and can be enjoyed no matter how many times you've heard it before.

Looks Like I'm Doing Something Right

Last night during my break from teaching class, I locked eyes with a fellow instructor in the teacher's lounge.  She looked like she wanted to connect so I introduced myself and she said, "Oh my God!  YOU'RE Nelson!"  I was taken a little bit by surprise but kept my cool.  She then said, "I have a lot of your former students in your class and they say 'Oh Nelson taught this' and 'Oh, Nelson has taught us that' and I could tell that they really did learn things from you.  I know you really know what you're doing."

That felt absolutely awesome.

I did my best to stay humble and accept those comments without losing my cot damn mind and thinking I was awesome.  I think I did a good job by just smiling even harder and maintaining eye contact during our conversation.  We talked a bit about our respective histories at the training center and what our approaches were for teaching improv to our students were.

My approach to teaching improvisation is to not only expose my students to new, exciting ideas, games, and connections, but also explain the theatrical philosophy behind the usage of those items and give them consistent, practical real-time tools that they can use for themselves to explore the artform while trying to develop their own artistic voices.  Some tools may work for them while other may not, but at least they understand the theory behind the tools.  The other teacher and I resonated on this and that felt ultra-cool!

It was nice to know that I had made a large impact on my students; so much so that my name is being spoken in high regard to other teachers and piquing their interest in finding who I am. I must be doing something right.