Improv Hawaii

"If there's a story, we'll make it funny."

DOCUMENTARY. Squire Coldwell, R. Kevin Garcia Doyle, Meredith Desha Enos and Chris Riel are among the members of improvisational theatre group Loose Screws who perform an improvised "Documentary" on November 14 and 28 at 10 pm at Laughtrack Theater. Inspired by the popular movies of Christopher Guest, like "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind," Loose Screws' "Documentary" improvises a complete 30 minute documentary based on an audience suggestion. Tickets for Loose Screws' "Documentary" are available at the door only 30 minutes before show time and cost $10. Laughtrack Theater is located at 1123 Bethel Street. For more information, contact R. Kevin Garcia Doyle at 294-0734. (PHOTO BY SHAWN THOMSEN)

Spaced 1919 was our summer long form production this year. It was and is a parody of shows like Firefly and Battlestar Galactica.

We're bringing it back for next week's Improvaganza with a few changes.

First, Mr. Matt Miller has big farewell to Honolulu and is currently in Chicago. Second, Ms. Alisa Joy Lee is going to be performing with On The Spot in their awesome "Musical" production.

Long time Screw stalwarts Walter Eccles and Sharon Garcia Doyle are stepping in to take their places as similar - but differently named - characters.

We're also playing with some different performance style choices. Several of us were fortunate to have an opportunity to have a workshop with Jason Chin, who was awesome. He led us through a series of excercises aimed at, among other things, heightening emotional reactions and treating what your scene partners said as if it had deeper hidden meanings.

We worked some on this last night and the scenes were much more interesting. While the show still leans towards wacky comedy, I think it will be pleasantly "deeper" this time around.

We've made the choice to try and make our version of The Living Room a little more like a story about a group and a little less like a random collection of scenes.

Specifically, we've been working on using a kind of scene structure called Platform/Tilt/Resolution/Tag to focus the group storytelling more on how the group telling the story changes over the course of the performance.

A Platform is the every day, boring world of the characters. For example, perhaps these characters get together at a restaurant every day.

A Tilt is the event that happens for the first time in the performance. Perhaps this is the day that one of the characters admits he doesn't like the other characters.

A Resolution is how the situation initiated by the Tilt comes to a logical end. Perhaps the group rejects the character who doesn't like them.

Finally, a Tag is a hint about how things might be from that point on. In this case, maybe it is suggested that they won't be eating together as much any more.

Anyhow, the way this structure works is that the group is getting together, like it always does, and in the course of talking about something, they re-enact various scenes from the relationships of the different characters in the group. Something is revealed for the first time and, in the course of dealing with this revelation, the way they deal with each other changes.

That's the plan, at any rate. We'll be debuting this on Saturday, September 20 at 10:00 pm at the Laughtracks Theater.

The other major project that Loose Screws is developing at this time is a Horror Improv show.

We would like to create a show that is entirely improvised, is genuinely scary and tells a story.

There is a current discussion on this very topic happening over at YesAnd.com.

We're probably going to use Asian horror movies as a jumping off point. Monica proposes exploring the idea of a mundane object - like a newspaper or toothbrush - being a cursed thing that leads to the horror that occurs later.

Walter, who acted in a production of the horror play The Lady in Black, has made some excellent suggestions regarding the importance of having an improvising foley artist.

This play will probably open sometime in February or March with the intent to perform it on Halloween from that point on.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject!