The Spontaneity Shop: Performance and training Improvisation company
Home > About > Q And A > Dan O Connor
- What's your potted improv history?
- I started improv as a kid in the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. We learned about Commedia with set characters and plots but improvised dialog. The theatre group I was involved with in High School had us perform improv as curtain raisers before the main productions. In college at Webber Douglas we used improv as a tool for training but not in performance unless someone went up on their lines which did happen during a production of "The Recruiting Officer" so I had the opportunity to try and improvise in Restoration English.
When I moved back to San Francisco I fell in with a group "Fratelli Bologna" who along with local director Sylvia Tucker invited me to the very first Theatresports workshop in 1986. After two weekends and one performance with Rebecca Stockley of Seattle Theatresports we formed Bay Area Theatresports. We quickly needed to learn to teach TS so we took turns teaching each other and then built the company from there. They just celebrated their 20th Anniversary. In 1987 I moved to Los Angeles to find more acting work. Not finding much I went on tour to Europe performing improv with a group of actors and stand-ups from San Francisco including Brian Lohmann. While in London, Brain and I taught Theatresports to the burgeoning London Theatresports group which included at that time Lee Simpson and Phelim McDermott (Now of The Improbable Theatre).
One of the shows we did with London TS was at the Canal Cafe. It just so happened that an improviser from Los Angeles, Jeffrey Wiessman, was in the audience that night. He asked me if I would teach his group the "Flying Penguins" when I returned to LA. His group along with my founding partners Ellen Idelson and Forrest Brakeman became the nucleus of LATS. So LA Theatresports was hatched in pub theatre in London spring of 1988.
- You were the Artistic Director of LA Theatresports for a long time. What advice would you give to other ADs about running a company?
- Be committed to your vision but more committed to your company. In other words... it doesn't matter how cool your idea is - if they don't buy it - it won't fly. Most successful large theatre companies start as small happy and determined... Cults. I use that word because when we first started in LA we were having so much fun that people thought we were a cult or high all the time. The fact is we were all discovering it together and had no other goal but making each other laugh. The business end of things should be like the playing end of things. If people don't like playing with you...chances are you doing something wrong. I don't think the same thing applies for the Business manager though. And I definitely think the person handling the business should NOT be a player.
- What do you love about improv?
- It's always something new and the best part is that the audience is right there to experience it with you. The other great, great thing is that failure is often the best part of it.
- What's your favourite improv memory?
- We were playing a festival in Austin, Texas. The show was Triple Play and the play part was an improvised Anton Chekhov piece. Ellen Plummer endowed one of the first scenes with a duck being caught on a frozen lake. At the end of the play Sherry Bilsing playing the "Nina" type character killed herself by walking out on the "lake" and in the process freed the trapped bird which then the rest of us watched fly away. It was funny and it was Chekhovian and it was a great story improvised over 90 minutes which held up great.
- If people are in LA why should they visit LA Theatresports?
- Cause its bitchin' dude and not a cult. FYI we are Impro Theatre home of LA Theatresports now.
- We hear you did the impossible and made an improv TV show. What's the story?
- Too long to tell here. Suffice to say without mega television star Kelsey Grammer it probably doesn't happen. Also we managed to sell them on the idea of failure being part of good comedy.
- Next year is The Spontaneity Shop's 10 year anniversary. As someone who's performed with us and taught workshops for us what advice would you give us for the next 10 years?
- Let people run with their ideas so that the place is always being innovative. Don't do a format so long that it becomes tedious. Put things down from time to time and find something new. Bust people who try and force their good characters or great ideas into scenes that haven't called for it or don't need it. Anyone who is planning ahead of time is not improvising enough. Take classes elsewhere from time to time so you don't get myopic. Bring what you've learned into the mix and let everyone play with it. That way you won't become an institution in the wrong sense of the word. And never object to anything unless you can provide a solution...it will cut your meetings times in half.
- What's your maxim for improv?
- Don't go looking for conflict. The conflict is you are on stage without a script.
- What's your maxim for life?
- Listen.
and...
Stay alive no matter what occurs!
- How many degrees of separation between you and Kevin Bacon?
- Two and we have the same birthday.
- Would you rather receive an Oscar or wield a light saber?
- Oscar, I live in LA and have been an actor since I was 8, unless I could be a Jedi as well then I could use my powers for good and I could...
