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The Book contains...
-Fascinating autobiographical information on the exciting life of a career Drama teacher!
-Top secret technical details about a unique form of Performance Improv (that works on stage, in the classroom, AND in WORK and LIFE)!
-UN-Art, and how to use it to insert as much of YOU as you can into YOUR WORK and LIFE!
Ah... The book!
The book is out and available on the Lulu Bookstore, which you can access by pushing this button, cuz buttons are cool...
It is, of course, brilliant, but more importantly, I can still say that it is mine. I wasn't sure that would be the case as I struggled to self-publish in an environment where technology and homogeny intersected to make my very "ME" book pretty UN-publishable. Yet here it is... YAY!
I have attempted so many "Descriptions" of The Book... This is the one that made it to Lulu...
Challenging Improv... (and all those other words in the title) is a book... sort of. It's chock full of Improv-hacks, games, cartoons, sketch comedy, random thoughts, and tons of rock solid information on how to use your art (or theatre or dance or music) and specific Improv techniques to turn your work and life into something beautiful. Written as it was lived... improvised... by a teacher who has worked and lived his dream for more than 30 years. As the cover says, after all those other words... It's an UN-Official Autobiography and UN-Manual from and UN-Abashed UN-Artist and Improvisor. (Should that be... UN-provisor?) Every word, every image, even the structure of the book itself is designed to take you on a very alternative path to satisfaction, joy, and beauty in whatever you call your work... and life. That meandering path is paved with UN-even words and UN-sophisticated pictures and your guide is UN-reliable and possibly UN-hinged, but the journey is sure to be fun and ultimately worth it... UN-believable.
And if you aren't sold already, here are some sample pages. One of my paramount principles in writing this is that I would write it HOW I wanted to write it, not how I thought a book SHOULD be written. These pages illustrated the "LOOK" and "FEEL" of The Book, rather than the content. As I state in many ways in The Book... The HOW IS the CONTENT! Hopefully, that will all make sense.
WARNING!
WARNING!
So... not a "REAL" book. What does THAT mean. Let's put it this way... It took longer to format this book in a way that could be published by ANYONE than it did to actually WRITE the book. Most publishers called the book "illegible" mostly based on overlapping words and images, but also for constantly changing fonts and fast and loose interpretations of spelling and grammar. AND... the structure of the book itself is based on an IMPROV form called The Harold, which is extremely complex even for trained improvisors. So... The Book is not an EASY read. It's cluttered and busy and your eyes will get a bit of a workout switching between all the images, cartoons, games, fonts, and general chaos on every page. The magazines and comics I used to read as a kid looked like this, but times changed. "Easy Reading" is pretty much like "Easy Listening." I like my music loud and challenging. The Book is CHALLENGING.
The WHAT is the HOW!
The WHAT is the HOW!
Like every poncey, wanabee ARTEEST in the 80's, I took a Film class in college. I took away two things... Film is much harder to make than to watch and talk about AND "The CONTENT of a film IS HOW it is made." Or... The WHAT is the HOW. I stuck to watching and talking about films for the most part, but I TAUGHT the WHAT is the HOW just about every day. I love that concept. The Book embodies that concept.
The WHAT of the book is Improv and Art and putting YOU into everything you do. That is exactly HOW The Book is written. It was written Improvisationally with tons of Art and oodles of ME on EVERY SINGLE PAGE. I'm trying not to "TALK" about my subject, but to "DO" that subject.
PLAY!
PLAY!
I believe that EVERYTHING can be made into a game. AND that every game has some sort of RULES. These rules can be thought of as TOOLS for YOUR WORK and LIFE. The Book tries to OFFER these tools through a variety of Improv Games, Sketches, Hacks, Illustrations, Cartoons, and, hopefully, amusing prose. Everything in here is designed to be CHALLENGING AND FUN.
"I hope you relish it as much as I..."
So, check it out. Call it a Textbook. Call it a Self-Help Manifesto. Call it late for dinner. In Challenging Improv, you can't be wrong, so call it whatever you like. Read it, and it might change your life.
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