If you follow Crossroads at all then you know we produce Study Hall: Comedy Inspired By Lectures. We welcome experts from all fields to speak on a topic and then our cast uses those lessons to inspire fun scenes. Lecturers do not need supporting materials such as slides, video, or audio – but it does sometimes help an audience grasp exactly what a lecturer is trying to say. It also sometimes opens up more opportunities to inspire the improvisers.
We use a program to run our show called QLab. I pile all tech files in there. It’s pretty great and makes tech a one button operation; however, there is no native PowerPoint support. For this reason I’ve had to have lecturers send in their images instead and do the old “next slide” from the stage. It’s a casual show, but I never liked it and neither did some lecturers – opting to go without rather than interrupt the flow of their presentation. Since January’s show I’ve been trying to figure out a way in which we could 1) Integrate PowerPoint presentations 2) Allow lecturers to control it from the stage and 3) Not interrupt the generally smooth flow of the show in order to set anything up swap equipment or cords and 4) Do it with QLab. Every time I got the chance I would look into options, test things out at home, or run it live at the theater. Nothing was working. So many fails. Hours wasted.
For the March 21st Study Hall Dr. Aukerman had a PowerPoint he wanted to show on the Mandela Effect (see below) and control from the stage. He gave me notice and said if we still can’t do it, that’s fine. I insisted for some reason – I still didn’t have a solution that worked with QLab and didn’t interrupt the show or have me lugging around more equipment. For the 60+ minutes prior to the show I was in the tech booth trying things and nothing would work. The cast arrives. Lecturers arrive. I got nothing. It’s about 12 minutes until show time. Dr. Aukerman is looking up at the hopelessness emanating from the booth and kindly says don’t worry about. That he can do without it no problem. What I hear is Tony “Duke” Evers in Rocky yelling “Throw in the damn towel!”
Then, as if Dr. Henry Jones Sr. was holding my hand as I reached for the Holy Grail as the Temple of the Sun crumbled around us, I thought to myself in a Scottish accent – “let it go”. And I did. I let it go. I’m Indiana Jones and QLab is the Holy Grail here. I thought, OK, so if QLab is off the table, what else could we do. Immediately a new solution came to me. One that was right there the whole time. No extra equipment. No interrupting of the show. Easy to explain to our tech operator. Controlled from stage. We tested it, it worked, we opened the house and had a great show. Of course during the show there was one quick moment on the first slide when the presentation didn’t advance. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to let out some swear words, but it was fine. A wrong button pressed on the clicker quickly corrected and moved forward.
I was dead set on my way to achieve a goal being the way it needed to be done. I got over it, approached it from another angle, and got a better solution. It took reminding myself that I was in improviser, having some self-awareness that I was the block, and a little pressure for added motivation to get through it. Not exactly dire circumstances, but this issue was taking up so much of my brain and now it’s done.
That’s the lesson on how improv can assist in every day life. Everyone finds themselves in those situations. You have a way that you want something done, but it’s just not coming together. Improvise. Be open to ideas. Get out of your own way.
The lesson for improv isn’t much different. You can have an idea in your head when you enter a scene, I’m fine with that, but you have to be prepared to let go of it and build something together with your scene partner and team. Also, regardless of how long you’ve been doing this, you’re always growing.
Mike Marbach
Founder & Managing Director
