This is your 4th year doing DIF. How have you seen the improv community grow in your area in the last four years.

This is our fourth consecutive year of having the improv Festival in the metro Detroit area. It certainly has had a long-term effect on improv in our community. The Go Comedy Improv Theater’s class enrollment has multiplied since they opened six years ago. ComedySportz Detroit opened last fall and has had a great impact on the improv scene. Planet Ant Theatre started full time improv classes over the past couple of years and has had great success. This is not all directly attributed to the festival, but DIF allows our communities to come together and showcase the talent that we have in our area. It also brings some of the best improv talent from around the country to our area to show the possibilities.

We’ve also put a lot of effort over the past couple of years into expanding the DIF organization into a true source of community outreach. We are (finally) a fully licensed 501(c)(3) non-profit and we work year-round on connecting the improv community to ways to give back to Metro Detroit as a whole. We have an ongoing partnership with Gilda’s Club of Metro Detroit which includes fund-raising and providing free improv workshops to those touched by cancer. We have also worked with HAVEN (supports victims of domestic violence), Havenwyck Hospital (a licensed psychiatric and substance abuse facility) and The Greening of Detroit (works to improve the ecosystem of Detroit) among many others, because drug addiction and substance abuse is becoming a big problem in the states, if you are addicted or know someone who needs help, please visit this article about https://firststepbh.com/blog/checking-boca-raton-rehab-center/. In addition to the obvious good that comes out of these programs, it increases the awareness of improv.

You’ll have tons of performers coming from all over the US to perform at your festival. What can a troupe expect while performing at your festival?

We try to bring a unique experience to our festival and play to our strengths. We have an excellent audience that sells out most weekends at our improv theaters throughout the year. Our three main theaters in Ferndale are located just a couple blocks from each other. We have a core group of volunteers that is very enthusiastic and plays the part of ambassadors for our visiting troupes. The visiting troupes can expect: first-class treatment; a great stage experience; suite accommodations at our host hotel; comfortable, clean and welcoming homes with our local improvisers; delicious, sponsored food at our workshops and in our green rooms; excellent opportunities to meet and mingle with other improvisers at after parties, barbecues, hospitality tents; and new for this year, a welcome reception with champagne toast, and so many more surprises, including a gift bag with Detroit goodies provided by our sponsors. Ok, so the bag isn’t a surprise anymore.

You guys have some great headliners and workshops this year. Tell us a little about that and why you decided to pick them.

Not only do we try to bring the best improv talent from around the country but we also try to make this a homecoming. We have an annual invitation to The 313, one of Detroit’s most popular improv troupes, to return to the city where they started. Actors Keegan-Michael Key, Maribeth Monroe, Andy Cobb, Nyima Funk, Joshua Funk, Marc Evan Jackson, Jaime Moyer, Sam Richardson, Marc Warzecha and Larry Joe Campbell try very hard to come back despite their very busy schedules. We are also welcoming back natives Jon Glaser, Tim Robinson, Mike O’Brien, Norm Holly and others to play a huge role as headliners and workshop instructors. I also travel with my day job and see some of the amazing improv around North America including Toronto, Chicago, L.A. and New York. We’ve invited amazing talent such as Kevin Dorff, Susan Messing, Colleen Doyle, Jason Shotts, Tara DeFrancisco, Rick Andrews & the Magnet Touring Company, Natasha Boomer and the guys from MANTOWN. Each headliner plays a different role in attracting both audience members and improv troupes to our festival.

Our festival has expanded this year to a week long celebration of improv due to Fred Willard’s acceptance of our invitation. On Sunday August 3, he will host a Q&A and take part in a Meet & Greet prior to our licensed screening of the improvised film, Best in Show, at the historic 1600 seat Redford Theatre in Detroit. He will also be performing improv with his comedy troupe, The Mohos, during the evening. We hope this event will attract attendees to our festival who are unfamiliar with the art form of improvisation. We already have a large amount of pre-sold tickets for Opening Night and expect the evening to be a huge success. The amazing Matt Naas and the Sing-along Singers will be performing improvised songs prior to the film and we will also have an afterglow next door with local and out of town troupes.

What’s going on in the city when improv isn’t happening? What should people do?

We try to offer our out of town improvisers as much improv as possible. However, on Saturday August 9 after we have a Festival Barbeque, workshops and a family-friendly improv show at ComedySportz Detroit there is time to tour the city with some of our volunteers. We are very proud of our city and would love to showcase it for our visiting improvisers. We also have some amazing restaurants in the downtown Ferndale area that help us produce this festival. But I’m not going to lie. Most of the activities that we have planned this entire week will be improv-based.

What do you hope performers will take away from DIF?

We hope that they will remember the festival as a time to connect and reconnect with old and new friends. We hope to be recognized as a festival that must be attended and experienced. We came up with our tag lines of “Be What Happens” and “See What Happens” based on the premise of, like improv, “you have to see it to believe it because it will never happen the same way again.” It’s truly the visiting troupes that make our festival a success and we want to continue this tradition.

Nick is Camp Director and Founder of Improv Utopia an improv retreat for adults in California and Pennsylvania. He is also one of the founding members of the National Improv Network and performer and teacher at iO West as well as member of The Sunday Company at The Groundlings. He has also taught many workshops around the country.

My 2-person team, Fancy Football (with Holly McKee Clark) were lucky enough to get into the First Annual Femprov Fest ’14 in San Francisco. The ladies put on a killer festival for their first go ’round! Many high fives to Jill Eickmann and producers Chrysteena Lairamore, Radhika Rao, Michele F. Salami, and Sabrina Dax who handled publicity. The shows were held in the Tides Theatre off of Union Square with solid line ups. The fest had not only improv teams but also sketch and stand up in the mix. I was massively impressed at the crowd they pulled in for all the slots. My team’s slot was almost sold out in the 100ish seat theater. The fest ran like a well-oiled machine with no awkward lulls between sets. The festival also had some co-ed and lady-focused workshops which I didn’t get the chance to attend (a bit out of my price range), but looked awesome. Me and Holly did get some solid hang out time with the Jill, her staff, volunteers, and members of the other teams at a nearby pub. Free popcorn brings people together my friends.

I’m very excited to see this fest grow and develop in the many years to come. It doesn’t matter what gender you are, you’re gonna want to witness the fun!

Jodi Skeris

In my time as a performer, I’ve had good shows and I’ve had bad shows. I put “bad show” in quotations for a reason, which you’ll see why later. You can’t always be ‘on’ nor should you be. You need to have a bad show every once in a while to bring yourself back down from cloud nine. Most importantly, a bad show keeps you humble and it keeps you hungry. The feeling I have after a bad show is the worst. So bad that I don’t want to feel that ever again. So bad that I actually want to perform again that night to get another try. I didn’t always think that way though. There were times where I would let a bad show ruin my night or week and dwell on it. However, with time, I learned that dwelling on it wasn’t pushing me forward, but instead holding me back. Below I’ve listed some things or ideas to keep it mind that have worked for me when walking off stage after what I considered a “bad show.”

1. Identify what didn’t work

You have to take a step back and think about what occurred during the show that didn’t work for you. Specifically, what YOU did personally during the show. DO NOT and I repeat DO NOT tell others what they did that didn’t work during the show. Leave it to your coach to identify what other people did or didn’t do wrong. It’s not your place to say, “Hey you played a character that steamrolled the whole show!” That will always be taken as a personal attack and it’s also not your place to say such a thing. So, think about what you did specifically during the show that didn’t work. Maybe you came out and said a line trying to be funny and it bombed. Maybe you played a character that was a bit over the top and didn’t allow your partners room to speak. Identify those SPECIFIC things so that you can work on them or stop doing them in future shows. If you’re someone who is constantly running out to be in the first scene and your shows have been lacking lately, maybe take a step back and let someone else have a try.

2. Identify what did work

This may seem contradictory to the above concept, but it’s not. There are so many different facets to an improv show. It’s easy to walk off stage after a show that didn’t get many laughs and think the entire show was a failure. However, that’s not always true. At a basic level, you would consider that a “bad show”, but in reality there is no such thing as a bad show in my opinion. There are off shows sure, but not ‘bad.’ There is always something someone has done in a show, no matter what, that is something creative they brought to the table. Remember we’re getting on stage and making things up, which takes confidence, courage, and creativeness. The three 3 C’s. It could be a minor detail of the scene (“this cabin is cold”) or just calling your scene partner “Dad” or “Mom.” Those are ideas and they wouldn’t have occurred had you or your partner not brought them to the table. Remember that. A bad show would be two people standing there staring at each other saying absolutely nothing for 25 minutes. You have to think about the things that you did during the show that were minor accomplishments. For example, I did a show in a bar (barprov) where there were little to no laughs from the audience. I could have considered that a failure, but instead I focused on the things that worked well for me and bettered myself as a performer like good scene work, object work, and the edits being on point. There is always a silver lining. There’s always a plus side. I’ve (and I’m sure we all have) heard audience members say, “I could never get on stage and do what you do.” Remember that when you stop and think, “I suck” because you’re doing something that is considered inspiring in someone else’s eyes.

3. Be critical

Don’t bullshit yourself. In the past, I would say to myself, “well I was having fun and that’s all that matters” after I had an off show. I wasn’t identifying what did or didn’t go wrong or right, but instead just saying, “hey that was great guys!” That mindset was not getting me any better. I wasn’t moving forward, but instead staying stuck in the rut that I had now created for myself. Sure, having fun is one of the main reasons why I started doing comedy in the first place, but I also want to be a good performer and I strive to be better at doing something I love. I started to be more critical and rather than patting myself on the back for a mediocre show I started being much harder on myself. For example, something I may say to myself now would be say “that character got laughs (good), but I repeated that catch phrase too many times which watered down the character (bad).” If the show didn’t go well then tell yourself that. If you want to be good at something you have to be a relentless critic of yourself. There is always a better to your best. You can walk off stage having the best show of your life or the worst show of your life, but there will always be something that you could have done better.

4. Move on

The show is over and there is nothing you can do to go back in time and change that. That’s a fact and until time machines are created there is no changing that. There is no point in living in the past nor should you want to. After a show, briefly (by brief I mean 10 minutes) take time to identify the things that worked and didn’t work and then MOVE ON. Sure, you had a bad show and it sucks, but you can’t live in that. You can’t dwell on that. You have to take the notes you’re given (even if you’re giving them to yourself), and look forward to the future. This is something that applies to any failure in life. You don’t want to live in the failure and be miserable about it all the time but instead learn from it and strive to be better.

5. Schedule another show

If you don’t have another show scheduled on your calendar then schedule one. As we’ve all heard from Batman Begins, “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” I remember that line every time I fail at something in life. We fail so that we can learn from it and work harder about so it never happens again. One of the biggest motivators for me after an ‘off show’ is knowing that I will always have another chance. There will always be another opportunity to try again. Having an off show also brings you back down and reminds you that you’re not untouchable. It keeps you hungry.

As a performer, no matter what level you consider yourself (beginner or advanced), you will always have good and bad shows. It’s inevitable. You won’t be hitting homeruns at every single show you perform in and even if you’re consistently getting laughs, there is always a better to your best. You need to constantly challenge yourself and be hard on yourself so that you can grow as a performer. You need to identify the things that worked and the things that didn’t work for a short period of time after a show and then look forward to the future to apply what you learned.

Once again, that’s only until time machines have been created.

Ryan Nallen is a graduate of the iO Training Center, the Second City Conservatory, and the Annoyance Theater in Chicago. Ryan performs regularly with his independent team Switch Committee as well as on the Playground team Desperado. In addition, he is an Associate Producer for Big Little Comedy, which produces the Big Little Comedy Fest each year. In January 2013, he completed an entire month of comedy by performing 31 days in a row. He’s a frequent blogger (ryannallen.com, NIN, iO Water Cooler), Pinterester, Instagramer and Tweeter. Based on that previous sentence, it can be assumed that he has no life.