Laugh until it hurts
 |
Julie Tattershall will teach improv basics during her
Resonance workshop,“Laugh About It!”
Monday and June 25.
CORY YOUNG / Tulsa World |
|
By MATT GLEASON World Scene Writerc
6/18/2007
Resonance hosts improv class that teaches everyday lessons
Imagine, if only for the time it to takes to slip in and out of another's shoes, that you are 4 years old.
Now zip from the school yard to the dorm room to become a 20-year-old.
Finally, let time's withering power bow your back and slow your stride just as it would a 90-year-old.
Now you're angry. Feel it well up inside and explode.
Now you're sad, feel the emotion stab your heart and make your eyes water.
And then the game continues on.
Julie Tattershall, who founded Tulsa's longest-running improvisational comedy troupe, will use that game during "Laugh About It!" the second of four, two-session summer workshops in Resonance's "Dream it! Laugh About It! Act It! Write It!" series.
Tattershall's "Laugh About It" begins this Monday and continues June 25.
|
In those two sessions, the artistic/managing director of Heller Theatre and Clark Theatre, will give an introduction to improvisational comedy, but also provide lessons that carry over to everyday life.
"The best thing about theater is it gets you in touch with your emotions," Tattershall said. "... Acting is the closest thing where you get to pretend to be somebody else and that often allows for compassion; tolerance for other people and groups and people with different ideas than you -- so that's a good thing."
"Also in improv, you have to solve the conflict in a creative way and you can't solve it through violence," she continued. "You can never solve a scene by killing the other partner because that leaves you alone on stage ... so they always have to come up with some other solution in problem solving."
Plus, improv is a team sport, of sorts, but without some of its negative aspects.
"Theater -- all of theater -- is a cooperative art form and most activities for kids are competitive. It's always making you less or you better," she said. "So when you get an opportunity to be in a cooperative art form, or activity, then you have a chance to develop group skills and you don't have to worry about whether you're less than or better than -- you just are."
The rookie
Dev Cambra is a first-grade teacher in Broken Arrow who, along with her two gal pals, will learn comedy's version of bebop from the local master.
Cambra once took a drama class but admitted she'd much rather watch improv than do it. As the workshop approached, the mother of two teenagers imagined how she would play Tattershall's role-playing game.
Cambra teaches 6- and 7-year-olds at Arrow Springs Elementary School, and has children of how own, so she understands how to convey a 4-year-old's cartwheeling, fun-loving ways and how children wear their emotions on the sleeves of their superhero T-shirts.
And, of course, Cambra was once a 20-year-old so she would convey the attitude that's so unfettered by real-world problems and leaves the group so carefree and happy.
To play a 90-year-old, Cambra's youthful character would age and slow to a careful, sometimes unsteady, gait.
As Cambra thought about herself as a 90-year-old, she hoped time would be kind on her body and allow her to sit back and reminisce on a life well lived.
Soon, that life will include two nights back in June of '07 when a lady named Julie taught Cambra to face her fear of performing without a net.
"I'm sure that's a big part of it," Cambra said of why she signed up for the workshops -- all four of them, "because we're always supposed to be pushing the envelope a little bit and taking a bit of a risk to grow. I think that's what this is all about."
Matt Gleason 581-8473
matt.gleason@tulsaworld.com
Workshop
"Laugh About It,"
A two-session improv workshop
When: 6-8 p.m. Monday and June 25
Where: Resonance Center for Women, Inc., 1608 S. Elwood Ave.
Admission: $30, 587-3888 for reservations and information about the two remaining Resonance workshops
The U.S. Department of Interior strictly prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age,sex.or handicap in its federally funded programs and activities. If anyone believes he or she has been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility he or she may file a complaint alleging discrimination with our dept. or the Office for Equal Opportunity, U.S. Department of Interior, Washington, D.C. 20240.
Heller Theatre Home