Product Description
The best comedy improv singers know every trick in this book, a great addition to any performer's library. Clear, everydaylanguage explains each element of an improvised song. Simple building blocks are combined with performance tips to raise a performer'smusical improvisation to its highest level. The included CD, featuring cast members from ImprovOlympic West's hilarious Opening Night, TheImprovised Musical, provides * examples * exercises * practice accompaniments ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Only the basics
I was really excited to pick this book up and then became very less so when it arrived and I could see instantly that it wasn't going to hold much.The type is large and there are huge gaps between each paragraph.I was hoping that at least the few words would be worthwhile... but after finishing the book in less than an hour I didn't find much.

What I got was talk about the different rhyming schemes in songs (ABCB, AABB, Etc.).The same type of stuff you pick up in fourth grade when the music teacher arrives once a week.

There is so much to musical improv and as a teacher myself I was really looking to get another perspective on things.I would have covered everything in this book in the first half of the first class.

I believe that you can (and should) learn something from every teacher you encounter.I would say that the most important thing I learned in this book was to keep the songs short (actually very good advice -- it keeps you out of trouble), but it seems that the author took it to heart a little too much.

I do give credit (and all three of the stars) to the CD that it comes with.It's not ground breaking, but it is a good way to warm up when you don't have someone around to play for you.

Improv is very subjective and it's not easy to teach in the written form --so much of it has to be experienced, but I still think that there was a lot of information here that wasn't conveyed.I'd bet that if you took classes from the author you'd get a lot more.You don't get where he is in this business without knowing what you're doing -- writing about it is another thing.

A great overview but not very indepth
I did enjoy reading this book; the author has a nice style and covers a good range of information. There were several areas in the book where the author pointed to other books for further information that I was hoping would be included in this book, but it is a short and inexpensive introduction to musical improv. The CD really makes it worth getting. It not only demonstrates some of the concepts but also has plenty of tunes to use for practicing your own improv. Perfect for getting you started on musical improv, just realise that you probably will want to pull from other resources as well.

Get the Hook and Get this Book
I found Michael Pollock's Musical Improv Comedy an excellent compilation of technique, theory, and practical exercises explained in a way that is easy to understand for those of us with no previous musical training. Pollock has that rare ability of being able to connect with boththe advanced performer and the beginner -both will find his work valuable and relevant- especially with regard to understanding the craft of musical improv and applying the creative skills.The book's format is clear, well-structured, fun and easy to move through. Each chapter includes concrete examples and exercises for practice. The practice CD deserves special recognition, as it makes the learning process even more compelling and truly enjoyable.
Under Michael's clear direction, you'll discover how exciting and stimulating the art of improvising a song can be. Allow yourself to have fun and get ready to sing along.

Practical, inspiring and highly, highly readable.
I really couldn't recommend this book highly enough - Michael Pollock is one of those rare people whose genius at what he does is equalled by his genius at teaching it.

As an Aussie improviser who has always loved musical improv (but only seen its application limited to the odd 'theatre-sports' style game) reading this book marked a real turning point for me. Not only did it open up my mind to the possibilities of musical improv, but it explained the nuts and bolts of how to do it in a clear and simple way. This book has laid the foundations of how to approach musical improvisation, while igniting my passion for it!

The CD is brilliant too, bringing to life the examples in the book and allowing you to put your skills into practice right away.

If you're at all interested in musical improv, don't even question it: just buy it now!

Jenny Wynter, Australia

The Easiest and Most Complete Resource I've Found
I teach Children's Comedy Theatre in North Hollywood.We have been doing improvised singing for a long time and I've always wanted a nice easy resource to use when teaching people how to create a song on the spot.This book is it.Not only is it VERY simple to follow and an excellent source of information, it also contains a CD that will be a fixture in my teaching for ages to come.If anyone has ever improvised a song, played music, or just wanted to be able to think quicker on their feet, this is the book for you.

... Read more

Product Description
101 Improv Games for Children and Adults starts with the basics of improvisational comedy, giving aspiring performers the building blocks required to think on their feet. A great resource for educators as well as for the professional actor or layperson, the book includes rules for 101 games that cover everything from easy warm-ups to over-the-top crowd pleasers, such as Fairy Tales, Bizarre Games, On Your Toes, and Narrative Games. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Improv Book Helpful!
I have been using this book for it's improv ideas at school.It is a good resource, but my bunch of kids are young (k-2) and most of the games are pretty difficult for that age group.We've been trying to modify to make them work, but they are still pretty hard.Otherwise, it's a great book!

101 Improv games
The product came very quickly and in great shape so I am happy with the seller.The book is pretty decent, but some of the explanations are alittle confusing and unclear, also some are not good for children.It'll definitely help me with teaching my drama class though.

Great for Classroom
The games in this book are very easy to adapt to a classroom environment.With time being compacted into curriculum and creativity being drained out of children, these games offer an outlet children don't get at recess or on the playground.

Improv is Fun
I am acting teacher who owns her own studio called Star Map Acting Studio in New York and there are a variety of classes and workshops childrenand adults can take so you have to keep things interesting. I found the Improv game book very helpful and full of fun ideas. It kept my classes this summer fresh and new. I can't wait to use it this Fall for my new classes I am sure my students will have fun with all of them.

101 improv
this book is good, has alot of games I plan on trying alot of them. ... Read more

Product Description
You have planned in detail, thought of every contingency, put back up measures in place. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, something you didn t think of, that upsets your careful preparation goes right ahead and happens, just when you least expected it.This experience is universal. The dead don't improvise, but if you are alive you do. Improvisation is part of every conversation, meeting, presentation, design, process or strategy. Business leaders, managers, teachers, cooks, parents all have to improvise, as, in fact, does anyone that works with.... other people.This book tells the story of a collision between business and the art of improvisational theater. It recounts one business person s adventure in the improvisational world and how he finds universal utility in an unlikely place, uncovering examples and stories of improvisation in action worldwide.Everything s an Offer explains how the practices of improvisational theatre can help you make more with what you have, using less effort, less energy and less resources (whilst creating less difficulty and stress). It demonstrates how this small set of practices act as the basic building blocks of communication and relationships and illustrates, with myriad examples and stories, how adopting them makes life and work simpler, easier, more fun and more productive. It suggests how anybody leading a busy and complicated life can put these ideas into action and why doing so will help them lead a more satisfying, creative and sustainable life.It extends the applications of improvisational theater far beyond it's obvious use in the business world for team cohesion and individual motivation. It explores the possibility that improvisation is a new language for business - a language that has been used by Fortune 500 companies such as Nike, Intel and FedEx to help them communicate better, build stronger relationships internally and with customers, propell people into action and get to new ideas and solutions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Everything Is An Offer
Everything's An Offer: How to do more with less
Wow.
Ok, truth in lending.I know Rob Poyington.We met at Oxford about ten years ago.He showed up on a Sunday night wearing a quiet demeanor and a Gary Hirsh tee shirt.Two hours later we had a group of senior executives from all walks of life, from all over the world, in a very different place - open to possibility, engaged, curious, and more relaxed.As I went to sleep that night I said, "Wow."I could see that there was something here, but I did not quite understand it.
In the years since, I have tried to live it and to spread the gospel to my own leadership development clients; everything is an offer, attend, create flow, let go.Wow.Not a bad way to run your business or your life.
What Rob has done is make sense of all that.There was no bibliography for Improv.Now there is.
And this is it.
And it is well written, usable, thought-provoking, and life-changing.
Thanks, Rob.

It's becoming my Mantra: Everything IS an Offer
I'm really appreciating the book and the insidious way it is all becoming a part of my working attitude towards life with all its surprises.The stories bring the author's concepts into view in a most delightful and instructive way.I've read up to and through the blocking chapter and looking forward to the rest.I think it will be a great resource for a long time to come. I'm a yoga teacher and this enhances what I can offer to my students.

Must Buy Book - for leaders, managers, parents, teachers & anyone who interacts with other human beings
To situate this review in context, I'm an executive coach and consultant in the middle of a PhD program trying to figure out how cultural change happens in organizations.Everything's an Offer has become my favourite book. It offers the best exploration so far of what happens at the intersection of improvisation, organizational life, and relationships.

Provocative and stimulating (with a delightful sense of playfulness) Rob and Gary welcome us and challenge us to reflect on the way we show up in day-to-day encounters with each other.Referencing (very accurately and respectfully I might add) great writers like Wheatley, Hillman, Jaworski, Capra, and Abrashoff -amongst others - as in "holy smokes Rob Poynton is well read and super smart" -and weaving in vivid stories of real life experiences, this book teaches, inspires, tickles and delights.I keep going back to it - and will continue to do so.

What I especially love is the delicious blend of ideas/concepts/theory with pragmatic "here's how you can actually start practicing this now" suggestions.I must say, my vacation at Christmas with my feisty and fabulous teenage kids was definitely more fun because of reading this book while the holiday unfolded - I was practicing noticing more, using everything, and letting go. It worked!

A few of my favourite excerpts:

"The plan should be a springboard, not a leash."
"Remember, everything you do is an offer."
"In relationships, giving too much priority to control, regularity, and predictability is counterproductive. You can't sustain the interest (let alone the affection) of a colleague, customer, audience, or lover through control."
Citing James Hillman, "Ideas we have and do not know we have, have us."

The book is brilliant.Buy it.Buy it for your friends and colleagues & anyone who cares about living a joyful, creative, connected and human life.

Lessons for Business and Life
I love this book. It's provided me with the motivation to be a better parent and consultant...funny how valuable I've found it to be with my 4-year-old, even though I bought it for tips on being better in my business.

As I dove into it, I was struck with what a nontraditional business read it is. It's dense material...and there's a lot of it. So, I'm using my time reading it as a chance to be present and really chew on the material. The format might not be for everyone, as it's not filled with bullet points. But if you give it the time and immerse yourself in the content, you will be greatly rewarded.

A must read - an indispensible practice for both work and life!
I just finished 'Everything's an Offer' -- read the whole thing cover to cover in one sitting -- an indication of how well written, easy to read and follow, and inspirational this book is. This book is an ABSOLUTE MUST READ on your list of books for Life -- it has valuable lessons, tools, lanugage and examples from the techniques of Improv that you can use immediately in anything you do for work or in life. This book will be the gift I 'offer' many people this year! ... Read more

Product Description
Prominent alumni (Mike Nichols, Joan Rivers, Robert Klein, among others) bring theatrical improvisation to life, with all the vitality, the power and the exuberance--the satire and spontaneity--that they made famous and that launched their careers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A History of Chicago Improv: Rashoman-Style
An insightful and even-handed look at the origins of Chicago-style improv, through the varied, humorous, and occasionally conflicting perspectives of the pioneers themselves. Sweet does a masterful job of understanding the relevant history, personalities, and creative process in such a way as to elicit meaningful and fascinating reminiscences. Rich in priceless anecdotes, it makes one wish the uniquely qualified Sweet would pen a second volume with more interviews with and about the other early improvisational groups, the developments of the 70's to the 90's in Chicago, the broader effects of SNL/SCTV-style sketch shows on comedy, and the contemporary use of improvisational techniques by screen writers and directors.

A biased reader loves this book
Jeff's review may be self serving, but so is mine - my dad, the late Bill Alton, is interviewed in the book.This is probably one of the best books about Second City because it is written in the words of those who created Second City.Don't get me wrong, Sheldon's new book is O.K. but this book is better.Bless Jeff for getting these interviews before we lost too many of the original performers.If you can only get one book about Second City - buy this one.

Fine history of the grandaddy of all comedy troupes.
For those not familiar with the Second City, it is basically the granddaddy of all comedy troupes.Started in the mid-'50s as the Compass Players, it transformed into Second City in 1959 and has been going strongever since, even opening sister theatres in Toronto & Detroit.So manyof our current and past comedy stars have started here, it's mindboggling. The Belushi brothers, Bill Murray, Alan Arkin, Joan Rivers, Robert Klein,Chris Farley, Bonnie Hunt, Ryan Stiles, Richard Kind, David Steinberg, AlanAlda, Peter Boyle, the entire cast of "SCTV Network," PhilipBaker Hall, Mike Myers, Bob Odenkirk, Tim Meadows, Dan Aykroyd... the listgoes on and on.This book was written in the '70s and is a collection ofinterviews w/ several of the company's key writer/performer/directors,among them Gilda Radner, Avery Schreiber, & Mina Kolb.A must-read foranyone who loves improv, sketch comedy, theatre technique, and,specifically, the Second City!

Fascinating and valuable to any student of improv
I read this book when I was first starting out in improv about 12 years ago. It features interviews with many of my heros and is still inspiring to me.I went on to work at Second City years later and found this bookessential to my understanding of that place's traditions as well as thefact that traditions are made to be broken--with respect, of course.

Oral history of Second City
This is a completely self-serving comment because I wrote thebook.But it occurs to me that it's hard to tell from the listingwhat the book is about. Briefly -- it's an oral history of the Second City, the Chicago-based theatre that popularized improvisational comedy.There are extensive and exclusive interviews here with Mike Nichols, Barbara Harris (her only full-length interview in more than 25 years), Alan Arkin, Alan Alda, Joan Rivers, Robert Klein, David Steinberg, Gilda Radner, Del Close, the late, great Severn Darden, Paul Mazursky and the founder, Paul Sills.Being a book about people who created classic comedy, it can't help but be funny.But, beyond that, it and Viola Spolin's Improvisation for the Theatre and Keith Johnstone's Impro offer concrete ideas on how to build theatre of all kinds -- not just improv.I have been told by several people thatSomething Wonderful helped them decide what kind of theatre they wanted to do.(Mick Napier, founder of Chicago's celebrated Annoyance Theatre, was quoted as saying this in an interview with him in Chicago Magazine.) Certainly, working on the book changes my own ideas about the theatre in general and playwriting in particular.(How is the subject of another book, The Dramatist's Toolkit. Incidentally, I'd be delighted to receive E-mail regarding any of my writing.Jeffrey Sweet--E-mail: DGSweet@aol.com ... Read more