I've Just Moved - Can I Play?

I've Just Moved - Can I Play?

Moving your life to a new town or city is a big undertaking - there’s a lot to sort out. So what’s it like getting settled in a new city’s improv scene? Hear from three improvisers who have moved their lives to another city and then worked on fitting into that city's improv scene.

This episode hear from:
Robby Appleton (formerly Tennessee, now Chicago)
Cale Bain (formerly Toronto, now Sydney)
Liam Webber (formerly Nottingham, now Sydney)
Check out ITS Comedy Festival for which Liam is a Festival Director
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Moving to a new city is undertaking. There's a load to sort out

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Liam: I left that feeling like I was on top of the world, like I could do anything. And I get here and it's like, oh, no, you you gotta work really fucking hard all over again.

Lloydie: This is the improv chronicle. I'm Lloydie. Moving your life to a new town or city is undertaking. There's a load to sort out when you do it. So what's it like getting settled in a new city's improv scene

Robbie Appleton moved to Chicago five years ago for improv and comedy

Lloydie: Let's get on an L train in Chicago.

Robby: I'm Robby Appleton, I'm from Tennessee, and I moved to Chicago five years ago, and I perform intermittently around town wherever a friend asks me to join in. I don't have a regular performance schedule.

Lloydie: So you moved here for comedy, right?

Robby: More or less, yeah. My family's from the area, and so I was familiar with Chicago, but improv and comedy is really what brought me here properly.

Lloydie: You came to a very different scene then, to, what has emerged after all of the lockdowns.

Robby: Yeah, it was kind of like a shining beacon of improv. There were all these established theaters all over town, doing their thing, and now a lot of those places are running out of the backs of bars or running out of no place in particular. It's changed quite a bit.

Lloydie: I mean, if the scene looked then like it does now, do you think it would have been as attractive for you to move to?

Robby: Yes. Yeah, I think so. In fact, I think I kind of like the scene better right now than three years ago. I, don't know if that's a hot take, but I found it hard to take, to feel ownership over shows, over theaters. And now I'm seeing places that had had a spot for ten years or something now are doing, bar Prov. And I feel like my place in it's a little more important. I feel like I have more control as, a member of the scene than maybe I did before when everything was so established.

Lloydie: the kind of breaking up of some, of the big stuff and the rearranging of it has kind of, I don't know, given artists more ownership of their art form, maybe.

Robby: I mean, maybe that's just my take on it, but I feel like I've always loved it since I got here. But I felt like when you had Second City and IO and CIC and the crowd, and all these places had their established spaces and they had their histories, and it was not always easy to know where I would fit into that. But, now I feel like everyone's having to reevaluate what they're doing. And that means that people who have just been here for the last couple of years have a chance to be a part of the rebuilding process.

Lloydie: So you've been here five years, in another five years, what would you like the scene to look like?

Robby: I would really like to see more small theaters. I feel like as COVID hit IO and Second City had both been built into these giant things that an improviser in town knew they weren't the only game in town. But that's what the scene looked like from the outside. It was second scene and it was, mean. You know, that's not true, but I think now we have a chance to actually build it up to be like theaters all over, you know, may come back in a new place. Lincoln Lodge is a stand up place. They're doing some improv stuff now. Like, there are a lot of places all over town where you can get performance opportunities and it feels a little more fragmented, but maybe there are opportunities for people to kind of buck the traditions and do new things.

Lloydie: So, from a train in Chicago, USA. To a car ride you were part of in the last episode in Sydney, Australia. Cale Bain is from Improv Theatre, Sydney.

Cale: I grew up playing in the Toronto equivalent of the theatre sports scene, both in high school and outside of high school. And then just sort of came up Second City vibes in Toronto.

Lloydie: Yeah. And then you moved to Sydney, and.

Cale: Then I moved here with my wife. Yes.

Lloydie: So what was it like navigating a brand new improv scene? what were the kind of familiarities, but what also were the kind of challenges and differences?

Cale: I came here and it was primarily a theater sports scene. and it was people with very, good acting chops. but I had a different approach of the kind of openness and the kind of, organic natures of improv that came out of a lot of the early 2000s herald stuff that I had been doing at that time. and I specifically wanted to play that more open, less handled, less structured type of organic play, which wasn't happening here. So I just started teaching people that and started putting on shows doing that. and Australia is lovely, as Liam will recognize, because if you're not from Australia, they fucking love you. You are exotic if you can say, oh, he's from Canada, or he's from the UK. Or oh, they're know Madagascar or wherever, that has an appeal to people here. So I was afforded the opportunity to start doing these workshops and then put on shows and then literally, in an entirely selfish way, so I could play the style of play that I wanted to.

Robin Hood: Improving in new cities can be difficult. What advice would you have given yourself

Lloydie: The because you came. From Toronto and there is a theatre sports scene. Must have there must have been a commonality in some of the language at least and improv.

Cale: but the theater sports the theater sports scene in Toronto was so two things. One, theatre sports scene here is actually genuinely competitive, which is not a thing of what I experienced with theater sports in Toronto. The theater sports in Toronto. The competition was faux competition was part of that, Keith's ethic of like it's part of that kind of fake wrestling vibe. But the other thing is that it was theater sports in Toronto was like a small, piece of the many pieced mosaic that is Toronto improv. Like, there was a lot of different parts to it and a lot of people actually didn't know what theater sports was in Toronto as well.

Lloydie: yeah, so for me, and I'm listening to that and I'm thinking, well, I moved to a city and then discovered improv 15 years ago. Important. Why the hell haven't I ever been doing this all my life? But, if I moved somewhere else, I've built kind of a life around my improv in Nottingham. What would I do? What's the first thing you should do if you're moving to a new city? What advice would you have given yourself?

Cale: go to shows, which is literally all I did. I just went to shows and just chatted with people. This is before social media, too. So, now it's so easy where you can beforehand just look up who people are and just message them and say, hey, I'm not from here. I'm an improviser. The number of people I have do that to me and say, I'm not from here. I'm an improviser. I want to know about things. And I'm like, great, let's go for a beer. And who the fuck doesn't love to have a nerd chat about improv with somebody who comes from a different improv world? that's a dream date for me. and then the challenge after. So there would always be like a hot first date, which is I'm actually outlining our relationship.

Lloydie: I did wonder whether this is like, Liam messaged you and was like, hey. I just want to know about you.

Cale: Message me if somebody else messaged,

Liam: Maybe Al put us in contact.

Cale: Maybe. but what will often happen is that there will be, hot first date and then a hot second date, which will be the show, which will be like, yeah, you talk the talk. Let's see if you could walk the walk. And then there'll be shows. The problem after that is like, maintaining yourself. Because communities will often have, established relationships and you're trying to just get time to play, in and amongst those already established relationships and those existing dynamics that happen in ensembles. so how to definitely do that that's specific to different contexts?

Lloydie: Yeah, that makes me think there are a lot of places you could go to some cities where the improv scene is quite open and you can kind of get in, get on a team. Others some theaters have very strict level systems that you've got to go through. You got to start with our level one because this is how we do the thing. and kind of navigating. That is going to be different city by city, I would imagine.

Cale: I hate to say this, but the latter, what you described is improv theater. Sydney. That's what we are.

Lloydie: That's a lot of horns right now. Did not expect a horn section.

Cale: I bet you the person who also honked, the other person who have honked was also not from Sydney.

Lloydie: Is it quite polite on the roads?

Cale: Gross it's too polite. And you have to let people know when you want something.

Lloydie: And from a car in Sydney to one of that city's, very tall buildings, and one of my close friends and collaborators, Liam Weber, moved from Nottingham, where I live, all the way to the other side of the world, to Sydney, Australia.

Lloydie: So we're currently at the top of the Westfield Tower in Sydney, which is a very high point in the city. One of the highest points, possibly.

Liam: I think it claims to be the highest point, or the building claims to be the highest point in the southern hemisphere. I don't know how true that is.

Lloydie: Well, it's freaking me out, is what's happening. So I have no idea if this is going to work as an interview or not, but we used to improvise together all the time in Nottingham. We set up the Robin Hood International Improv Festival together. And then just a couple of days after that festival happened in September, you moved out here to Sydney for two years, and you've come to a completely different improv scene from the one that you knew in Nottingham and were in for nearly a decade. So what have been the challenges of moving somewhere completely new and having to navigate a whole new improv scene?

Liam: I mean, everything is the challenge, I guess, right? You got to rebuild your whole network, from scratch, essentially. So when I moved about, I think I knew two people in the city who've been fantastic. So Marcel Blanche, DeWalt and Elnist Tankyevich. They're both fantastic improvisers who I met when I was doing the Intensive in Chicago in 2019. And they were really fantastic. And they introduced me to a lot of people, and in the first few months got me a lot of opportunities to perform and meet people and invited me to the right, rehearsals and jams and drop ins and stuff like that. So I was very lucky in that respect. I joined all of the standard improv in Sydney, facebook groups, improv in there's an Australian and New Zealand improv Facebook group, which I joined as well. And so through those, I managed to pick up on a couple of opportunities to audition for groups or just connect with people and find people to connect with. And really, I was just kind of chasing one connection to the next. I would go to a show and meet people all and then be like, oh, can I take you for a coffee? And, we would go and chat. and from that they would drop like five or six different names or like maybe one or two of them who I'd then find on the internet somehow and ask them if they wanted to go for a coffee. And so I kind of like radiated out through that kind of thing. Just like meeting people, meeting friends of friends as well. I took classes, so there's a theater in town called Improv Theatre Sydney and I took classes there as well. So I messaged them and was like, hey, I just want to get involved. What's the best way? And they said, I'll just take one of our early levels classes. So I wound up in a level two class there, and I met a bunch of people through that and just got to kind of see and play in this style that's kind of prevalent here, which is slightly different. To what I guess I grew up with in Nottingham. which has been quite nice and quite challenging, but I really just threw myself in. At the deep end, I think is the TLDR.

You were involved in a lot of decisions in the Nottingham improv scene

Lloydie: But you were also in Nottingham, one of the leading lights of the scene. You were one of the people that were putting on the big shows. You were involved in a lot of the big kind of decisions in the Nottingham improv scene. Certainly the big things that impacted it. So how was it coming to a scene where you don't have the sway, you don't have the influence?

Liam: it's a double edged sword. It's been really lovely to get to play with people and just play and they don't have any expectation or anticipation of what's going to be like to work with you. And so you just get to kind of turn up and play and that's quite fun. And equally to not have any responsibility over running jams, running drop ins, running a, festival.

Lloydie: so, like, you reduced your admin load.

Liam: Yeah, absolutely. Which was nice. But the other side of that is, it's difficult because when people don't know you, trying to find inroads with people can be difficult. Trying to find inroads with teams who are performing regularly can be, know. A lot of the people here have been like, who are playing, for example, in the Improv Theatre Sydney Ensemble Group, which is kind of their kind of mixed cast of experienced improvisers. They've all been playing together for a billion years. And so it's quite difficult to break into those established groups without folks knowing you. And that's why Marcel and Elle were really great advocates of me early on. They really helped me make connections and meet new people who, are really willing to welcome me into the spaces. And that's kind of formed the basis of who I wind up playing with on a regular basis. But I would be lying if I said it wasn't a huge kick to the old ego after about three weeks of being here, which is good. It's good to get yourself checked, but it's difficult as well. You miss playing with people you've played with in Nottingham. I was playing with you for years. I was playing with, people in that group, coming up on, like you said at the beginning, like, ten years, and even outside of Nottingham. Right. I had these connections with people who I'd made over time, and we would travel and play together, and there were opportunities coming, and we would work out ways we could get together at a festival and play or whatever. And you kind of lose all that when you're this far away. Sometimes it feels a little bit like it's two steps forward and one step back. I'll have three really good weeks where I've done a bunch of shows and, played with people and maybe been invited to do stuff. And then I'll have a month where I do nothing, and that's difficult to walk go from. We organized a festival, which was the biggest improv event that's ever happened in Nottingham. We had 120 performers from all over the world come to our city, and we organized that. And that was an incredible achievement. And I left that feeling like I was on top of the world, like I could do anything. And I get here and it's like, oh, no, you got to work really fucking hard all over again. But that's great.

Lloydie: But you also do get to come back to the festival in September.

Liam: Yeah, for sure. And I feel very lucky that those the nice thing, I think the really reassuring thing is that your network elsewhere doesn't just dry up and go away because you're somewhere else right now. If anything, I just feel more internationally connected.

Coming to a new city can be daunting, especially when improv is involved

Lloydie: Listening to the three improvisers in this episode, I was struck by how determined each one is in their own way. Coming to a new city is pretty daunting enough. Knowing that you want to break your way into something that's already established is a lot to put on top of such a move. I mean, sure, there are loads of ways to get to play, and improvisers tend to be super welcoming most of the time. But every city is different. And every improv scene has conventions and structures that will differ from the place that you've come from. But I guess humans are pretty adaptable, and some might argue they're improvisers even more so. The improv chronicle is produced and hosted by me, lloydy james. Lloyd help keep the podcast going by Donating. There's a link in the show notes, along with a link to my newsletter, too. Sign up and get the world of improv in your inbox.