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this is my dedication to dedication. I dedicate this to you.

I posted about this in the State of HUGE blog but we are finally rolling out (some) payroll at the theater! People that are long overdue are going to start getting paid for the time they put into the place and we’re working hard to figure out who else we can compensate and the most fair/consistent ways to do so.

Today, Jill and I exchanged the first paychecks issued by HUGE to staff.

It feels like the beginning of something new and exciting and nerve-wracking.

(We take bad photos of important moments on purpose.)

I am deliriously happy that we can finally start paying people and holding my breath and hoping that money doesn’t change the way the place feels and how people interact with it.

I was also worried about the announcement – because I am always aware of how much I feel I owe people and I was afraid of hurting anyone’s feelings as we started paying out. Worried about the “what about me?” question I figured was so inevitable.

To my surprise, it hasn’t happened yet, in fact I was approach a few times by people asking “What about you?” – because their main concern was that HUGE pay me before themselves. Some of them got back to me to say they didn’t want to be paid and would like to continue to volunteer their hours to the theater as a way they can keep donating.

Small moments, maybe, but another way that our people continue to stagger me with how unselfish and wonderful and giving they are at every turn – As the guy in charge, I can tell you that it’s no small thing.

These are the things I stress about the most in running the business part of the theater – and these people manage to turn it into a joy. I will never not owe them for everything they have done and everything they continue to do, money can’t really capture what their contributions mean and can’t really give them what they deserve – but it’s a start and it’s about damn time.

It Came From Later!

Exciting times – new things on the horizon as we emerge from Fringe Festival madness

Everyone take a minute to rest, dust yourselves off and then we are going to get the Fall season rolling with a lot of cool new stuff – not least of which is the Improv A Go Go will be Pay What You Can starting on 8/19 when it starts back up. That means you can come any Sunday, name your price and enjoy some of the best, newest and strangest improv in the Cities.

This was made possible by our Members – we hear that our Membership program keeps ticket prices down all the time, but rarely do we get to see tangible results from it, normally it just means things stay the way they are. We have been very eager to get the ticket price of IAGG back down ever since we raised them out of financial need and our Members are indeed what allowed that to happen – if you’re a Member already, thank you.

If you’re not a member yet, sign up and see what other cool stuff we can do!

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New Shows :: Sean & The Ladies, Class of ’94, Special Shows and GONE

Starting 8/16, Thursday nights are a lot more musical and a little more lady-like as Sean & The Ladies bring their improvised musical show straight into your ear and eye holes.

Beginning 8/17, class is in session at De Roma High as the angst and antics of the Class of ’94 hit Fridays at 9:30

Friday, 8/31 – One night only – Off Book, Fringe Edition!

Off Book, the show that pairs an actor that has memorized one half of a script with an improviser that has no idea what the script is, presents a special night of scenes pulled from your favorite Fringe Festival shows!

Saturday, 9/1 – One night only – KaBaam! the improvised comic book returns!

Three origin stories of heroes you name – one action packed team adventure – too many thrills for one stage in one night for one audience! Watch if you dare!!!

8pm Fridays in September – GONE

The improvised, mind-bending drama of a collection of “castaways” who are “trapped” on an “island” after they “crash” and have to “survive” any way they can.

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8/23 – Happy Hour Board Meeting and Open House

Join us. Come take a look around, come ask questions of us. Come make suggestions. Give ideas. Get involved. Or just come have a beer, listen in and find out what HUGE is planning and how we’re doing.

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That is all for now, hope to see you when you’ve all slept off your Fringe hangover

HUGE Beer Menu

HUGE is happy to be home to the Bearded Bar and its awesome selection of beer and wine – including:

Grain Belt Premium

Grain Belt – Noreast

Lift Bridge Farm Girl

Lift Bridge Crosscut

Finnegans

Tall Grass – Buffalo Sweat

Tall Grass – Velvet Rooster

Tall Grass – 8 Bit

Tall Grass – IPA

Tall Grass – Oasis

TG – Halcyon (seasonal wheat beer)

Guinness Stout

Black Butte Porter

Summit – EPA

Magic Hat

Blue Moon

Peroni

Woodchuck Cider

Mike’s Hard Lemonade

Sol

John Henry

New Planet Rasberry (gluten free)

Widmer Brothers Blond

As well as Roggenbuck Estates Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio

Fringe Festival Alert

Just to clarify – The MN Fringe does not begin until August 2nd.

However we are closed 7/28-8/1 for Fringe tech week to allow the Fringe technicians to load in and all the shows time to prep in the space for opening on the 2nd.

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The Minnesota Fringe Festival is upon us! Whoo hoo!

Schedule of Fringe shows at HUGE:

The first HUGE show after Fringe is Thursday August 16th

(8PM Sean and the Ladies followed by Space Jam.)

This doesn’t mean you’ll be improv deprived! The Minnesota Fringe is chock-full of improv, including work by Ferrari McSpeedy, Tim Hellendrung, Emily Schmidt, Joe Ye, Sean Hansberry, Laura Baller Mahler, Theatre of Public Policy and Le Cirque Rouge. August 2-12. Go to www.fringefestival.org for all the details!

Once there were parking lots, Now it's a peaceful oasis

Hey all – just an update on the HUGE Happy Hour Meeting

August 23rd we want to invite everyone to come with questions, ideas and whatever else they like – but we also want to open the theater up and invite everyone to come take a look. We’re adding “Open House” to the already very hyphenated Public-Meeting-of-the-Board-Happy-Hour session.

If you’ve ever wondered what goes on behind those walls, I can assure you it isn’t nearly glamorous or magical – but now you can come see for yourself!

5pm – 7:30

August 23rd

ALL WILL BE REVEALED IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME

Even though the weight was great, they stormed beach and crashed the gate. After, there was music in the air.

The State of HUGE – Spring 2012

I’ve been working on this post for so damn long, trying to get it done but there’s always something big we’re figuring out or something I’m just waiting to finish so I can include it, etc but here it is.

The short version is: Things are going very well at HUGE. But…

The trick with good news is always that we don’t want to make the same mistake I think we had fallen into last year when I/we may have people the impression that we were doing super and we didn’t need their donations so much any more.

There’s always a “but…” with things like this and as things are shaping up and going well I am trying to temper the excitement with some realism – that our street could be the next to get torn up, our air conditioner could break down, something unexpected and costly could be around the corner. We’re still a new company and we’ve had more than our share of good luck, so it may not always be natural for us to remind ourselves that things aren’t always going to go so well.

But as we make our way through this spring it’s been impossible not to make comparisons to last spring, especially last July when I posted a desperate plea for help – it should also be mentioned that help showed up in force and saved the day. For anyone just tuning in, we had just taken a couple big hits at the worst time and were at a very critical point in getting the theater on its feet. Jill showed me a screen shot from her computer that she took at the time – it showed our bank balance of $94 a week before rent was due for the next month – and just looking back on that time fills me with anxiety. It was difficult.

But we are still here – and lots of “this time last year” conversations that are very exciting and give a really great perspective, looking both forwards at the work ahead and backward at how far we’ve come.

End of 2011/Early 2012

At our One Year Anniversary Show we were able to announce that not only were we able to stay open but, in the space of one year, we were able to pay off all our institutional debt from the construction and opening. That’s incredible. We took on a very aggressive payment schedule with the loans we had and they came at the right time to get us through. Because we made the choice to run as all-volunteer and because our donors, members and supporters are SO aggressive, we were able to get the theater out of debt inside of Year One.

There are so many insane examples of the support we’ve received from the community, audience and performers – but a couple stand out in my mind as stories we should tell.

The Annual Silent Auction and Fundraiser :: Matt Donnelly joined us again for the annual show that is our biggest fundraiser, Justin Pierre was back to donate his time and talents and PUNY Animation Studio took part in bringing the night home. While a fundraising event by itself may not seem like a story, you have to remember that this is HUGE – I’ve done many a fundraiser on the crew side in my former life as a technician and I can tell you they’re usually very stodgy, proper affairs. Not us.

The show was a blast – Matt Donnelly may not live in Minneapolis but he is absolutely part of the HUGE family and I love any time we can have him here. Justin Pierre has always been so crazy supportive that he’s come to us with ideas of how he can throw his talent and music and his name behind what we’re doing – and that night he asked if he could get a few improvisers to sing the horn part of a song. PUNY partnered with us earlier in the year and asked at the last minute if they could throw money out in the crowd, rap video style.

Of course we said yes to both these things. Honestly, I didn’t understand either of the moments from their descriptions, but that’s not important. What was important was that Justin performed one of the most beautiful musical moments I have ever seen on any stage and PUNY went from “makin’ it rain” to “church collection plate” so fast it would make your neck snap – both were so totally well done and fun that it was shocking.

I found myself sitting in the tech booth, just watching these things unfold and thinking if we were anyone else, any other organization, this event would be serious and somber and here I was, at one of the most important moments in our calendar year, watching Shad and James throw money into the air and then collect it again, thanking everyone profusely for their generosity. I have said it several times before and it holds true at all times : Nobody has fun like we do.

Hangout auction :: The hangout auction is the other amazingly odd story in our growth right now.

Bree and Josh approached HUGE with this idea that I don’t think I even fully understood at the time – to auction social activities with improvisers to raise money for the theater. And it’s been a smashing success. We just saw the close of the 2nd Annual Hangout Auction and people bid on everything from performing with Jill to SkyZone with Lipkin and other. It was a brilliant way to address the fact that we are always approached by people that want to know how to help but may not have money to give.

There is ALWAYS something going on that people come up with to support HUGE theater – sometimes I don’t even know about them – but I think those two are really great examples of when people have blown us away and make great answers when things get hard and people ask why we do this crazy thing.

There is still a lot to cover – I will try to break it out by topic since it’s a lot to take in.

Education :: I will let Jill’s words sum it up since she is the heart of our Education program. Though I will add that I knew what we had to teach at HUGE was a major strength of ours, I didn’t realize how much interest there was until we had to add another room to the theater to accomodate all the students that enrolled!

Jill ::

In September 2010 we had 11 courageous students. Now we have 89, not counting the dozens that come to drop in class every Wednesday.

We’ve gotten to work with kids in some small summer programs here at the theater, plus workshops for SALT Alternative High School, Como Park Senior High School, the Arts-In Program at the MN State Fair, and Breck High School, for a total of 117 participants.

We’ve also taught private workshops for a variety of organizations: Intermedia Arts, University of MN, Americorps, Education Minnesota, Creative Community Leadership Institute, Majestic Shores (Camp Courage), and Twin Cities Public Allies. Feedback has been great, including: “You definitely got us working together in a new way and created a safe and positive environment for brainstorming. The day ended beautifully and we couldn’t have done it without you.” – Theresa Sweetland, Intermedia Arts.

Probably the most exciting part is we’ve gotten to use those tuition dollars to pay our teachers for their hard work, thus providing a little financial support for great local talent.

HUGE Shows and TCIF :: This is, of course, what we do. And we have more fun doing it than you know.

We’ve been able to work a little smarter as a company to better promote and produce improvised shows, and we’re still learning and developing better ways to do so – Finding or creating shows has never been an issue since there is a massive surplus of extremely talented improvisers, that’s why we exist. But over the last year we’ve gotten better at supporting them and are always looking at more ways to put more improv on stage more often.

Ticket price changes/Groupons – last year around this time we made the hard decision to raise ticket prices to keep the theater open and I’m happy to report that it was the right call and things have been looking better and better ever since. Raising prices is hard, and people will always tell you that you can lower prices but you can’t raise them – but we transitioned from all tickets being $5 to $10 weekend shows just fine – because there’s no disputing the quality.

We ran a successful Groupon that introduced a lot of new people to the theater – some of them refuse to believe that we’re really improvising. Because writing a new show every day seems simpler and easier… Anyway.

We also introduced the Final Friday of every month as a Pay What You Can Night and Rent Party in the same blog that begged for help last year. It may seem counter-intuitive to add a night every month when people can opt to pay nothing when we are struggling for every penny we can get – but running a theater will certainly give you a unique empathy for people that might not have $10 to afford something fun at the end of the week, as well as an appreciation for how much difference being able to go have a night of laughs can really make if that’s the position you’re in. Everyone should be able to enjoy what we do, otherwise we are doing something wrong.

Tonight just happens to be PWYC Night – you should join us, because there’s no place better.

The Twin Cities Improv Festival just ended this past Sunday and it is the biggest weekend of our year – groups came in from all over the country and local talent showed up with their A games and crushed it. Old friends like pH, TRIKE, SCRAM and Pimprov returned and we were able to bring in Susan Messing and Christina Gausas, Aphasia and Matt Naas (and more) to introduce them to this place we call home. My brain has not yet recovered from the levels of dopamine that you risk being that happy and laughing that hard for that long.

the Improv A Go Go turned 10 this May!

That is the show that started it all for me. There is a clear and direct path from the IAGG to the opening of HUGE theater as something we have always done to support improvisers and introduce audiences to what we love to do. We celebrated 10 years of Sunday madness by announcing that the IAGG will be Pay What You Can when we return from the Fringe Festival break – August 19th will be the first IAGG in a long time you can show up with whatever you can shake out of your couch cushions and take in some of the best improv you will find anywhere. It’s been too long.

Fringe Festival – we are proud and happy to be a Fringe venue again, which means from July 28th-August 15th they will have our building and we will get our annual 3 days of sleep. Fringe has been amazing to us and always fun to work with as an organization, just like we try to be.

If you’re worried about your improv fix, don’t. There is a ton of improv in the Fringe this year at various venues!

Memberships – Memberships have been doing alright BUT… we always need to stress how important they actually are and we will never be able to stop asking people to become Members. The increase in membership is what allows us to do things like make the IAGG tickets PWYC all the time, as Members provide the stable contributions that those ticket sales do not. If you aren’t a member, you should be. This isn’t a call for memberships by an organization that also has funding to fall back on, this is the place where your $20 per month makes a tangible difference.

Grants/Bassprov – We are always applying for grants. We get few of them. But the one we did get is bringing BASSPROV back to the Twin Cities this fall! Trust me, we will be making announcements and posting details as they roll in. If you don’t know why you should be excited about BASSPROV, come to a show and ask anyone that improvises. It’s going to be great.

Volunteers – Every time you walk into HUGE you will encounter our fantastic volunteers. That’s because everyone here is one. Carolyn took up the thankless role of doing scheduling and keeps our counter staffed at all times. Matt Pitner and Joe Rapp manage, train and schedule our bar staff. Molly Chase is our amazing volunteer Managing Director. The volunteers show up with energy and love for what we do and that same, slightly crazy, willingness to watch the shows on a little TV so they can help you go inside and watch the shows in comfort. Thank them when you’re here – I thank them as often as I can but I think it’s better coming from everyone.

*ahem*

The big news coming up this year is that we are finally rolling out payroll!

Starting after the Fringe Festival, for the first time, HUGE will be paying staff for their time and talents. Not much. But it’s long overdue – We can’t ever properly repay everyone for all the countless hours and efforts that got us here – but this weird, wonderful playground we all get to share is still here against all odds, predictions and common sense. We are no longer in the place of just trying to hang on my our fingertips to keep this place open one more month at a time. We’re building something together that is going to be around for a long time.

Meeting announcement :: August 23rd, 5pm-7:30

So you’ve heard far too much from me – this is one of the things I’m most excited about. We are having another public HUGE Happy Hour Meeting of the Board to give financial updates, news and plans for the upcoming months.

But we also want to hear from everyone else! If we are asking people to give and trust us with their money and efforts, we want people to be able to ask any questions they have, challenge us on ideas, contribute to the discussions on future plans and also get to see the space, have a beer with us and enjoy a Happy Hour at HUGE.

Mark your calendars. Skip out of work early.

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So that’s….everything.

I will keep saying it as long as I am lucky enough to be in this position – for what we have and are able to do, for everyone that brings this place to life, for all your help making this crazy dream a reality – my words seem so small but my thanks are so big.

I am the luckiest clown in the world.

Yours,

Butch Roy

Executive Director and humble servant.

HUGE Announces our first-ever Headshot and Resume Day!

Saturday, July 7, 2012 at HUGE Improv Theater

Casting agents ask us all the time if we can send them improvisors to audition for commercials! It’s fun work and great money, but you need a little bit of prep to get it. To serve this need, HUGE is offering its first-ever Headshot and Resume Day. Participants will receive: help generating their performance resume, a digital file of one or more headshot options, and coaching on acting in front of a camera. The day is designed to give performers a basic headshot and resume to get them started, and introduce them to some of the casting agents looking for them.

– Makeup consult and basic touch-up

– Headshot/photography

– Video audition coaching session

– Resume review

Depending on availability, casting directors will also be on hand.

The cost is $30. Scholarships are available; contact molly@hugetheater.com. Spaces are limited.

Registration is now open! http://tinyurl.com/cjk5hu7

Do what you can, what you want, what you must.

I have been chewing on this for a week or so, trying to get to the bottom of it so I can reply to the person that sent it, but that doesn’t seem possible since it was posted anonymously – but talking about it has brought up some interesting points that I wanted to get down here.

I am going to leave the comments open so people can discuss if they want – I’ve been shutting them off because of the ridiculous number of spam bots we get comments from that I have to spend my time screening out. We’ll give it another try with this because I think it is important that we get feedback on it, not just from other improvisers but from the public as well.

Ok. Here we go.

We got feedback from Groupon customers, one person in particular posted several, all of which were in the same vein, but the final one says:

“This theater is NOT an improv theater. everything is scripted. I was very disappointed. Maybe they should change their name to the Huge Scripted-Improv Theater”

Now, before I go any further I want to make it absolutely clear that this person is incorrect. Could not be any more wrong. EVERYTHING at HUGE is improvised. Absolutely nothing is scripted. Everything else is 100% improvised, 100% of the time.

But this person went on and ON about it. Even made some suggestions along with their wild accusations and suggestion that we change our name. I want to address the important pieces.

“not really improv”

Now we get comments all the time from people that some of the shows MUST be planned beforehand or someone will stop us on the way out and say “Ok, c’mon – how much of that did you guys really make up?” and that’s something we should be really proud of and it’s part of what makes improvised theater so fun and amazing – that you can do something on stage that is fun and unique and totally playful but still come together as a cast and really listen to one another and improvise a show that people can’t imagine being able to do without planning in advance.

That means we are doing great work and I’m very proud when I am asked those questions – some people ask and still leave convinced that we are faking it, no matter what we say. They will never believe us. There is no proof that would be enough. They have forgotten how to play and would rather spend their energy trying to get us to admit that everyone else has too than just sit back and enjoy it.

“could have been scripted”

They also went on to suggest that we do shorter “skits” instead of longer sets, because the longer scenes could have been scripted and we should do shorter scenes that keep coming back and using the suggestion to “prove” that it’s being improvised.

We exist to further unscripted and improvised theater, to help explore all the amazing things it can do and shapes it can take. We will not cripple that effort and limit where we can go just because you have no idea what is possible.

Plus – we can never PROVE we are improvising.

We always COULD BE pretending to improvise and play when instead we have really written a new and different show for every night, rehearsed it and are spending our time reciting it instead of really being in the moment on stage enjoying something magical and surprising. Sure, we COULD do that – be we aren’t stupid.

And if you think that sounds easier and more plausible than the fact that people can get on stage and pretend together and create something amazing – you are so painfully wrong and I feel bad for you. Your world sounds like a boring place and we are not going to spend one second letting your lack of imagination distract us from all the awesome things that are possible.

Any suggestion that we should spend any time trying to prove that we are improvising is soundly rejected.

We are improvising. You just have to trust us or not, but I suggest you decide if you trust us before you give us your money.

We are not here to prove it.

We are here to do it.

it's the HUGE Hangout Auction

Visit eBay (CLICK HERE) to bid on social outings with your favorite local performers and friends in the second HUGE HANGOUT AUCTION!

Right now we have several amazing auction items, including a beach party (with the Class of 94), karaoke (with Sean & the Ladies), a customized tour of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (with artists in residence Brandon Boat and Tane Danger), ice cream at Sebastian Joe’s (with the Minneapples), and so much more!

All money from this auction will go to HUGE Improv Theater, an artist-led non-profit dedicated to supporting the Twin Cities improv community through performance and education. Located at 3037 Lyndale Ave, Minneapolis MN 55408, HUGE is the only all-improv longform theater in the Twin Cities. The winning bid amount is a tax-deductible charitable contribution, and the auction winner will receive a receipt for tax purposes

http://tiny.cc/hugeauction

There's no me and no you – it's just us

We had a couple ladies come in on Sunday with a Deal Chicken deal – basically just a 2-for-1 we ran through a local promotion called Deal Chicken – but she had also purchased a ticket for a third person that wouldn’t be joining them.

She could have asked to refund the purchased ticket, and we could have done so very easily, I would have been happy to.

Instead she said “…and the third ticket, I’m just going to ‘pay forward’ so the next person that comes in can get in for free” and the next person in line was told they lucked out. They were happy, she was happy, the show was crazy fun.

While that was really cool of her to do, that’s not what makes it remarkable. The really remarkable thing is that this has been perfectly typical behavior at the Improv A Go Go for years now, and absolutely something you would expect to happen at HUGE Theater. We used to have people come into the IAGG when it was $1 and give us $5 with instructions to let the next 4 people in free, or pick 4 people at random, etc.

Somehow we have created a place where things like that are normal.

I love it. It makes me so proud and happy of what we do and what we are.

This isn’t a post about instilling values at the corporate level or some jargon-heavy business talk about how to engineer your customers’ reaction. I find that gross, insincere and maybe the most crass reaction you could possibly have to the story above. Plus, even if I was one of those people that lectured on “creating moments” or some other BS, I couldn’t give you instructions on how to do it if I wanted to. Pay those people thousands of dollars if you want to but I’ll say what I know for free and you can take it or leave it.

I just know that we show up and run the place as ourselves.

We treat people like we are happy to have them here because we are.

We are nice to people, not because a training manual tells us we have to be or because “that’s how you maximize customer loyalty”, but because that’s how we should be to people if we want them to be happy and we want to be happy with ourselves.

Turns out, there are fewer places than you would think that encourage us to just be awesome to one another just for the sake of being awesome – somehow people can tell that’s the kind of place this is – and it’s really cool and heartwarming the way people will surprise you when you give them an outlet for their better instincts.