Blog Post - Review of Spring Improv

Write a short review of the Spring Improv -- your thoughts, reactions, what you felt were the strengths and weaknesses, etc. It does not need to follow the official review format -- this is more informal. 300 words. Post on your blog by Sunday evening.

Word Count: 346

I thought that the Spring Improv show “Propless” was really funny and genuinely enjoyable. I will say that there were parts that I was bored during and parts where I was laughing so hard I cried. I enjoyed the bench and dating game segments the most with the “Not a box” game is my least favorite. This was because the “Not a box” challenge was less structured and it felt like they were doing improv but didn't really have a reason to do it, it was sort of like a filler for me that I didn't really enjoy. While on the other side of the spectrum the bench and dating game was fun because the actors seemed to really enjoy portraying their characters, they also seemed more comfortable with the fact that there were given more of a prompt than some other pieces. I like how “real” everyone was onstage and when they messed up or couldn't think of anything they were not afraid to admit it and joke about it, I thought that was amazing. I liked their ability to include the audience at points that you started to feel a little bored or tired.

I thought that there were some people that were on to much and some people that I would have liked to see more. I thought it was funny partially because it was a group of people that I know well and hang out with so seeing them joke around was more enjoyable and relatable than it may have been for other people. I also thought it was funny when they would portray teachers that I Knew (Mrs. DiGiacomo, Mrs. Guarino, and Mr. Trier).

One thing that I didn't like so much was how sometimes the actors would get a little flustered or frustrated with another one of the actors who would jump in. As someone who has worked with tons of kids and teens I know how stressful and burnt out you can become, I just wished that there was a better way to address this student than there was.

Blog Post- Reflection of WC essay

Blog post due by Thursday-- what do you think you need to do to revise your WC essay? 400 words due by midnight. You will have some time to work on this in class as well -- we will begin it on Tuesday during class.

448 words (Not including below list)

• Explaining improvements 
• Formatting errors (Work Cited, PAge number, Word Count)
• Discussion of quoted material
• Too much summary
• Reflect later in the paper
• Need a specific thesis
• More about actual performance 

While I listed the things that I wanted to work on(not included in my word count), I think that I should elaborate, plan what I want to achieve for my final draft. For starters, Jacob had pointed out to me that I hadn’t really put in any performance improvements in my entire paper, in order to fix this I could add a paragraph at the end explaining the aftermath of my performance. This would also help with my analysis of the performance and its correlation to literary interpretation, it would also help improve my section of specific details about performance tactics. On my review paper that I got back in class, I lost a few points in each section for my discussion of different things, quoted material, performance tactics, reflections of performance, performance improvements and a few more. This would originally put me over word count I think, but then I could go back and get rid of all the excess wording that I do not need. I would also look back at my opening and closing sentences, currently, they are not that strong and I would really like to go back and give them a little bit more power to draw the reader in and help leave an impact on them after they finish reading.

The second thing that I would change would be putting in a structured thesis, I didn’t really have any particular thesis, so it wasn’t really clear what I was trying to say. In order to add a thesis, I would need to look back at the entirety of my paper and read what I talked about most. I would also use this to figure out where I have unnecessary information that I can switch for the above explanations. That would keep my word count in the boundaries. I think that my paper has a lot of useless information in it because I never really set a strict thesis for what my papers goal was, this, looking back, made it difficult I think because I didn't always know where I was going so I was more writing to fill a word count. I think that if I give myself a thesis it will clear up what the paper is really about and will be a huge improvement to that I have now.

Third, I would work on my formatting, I originally didn’t have any word count, or page numbers. Also, my work cited should have been centered and I could take out the colon I had after. While this is a smaller piece of what needs to be done it is still important because it throws off the whole formatting of the paper.

What Makes Performances Good

Also, today in class B period wrote a short reflection (a paragraph or so, sentences not bullet points) on what makes these performances good, what makes the poetry come to life, what keeps you engaged as an audience member.

You can speak in general but use specific examples.

It might be also helpful to note what makes you disengaged as an audience member, what makes the performances weak or boring although it is not necessary to call out specific people.

A period, please complete this for homework and post on your blog.


Some things that make performances great are the uses of sound, through both the music that they played and their reading voice. Students achieved this with their chosen music, many people decided that they were going to use more natural sounds like rain falling or wind to demonstrate what season they were in or the environment because we didn't have a lot of set design or props. When specific people brought out more unique props like a globe or a mask, I thought it was more interesting to see what the purpose of the object was.

Going back to voice briefly, when people changed their tones or volume it was more interesting because it not only gave the poem a voice but it put in personality and engaged the audience.

As an audience member, I feel disengaged if the speaker is monotone and doesn't express emotion. I also become disengaged when there are barely any props like only a piece of cloth over them, it is hard for me to understand what they are trying to point out and emphasis. I think that little use of stage or only moving around small amounts, and I do this a lot, makes it hard for the audience to focus because there is nothing changing so you don't have to constantly be paying attention. Also, it is harder to focus on the poem when a person is speaking to a small audience, I think that sometimes in class when we perform we don’t speak as loud as we would form a larger group in the same space because we think that there are fewer people so we don't have to be as loud, but it makes it hard to hear and takes away any changes in voice that you could have.