Start Trekkin' NY is a long-form improv troupe. "Long-form" meaning not short-form. Short-form being the Whose Line Is It Anyway style of games and quick laugh generators. So long-form is not short games or quick laughs. It's story-telling, and theme-building. It's full length scenes like you might see in a play or sketch show...only we make it up on the spot.
In particular we perform a full-length narrative long form. Each performance is a single "episode" with an hour long story arc just like a real episode of the original series of Star Trek. There's a captain and a crew, villains, all powerful space beings, pirates, cosmic merchants, and cute vaporous gases with mommy issues. Hopefully each of these character has a complete character arc by the time the show finishes out.
Part of what I do is think about improv all the time. Even during intimate moments. Especially during intimate moments. It's a constant obsession and I would say that more than half of that obsessing focuses on how to improve our improv. (The other half is dreaming up new formats for shows). Fortunately, improv is a very teachable skill. More so than anyone really admits. We teach ourselves (over many years of school teasing, and office bullying) to think before we speak. We teach ourselves anti-improv. Our natural tendency is to improvise, not the reverse. To successfully teach improv you just have to get people to unlearn the social lessons they have had driven into them since they left their homes. Most of improv is simply getting people to let their imaginations run free. Once you teach someone how to do this, they will want to improvise for the rest of their lives.
The other section of improv, the less fun part, is channeling that imagination in a controlled way. This is the part people want to watch, however, so it's a necessary evil. Dancing around singing Volare while acting like zombie monkeys with epilepsy is fun, but it doesn't get people to come back to your shows on a regular basis. (Actually, yes it does, but let's not get into that). People have certain expectations about what they want to see when they pay $10 and sit in a chair in front of a stage. They want to laugh. They want a story. Most of all, they want to feel attached.
So what do you do? Well, you wear a Star Trek uniform and you act out an episode. Sure. But you also focus on the particulars of what makes a good episode. What makes a good narrative. What makes good long-form. The answer, I think, is relationships. Real, human-alien, relationships with real emotions and real consequences. If you can open up your imagination you can be anyone, and more importantly, you can relate to anyone. Audiences, subconsciously or consciously, crave an experience where they can watch real relationships develop in real ways. Psychologist use a technique called "role playing" (improv!) expressly because it allows people to quickly understand how others feel. This is also why reality TV works - carefully crafted stories that have real relationships. That's the money shot.
And it's what we do. Or what we try to do. A lot of the time we make jokes about space-farts. But we try to show relationships and how they develop in a very fun and accessible format. A format that people love anyway. So they come for the Star Trek and they stay because it feels real. Real good.
Just my improv opinion,
Aaron
In particular we perform a full-length narrative long form. Each performance is a single "episode" with an hour long story arc just like a real episode of the original series of Star Trek. There's a captain and a crew, villains, all powerful space beings, pirates, cosmic merchants, and cute vaporous gases with mommy issues. Hopefully each of these character has a complete character arc by the time the show finishes out.
Part of what I do is think about improv all the time. Even during intimate moments. Especially during intimate moments. It's a constant obsession and I would say that more than half of that obsessing focuses on how to improve our improv. (The other half is dreaming up new formats for shows). Fortunately, improv is a very teachable skill. More so than anyone really admits. We teach ourselves (over many years of school teasing, and office bullying) to think before we speak. We teach ourselves anti-improv. Our natural tendency is to improvise, not the reverse. To successfully teach improv you just have to get people to unlearn the social lessons they have had driven into them since they left their homes. Most of improv is simply getting people to let their imaginations run free. Once you teach someone how to do this, they will want to improvise for the rest of their lives.
The other section of improv, the less fun part, is channeling that imagination in a controlled way. This is the part people want to watch, however, so it's a necessary evil. Dancing around singing Volare while acting like zombie monkeys with epilepsy is fun, but it doesn't get people to come back to your shows on a regular basis. (Actually, yes it does, but let's not get into that). People have certain expectations about what they want to see when they pay $10 and sit in a chair in front of a stage. They want to laugh. They want a story. Most of all, they want to feel attached.
So what do you do? Well, you wear a Star Trek uniform and you act out an episode. Sure. But you also focus on the particulars of what makes a good episode. What makes a good narrative. What makes good long-form. The answer, I think, is relationships. Real, human-alien, relationships with real emotions and real consequences. If you can open up your imagination you can be anyone, and more importantly, you can relate to anyone. Audiences, subconsciously or consciously, crave an experience where they can watch real relationships develop in real ways. Psychologist use a technique called "role playing" (improv!) expressly because it allows people to quickly understand how others feel. This is also why reality TV works - carefully crafted stories that have real relationships. That's the money shot.
And it's what we do. Or what we try to do. A lot of the time we make jokes about space-farts. But we try to show relationships and how they develop in a very fun and accessible format. A format that people love anyway. So they come for the Star Trek and they stay because it feels real. Real good.
Just my improv opinion,
Aaron
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