Town Hall October 2022 Recap

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Big thanks to everyone who came out to join us on Tuesday! We very much appreciate your time and feedback!

-Jon & Colin

Meeting Notes

Meet the Team

Colin Thornton - Artistic & Education Director (Shows and and classes)
Jon Ulrich - Executive Director (Team building)
Colette Lindemann - Operations Manager (Theater space)
Brady Dunn - Tech Director (Lights and sound)
Kelly Gruber - Administrative Assistant and Lifesaver
Tone Branson - Designs
Delmar Davis - Facebook Marketing
Teddy Shivers - New Sketch Program!

Accomplishments since Feb 2022 Town Hall

Theater upgrades:

  • Exterior: New awning and rain drainage mitigation

  • Theatre Space: New floors, Painted to become a black box theater, new TV for pre-show and in-show content, and new mixtiles photo gallery for house teams and retired teams.

  • Greenrooms: Progress with organizing/cleaning the utility bathroom and tech closet, and added sound dampening to the back room

Shows:

  • Bigtime guests: Bassprov, Susan Messing, Carla Cackowski, The Mayor, EB Byland

  • Cincinnati Night Live - We accomplished the near-impossible task of creating a weekly original sketch comedy show with hosts and musical guests. While the process was a little bumpy, the net result was pretty awesome.

  • Wisenheimer - This is a new collaboration with Esquire Theater where our team of smart asses offer commentary to movies that are deserving of mockery. The next movie to be scorched is Fear of Clowns on Sunday, October 30th at 7:00pm.

  • Outdoor shows - Thanks to everyone who braved the heat and shared your talents at the plaza.

  • Auditions = Three new house teams

  • Halloween shows - Each OG house team is performing a Halloween-themed long form show. Check out Werewolf, Fearscape, and Treachery at the House of Ham this weekend.

Community

  • Six Year Anniversary NYE: COVID couldn’t stop the party. It may have been delayed, but it was awesome.

  • Volunteer incentive program: All volunteers receive $5 in credit for any IC show, workshop, or class.

  • Return of rush tickets: All existing students and performers receive free admission to shows. Ask us if you don’t know how it works.

Classes

  • Practice teams - One of our values is to provide the skills to succeed, the opportunities to try, and the freedom to fail. Our Practice Team Program allows IC graduates the opportunity for weekly coaching and monthly performances. This program is still in development, but we’re excited to see it grow. We had our first practice team town hall a few months ago.

  • New classroom venues - We are back at our original Dramakinetics classroom venue at North Church in Northside (anyone remember Coincidence Improv?). And we are collaborating with Cincinnati Public School for use of their classroom at Fairview-Clifton German Language School.

  • 501B: premise-based long form — a new level that focuses on UCB-style premise-based formats like the Armando and pattern game.

Team Building 

  • Lots! - including special trips to Orlando and DC for 2022 Institute of Supply Management Conference and session w/Capital One Directors

Personnel 

  • Kelly Gruber has been added to provide support with areas of weakness: organization and marketing. She acts as a double-check for all show info, she submits all shows to event pages, she sends out weekly show emails to the newsletter list, and she provides spot help whenever we need it (like hanging the sound proofing curtain in the backroom, and spearheading the runoff mitigation project!). Her next mission is creating “connection posts” to broaden our social media messaging.

  • Colette had a scare with a vicious stomach virus that sent her to the hospital. We’re happy to see her (mostly) recovered, and she’s under orders to never get sick again because she’s invaluable to IC.

  • Brady Dunn is in the process of adding new software in our tech booth, which will make lighting and sound more efficient and professional. Stay tuned!

Upcoming Changes and Future Plans

Importance of protecting women and minorities - We need to take care of each other onstage. If someone is “walked on” or “walked over” in a scene, bring it up. (Ie, someone starts a scene with an idea. Another performer enters the scene and ignores it or hijacks it.) If you are impacted negatively in a scene this way, a few options provided at the meeting by Tatiana Godfrey:

  1. Acknowledge it happened, continue the scene and not address it further

  2. Acknowledge it happened, continue the scene but say you’d like to discuss later

  3. Stop the scene, take a break, discuss when comfortable. 

    Assume good intentions, but don’t ignore the unintended impact. 

Diversity Council - Caleb Robinson, Morgan Christie and DeVon Cunningham have volunteered to lead a new initiative to foster and support diversity. The council’s overall goals will be to increase diversity in the IC community and mainstage shows, and to provide resource and training to keep IC a safe space for everyone. They’re planning to create a workshop on “not punching down” in January. Keep on the lookout for more.

Holiday Show - IC’s annual holiday show is coming! This year’s “Clickbait Christmas” will be written by Chance Kilgour and Elliot Teemley, and directed by Tatiana Godfrey. Auditions are Sunday October 30 from 10am-12:30pm. Learn more and register for auditions here. 

Sketch Program Rises from Ashes of Mistakes - Colin made some mistakes with CNL (communication and expectations) and Sketch Lab (scheduling snafus and charging for a student show). This mea culpa has made us realize that we need a dedicated Director of Sketch Education. Welcome Teddy Shivers! Teddy has taken almost every sketch and improv class available at every improv theatre in New York City, and he shows an unrivaled passion for sketch comedy. We’re happy to have him join the team. Watch for the new sketch program to begin in January!

New Swag - We just restocked our black paint splatter t-shirts (they’re slightly softer this time) and we’re also in the process of acquiring new soft sweatshirts and stylish hats. To reserve a sweathirt or hat, click this link.

Sponsorships - We’re piloting a new sponsorship program which will allow teams to be paid for any sponsors they recruit. More to come. 

Suggestion Box - Do you have a suggestion that wasn’t mentioned at the town hall? Please email us at info@improvcincinnati.com. Do you want to email us anonymously? Use the Suggestion Box (though we’d certainly prefer folks contact us directly so we can have a conversation. It’s difficult when we can’t reply…). 

Get Involved

Discussion/Feedback/Ideas

“Forever” Classes - 

  • We’re in the process of trying to pilot a weekly drop-in class (or two)? 

  • One iteration would be for students who loved 101 class but don’t want to progress past. It would be like a neverending 101 :) 

  • The other iteration would be a weekly Scene Study class, similar to the monthly drop in workshops we’ve been doing - just weekly now. Could have a different theme each month. 

  • Let us know if either of these ideas strongly interest you!

Mixers - 

  • We’re considering hosting weekly mixers every Friday after the 8pm shows. These would have more of a short form bent, as audience members would be welcome to participate. 

  • Another possibility is to hold mixers Sunday night, which would be either long form only or a mix of short form and long form. 

  • Some suggested having the mixers before the shows begin. Might not be possible with theater prep for shows. 

  • What’s your preference? 

Bar shows - Kevin Bauer is interested in spearheading more bar-prov shows around Cincinnati. These typically pay in free beer. If you’re an interested performer, get in touch with Kevin! 

Camera - 

  • Lots of discussion about how it would be nice if IC had an in-house camera to record shows. 

  • Would allow teams to easily see performance recordings, allow people who can’t get to the show can still watch, provide examples for classes, etc. 

  • The problem is that this would either be expensive or low quality. We’d also need a solution for how the recordings would potentially be edited and uploaded online. 

  • Maybe recruit college students?

  • If you’re someone interested in trying to brainstorm and/or manage this solution, please let us know. Until a solution pans out, phone recordings are always an option. IC could certainly provide a phone tripod in the event you don’t have an audience member available to record.

  • Another suggestion is to generally encourage more recording by audience/community members, to have a shared Google drive where people can upload recordings. 

Show logistics - 

  • We’ve already begun implementing the suggestion for a weekly email to performers with things like who’s hosting, who’s doing tech, who’s in the cast, and what is the coupon code.

  • Possibly stagger call time order by 15min?

Marketing Discussions…

  • Suggestion for more on-the-street marketing, passing out flyers, hanging flyers, etc, especially in Clifton and Northside. We’d love to have a “Street team” to do this (or something more cleverly named). Would you join the cleverly named street team to help spread the info about IC?

  • Facebook - It’s helpful if people share other people’s posts, tag each other, invite others to Facebook events.

  • Agree upon collective hashtags. #ImprovCincinnati … others? 

  • Website could benefit from addition of house teams

  • Is anyone interested in being part of a Marketing Committee to help coordinate all these things?

Environment 

  • Please carpool when possible!

Volunteering

  • Request for the return of Improv(e) Cincinnati volunteering events

Thanks again to everyone who came out!