Challenges for Chris to overcome:

Lack of encouragement toward skill building; the focus is on what went wrong – and the evaluation is set and objective rather than an opportunity to learn or change. Delivers closed criticism much more often than he gives constructive criticism or expresses positive critiques of our play as a group as well as individually. (Constructive criticism = HOW a move could have been made more clearly/better.) Seems to take input from the team as an attack, though he ultimately will take our input into account and try to act on it. Openings: Chris had us set the type of opening we do (invocation) so that we wouldn’t fail at it onstage. This would make sense if we were simultaneously working on our opening skills in rehearsals so that the invocation was a building block in a learning process rather than a replacement for something we can’t do. But we are not working on how to improve our opening skills in rehearsals. So the invocation is a crutch that stagnates progress rather than a tool in a step toward growth. Chris does not often demonstrate the ability to analyze our play beyond its appearance on the surface. He jumps either to judgement or immediate criticism of scenic moves that are misunderstood by a scene partner or that are not well received by the audience. Moves are set in the dichotomy of success or failure rather than being viewed as an attempt based upon a player’s underlying, constructive intention. A move is either right or it is wrong. This leads to unchanged habits in the move-maker and a belief within other teammates that when they don’t understand a move, it is a bad move that shouldn’t be made, should be judged within a pass/fail dichotomy. This set view leads to a lack of team members’ support of each other. Finger of blame during Chris’ notes is generally pointed at the person who made a move outside of the ordinary. No direction is ever given to the scene partner to support a move that doesn’t hit right. Chris does not assume that there IS intent behind players’ “failed” moves therefore no direction is given in terms of how a move could have been made more clearly/better (e.g. state intention or add environmental elements). Consequently, there is a lack of mutual support and sometimes even respect for certain players on the team. (Improv isn’t preschool, but it does rely on a base of mutual team trust on and off the stage. The above behaviors lead to a tone of judgement between team members and hesitancy during shows.) Chris is clearly an intelligent guy and a talented improviser, but DOING improv is a lot different from COACHING improv and, because this is Chris’ first coaching experience, he’d likely benefit from some training/observation of other coaches or teachers. Even in the past year of him being our coach, there has been a lot of improvement in the way he works with us – but he’s learning as he goes without a strong base of knowledge/observation to pull from.

Prissy folding a flag. "And then you say, ‘We are super sorry for your loss.’ " The premise is that they are gay soldiers going through funeral training. But the truth, based in "super", is that they are not able to handle the gravity of the situation. It’s funny because it’s truth exaggerated in affect.