I’m breaking away from the usual focus of the Creative Spaces series this month to capture a very unique creative space and endeavor. Instead of featuring a single individual, I am featuring an organization led by a single individual. It’s an organization that is very near and dear to my heart and that I believe has gone through a unique journey to discover the importance of having a separate, creative space. A journey I was curious to hear and share.
One Group Mind (OGM) is a long form improvisational comedy organization that provides training and performance opportunities to Chicago’s hot bed of talented improvisers. The organization has existed in one way or another for over 20 years and has been the home of performers and teams that have won awards and gone on to successful careers on a multitude of well-known shows (The Office, Saturday Night Live, Community, Arrested Development, etc.). At present, they are trying to reach an important milestone for comedy theaters: purchasing a permanent home for their performances and rehearsals.
As they approach the end of their make-or-break Kickstarter funding for the space, I sat down with OGM’s founder and fearless leader, Mike Abdelsayed, to discuss the pending move and the power of creative spaces and a lot of other nerdy things.
If you asked me that question at different times in my life, I probably would have answered differently and if you ask me again in five years, my answer may change, but right now…here’s where I am: Long form teaches you two things above all: how to improvise and teamwork.
As humans I think we all eventually discover that you can’t plan for everything. Discovering what you’re capable of with a limited amount of tools and time and unlimited outcomes is a necessity to survive. I like to think about that scene in Apollo 13 when they come in with that big bag of shit, throw it on the table and say “we’re running out of oxygen, this is what we have.” If you know how to improvise, you can look at that table and see all of the different tools and their intended uses and outcomes, but also can visualize how you can combine them in new ways to find new uses and accomplish something much bigger, better and wonderful.
The second part is team, team, team, team, team. I think as an improviser, what you discover after working with a long term team is a level of acceptance and the people you are creating with. It’s one thing to be able to create under pressure given what you have, it’s another to understand teamwork and what it really means to rely on the strengths of others and to cover each other’s weaknesses in order to accomplish a goal.
One Group Mind can probably be traced to my experience coaching a team at iO called Under Oath. It was my first coaching experience and a lot of the performers’ first team experience. After about 6 months, they were broken up, but for their last show they sold something like 120 tickets. I saw a team that learned all the right things, bonded together, pushed each other and also brought a steady house…and they didn’t want to stop playing together.
So we kept going…and our evolution followed the evolution of almost every independent team out there: we started doing shows on our own, landed a weekly slot at The Spot (then called Frankie J’s) and started having guest slots to help fill out our houses. We trained two new teams to share the show with us in order to keep the quality of the shows and house more consistent. Eventually, we had 6 teams playing on two different nights weekly, two years later our houses were good, but our rent went up and we couldn’t afford it…so we called it.
That became somewhat of a pattern: We’d find a run or a space, enjoy it for a while, but ultimately it would be unsustainable.
The best training model for me is to go as far as you can go, and as in depth as you can all while having consistency around you — consistency in show, in coach, in cast and in responsibilities. I feel like you need that in order to really move forward.
You’ll notice some universities structure their acting classes to have at least one class where you’ve been with the same people since freshman year — and that’s with good reason. How can you address your personal short comings if no one is really aware of them?
The only people that are going to help you grow are the people who have known you for a long time — they are capable of saying something about your skill that isn’t superficial or a quick audition note, they know you. On top of that, you’re actually willing to listen to them. Class notes from a teacher or colleague that has only seen you play for 8 weeks are not always going to be the most direct or in depth, and that’s fine, it doesn’t make them wrong, but if someone knows you for longer and knows what you are capable of, their notes are going to be more insightful…and you may actually be willing to listen to and address them.
On a task-level, there is no “typical”. In operations alone there is sales, marketing, public relations, human resources, finance, information technology, legal and production. Each of those areas has a myriad of tasks and extensive workflows. I’ve had tremendous help from time to time, but with limited time, resources and labor, a lot of the time it all has to fall on me. And then, there is the talent side: managing all of the teams and schools, their numbers, their growth, whether they are going to festivals. None of that can be automated — every situation demands a unique solution. Those aren’t just tasks you can knock out in a day.
An old mockup of what the new space ext. could look like.
From a staff and financial situation, our previous arrangements were always going to be unsustainable. Using my long form training, I could see a pattern at play and it wasn’t pretty, haha. The pattern was saying that the more success you see the more likely it is that your landlord would try and raise your rent, knowing that with the time and work you’ve put into that space, you can’t really leave. This was the plan for a very long time. For the sake of lower monthly expenses, yes, but also to build a true, dedicated audience and have the creative freedom we crave.
We’re a long form organization, we can finally design a space that plays towards long form. That’s huge!
Also, I look forward to having the time and flexibility to establish a floor to our long form shows — building our presentation and reputation so our audiences will know every shows will be at least “this” good. I think our audiences can recognize good improv and strong long form.
The Salon at Collaboraction.
Definitely. There’s a thought that laughter is contagious so you should pack your audience together in shoulder to shoulder, that way, if one person laughs, it will spread. I don’t like that. That laugh sounds obligatory, it comes from a place of necessity or discomfort. I don’t want that laugh. I’d rather get the audience feeling so comfortable that they think they are in their own living room and then something makes them snort. That’s why at our Links Hall space I opted for a more cabaret-style set up.
On the performance side, your space can shape your audience’s expectations. At Collaboraction we were lucky enough to perform in two different space and really feel the shift. One was a black box theatre, it lent itself to the theatrical and we could get away with long pauses, drama and subtlety in our acting. The other space, The Collaboraction Salon, literally felt like you were in a huge living room. We could play fast and ridiculous and the audience was incredibly forgiving and casual.
We’re an organization that takes acting seriously, but we still love the fun and games and messing with each other so I’d like to craft a space that lands somewhere in the middle.
A common language. The types of creative environments I work in are almost always team-oriented and, to me, having a common language is monumental. People need to be able to discuss each other’s ideas and move forward without feeling judged or judgmental. Don’t just tell me something wasn’t funny or didn’t work, be specific, tell me why. How did you feel about that show? Use your words. Common language serves analysis, growth and understanding in a creative environment.
Mike about to take the stage
Lots of monitors and coffee? I’m a coffee and technology freak. I translated my whole training theory and workflow onto a site that I built for myself…it’s like a wiki library of improv goodness. I like shit organized and orderly and technology lets me do that. It also keeps everything very accessible.
So, lots of monitors, lots of computers, lots of coffee…and one great office chair that leans back…and a hammock, oh my goodness would I love a hammock.
Something multipurpose. I want it to not only serve the public in a way that can elevate improv to a classier art, but also to serve us. At the end of the day, we need to help ourselves and I think creating a space that functions in a multitude of ways can do that.
We have a lot of ideas: rehearsal rooms with pull out couches instead of plastic chairs so that teams visiting from out of town for intensives and festivals have a place to stay, a soundproofed room that can be used to record voice over demos and podcasts, a room with a pull-down green screen or something we could use for headshots, a writing room, a library of current and retired teams, etc. But most of all, a space where we can all work together and meet each other. I want our space to be a clubhouse–encouraging a community that watches each other’s shows, supports, and truly knows each other not just as a product of our work on stage, but as people.
The comfort level. I think our players are truly at ease in performances — performing as themselves as opposed to trying to be what someone else wants out of them as a performer. That comes from trust — they can joke with each other on stage as naturally as they would at a bar.
I think a lot of times, at the beginning, people see our program as having a lot of restrictions. It’s true, we don’t dismiss the learning process, but I think our coaches are really good at saying “Hey, trust me. At the end of this you’ll have more freedom and support than you could ever imagine”…because you’ll have that bond and common language. We teach these things meticulously so that you can take risks and break them later, with full support of your team.
Unionization.
One Group Mind’s teams are currently on a performance hiatus as they enjoy the holidays and push for the funding necessary to close on their new space. You can check out some of their teams and shows on their Vimeo channel (may I recommend their longest-running show, Tricky Mickey) and hopefully in person in the not-so-distant future. If they meet their Kickstarter goal, their new home will be on the corner of Ashland & North Avenues in Chicago, IL.
At posting time, they have less than 6 days left to go on their Kickstarter and are less than $3,500 away from meeting their goal. With oodles of different donation levels and perks, you should probably go over to their Kickstarter right now and throw down some moolah. Every little bit helps and the Tuesday after Thanksgiving is technically known as ‘Giving Tuesday’…so what better time than now?
Like One Group Mind on Facebook or follow them on Twitter at @OneGroupMind.
If you would like to be featured on the Creative Spaces series, please contact me.
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