Here are a few tips that can assist in your efforts when auditioning!

1) Be present! Think of improv auditions like a musical jam session and  just go with the flow. When you try to force the music it never sounds right, but when you just let it happen, it’s pure nirvana! Well do that. Let it happen by being present!
2) Don’t force the funny! Please, please, please, don’t try to be funny! It’s never funny when you try to force the funny. It comes across as “LOOK AT ME I’M FUNNY!! NOW LAUGH!” If that happened in a ComedySportz show, the audience (“Loyal Fans”) would cross their arms and become defensive or defiant. The funniest things happen, when you are not “forcing” the funny. Stay out of your mind. Thinking of the next thing to say while in a show, instead of simply responding, is writing script. And in going to your mind, you often do not hear what is actually happening and by the time you add the your line of thought, the line you just scripted in your head, the moment has passed, and it’s no longer going to be funny.
3) Support the players with whom you are working. Make them shine more than you want to shine. Make ‘em look marvelous! The auditioners always notice team work.
4) Fail! Don’t be afraid to fail. If you do, enjoy the moment. Generally, when a mistake happens in the show, the audience laughs. It tends to be comedy gold. So, accept it, embrace it, let it happen, and continue. If you act like it was a mistake, if you have that look of “failure” or “sorry” on your face shake it off, otherwise, it comes across as “I’m not good enough” and of course, you are.
5) HAVE FUN!!!!

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/ComedySportz–Classes–Birthdays–and-Hairspray-.html?soid=1101242677820&aid=UeCvK2B2pbg

Over the course of the weekend, we had a scene that ended with the song Circle of Life from the Lion King. Our own Aaron Grant and his new baby Jackson, were in the audience watching. Compelled by the music Aaron walked up onto the field with Jackson above his head as if he were indeed Simba. All the players, instantly and instinctively acted as animals and bowed at the young kings feet.

Then we celebrated a 50th anniversary for a private party, cus we do that sort of thing. The party was all afternoon, and the fabulous food was catered. We sampled! It was yummy! Word has it that everyone had a good time. Well, that’s what the little Mrs.’ told her husband to say, and he did so right on cue.

The weekend was completed with a Loyal Fan proposing to his girl friend during a show. We got them both on the stage as volunteers for a game, which ended with him getting down on one knee and popping the question. She said yes, and everyone applauded! It was quite the amazing moment and our first engagement in our new theatre.

Yup! It truly was a weekend celebrating A Circle of Life!

ComedySportz Improv Theatre of Richmond is set to open our doors again! We’ve been in spring training 
brushing up on those improv skills. We have a bunch of new players and the return of many of the regulars you’ve grown to love over the years.

We thank you for giving us the feed back we needed in compiling the research for our new location. Reading your comments and input was very informative, and some of you are very humorous! What tickled us the most was that many of you requested that we set our new home in Short Pump, but then we had equal responses to “Hell no don’t go to Short Pump!” We actually settled for a location in the West End about 5 miles away from Short Pump at the Gold’s Gym Plaza. You may know this plaza as the old Loehmann’s Plaza or the West Tower Plaza or where the West Tower Movie theatres are, or the place to get Gelati Celesti ice cream, or the place with the Starbucks!

You might be asking “What’s going to be different about this ComedySportz theatre?”

Well, we’re going to focus on the shows and not the food! We know our strengths and it ain’t running a restaurant. If you want food tho, there a number of different restaurants in our shopping center such as Peking, Pho City, Quiznos, and Starbucks. And if you’re an ice cream lover you’ll want to make sure to save some room form Gelati Celesti’s! We’ll have some concessions available, but if you want dinner and a show, come and eat and drink at one of our neighbors restaurants, and then come laugh at us!

And perhaps you noticed on the home page of our site that we have a fundraiser and are asking for the support of loyal fans in raising enough to get our theatre started. The fundraiser goes to equipment we’ll be needing for the new CSzRVA theatre such as lights, seats, etc.

That’s it for this bit o newz! Although we would love to hear your comments. What are you looking forward to seeing at the shows? What have you missed? What did you enjoy at our theatre? We love comments!

Every year we see it on TV! In one version or another Charles Dicken’s classic Christmas Carol is there to remind us how important it is to live in the attitude of gratitude!

This year, instead of watching some bizarre version on TV staring some D list celebrity, hire us and let us bring your team up and into the show.

This interactive program gets your staff involved as either street vendors, ghosts of Christmas past or present, Tiny Tim, nad even Scrooge!

Don’t worry, with every show we do, our number one focus is to make our audience look good! So who ever comes up and participates in the show, will definitely be the star!

Call us at 804.266.9377 or email us at christine@lessonsoflaughter.com for more information.

Thanks again Loyal Fans for your support! Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about our new location. If you want to make a crazy huge, say $10,000, contribution, we’ll be more than happy to let you see our shows for free for a week or two.

All kidding aside, if you do wish to make a contribution, be involved as volunteers, or contribute information that can help us improve our next theatre, we will gladly appreciate your support.

Thank you,

Howie The Ref

First, how have y’all been. We’ve missed you! Miss seeing you, performing for, and with you, and miss hearing you laugh with us. So much is happening with the ComedySportz gang, and it’s time we let our fans in on the news. In this issue you’ll find out about the ComedySportz Richmond, Phoenix Rising Tour, Christine Walters new endeavors, and an upcoming benefit show.

Upcoming show!

ComedySportz Fundraiser for the St. Thomas Episcopal Church Youth

Saturday, June 19 – 7:00pm
St. Thomas Episcopal Church – Parish Hall
3402 Hawthorne Avenue in the Ginter Park neighborhood of Richmond’s Northside
Tickets: $10 each OR $25 for a family (2 parents & up to 4 kids)
Tickets available at the door as long as they’re available, or online in advance at http://www.stthomasyouth.myevent.com/

Why? This August, members of the St. Thomas Youth Group will be embarking on a mission trip to the mountains of West Virginia, the heart of Appalachia. They will spend a week working directly with a family affected by poverty, volunteering their time with home repairs and helping them out however they can. This show is to raise funds to help cover transportation, food and additional program costs associated with making the trip a reality!

Lessons Of Laughter

Christine Walters is back in the saddle again. She just started her own company, LOL, Lessons Of Laughter, LLC. Try as she might to not be involved with comedy, her heart is with improv and ComedySportz. We always knew it was! Now, with LOL, her focus is corporate innovation and team training, speaking engagements, creating creative programs, and coaching presentation skills. Visit her new site at www.Lessonsoflaughter.com if you’re looking for programs, a speaker, or a presentation coach.

Last August Christine started a cheerleading program with RMA , Retail Merchants Association. She and five others create informative and comical cheers for the monthly RMA breakfast meetings. Perhaps you saw the recent cheer Martin’s was Ukrop’s and Ukrop’s is Martin’s.

During her time away from comedy, one of the loyal fans/friends had her working with his companies. She’s still moonlighting with The Document Termination Company, and City Ice. Why did she choose to work with this loyal fan? Because she believes in his integrity to quality products. In her opinion these two companies provide the best product in their field, and they’re produced here in Richmond.

ComedySportz Richmond, Phoenix Rising Tour

Since we are in the planning stages of bringing back da’ funny, we are looking for ways to bring the ComedySportz show to our fans. We’ve had fans continuing to ask when and where will our next show be. Thank you, we appreciate the love.

With that in mind, and while lining our ducks in a row, working on the plan, and looking for a new theatre space, we are also coordinating a ComedySportz Richmond Phoenix Rising Tour. We are now accepting offers to bring our show to your neighborhood. If you know of a restaurant with a private banquet room, a location with a theatre space, or any other location that offers a private area and is interested in boosting their food and or door sales we want to talk. The team is looking to perform for you, and we need our fans help to find locations that might be a great fit. If you know of a location, please contact us at cwalters@comedysportz.com. The new management team will be eager to work with your ideas. Soon, you’ll be able to visit our website, www.comedysportzrichmond.com for all the new news!

Loyal Fans,

While we’re working on our new endeavors please help us by telling everyone you know about  the return of ComedySportz Richmond. We are open to location ideas, to restaurant partners, to investors etc. If you fit that description, or know someone who does please contact us. We’d love to hear from you.

While we make our plans, stay tuned for the announcement of where you can join in fun of the Phoenix Rising Tour. Also, in the mix we’ll be having auditions for our Major League team this fall. And as soon as we have our new theatre we’ll be relaunching our High School League and Little League programs. We have a lot of old things we’re looking forward to bringing back, and a great deal of new things we can’t wait to start.

Lots of Laughs,

Ref Howie,

ComedySportz Improv
cwalters@comedysportz.com
Richmond, Virginia 23228
804-266-9377

Interested in being involved with the festival? Want to see it really succeed, and are looking for a good program for an investment? We have some last minute sponsorship space available if you or your company are interested here more information.

Peace and Laughter,

In just two short weeks we’ll be performing again at the Cultural Arts Center of Glen Allen.  It will be the night before Halloween, October 30 at 7:00 and we’re looking forward to playing all of our spooky games. The players are getting ready and excited for this trick or treat occasion; mainly because the games in this show are more dangerous then most games we perform.  Food and beverage is provided by Catering by Jill, so come hungry.

Besides our ComedySportz shows at Cultural Arts Center of Glen Allen you can still catch a bunch of the players performing at Art6. If you’re on Facebook you can find out more information by joining the Richmond Comedy Coalition, or Art6. And the Random Acts Boys have landed at HaTTheatre so if you get a chance check them out.

What else is on the horizon you might ask? Well, glad you did! The RiF, The Richmond Improv Festival is just a few short weeks away! This year the RiF will be held at CenterStage and Capital Alehouse and runs from November 5 – 7.  We are very excited as we have 22 troupe from all across the east coast performing in the festival.  Check out the schedule!

This year we have some great sponsors for the RiF such as CenterStage, Capital Alehouse, Hilton Garden Inn, and The Richmond Jaycees.  If your company is interested in becoming a sponsor contact us at dave@shavefx.com for information and details.

We look forward to seeing you all and having you laugh with us again!

The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen has announced the addition of the 2nd Stage performance series. 2^nd Stage will take place in the Cardinal Ballroom inside The Center complex. Richard Koch, Performing Arts Manager states, “We want to create a program that compliments our Center Season. Whereas our Center Season presents international, national, regional and local performers, this series will focus more on local and regional talent. With the addition of this cabaret seating style venue, we’ll be able to offer the Richmond residents more events at lower prices.”  The series includes local musicians as well as local performing arts groups with food and beverage available for purchase from Catering by Jill.

The headliner group for 2^nd Stage will be the local favorite comedy troupe, ComedySportz Improv Theatre. Beginning Friday, July 25 and continuing on Friday, July 31, Friday, August 7 and Friday, August 14, they will offer two performances per evening. The 7pm performance, ComedySportz Improv, features a comedy show that is great for the entire family. In the show, two teams battle for laughs and points as they make up scenes, games and songs on the spot. The audience votes for the winners, a referee calls the fouls. The national anthem is even played before each match! The 9:30pm show, “The Scene” Improv offers a more mature comedy show. Each showing of The Scene features three different groups entertaining you with their own unique style of comedy, if you’ve seen Chicago style improv you’re in for a real treat!  Christine Walters, Muse of Merriment and Grand Poobah of ComedySportz Richmond, states, ” We are very excited to bring ComedySportz to The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen. The players have been getting antsy not having a home and are ready to bring da funny back to Henrico!” Beginning in September the performance schedule continues with performances on Friday, September 4, Friday, October 30, Friday, November 27 and Friday, January 22.  Tickets for each show are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.

Pretty exciting stuff if you ask us! We can’t wait to make you laugh again.

Well, we want to use this forum to inform our fans of what is and will be happening in our future as it unfolds. We hope you’ll stay tuned for the next chapter of our story.

As of March 28 2009, we have closed the theatre. We want to thank all of you that come out to see our shows during the last few months. The last weekend, according to many of the performers and fans was EPIC. The performers and the staff, have made the ComedySportz Improv Theatre an amazing performance venue for the Richmond Community. Personally, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for their ability, dedication and professionalism, and wish to thank them all for their outstanding performance and service. And to you, our loyal fans, thank you from the bottom of our funny bone for all the support you have given us over the years. To you we offer a standing ovation!

At this point we are collecting our restaurant and theatre belongings to ready ourselves for our online auction that will be provided by At Your Bidding.  If you’re in the market for restaurant items, or are interested in collecting memorabilia you might want to visit the auction and place your bids.

What’s next…well…we’re lining up our Kids Camp Programs and will be launching all the dates and information in the next newsletter. If you are not receiving our newsletter please add your information to our contact us page.

Also, we want to remind our fans that though we do not have a theatre we are still available for hire. We can come to you and perform our show.  Over the past 13 years we’ve performed for  100’s of different clients from Acushnet to VA Lottery, Churches to Hotels, and from the Mountains to the Beaches. If you have an upcoming event and are looking for entertainment that you know is a sure hit, please contact us.

Remember, we provide teambuilding seminars! Not only is improv a great way to refresh your team and communication skills, it is also a great way to reduce stress, and increase presentations skills.

Please check back with us to find out what happening. If you would like follow me on Twitter for the latest braking news in real time. We may not be sure of what’s coming next, but much like our performances we will be ready for the next offer with a Yes And attitude!

In the meantime Loyal Fans, help support Richmond Theatre and Arts. Explore some of the great entertainment this city has to offer! This city is rich and diverse in the arts. Support your local Theatre…go see a show this weekend.

Till next blog entree…remember don’t run with scissors!

Peace and Laughter,

Christine Walters