Open Forum in The Villages - Show #10 - Christine Sigel - Improv

In this show, our guest Christine Sigel talks about her experiences in the Improvisational Theater Club of the Villages. 

She talks about her background and experiences.

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Transcript

Show-10-

Inside Improv: A Conversation with Christine Sigel

[00:00:00] Nancy: Welcome to the Open Forum in the Villages Florida Podcast. In this show, we talk to leaders in the community, leaders of clubs, and interesting folks who live here in the villages to give perspectives of what is happening here in the Villages Florida. We are a listener supported podcast. There will be shout outs for supporters in episodes.

[00:00:20]  Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth. I'm here today on Open Forum in The Villages with Christine Siegel. Thanks for joining me, Christine. 

[00:00:27]  Christine Sigel: I'm happy to be here. 

[00:00:28]  Mike Roth: Good. In today's show, we're gonna be talking about Improvisational Theater company and what they do.

You've been involved with the Improvisational Theater Club for how many years 

[00:00:38]  Christine Sigel: I've been there for 4 years

[00:00:41]  Mike Roth: Very Good. Now as our normal habit here on Open Forum s we're gonna start with a joke, Christine. Why are snails so slow? 

[00:00:51]  Christine Sigel: I wish I knew the end. 

[00:00:52]  Mike Roth: It's because they're carrying a house on their, I hope everyone else laughs and we gotta put some fun into this.

And so you've been here in the villages how many years? Six. Six years. And. You've been in the Improvisational Theater Club for how long? 

[00:01:08]  Christine Sigel: Four years. 

[00:01:09]  Mike Roth: Four years. Uh, are you involved in any other clubs in the villages? 

[00:01:13]  Christine Sigel: Yes. Ballroom dance. 

And astrology. There's a couple of others. Boomer humor. 

[00:01:18]  Mike Roth: Good.

Christine wanted to tell us a little bit back background, what you did before you came here to the 

[00:01:23]  Christine Sigel: Yes. I did ballroom dance was my favorite. My bike road. I walk did some, I did canoeing. 

[00:01:31]  Mike Roth: In the villages? 

[00:01:32]  Christine Sigel: No, all of this was in Long Island. 

[00:01:34]  Mike Roth: Where did you canoe in Long Island? 

[00:01:36]  Christine Sigel: Out east in Smithtown.

It's a 

[00:01:38]  Mike Roth: quiet river. 

[00:01:39]  Christine Sigel: Yes. 

[00:01:39]  Mike Roth: Not too many people realize there are a couple of, so you've been involved with the Improv Theater Club for four years? Four years. And. Why don't you tell our audience some of the things that you like best about improv? 

[00:01:51]  Christine Sigel: I would do it three times a week. I like a great leader and it's very, it's a lot of fun to do scenes and we get a lot of, from the variety of, which makes it very interactive.

[00:02:02]  Mike Roth: In improv, there are no. Lines to learn. No auditions, no hideously long rehearsal schedule. So how do you learn what you're supposed to do up on stage? 

[00:02:14]  Christine Sigel: We practice and we say the first thing that comes into our mind. 

[00:02:18]  Mike Roth: That's right. There are probably 30 rules in improv, but we'll talk about the first three.

First rule is say the first thing that comes into your mind, and the second rule is 

[00:02:28]  Christine Sigel: make your partner look good. 

[00:02:30]  Mike Roth: Good. You got the third rule. The second rule is accept all offer. 

[00:02:33]  Christine Sigel: Yes, I miss it. 

[00:02:35]  Mike Roth: The in improv to make a scene move forward, you always want to accept what the other person says. So if the first person in the scene says, let's go out to the Yankees ball game, you are obligated to accept that offer.

[00:02:49]  Christine Sigel: Yes, let's get a hot dog and some ice cream while we 

[00:02:52]  Mike Roth: good. And so, yes, and in improv, but standard reply, we never want to say no or but 'cause those things put a lot of pressure on the other person in the scene and they may not not look good. Rule three is make the other person in the scene look good. So Christine, you're involved in a lot of different scenes over the years in improv.

Why don't you tell the audience about your one or two favorites? 

[00:03:15]  Christine Sigel: I do. Really well and um, quite funny in QVC and the expert. Sometimes we do the inventor. And 

[00:03:25]  Mike Roth: why don't you explain to the listeners what the QVC routine is? 

[00:03:30]  Christine Sigel: Yes. Someone from the audience. Gives a prop to my partner who gives it to me, and then whatever it is, I make it something and I speak about what it is, and at the end give it the price and say, we only have 50 left and then we're sold.

[00:03:49]  Mike Roth: Mm-hmm. And some of these prop inventions are. Quite remarkable. One of, one of our players came up with one of those eyeglass cleaning, uh, cloths. 

[00:04:00]  Christine Sigel: Yes. 

[00:04:00]  Mike Roth: And what did you call that? 

[00:04:02]  Christine Sigel: A magic carpet. 

[00:04:03]  Mike Roth: Hmm. 

[00:04:04]  Christine Sigel: A very funny one I did was somebody gave me a comb and I said that it was used for surgical removal of fat and loose skin.

[00:04:15]  Mike Roth: Mm-hmm. That was a very funny scene and. You played the expert? 

[00:04:19]  Christine Sigel: Yes. 

[00:04:20]  Mike Roth: Or the inventor, and two, those are two different scenes, but in the inventor game, I think one that probably the funniest is the one where you invent invented a way to teach bees, honeybees how to wash and wax cars. 

[00:04:33]  Christine Sigel: Yes. That was extremely funny, and it was a three minutes.

[00:04:37]  Mike Roth: Could you tell us a little bit more about that? 

[00:04:39]  Christine Sigel: Yes. It had to do with bees coming to my home and making more bees, sitting on a buffalo for sleep, putting the villages car wash outta business because we were so good. And charging $35 a car wash, and people gave very big tips because they were so cute.

[00:05:01]  Mike Roth: Well, how do they give bees tips? 

[00:05:03]  Christine Sigel: We have a tip jar and the bees split it up so they can buy marijuana and cigarettes. 

[00:05:09]  Mike Roth: One would've thought, honey, marijuana and cigarettes. 

[00:05:12]  Christine Sigel: They wax with ps. They wax with caruba. 

[00:05:17]  Mike Roth: One would've thought they would've used bees. Whack. 

[00:05:19]  Christine Sigel: Yes. That's an alternative. They use both.

[00:05:22]  Mike Roth: And with their little hands, they can get it to the crevices. 

[00:05:24]  Christine Sigel: Oh yes. They, because they're so small and their legs and hands are thin, they can wash everything. 

[00:05:33]  Mike Roth: Mm-hmm. Christine, why don't you share with our audience what you personally get out of coming to each of the Monday evening sessions to eight 20 at Rohan first floor Monday?

[00:05:45]  Christine Sigel: Yes, I'm very happy I interact with the player. Mike is a great direct. Personally, I wish it was three times a week. That's how much I enjoy it. He has a lot of scenes and we volunteer. Sometimes he will ask certain people to do the scene and they have the ability to turn it down or do. 

[00:06:08]  Mike Roth: And we have all types of people from all different walks of life.

Why don't you tell our audience what you did for a living before you came to the 

[00:06:16]  Christine Sigel: I had my own business for 28 years. I was a printing broker and I subcontracted jobs all over the country the best. 

[00:06:25]  Mike Roth: Did you do anything else before that? 

[00:06:27]  Christine Sigel: Before that I was an office manager. Prior to that I was a secretary.

When I was young, I was a cashier at various, when I was 13, I had a pretzel and sold pretzel. 

[00:06:42]  Mike Roth: So you became an entrepreneur as a very young, 

[00:06:44]  Christine Sigel: yes. 

[00:06:45]  Mike Roth: And I understand you were a New York State champion in something. 

[00:06:49]  Christine Sigel: Yes. I was the first woman to win the New York State Scrabble Championship, and then I won it the second time.

And was the only person and being a female to have one or two tons. Mm-hmm. I had half the dictionary memo. 

[00:07:07]  Mike Roth: Half the, 

[00:07:08]  Christine Sigel: yes. There is a separate Scrabble player's dictionary with strange words That's the ones that I memo. Oh. 

[00:07:15]  Mike Roth: Give us an example, if you can. A strange word you probably don't use in daily conversation, but it's perfectly legit.

Scrabble. 

[00:07:24]  Christine Sigel: Yes. We had XI. 

[00:07:26]  Mike Roth: I, isn't that like Roma Numer 11? 

[00:07:30]  Christine Sigel: It had a meaning, but because I memorized half the dictionary, I could not memorize parts of. We had QAID, we had Ag. We had a lot of strange two letter words, and then of course the hook would make it. If we used ag, we could put a letter in front of ag and then if ag was horizontal, we could go down vertical.

I once had a triple for 167 points, and that also was the highest single scoring work. Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:06]  Mike Roth: So here are the villages. Do you play Scrabble with people? 

[00:08:09]  Christine Sigel: I have played Scrabble with people and I have so many other interests. That I let it go. 

[00:08:15]  Mike Roth: I guess some people here in the villages might not have heard of some you.

How much of the dictionary do you think you still have memorized? 

[00:08:21]  Christine Sigel: I have a lot memorized and probably pretty close to half. What I do is when I see a license plate and I'm waiting for a light behind that car, I then anagram as many words as I can by adding letters, and it just is fun. 

[00:08:39]  Mike Roth: Mm-hmm. Okay. Do you have any other hobbies here in the villages?

[00:08:42]  Christine Sigel: Yes, I have ballroom dancing, which I had in New York. Mm-hmm. I have the Astrology Club. 

[00:08:48]  Mike Roth: Mm-hmm. If 

[00:08:49]  Christine Sigel: the Magic Club was later, I would enter that. 

[00:08:52]  Mike Roth: Yeah. Well, the Magic club's at nine o'clock in the, 

[00:08:54]  Christine Sigel: I'm not a wash and work, so that becomes impossible for me. Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:58]  Mike Roth: So how often do you go to the ballroom dancing?

[00:09:01]  Christine Sigel: The Ballroom Dance Club has a dance every two weeks. That's one group. Singles and dance ha dance every month. 

[00:09:09]  Mike Roth: What's the most positive experience that you've had? Your ballroom dancing? 

[00:09:13]  Christine Sigel: Yes, I did somba, which is a very difficult thing. Mm-hmm. And, uh, most proficient in swing. 

[00:09:19]  Mike Roth: In swing. 

[00:09:20]  Christine Sigel: Yes. The 

[00:09:21]  Mike Roth: same people come every week to the Ballroom dancing club.

[00:09:24]  Christine Sigel: Mostly it's the same people, and sometimes we get new people just like improv. It's the same people and then new people come. 

[00:09:32]  Mike Roth: Improv is always accepting the way we start the program with some exercises, getting everyone familiar with one another and going comfortable. And then we typically go into learning routines or.

Practicing routines for shows. Right. How many, how many improv shows have you been in the past couple of years? 

[00:09:49]  Christine Sigel: The big show that has 200 to 250 people, I've done four times. So all the times that, that we had it and now we've started doing different clubs at rec center and I believe that's from word of mouth.

'cause we're very good. 

[00:10:07]  Mike Roth: Yeah. The Improvisational Theater Club. We'll do anywhere four and six shows, clubs less than a hundred miles, and that's worked out very well for both the audience and the clubs and observational theater. 

[00:10:18]  Christine Sigel: Yes. As a matter of fact, one of the leaders of the group, she became a member of our group, 

[00:10:25]  Mike Roth: and occasionally you'll perform the Bohemian Spotlight Cafe.

[00:10:30]  Christine Sigel: Yes, that is the first Saturday of every month I've done scenes with Mike. The same with we have a great time and the audience, 

[00:10:39]  Mike Roth: right? That's held up at Paradise Recreation Center from 6:00 PM or five six p. Doors open at five 30. It shows at six, so wait at nine, and that's almost at open mic now where anyone can go up and request a slot for five minutes routine.

A song dances you. You never know what you're gonna 

[00:10:56]  Christine Sigel: do. There's one group that does clogging and that's quite spectacle to see. 

[00:11:02]  Mike Roth: Mm-hmm. But you don't do any clogging? 

[00:11:04]  Christine Sigel: No, I don't. Mike's wife is doing tap dance to do that. 

[00:11:07]  Mike Roth: Christine, do you have anything else to add before we sign off? 

[00:11:11]  Christine Sigel: I think that people listening to the podcast should attend our Monday meetings starting.

They would have a great to the audience and eventually, from what I've seen with the new people, they then will file. 

[00:11:24]  Mike Roth: Yeah. When and where are the improvisational theater meetings? Christine? 

[00:11:28]  Christine Sigel: They're every Monday, but the fifth Monday of the month. They're at Rohan Center in the Lake Neon from six 30. We have snacks at seven.

[00:11:39]  Mike Roth: Thanks for joining us on the show, Christine. 

[00:11:41]  Christine Sigel: I had a good time. 

[00:11:42]  Mike Roth: Good. Remember our next episode will Air Live next Friday at 9:00 AM or should I say prerecorded, but. That's when it'll be released on our regular subscriptions Bonus. Subscribers can get early access to episodes. Should you want to become a sponsor of the show, contact me at mikeRoth@rothvoice.com.

If you know someone that you think should be on the show, send me an email at mike@rothvoice.com. I want to thank everyone for listening to the show. The content of the show is copyright by Roth Voice 2022. All rights reserved.