<\/p>\n
Julie Stein<\/p>\n
Synergy Theater artistic director Kenn Adams wants to change the perception of improv as short gag humor. Adams, who is in his 20th year with the performance group that improvises full-length plays, is a trailblazer in his field. The Martinez resident is an actor, director, playwright, and teacher who invented improv games the Family Dinner (aka Biography or Ding\/Buzz) and Sit, Stand and Kneel and wrote How to Improvise a Full-Length Play: The Art of Spontaneous Theater. Synergy\u2019s Stephen King\u2013themed show will run at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek from January 15\u201325.<\/p>\n
\u201cSynergy\u2019s mission is to elevate the art of improvisation so people understand that this is another way of creating theater \u2026 that is as rich, entertaining, and legitimate as writing a play.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Kenn Adams\u00a0Q:\u00a0How did you get into improv?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0One of my final years of college [in New York City], somebody who worked with an improvisational theater company in Manhattan [began] running workshops during lunch. I started taking them just for fun. It combined the two things I loved most\u2014acting and playwriting\u2014and you got to do them both at the same time. I was just hooked.<\/p>\n
Q: How are your shows different than what one might think of as improv?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0Short-form improvisation is what most people are familiar with, that they\u2019ve seen on television shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway? It\u2019s short scenes, usually based on a suggestion from the audience. Synergy Theater improvises full-length plays. Usually, people go to see a scripted play that starts at the beginning and tells a full story with consistent characters. We improvise according to that model.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0How does Synergy pick themes and prepare for its shows?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0I\u2019m always on the lookout for genres that [are both] marketable and well-known. We do improvised Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, and television and cinema styles like The Twilight Zone or science fiction like Star Wars. \u2026 We don\u2019t [try] to do parody of the material\u2014we really seek to emulate. When we do something like Stephen King, we will read Stephen King books and watch the movies and try to discover what it is that makes his style unique.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0Why is the East Bay a great place to produce performance art?<\/p>\n
A: The East Bay is so fortunate to have the Lesher Center for the Arts right in the midst of it. To perform in such a beautiful, well-respected, and popular regional arts center is a huge magnet to be here in the East Bay. But also, the people in Synergy Theater all live here, and we love this area. This is where we want to share our art.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0What is your ideal day in the East Bay?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0Anytime I can go somewhere with delicious vegan food, that\u2019s a very happy day for me. One of my favorites is in Concord. There\u2019s a wonderful restaurant called Veggie Today, and whenever we\u2019re looking for a nice night out, that\u2019s where we go.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Julie Stein Synergy Theater artistic director Kenn Adams wants to change the perception of improv as short gag…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[46211,54224,54223,2556,143,145,144,2235],"class_list":{"0":"post-99476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-artistic-director","9":"tag-improvisation","10":"tag-kenn-adams","11":"tag-lesher-center-for-the-arts","12":"tag-oakland","13":"tag-oakland-headlines","14":"tag-oakland-news","15":"tag-synergy-theater"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}