Exploring Improv and Unique Experiences with Dennis Upton

Exploring Improv and Unique Experiences with Dennis Upton

In this episode of Open Forum in The Villages, Florida, host Mike Roth chats with Dennis Upton about his extensive 23-year journey in improv. Dennis shares how he transitioned from teaching to improv through an adult education class and his continued engagement after moving to The Villages. He recounts memorable scenes, including a magical surf burial and his transformation into characters like Victor. Dennis also highlights the versatility improv offers in various roles, including being Santa Claus and participating in patient simulation work to assist healthcare training. The episode encapsulates the unpredictable and humorous essence of improv, encouraging listeners to explore and appreciate this art form.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:08 Dennis Upton's Improv Journey
01:18 Memorable Improv Moments
03:34 Unique Improv Experiences
06:28 Accents and Character Work
11:51 The Joy of Improv Shows
14:18 Conclusion and Show Information

Transcript

Mike Roth: 0:00

This is Mike Roth on Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. I'm here today with Dennis Upton. Thanks for joining me, Dennis. It's nice to be here. Good. Today we're going to be talking a little bit about Dennis background and his improv experience and some of the unusual improv experiences that you've had. That fair, Dennis? That sounds good to me. Good. So, how

Dennis Upton: 0:22

long have you been involved with improv? I started 23 years ago. Twenty three years ago. I was getting ready to retire from my teaching career and I thought, I need something else to do. And improv sure sounded like a lot of fun. So what type of improv training did you take? We, I actually started with an adult education class. it was being taught by an instructor who actually ran a comedy club and one night a week he had improv. And I think this was his training ground to find new people to perform for him. So three of us from that class actually joined his improv group. Okay. That was a way

Mike Roth: 0:57

to fill the stage. Yes, it was. And sell some beverages. Good. And. How long have you been coming here to The Villages?

Dennis Upton: 1:05

I think it was eight years ago. We started coming down and I think it was the second year. I thought, Hmm, there's improv going on in The Villages. I should check that out. So that's why I'm still here. Eight years later.

Mike Roth: 1:17

Good,

Dennis Upton: 1:17

Good.

Mike Roth: 1:18

And in all the improv scenes that you've done, what are a couple of your favorites?

Dennis Upton: 1:24

Well, sometimes when you do a scene, it turns into magic immediately. I remember one scene back home, another friend and I, and we were just. Surfs digging a, a burial site for a king. And it turned magic and the audience loved it. And then you can't recapture that because it's over and done. And that's the trouble with improv. You wanna say, oh, I wish I could do that again. Well, one time down here in The Villages though you asked me to step in and try an in scene with an inventor. And instead of just being Dennis, and one of the things I found with improv, when you go on stage, you're never Dennis. I'm in Dennis's body, but I want to be another character. So this character went on stage, became Victor, and he had sort of a Russian Eastern European accent. And I remember leaving the scene when we did that, and one of the other performers came up to me and said, Are you Russian? I said, No, I'm just not myself when I enter the scene.

Mike Roth: 2:22

So, Victor,

Dennis Upton: 2:23

what was your biggest invention? my country, not like your country, Mike. Very, very nice country, but people have flabby parts, you know. So I take product, I make I take goat, goat milk, old goat milk, and then I take hat from old man. Chop, chop hat up. Very tiny pieces, mix it, go to milk and let it stew for a while, you know, in sun, very good in sun. Then, you take product and put, you get underneath your chin, you get this shaky turkey typey thing there, you know. You put my product on, Mike, and pretty soon it tightens up, you look good. Share, you know, share the singer. She put too much on her face. She can't even smile no more, Mike. She used too much. Kardashian, not enough. They got this great big thing in the back. You know, Mike, not good. But it works very good for different parts of you, you know? Okay. And That was when Victor entered my head. I'm not sure who's entering my head when I walk on stage each time, but somebody comes out. It generally works out pretty well. Yeah, most of the time, and once in a while you say, well, that wasn't the best choice, but it's improv.

Mike Roth: 3:33

Yeah, yeah. And Before we started recording, you were talking to me about some of the other unusual uses of improv that you've used.

Dennis Upton: 3:42

Yes I've been fortunate to have a lot of different Performing opportunities Santa Claus is one that comes to mind, and that's basically total improv. I have been fortunate to have 30 years of teaching 10 year old kids, so working with little kids doesn't scare me. But sometimes you come up, and parents and children have very unusual requests. Sometimes it takes you by surprise, sometimes you want to laugh, and sometimes you think that, The family needs a laugh. So, being Santa Claus for many years in Buffalo, I'm Santa Claus at the Buffalo Zoo, I've worked with the Buffalo Sabres and a number of private groups. But also There's something called patient simulation work and there are many colleges in the Buffalo area who have health care programs and they need patients for the health care students to work with. So, one day I might have my hand amputated and they're teaching me mirror imagery. Another day I might have pneumonia. So, I'll cough like that basically all day. And then walk away. Your hand is healed. Your cough is healed. Another spot is one of our hospitals. It's a cancer institute and they're teaching a wonderful program with empathy. So I'm always the same person. I'm Greg. I'm 66. I have prostate cancer and the doctors and nurses are learning to deal with empathy and delivering bad news to a patient. But because I will do this six or seven times in a row, the same six or seven people watching their person with them doing the role play with me, I've decided to make every character different. So, One of the characters, he's just a plain old laid back goat farmer, Mike. And he just, it just takes everything just kind of comes along, you know, it's kind of easy for him. And then another one might be a very strict military person and everything's black and white. Yes. No. And it, it becomes a. Something that the people I'm working with kind of like it because I'll change my shirt or my hat. They see now, here's a different person in Dennis body and they're, they're kind of curious. One day I was doing it and I have basically eight characters. There were nine people doing it, and I wasn't certain what I was going to do. And then they said, put on that plaid flannel shirt and come back and be another character. And so this is improv. I knew I had to do something. So, I slowed down my speech quite a bit. And made it a person who had some challenges. And they had to learn how to deal with a person with challenges. Do all the characters have to have goats? No, no. But you know a couple of people, one of the guys said, I would take your goats from you. And I said What would you do with them? He said, I'd eat them. I said, you're not going to get my goats. So it's improv again. But what's nice, the group that I did performing with was called Comedy Sports, which is a national group of improvisational locations. And once a year they get together and they have like a week of training and performance times. And I got to take a class in accents. And it was so interesting because what they taught you was to take a key word, and if I wanted to do Irish, you had to think of the word potato. Because potato goes up and down, you know. In an Irish voice, it goes up and it goes down, like that. And if you think of that, you can get Irish and the audience is going to think you're still speaking Irish when you've switched your voice back and it's not Irish anymore. And the Scottish was kind of good, too, because They did that with rolling your"R"s and it's a great, good idea for Motor car. So now if you talk like that, then you drop some sounds, it sounds a little bit like you're Scottish and the audience, they'll, they'll sort of fill it in for you because it's not really good Scottish, but it's Scottish in my head.

Mike Roth: 7:25

Okay. And so if you ask, ask to. Come on down to New Orleans. How would that sound?

Dennis Upton: 7:31

Well, I talk a lot like this. You kind of let your voice drop a little bit. Sometimes, I tell jokes once in a while. Mike, you want to hear a joke told by a Southerner? A Southerner telling a little joke. I got a Southern joke here for you. Actually, this is Dennis talking to a Southerner. So, I was driving through Georgia. And it was just after Christmas, we were on our way down to The Villages, and I, I had to get gasoline, and the gas station is there, but they had this beautiful manger scene right nearby in the town, and I needed a little walk, so I walked over, and I saw the manger scene was kind of unique, because the three wise men were wearing fire hats, I thought. That's a little unusual.

Mike Roth: 8:09

Three wise men, wear a fire hat.

Dennis Upton: 8:11

That's exactly right.

Mike Roth: 8:12

Were you Macon Georgia?

Dennis Upton: 8:13

I wasn't Macon Georgia, Mike, yes I was.,So I went, when I paid for the gas, I said, you know, that's a really remarkable scene you have there, the Christmas scene, but I'm a little confused about the fire hats on the wise men. And the lady behind the counter, she says, I'm y'all ever read the Bible? I said, yes ma'am, I've read the Bible. Well, y'all ought to know better than that because right in the Bible it says, talks about three wise men came from afar. So that's best told with a southern accent.

Mike Roth: 8:44

We're going to take a break now and listen to Dr. Craig Curtis. Should people who want to reduce their risk of Alzheimer's and improve their brain health take something like Centrum Silver, which is advertised as a brain supplement?

Dr. Craig Curtis: 9:00

Well, another great question, Mike. So in a study published last year, they actually showed that people that took a multivitamin such as Centrum Silver, Centrum silver actually did slightly better on memory tests and this was a double blind placebo controlled study Sponsored by the alzheimer's association. However, the alzheimer's association has come out and said we still don't have enough information to recommend a daily multivitamin. There was a study that showed no effect of a daily multivitamin a few years back that was also a double blind placebo controlled study. So we do have conflicting evidence on whether or not you should take a daily multivitamin.

Mike Roth: 9:41

So the question is, take a multivitamin if you have an unhealthy diet. If you have a healthy diet, get your vitamins from natural foods.

Dr. Craig Curtis: 9:48

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Mike Roth: 9:50

Thanks very much, Dr. Curtis.

Dr. Craig Curtis: 9:51

Thank you for having me, Mike.

Warren: 9:52

Good. With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate the village's community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, craig curtis md.com, or call 3 5 2 5 0 0 5 2 5 2 to attend a free seminar.

Mike Roth AI 9-11-24: 10:08

I'm back with Dennis Upton Are there any other jokes that only can be told with a particular accent? Well, my talking dog joke. That takes a little longer. You want to hear the talking dog joke? That's really quite funny. That's not the one where the guy's driving down the road and sees a sign. Says,

Dennis Upton: 10:24

Talking dog for sale.

Mike Roth: 10:26

The talking dog for$3..

Dennis Upton: 10:28

Yeah, I paid 10 for mine and Mike. It was 10. Wow. Yeah, because you know that dog, when I went and talked to him, because the guy, when I said Mike, I said to the guy, Tell me about your dog. He says, go talk to the dog yourself. So I walked out back and there he was tied up to a chain. I says, hey dog, talk to me. And he says, alright. You see that, that trailer over there? There was a fire in that trailer just last week. And little Jimmy was, he was gonna get burned. But I called fire department. They came, they saved him. And then he says, you look over there, see that creek down there? Tom and Susie, they were down there playing in the creek. Susie fell in and she's going to drown, Mike. But I called the police, they came too, they rescued her. I says, that's good. So I walked back up front, I'm talking to the guy up front, I said, you want to sell that dog? He says, I do. I said, how much are you going to sell that dog for? He's gonna sell for ten bucks, he says. I said, ten bucks, that's not much for a talking dog. He says, it is, that dog's a liar, he didn't do none of that stuff. So that's a good one when spoken with what in my head is a southern accent.

Mike Roth: 11:35

Yeah, I think that works in almost any accent.

Dennis Upton: 11:37

Yeah, it is a good one.

Mike Roth: 11:39

Could be an Eastern European dog.

Dennis Upton: 11:41

Yeah, well, Victor, I don't know, he has maybe an Eastern European goat that could talk. We'll see how that works. I'll adapt it to the country. That might be a good idea.

Mike Roth: 11:51

So Dennis, you've played in several of our shows here at The Villages. Worked in the show in February. And I know you're not going to be in the show in April. Huh. Why don't you tell our listeners why they should go to an improv show?

Dennis Upton: 12:06

Well, back home when we would do a show, we'd say, Thank you for coming to our show. Thank you for paying to see a show that hasn't been written yet. And that's kind of what improv is. You're going to see a show that hasn't been written yet. And the beauty of improv is you can never predict what's going to be said, and how it's going to be said, and the mistakes that are going to be made And those can be the funniest things, the mistakes. If you're on stage as a performer, you learn when you've made a mistake, take a bow. They're going to laugh at it, so don't try and justify your mistake.

Mike Roth: 12:41

We call, in our set of rules for improv, there are no mistakes, just opportunities.

Dennis Upton: 12:47

Oh yes, yeah, and it's an opportunity because you really have to take what's given to you We call it justifying. Try and use it somehow and make the scene go forward. And once in a while, you run into a car crash and then you have to try and straighten it out. It's a lot of fun because, again, it's unpredictable. It's meant to be just funny humor. So check it out if you haven't, and if you have, you know you want to come back.

Mike Roth: 13:13

Tell everyone about that, that improv festival that you go to. Is that open to anybody? No, the improv things that we had actually were sort of closed. We had, I think, 25 cities at that time in the U. S. and a couple in Europe. And it was all doing the same type of improv, which is comedic short skits. Maybe there's long form, short form. This is all short form. Right, right. There's, I also learned this weekend at a convention I was at, that there's medium form, where the scenes run 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Oh. Okay, as opposed to long form. But it's all fun. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Any last words of improv you want to give to our listeners, Victor? Well, you know, it's kind of funny when you said medium form. My idea immediately went to some kind of person with a crystal ball doing improv. So that, that's where the head goes, folks. If you're, you talk to an improv player too much, they're not good at scripts, but they're good at inventing places in their head that don't exist until they start talking about it. So just let your head be open and come and play. It's just fun. Thanks for being with us, Dennis. Sure enough.

Speaker: 14:21

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