Tips for improving hosting / MC skills? It seems very common for theatres to have a host or MC come out at the top and tail of a show to welcome the audience, give a brief explanation of whats about to happen (aka the 10-second explanation of what a Harold is), talk about drink specials, upcoming workshops, etc. We currently run a weekly Harold Night in which one of the teams that is NOT scheduled to perform does all of the production work for the night (front of house, hosting, running tech, etc.) and for the most part its great... except sometimes the people who host do a pretty rough job, and it drags the evening down. Theyre all perfectly competent and lovable on stage as improvisers, but when put in the spotlight as a host they fall flat. They all get the factual information right, but quite a few people fail to engage with the audience and create the warm enthusiastic environment necessary before bringing on the first team of the night. This often leads to the crowd taking a long time to warm up to the first team, or at the end of the show the audience actually cools down and gets visibly less happy between the final team finishing and the host dismissing the audience. Im sure this is trainable and able to be fixed up to a point, as its a performance like anything else. Do people have reliable tips for training up hosts? Or a list of requirements someone must meet before theyre eligible to host? The rule of if youre on a team, youre allowed to host isnt working, and its my job to fix it. (From my experience the loud and wild pirate style improvisers make the best hosts out of the box, and anyone laid-back who gravitates towards colder straight-man or sarcastic characters are the most troublesome. The audience loves these people in SCENES, but not as their guide into the world of improv... especially first-time audience!)
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 03:25:32 +0000
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