Good Morning Lowcountry

Improv

Improvisational theater is spontaneous, right? And unscripted and automatic and natural? Sort of, but it's still got cues and rules and method.

"You don't know what's going to happen next, but you do kind of know what game you're playing," said Greg Tavares, one-third of The Have Nots!, the only professional improv comedy troupe in South Carolina. (The other members are Brandy Sullivan and Timmy Finch.)

By teaching classes in improv to adults (three seven-week courses, with a recital after each), Tavares, Finch and Sullivan have increased the working members of their Theatre 99 company to 35 actors. "When we watch recitals, it's like we're talent-scouting," Tavares said.

In October, Tavares and Theatre 99 company member Jenny Pringle will offer a free introduction to improv class to teenagers (ages 13-19). Registration is limited to 20. If you're interested, call 853-6687. The class will be at noon Oct. 6. at 280 Meeting St. Parents will not be allowed to observe.

"Especially when we're teaching young people, we try to make the experience real concrete with real structured exercises," Tavares said. "There's a lot of work that you do before you throw people into the fray of teamwork.

"We begin our technique here with, for example, a word as input. The beginning of your improv is your authentic response ... It's not about being funny. It can't be. That's deadly in an improv scene.

"Funny comes from the same exact place as funny movies, funny plays, funny TV shows. It's that crazy thing we call human interaction ...

The biggest problem is getting people over their fear. Fear kills the fun ...

(Improv) pushes all the panic buttons. It's public speaking, it's having to be on the spot, it's making a fool of yourself in public, it's being emotionally available."

But anybody can learn. The key is honesty, he said. "We tell them, 'Don't use the path from the brain to the mouth. Use the path from the heart to the mouth.' "

Roundup

CLAW, the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World program at the College of Charleston, has helpfully rounded up some Lowcountry events associated with this year's commemoration of the bicentennial of the banning of the international slave trade.Friday. Lorna Simpson exhibit opens. Gibbes Museum of Art, 135 Meeting St. Through Dec. 2. www.gibbesmuseum.org.

Saturday. Guided tour of sites associated with the 1739 Stono Rebellion. 1-4 p.m. Meet at Caw Caw Interpretive Center. $10. Register at 795-4386. For details, see tinyurl.com/2sec7f.

Sept. 22. A conversation with descendants of Drayton Hall slaves. 11:15 a.m. Drayton Hall, 3380 Ashley River Road. Admission to Drayton Hall, $6-$14. www.draytonhall.org.

Sept. 25. Jack Bass lectures on the Orangeburg Massacre. 7 p.m. Charleston County Main Library. Free. www.ccpl.org.

Other fall programs relevant to black history in the South are at Middleton Place (www.middletonplace.org), Drayton Hall (www.draytonhall.org) and Charleston County Library, whose Big Read program will focus on Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (tinyurl.com/2s2d9o).

CLAW has more listings, along with an Abolition Timeline, at http://tinyurl.com/33onz7.

GMLc

E-mail gmlc@postandcourier.com. Call 937-5564. GMLc's blog is at gmlc.typepad.com.