June, 2015

 

 

 

Dear Director of Forensics:

 

Greetings from Moraine Valley Community College, we would like to invite you to participate in the Appel Quest Forensics Tournament on Saturday, October10^th, 2015.

This year we will be holding both a VARSITY and a NOVICE Tournament. We are pleased to offer 12 different events. A two-year division will be offered for all events with sufficient entries. For those events without sufficient entries for a separate division, a two year final will still be held based upon results from the open division. In the event there are not enough entries to hold a two-year final, the topic novice will be recognized. Competitors who place into the open final will not be eligible for the two-year division final.

Our “kickoff” tournament is an opportunity for students to experience competition in a friendly environment. The novice division at our tournament is a chance for beginning competitors to compete within their own experience level. A novice will be defined as any competitor with less than four full semesters of college competition experience. Please note: coaches who wish to enter novice competitors into the open division may do so. Since this is one of the first tournaments of the year, we encourage coaches and judges to be helpful and understanding to these competitors who are just beginning this amazing activity.

We are offering a unique event: Inter-Squad Improvisational Scene (I-SIS). Please read the enclosed sheet for details and rules. As always, this is a great opportunity for students to discover some new levels of creativity and meet and work with students from other teams!

Information on rules, fees, registration, awards, tournament schedule and food are listed in the enclosed packet. Please note that the tournament is being held in the “D” Building.

We hope to see you on October10^th. If you have any questions, please give me a call or send an email.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

John Nash – Director of Forensics, Amanda Pettigrew – Assistant Director of Forensics, Jeff Rieck – Coach & Matt Weibel – Coach

 

P.S. Entries are due Tuesday, October 6^th by 5:00 p.m. Please use Joy of Tournaments to register. http://joyoftournaments.com/

 

NOTE: There will be a Parliamentary Debate Tournament on our campus on Friday, October 9^th. If you would like more information about this, please let me know. This tournament is separate from the MVCC Appel-Quest Tournament.

 

	John Nash Cell:         (773) 318-2460 Office: (708) 974-5556 Email: nash@morainevalley.edu   Moraine Valley Community College 9000 W College Parkway Palos Hills, IL 60465

 

 

Experimental Event: Inter-Squad Improvisational Scene (I-SIS)

 

Event description: Students will enter this event as an individual. Once at the tournament, they will be paired with a partner from another team. Thirty minutes before their performance, the pair will draw an improv scenario which includes a place & a relationship (I.E. siblings camping in a tent out in the woods). They can confer & brainstorm with each other for thirty minutes; no external information or computers may be used. The pair will then perform their scene for the judge. Although students will be performing as a pair, they will be ranked individually. For final founds the top INDIVIDUALS will advance, not necessarily the top teams. For each round, NEW improv teams will be formed. A team will consist of at least 2 people. In the final round, students will be ranked as a team.

 

Important Rules:

• The time limit is 7:00; at 5 min, the judge will give a “two minutes left” hand signal, then “one minute left,” and :30 if needed.
• Unlike duo, no “introduction” is needed; the performance should make it clear what the scene & relationship is
• No double entry with extemporaneous speaking.
• Students may enter another event but must go to improv first. Sign in to your other round so the judge knows. ISIS draw will be same time/place as extemp draw, TBA at the tournament.
• No manuscripts, props, notes or black binders may be used. Chairs may be used if needed.

 

Suggested Judging Criteria:

• Performers do NOT have to use “off stage focus” (but they may.) In improv, performers make eye contact with each other
• Focus on how well the pair created unique characters or “voices”
• Focus on how well the pair played off each other, their chemistry as a duo
• The performance does not have to be comedic but may include drama & comedy
• Confidence, delivery & polish
• Blocking is realistic and clear….(I.E. students don’t create a table and then walk through it)
• Any other creative or inventive aspects the pair demonstrated, however, the students should stay in that scene rather than invent extremely extraneous or superfluous plot-based events.

 

More Tips for Judges and Performers

 

For those of you NEW to improv, here are 5 basic hints or rules that will help the scene go well. These rules were taken from the Improv Encyclopedia. In addition to overall presentation, judges will asked to base their decision on how well each member followed these rules.

1) Don’t Deny

Denial is the number one reason most scenes go bad. Any time you refuse an offer made by your partner your scene will almost instantly come to a grinding halt. Example: Player A) “Hi, my name is Jim. Welcome to my store.” Player B) “This isn’t a store, it’s an airplane. And you’re not Jim, you’re an antelope.”

2) Don’t ask open ended Questions

Open ended questions (like “Who are you?”) are scene killers because they force your partner to stop whatever they are doing and come up with an answer. When you ask your partner and open ended question, you put the burden of coming up with something “interesting” on your partner – so you are no longer doing a scene together but forcing one person has to do more work than you are willing to do.

3) You don’t have to be funny.

The hidden riddle of improv is that the harder you try not to be funny the more funny your scene is going to be. Why? Because it’s the very best kind of improv scene you can do is an “interesting” scene, not necessarily a “funny” one. When you do an interesting scene, a very surprising thing happens; the funny comes out all by it’s self. The best ways to go are to stick to your character, stick to the story that is being told, and to stay within the reality of the scene you are playing.

4) You can look good if you make your partner look good.

When you are in a scene, the better you make your partner look the better the scene is going to be and as a direct result, the better you are going to look. Players often enter a scene with some really great idea about the character they are going to play or an idea they want to do but their partner probably has absolutely no idea what’s cooking and so has no idea how to react.

5) Tell a story.

Storytelling is probably the easiest rule to remember but the hardest one to do. The real magic of improv is when we see the players take totally random suggestions (like a plumber and a cab driver selling shoes in a leper colony) and somehow “make it work”. If all these unrelated elements are going to come together then it’s going to happen in the course of an interesting tale. So that’s just what the players are going to try and do, tell us all a story.

Moraine Valley Appel-Quest Forensics Tournament

 

General Information

 

Event groupings

 

Group A                                           Group B

Prose                                                 Poetry

Duo                                                   Impromptu

Informative                                       STE/ADS

DI                                                      Persuasion

*Extemp                                           POI

*I-S.I.S.                                             CA

 

*Students may not enter in both Extemporaneous Speaking and I-SIS.

 

Phi Rho Pi rules will be followed for all of the events. Rules are posted on the Phi Rho Pi website www.phirhopi.org .

Entries are due Tuesday, October 6^th by 5:00 p.m.

 

Each school may enter six competitors in each event. A competitor may enter three events per group so each student may be entered in a maximum of six events. Students may not double enter in Extemp and I-SIS.

http://joyoftournaments.com is the method to enter. All entries will be confirmed.

 

Fees

 

There will be a fee of $8.00 per entry slot and $10.00 per slot not covered by a judge; each school should provide one judge for every 6 slots. (If you know of any judges that would like to be hired by the tournament, please have them call Amanda or Nash). Each drop after Wednesday at 12:00pm will be assessed at $10.00 per slot. Each drop after Friday at 12:00pm will be assessed at $15.00 per slot and each drop at registration will be at $25.00 a slot. A dropped judge at registration will be $60.00. Also, we will not accept substitution entries for those students who are unable to attend the tournament after Wednesday at 12:00pm. Entry and judging fees will not be reduced for dropped entries. I would love to know as soon as possible of any LAST MINUTE drops – call John (773-318-2460) from the speech van on the way to the tournament if you have a drop.

 

Registration

 

The registration table will be located in the “D” Building, first floor.

 

Ranks & Awards

 

The top six individuals in each event will advance to the final round. Ties will be broken in this order: speaker points, judges’ preference (where applicable), and number of firsts. We will not break an event into a semi-round unless there are more than 60 entries in the event.

 

The top five schools accumulating the most points will receive team sweepstakes awards. Final round points (Varsity & Novice) will be awarded as follows: (Please note: For those events without sufficient entries for a separate division, a two year final will still be held based upon results from the open division. Those points will be halved.)

Top Novice = 7 points (if there is no novice final and no novice competitor advances into the open final)

6th place = 2 points

5th place = 4 points

4th place = 6 points

3rd place = 8 points

2nd place = 10 points

1st place = 12 points

 

Schedule

 

7:30: Registration in Building “D” first floor

8:15: Extemp draw & I-SIS draw

8:45: Round 1 Group A

9:45: Extemp draw, ISIC draw

10:15: Round 2 Group A

Lunch (on your own!) See registration table for list of area restaurants

12:30: Round 1 Group B

1:45: Round 2 Group B

3:00: Finals Group A Draw for Extemp and I-SIS

3:30: Finals Group A

4:45: Finals Group B

6:00: Awards

 

Hotel

 

For recommendations on hotels, please contact John Nash, nash@morainevalley.edu.