DotPenn

Rehearsals are for summer stock and planning is for amateurs.

Area township supervisors are reportedly taking improv classes from Rip Somerset, a former member of classic improv comedy troupe, the Groundlings. Somerset said that improvisational acting techniques can assist boards that lack planning commissions.

“Do you think Marlon Brando went to a planning commission and said, ‘Hey fellas, I’m having trouble capturing the truth of Stanley Kowalski?’ I don’t think so,” Somerset said. “Brando was about being in the moment and that’s where great ordinances for guiding the township are born.”

According to Somerset, thoughtful planning, like rehearsal, stifles the creative juices of land use.

“I look out this window and I see that empty lot,” Somerset said. “What do I see? Whatever I want. A junkyard? A methodone clinic? A goat farm? An adult entertainment complex? It’s all in the circle of the artist as supervisor.”

Somerset said he leads supervisors in a series of exercises. He starts with breathing exercises and pilates. Next, he has them become an animal, often a pig or weasel.

Finally, he uses a zen technique to clear mental garbage that he calls, “No Mind.”

“They really have no trouble with that one,” Somerset said, as he shows his outstretched hands to a supervisor. “This is something. This is nothing. What are you working on?”

Somerset is currently offering the workshop in the basement of his home, but hopes to create a studio called “Super Star Supervisors” or, alternatively, “In the Zoning.”

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