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MichaelStanford

If you haven't bought the UCB Book yet

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Do it.

 

Obviously, you're a fan of improv. You might even be in an improv group yourself, or you might just be someone who thinks it's funny.

 

But you might also be someone who lives in the middle of the country. You might be someone who is interested in performing improv with no idea how to get started.

 

That was me about 4 months ago when I first got my hands on this book.

 

I live in a small town with no improv for hundreds of miles. There's nowhere to train anywhere near me. I emailed Matt Besser out of desperation, asking for advice. I say 'out of desperation' because I didn't ever expect him to email me back, but as it turns out he's the greatest person in the world.

 

Anyways, we exchanged some emails, and he mentioned this book. He told me that if I could get a group together and commit to practicing at least twice a week, then as an experiment they'd send us an early copy of the book and let us perform at the Del Close Marathon in June. This was in March.

 

Naturally I jumped at the opportunity. I assembled a group of friends (who had no idea what long form improv was) and we practiced twice a week for 2.5 months.

 

As we went into the DCM, none of my group had ever seen any live long form improv. We had all watched ASSSSCAT together (the DVD), and I had seen a live show once.

 

But we did it. After two and a half months of practice using only this book, we performed a Harold in front of a live audience at one of the biggest improv festivals in the country.

 

What I'm saying is the book works. It was written in a way that makes it easy to get started. It lays things out in a very easy way, and it guides you all the way from 'what is improv' to performing a Harold and more.

 

If you're at all interested in improv, there's no excuse to not own this book.

 

http://ucbstore.com/books/the-upright-citizens-brigade-comedy-improvisation-manual

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Ordered my copy earlier today :) But I didn't get a confirmation email or anything. And I can't find any contact email or support line on the UCB store website. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Really looking forward to the book!

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Hey, hoping Matt or someone else at UCB might see this... I went to buy the book today (basically as soon as I knew it was available), but I live in Australia and the site was going to charge me around $90 for shipping, which is outrageous! I was recently in New York and I sent some stuff back home, and it cost me far less to ship what amounted to much more than a book, space and weight-wise. Is this some kind of mistake? Alternatively, if someone else wants to put a copy of the book on eBay, I am more than prepared to pay a reasonable shipping price on top of a small markup.

 

(I know this may not be the best place to send this query, but as the above poster pointed out, there is no contact address on the UCB store website)

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Even to Canada it was $29 to ship, that was the cheapest, next option was around $70. I didn't mind the $29 but it looks like my order may have been lost in the depths of the internet. It said it was completed, but I had no confirmation email - my credit card hasn't been charged for it yet so it's possible that it messed up on my end. I just don't want to place another order if it did in fact go through, I just have no way of knowing.

 

Sorry to post this here, just really want the book and don't know how else to contact the UCB store :)

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Matt tweeted something about this the other day.

 

https://twitter.com/MattBesser/status/366998015451471875

 

Basically, it looks like they know it's outrageous and they're trying to figure out better solutions for it.

 

Thanks so much for pointing that out! Glad they are aware of the issue, hopefully they find a workaround soon, there is not much opportunity for improv training in Perth, but I really want to learn...

 

In terms of solutions, I think the people who replied to Matt's tweet had some good ideas, either make a deal with amazon, or with an Australian print on demand service.

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Update: saw the book on amazon, got super excited and did a little dance, proceeded to check out, and... " We're sorry. This item can't be shipped to your selected destination." Fuck.

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Giac, you can use one of multiple package forwarding services. I've found both ViAddress and HopShopGo to be good if you frequently ship a lot of stuff from the US/UK. For just the UCB manual, I think it'll cost you about 25-30 bucks.

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Update: saw the book on amazon, got super excited and did a little dance, proceeded to check out, and... " We're sorry. This item can't be shipped to your selected destination." Fuck.

 

Yo Giac. If you're interested, I could order an extra copy and ship yours personally to Fremantle. You could paypal me the money later or something. Im in Oregon so the shipping shouldn't be too terrible, and I would hate for you to have to pay through the nose for it.

 

UPDATE: Just checked on how much shipping an average sized book to Australia would be from where I am. Looks like 15-20 U.S. dollars.

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