Otter Productions

(tm) Otter Productions creates repeatable fun!! We are a Maryland and Pennsylvania based group of comic performers specializing in improvisation and interaction; performances that are so unique and so much fun that you’ll look forward to coming again and again. See below for THE PUBLIC SHOW SCHEDULE and how we can co-create a fun-filled event. We invite you to our BLOG Follow us on .................................................................................................................................. Our locations for public shows are: Chesapeake Inn - Chesapeake City, Md Saturday February 11, 2012 Valentine Mystery - 'Til Death Us Do Part 410-885-2040 The French Manor - South Sterling, Pennsylvania (the Poconos). March 16-18, 2012 - show title: Death at Nerdvana M & H RR - Middletown, Pennsylvania - south of Harrisburg. Saturdays September 8 - show title: Murder Most Fowl Saturday October 13 - show title: Spoiler Alert Saturday November 17 - show title: Cosine: A Tangent for Murder The Black Eyed Susan - paddle boat in Baltimore, Maryland Fridays July 27 (Murder in Spades), August 10 (Raven about Murder) Saturdays June 16 (I Know What youn did last Father's Day), July 14 (Le Royal Order of Guys Named Bill) Sundays April 29 (A Reunion with Murder), May 20th (An Idle Murder), August 26 (Typhoon Fever) COMING in 2012!!! In Ocean City, Maryland - The Grand Hotel February 17-19, show title: The Curse of the Pharoah In Columbia Maryland - The Columbia Inn Hotel and Conference Center at Paralynna In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania - The Pride of the Susquehanna Riverboat In Strasburg, Pennsylvania - see the following site for details The Red Caboose Restaurant Saturdays: April 7, May 12 & 26, June 23, July 28, August 11 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartruese Saturdays: August 25, September 22, October 6 & 20, November 3 & 17 - show title: Dead Heat See full details below ................................................................................................................................................................. The Patriot- News of Harrisburg Pennsylvania described what we do....... Trains, boats give life to murder-mysteries Sunday, June 08, 2008 BY MARY O. BRADLEY Of The Patriot-News The stage moves, the audience interacts with the actors, the script crackles with improvisation and the fragrance of food wafts through the dining room. A murder-mystery on a passenger train or a river boat is a menu for fun -- once the audience loses its inhibitions. "At first, the polite ones have to be encouraged that it's OK to talk to us," said Herb Otter, producer of Herb Otter Productions, a Baldwin, Md., entertainment company. "We encourage people to have fun, which is in very little supply these days," said Otter, whose ensemble presents murder mysteries at The Middletown & Hummelstown Railroad. ............. "We'll start the show in one coach and we then move the action to the second coach," said Otter, who has been doing murder-mysteries since the 1990s. The first actors will then start the next scene in the second coach and move to the first coach. Although the actors have a script, "we don't actually repeat it word for word. We do it improvisational style. We could do it differently in the next car even though we are giving the same information out," Otter said. Sticking to a script would not involve the audience so much, Otter said. However, regardless of how the actors improvise, "we never change the basic information. There's only one solution to the mystery." For veteran actors, the improvisation technique is effortless. Actors new to murder-mystery ensembles practice until they get the rhythm of interacting with the passengers, Otter said. ............ MARY O. BRADLEY: 255-8147 or mbradley@patriot-news.com ©2008 The Patriot-News © 2008 PennLive.com All Rights Reserved. see full story from The Patriot-News Upcoming Public Shows: 2012 Saturday February 11, 2012 - Chesapeake Inn, Chesapeake City, MD - 410-885-2040 -Valentine show: 'Til Death Us Do Part Friday-Sunday February 17-19, 2012 - The Grand Hotel in Ocean City- mystery weekend - Show: The Curse of the Pharaoh *................................................................................................................................................................* Friday-Sunday March 16-18, 2012 - The French Manor, Sterling, Pa. - 877- 720-6090 - mystery weekend - Show: Death at Nerdvana *................................................................................................................................................................* Saturday April 7, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM Sunday April 29, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: A Reunion with Murder (a high school reunion listed in the obituary section) - cruise leaves at 630 PM .......................................................................................................................... Saturday May 12, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM Sunday May 20, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: An Idle Murder (singing stardom at a high price) - cruise leaves at 630 PM Saturday May 26, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM ........................................................................................................................... Saturday June 16, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: AI Know What you did last Father's Day (do criminal actors have a future?) - cruise leaves at 7:00 PM Saturday June 23, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM ............................................................................................................................ Saturday July 14, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: Le Royal Order of Guys Named Bill (celebrating Bastille Day to its' bitter end) - cruise leaves at 7:00 PM Friday July 27, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: Murder in Spades (a card game with no winners) - cruise leaves at 7:00 PM Saturday July 28, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM .............................................................................................................................. Friday August 10, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: Raven about Murder (a celebrity literary meeting where the pen is more dangerous than the sword) - cruise leaves at 7:00 PM Saturday August 11, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM Saturday August 25, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM Sunday August 26, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: Typhoon Fever (a cruise to the "ends" of the world) - cruise leaves at 6:30 PM ............................................................................................................................................................... Saturday September 8, 2012 - M & H RR, Middletown, Pa. 717-944-4435 - Dinner Train - Show title: Murder Most Fowl (Cooking for TV is a bad recipe) *- train leaves station at 6 PM.* Saturday September 22, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM *................................................................................................................................................................* Saturday October 6, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM Saturday October 13, 2012 - M & H RR, Middletown, Pa. 717-944-4435 - Dinner Train - Show title: Spoiler Alert (As they say in professional racing: Gentlemen stop your engines) *- train leaves station at 6 PM.* Saturday October 20, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM *................................................................................................................................................................* Saturday November 3, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM Saturday November 17, 2012 - M & H RR, Middletown, Pa. 717-944-4435 - Dinner Train - Show title: Cosine: A Tangent for Murder (Sometimes among intellectuals, it's smart to play dumb) - train leaves station at 6 PM. Saturday November 17, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM See details of Public Locations below ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Below you will find current projects and the eclectic diversity of our talents. We as individuals have not just years but decades of experience in the entertainment industry including just about any venue you can imagine. Just with Otter Productions alone we have conservatively near 100 corporate accounts in our experience; we have been in business since 1995. Originally we were formed to provide murder mysteries aboard dinner trains in both the Maryland and Pennsylvania areas; some of us performed on trains previous to this for other organizations. We did so with extreme success both on the Entertrainment Line in Western Maryland as well as the Liberty Limited in New Freedom, Pennsylvania. Those trains have long since gone out of business and now we have been in central Pennsylvania performing since 2003. The current dinner train is the Middletown &Hummelstown Railroad, just outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. M & H RR is currently taking bookings for groups and charters - contact M & H RR Our Next show is 6 PM departure on Saturday September 8, 2012- Show title: Murder Most Fowl (Cooking for TV is a bad recipe) - contact train for tickets. See Pictures from a recent show Our purpose or mission is to provide the best interactive audience participatory comical performances which are second to none. Each show is a new creation which means each show is new and continued fun. In case you wonder how we can offer so much fun that is different each time, here’s a bit of information about how we do that. We improvise, we adapt to conditions and audience response - which audience members appreciate -- causing even more fun to be had by everyone. (So we can adapt to difficult conditions or circumstances.) We customize each performance. We adapt to audience members and the mood of the audience as a whole. We’re so adaptable that we don’t have just certain periods where audience members can interact with us, we’re ready to engage at a moments notice. All audience members can interact with us all the time. We’re so much fun that we seldom have hecklers; and if someone does start to heckle, we work them into the performance in such a way that the performance continues to be fun for all audience members and may in fact be enhanced. When we make a mistake, we build on that and turn it into more fun -- sometimes this helps make a performance even better and more unique than it would have been otherwise. This builds huge rapport with audience members. We produce shows where the audience is totally invested in the experience. The stage is the entire environment which is transformed into comical fun. Our style is improvisational which is different from other companies. Other groups tend to have part script and part improvisational performance; there is interaction with audience members but for limited periods of time. We, instead of having a performance depending on the vision of a director, let the team of performers provide their best interpretation and support for other members of the team. The fluidity of the show then fits the needs of the night and audience, allowing performers the flexibility to provide, at a moments notice, their best efforts. Why should you care? If you want a traditional theatrical experience, then there is a certain experience you will expect. Most of us come from this background where we have had much success. The play is over there or up there and the audience is over here observing. Interacting or changing what has been pre-determined may prove difficult. There is no doubt that this is a wonderful art form. We don't want to compete with this; we just love to do something entirely different which is more of an exaggeration of real life. Reality is over-rated; whatever is true is what you want of a situation. If the whole world is a stage, let's have a party and find the joy that is everywhere. We do not live in a plug and play world. All the best plans often go astray. Whether you like it or not very little of our lives are scripted and we end up getting through the best we can by making it up as we go along. You can plan all you want and determine what people will do and enjoy but when you hit the deck and the action begins, everything changes. Actors prepare so that the performance goes on regardless what happens on that stage. Our performers prepare for whatever might happen not only among themselves but with the audience whom we consider to be on stage with us. No one can quite predict what will happen, which is where a total improvisational/interactive style comes to the rescue. Audience members are given an experience which is deeper and better than elsewhere because they have participated in a fun way. There is no way we can get enough of anything that is fun. We are now ready to expand into new territory both geographically as well as artistically. We are ready to transport an audience to another time and place as soon as they enter the room. We love to get help from people who love wild ideas full of energy. For details on this contact me, Herb Otter, Producer. Improv For Your Life :Team Building Improv can be a way of life and a way for business. Teaching improvisational comedy to non performers is an extremely useful business tool in team building, improved communication, creative thinking, and much more. Having fun and laughing is a most effective way of learning and having any organization function. Contact us; we can accomplish a lot in a short period of time. The Murder Mysteries: Let our experienced company of professional actors transport you into a realm of murder. Watch or become a part of a fun filled afternoon or evening of entertainment one could die for, with laughter as a deadly weapon. To paraphrase Alfred Hitchcock: "Murder can be a pleasant experience even for the victim, as long as all those involved behave as ladies and gentlemen". Please note: We can provide shows with actors or we can provide shows that involve only you and your group as the performers (we call these second type of shows "guided" since we are generally there only to guide your "actors"); or we could provide a combination of the two type of shows. We have guided plays with as few as 20 characters and as many as 60. If you think you might want to handle the details yourself, we can provide "guided" mysteries with instructions for your party or event. Public Shows The French Manor(Poconos) South Sterling, Pennsylvania *Show:* Death at Nerdvana March 16-18, 2012, Friday-Sunday http://www.thefrenchmanor.com/mystery.html 877-720-6090 A weekend Murder Mystery where everyone has a part!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW location: In Columbia Maryland The Columbia Inn Hotel and Conference Center at Paralynna On Route 108 just minutes off Route 29. Shows to be announced soon! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NEW location: In Strasburg, Pennsylvania Red Caboose Restaurant This stationary railroad car/restaurant will be moving in early 2012 to another location in Strasburg - stay tuned! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comical Murder Mysteries aboard the dinner/paddle boat, the Black Eyed Susan - in Canton, near Fells Point & the Baltimore Inner Harbor (see recent article from the Baltimore Examiner including a video from one of our trips) Next show: Spring 2012 - contact The Black-Eyed Susan for details. Black-Eyed Susan Murder Mysteries on Facebook The Usual Suspects in Phoenix, Maryland MARCH 2011 Herb Otter of Otter Productions is pleased to be on the advisory board of a new professional theatrical company in the Washington DC area. Click below for details The Artists Initiative The Comedies: Pure improv, this is the essence of what we do. This full length show is based solely on audience suggestions. Wacky Wait Staff Want something unusual and hilarious at your next banquet or dinner party. Hire the Wacky Wait Staff. What may appear to be normal restaurant or hotel workers are in reality comic performers ready to bring havoc to any social gathering. Contact Harriett at Concierge Plus for details: 410-580-0350. THE NEW PROJECT We have created a new show which takes the best elements of murder mystery, improvisation, and interactive performance. Think of the shows such as Tony and Tina's Wedding or The 80's Prom and put it in the age of pirates and you have our show *The Wedding of Pirates*. We are perfect for sales meetings, lectures, demonstrations, parties, public events, private events, and for anything you make up and any space you provide. call us at (410) 817-4475 or write us at Otter Productions P O Box 9683 Baldwin, MD 21013 and of course there is e-mail at Herb@OtterProductions.com.

(tm)

Otter Productions creates repeatable fun!! We are a Maryland and Pennsylvania based group of comic performers specializing in improvisation and interaction; performances that are so unique and so much fun that you’ll look forward to coming again and again.

Trains, boats give life to murder-mysteries
Sunday, June 08, 2008
BY MARY O. BRADLEY
Of The Patriot-News

The stage moves, the audience interacts with the actors, the script crackles with improvisation and the fragrance of food wafts through the dining room.

A murder-mystery on a passenger train or a river boat is a menu for fun -- once the audience loses its inhibitions.

"At first, the polite ones have to be encouraged that it's OK to talk to us," said Herb Otter, producer of Herb Otter Productions, a Baldwin, Md., entertainment company. "We encourage people to have fun, which is in very little supply these days," said Otter, whose ensemble presents murder mysteries at The Middletown & Hummelstown Railroad.
.............
"We'll start the show in one coach and we then move the action to the second coach," said Otter, who has been doing murder-mysteries since the 1990s. The first actors will then start the next scene in the second coach and move to the first coach.

Although the actors have a script, "we don't actually repeat it word for word. We do it improvisational style. We could do it differently in the next car even though we are giving the same information out," Otter said.

Sticking to a script would not involve the audience so much, Otter said. However, regardless of how the actors improvise, "we never change the basic information. There's only one solution to the mystery."
For veteran actors, the improvisation technique is effortless. Actors new to murder-mystery ensembles practice until they get the rhythm of interacting with the passengers, Otter said.
............
MARY O. BRADLEY: 255-8147 or mbradley@patriot-news.com

Saturday February 11, 2012 - Chesapeake Inn, Chesapeake City, MD - 410-885-2040 -Valentine show: 'Til Death Us Do Part

Friday-Sunday February 17-19, 2012 - The Grand Hotel in Ocean City- mystery weekend - Show: The Curse of the Pharaoh

................................................................................................................................................................

Saturday April 7, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

Sunday April 29, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: A Reunion with Murder (a high school reunion listed in the obituary section) - cruise leaves at 630 PM

..........................................................................................................................

Saturday May 12, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

Sunday May 20, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: An Idle Murder (singing stardom at a high price) - cruise leaves at 630 PM

Saturday May 26, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

...........................................................................................................................

Saturday June 16, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: AI Know What you did last Father's Day (do criminal actors have a future?) - cruise leaves at 7:00 PM

Saturday June 23, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

............................................................................................................................

Saturday July 14, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: Le Royal Order of Guys Named Bill (celebrating Bastille Day to its' bitter end) - cruise leaves at 7:00 PM

Friday July 27, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: Murder in Spades (a card game with no winners) - cruise leaves at 7:00 PM

Saturday July 28, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

..............................................................................................................................

Friday August 10, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: Raven about Murder (a celebrity literary meeting where the pen is more dangerous than the sword) - cruise leaves at 7:00 PM

Saturday August 11, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: The Widow Wore Chartreuse (how many times can one woman be a widow?) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

Saturday August 25, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

Sunday August 26, 2012 - The Black-Eyed Susan - an authentic Mississippi River Boat at the Baltimore Marine Center in Canton section of Baltimore - 410-342-6960 - show title: Typhoon Fever (a cruise to the "ends" of the world) - cruise leaves at 6:30 PM
...............................................................................................................................................................

Saturday September 8, 2012 - M & H RR, Middletown, Pa. 717-944-4435 - Dinner Train - Show title: Murder Most Fowl (Cooking for TV is a bad recipe) - train leaves station at 6 PM.

Saturday September 22, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

................................................................................................................................................................

Saturday October 6, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

Saturday October 13, 2012 - M & H RR, Middletown, Pa. 717-944-4435 - Dinner Train - Show title: Spoiler Alert (As they say in professional racing: Gentlemen stop your engines) - train leaves station at 6 PM.

Saturday October 20, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

................................................................................................................................................................

Saturday November 3, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

Saturday November 17, 2012 - M & H RR, Middletown, Pa. 717-944-4435 - Dinner Train - Show title: Cosine: A Tangent for Murder (Sometimes among intellectuals, it's smart to play dumb) - train leaves station at 6 PM.

Saturday November 17, 2012 - The Red Caboose Restaurant, 312 Paradise Lane in Ronks, Pa - 717-687-5005 - show title: Dead Heat (the deadliness of polical campaigns) - Dinner & Show at 6 PM

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below you will find current projects and the eclectic diversity of our talents. We as individuals have not just years but decades of experience in the entertainment industry including just about any venue you can imagine. Just with Otter Productions alone we have conservatively near 100 corporate accounts in our experience; we have been in business since 1995.

Originally we were formed to provide murder mysteries aboard dinner trains in both the Maryland and Pennsylvania areas; some of us performed on trains previous to this for other organizations. We did so with extreme success both on the Entertrainment Line in Western Maryland as well as the Liberty Limited in New Freedom, Pennsylvania. Those trains have long since gone out of business and now we have been in central Pennsylvania performing since 2003. The current dinner train is the Middletown &Hummelstown Railroad, just outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
M & H RR is currently taking bookings for groups and charters - contact M & H RR

Our Next show is 6 PM departure on Saturday September 8, 2012- Show title: Murder Most Fowl (Cooking for TV is a bad recipe) - contact train for tickets.

Our purpose or mission is to provide the best interactive audience participatory comical performances which are second to none. Each show is a new creation which means each show is new and continued fun.

In case you wonder how we can offer so much fun that is different each time, here’s a bit of information about how we do that.

We produce shows where the audience is totally invested in the experience. The stage is the entire environment which is transformed into comical fun.

Our style is improvisational which is different from other companies. Other groups tend to have part script and part improvisational performance; there is interaction with audience members but for limited periods of time. We, instead of having a performance depending on the vision of a director, let the team of performers provide their best interpretation and support for other members of the team. The fluidity of the show then fits the needs of the night and audience, allowing performers the flexibility to provide, at a moments notice, their best efforts.

Why should you care? If you want a traditional theatrical experience, then there is a certain experience you will expect. Most of us come from this background where we have had much success. The play is over there or up there and the audience is over here observing. Interacting or changing what has been pre-determined may prove difficult. There is no doubt that this is a wonderful art form. We don't want to compete with this; we just love to do something entirely different which is more of an exaggeration of real life. Reality is over-rated; whatever is true is what you want of a situation. If the whole world is a stage, let's have a party and find the joy that is everywhere.

We do not live in a plug and play world. All the best plans often go astray. Whether you like it or not very little of our lives are scripted and we end up getting through the best we can by making it up as we go along. You can plan all you want and determine what people will do and enjoy but when you hit the deck and the action begins, everything changes. Actors prepare so that the performance goes on regardless what happens on that stage. Our performers prepare for whatever might happen not only among themselves but with the audience whom we consider to be on stage with us.

No one can quite predict what will happen, which is where a total improvisational/interactive style comes to the rescue. Audience members are given an experience which is deeper and better than elsewhere because they have participated in a fun way. There is no way we can get enough of anything that is fun.

We are now ready to expand into new territory both geographically as well as artistically. We are ready to transport an audience to another time and place as soon as they enter the room. We love to get help from people who love wild ideas full of energy. For details on this contact me, Herb Otter, Producer.

Improv can be a way of life and a way for business. Teaching improvisational comedy to non performers is an extremely useful business tool in team building, improved communication, creative thinking, and much more. Having fun and laughing is a most effective way of learning and having any organization function. Contact us; we can accomplish a lot in a short period of time.
Train mystery

Herb Otter of Otter Productions is pleased to be on the advisory board of a new professional theatrical company in the Washington DC area.

We are perfect for sales meetings, lectures, demonstrations, parties, public events, private events, and for anything you make up and any space you provide.

(410) 817-4475

or write us at

Otter Productions P O Box 9683 Baldwin, MD 21013

Otter Productions
P O Box 9683
Baldwin, MD 21013