the Montreal Improv blog

Guest Writer: John Ratliff (Austin)

John Ratliff teaches improv at ColdTowne Theatre. He is a graduate of ColdTowne Conservatory and has trained at iO Chicago and the Annoyance Theatre. When he’s not performing, teaching, coaching, or discussing improv, Ratliff can be found editing copy, officiating weddings, eating some kind of Mexican breakfast, or lying on the floor listening to records.

My friend Michael Jastroch and I were talking about how a lot of the dramatic improv we’d seen (and, in my case, performed) over the past couple of years was more like melodramatic improv. We both like serious theater, but some of what we’d seen felt contrived and stagey instead of open and authentic. Was this, we wondered, just a function of bad acting? Or was it proof that improv only works as comedy? 

Neither, I think. What I suspect we saw was a slightly different version of a perennial improv pitfall: selling out the scene. 

We’ve all heard the note “Stop trying to be funny.” The more we perform, the more we realize that a joke, however hilarious, is usually not worth destroying the reality of the scene. (Well, *most* of us come to realize that.) 

The same thing happens in dramatic improv … except that instead of going for the joke, we’re going for some kind of emotional payoff. 

We probably get cut a little more slack for this than we should be. We’ve all been so indoctrinated with the idea of not going for the easy joke that we start equating “not funny” with “authentic.” 

But what both situations have in common is that the improviser is doing something based solely on what kind of reaction she’s expecting to get from the audience instead of paying attention to what’s happening in the moment.   

Of course, only the improviser herself can say whether she was selling out the scene. The same move (e.g., tearing up a note without reading it) might spring from a spontaneous realization (“I’m just done with him”) or from a contrived attempt to manipulate the audience’s emotions (“I thought not reading the note made it sadder”).   

What Jastroch pointed out is that if you’ve decided to be dramatic, you’ll start ignoring obviously funny things about the scene in order to pump up the pathos, in exactly the same way that you start ignoring everything except the joke in a game-heavy scene. Either way, you’re no longer listening to what the scene has to tell you.  

Aren’t we always telling our students that real life can be hilarious if we just pay sufficient attention to the details? So doesn’t it stand to reason that a realistically played scene, no matter how serious, might have some comic elements in it? 

Last year I was cast in a show called Austin Secrets in which the scenes were based on secrets submitted by the audience. The director had explicitly told us he wanted a couple of serious scenes in each show. But what we found was that — with very few exceptions — even scenes played completely seriously started getting laughs sooner or later. Part of it was just the release of tension in uncomfortable situations, but part of it was the stubborn fact that comedy and tragedy are really just two ways of looking at the exact same material. I think we’ve gotten so used to deciding which one we’re doing and aiming for it that we forget about a third possbility: playing as truthfully as possible and letting the audience make up their own minds which it is. 

My mother, who is generally very supportive of my improv, didn’t really like Austin Secrets. In particular, she didn’t like the serious scenes, because “I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel.” 

Exactly. 

Previous guests: Jill Bernard, Andrea Del Campo, Etan Muskat, Rick Andrews, Kristen Schier, Andy Eninger, Jeroen Van Dyck, Remy Bertrand, Caspar Shjelbred, Sean Michaels, Kareem Badr, RobYn Slade, Ian Parizot, Rachel Klein, Dave Morris, Alex Wlasenko, From the old blog

Guest Writer: Jill Bernard (Minneapolis)

Jill Bernard has been performing with ComedySportz-Twin Cities since 1993, and is a founding member of HUGE Theater in Uptown Minneapolis. Her one-woman improv piece, Drum Machine, has been featured in over forty improv festivals. She has taught and performed improv in Norway, Canada, and over thirty of the United States; and also on an episode of MTV “Made.” She is one-half of the duo SCRAM with Joe Bill of the Annoyance Theater. An Artistic Associate of the Chicago Improv Festival, she has studied at the Annoyance Theater, Improv Olympic, the Brave New Workshop and other organizations.

Rules from the Inside

There’s debate always! ALWAYS! about whether to teach the rules of improv. A friend linked to another blog about it recently. I’m curious about it myself. I never sit down with a class and have a formal discussion about them, that’s not how I want the adventure of improv learning to go. It feels like it makes people’s math brains go “if-I-follow-these-rules-the-improv-will-be-always-be-good” which is simply not true. Some scenes follow all the rules of improv and are just okay. Some scenes break practically all the rules and are killer. It’s also a mistaken path to put all your energy into the mechanics and none into the heart of this matter.

On the first night of class I explain something that it took me years to learn and acknowledge. I am not a useful teacher for everyone. There are two types of travelers: some people make a minute-by-minute itinerary and extensively research and collect a billion brochures. Others like to land with just a map and a smile and take off in any direction that seems intriguing. For the former I am unsatisfying. For the latter I am a joy.

I prefer to discover the rules - “invent” them new for every class so that they BELONG to that class. “Wasn’t that a great scene? What did you notice? What I liked about it was the way Joe took Rachel’s idea and added on to it…” Or if there’s something I’d like to inspire: “Let’s try it again and see what happens if Mike adds details and specifics… Hey that was neat, right? What do you think?” I don’t want to teach you the rules of improv, I want them to happen to you. 

This relates to one of the ways in which yoga has changed me. I used to be very disappointed when students took a ten-week class and didn’t come out the other side knowing everything about improv. In yoga, you have a “practice.” You’re not pushing toward something every day, you’re having your practice. One day you’ll do a great job at Starfish Pose and the next day you’ll topple; it’s not straight upward progress you can make a bar graph about. I can relax and be happy when I think about every improv class as part of a practice, where progress is made incrementally and we’re collecting this knowledge like some Katamari Damacy of improv.

I’ve developed a funny little tic where I occasionally stop and say, “Other improv teachers would want me to tell you X” and I spit out a rule. I would feel bad if someone goes to audition for Second City and gets kicked down the stairs because I never told them “Don’t ask questions.”

When I was a younger hothead I would say “@#%& the rules!” and my friend Stevie Ray would patiently explain that I have the luxury to say that because I learned the rules and now they’re automatic. I think I’m working the same angle but from the backside. I want them to become subconscious. It’s interesting, I just taught ten weeks with a group that instinctively yes-anded. No one told them that rule of improv, it was in them. I felt my job was to point it out and cultivate it, let it grow from the inside.

Previous guests: Andrea Del Campo, Etan Muskat, Rick Andrews, Kristen Schier, Andy Eninger, Jeroen Van Dyck, Remy Bertrand, Caspar Shjelbred, Sean Michaels, Kareem Badr, RobYn Slade, Ian Parizot, Rachel Klein, Dave Morris, Alex Wlasenko, From the old blog

Guest Writer: Andrea Del Campo (Toronto)

Andrea del Campo is a stage and screen actor, and one sixth of Canadian musical improv sensation, Outside Joke. The company formed in 2002 and has performed in festivals across the country, including twice at the Montreal Improv Festival. They will be appearing at the 2012 Regina and Winnipeg Fringes.

Guys, today I’d like to talk about something essential to long-time improvisation: generosity. Groan all you want at my sentimentality, but we wouldn’t be able to do this for long if it weren’t for the openhandedness of others- and I’m not just talking about that ham sandwich that guy gave you while you were touring broke, or the five bucks your sister loaned you so you could buy deodorant the summer your fringe venue was un-airconditioned. I am talking about those things, but I’m also talking about some of the bigger stuff; some of the stuff you can’t eat or wipe on your armpit.

The troupe I’m a member of, Outside Joke, has been fortunate enough to receive help and guidance from many in the past ten years, and here are some of my favourites.

1) Winnipeg’s two-man improv extravaganza, Crumbs, has thrown us many much-needed improv bones. They workshopped us, gave us opening spots at their shows, came to our shows and treated us like equals from the very beginning. Thanks, guys.

2) Kind friends and strangers across the country have offered us places to sleep over the years (i.e. once, some of us stayed at a guy’s apartment that had almost no furniture, but there WAS a giant grey rabbit that hopped freely around the living room, and in the middle of the night we were offered freshly cooked bacon and eggs by one of the roommates).

The funnest and most appreciated accommodations are those that house all six of us, because then it’s like a sleepover party. For example, years ago we arrived in Regina for a festival and had nowhere to sleep. Lo and behold, we ran into an ex-improv coach from high school (didn’t even know he’d moved to Regina), who offered to put us all up in his girlfriend’s living room. Hooray! Also in Regina, years later, we were en route to Edmonton and put up in a friend’s mom’s living room. This mom had never met us and (wisely) made herself scarce during the 12 hours we stank up the main floor of her bungalow.

Finally, the most robust group accommodation we’ve ever received was from Montreal Improv itself, who housed us, as well as other improvisers, in their extra space during the 2011 improv festival. Vinny and Marc gave us free beer, many flavours of potato chips and kindly laughed at our horrific jokes. Thanks to everyone who has graciously surrendered their beds, couches, futons and floors to our weary bones.

3) It’s not often that money falls from the sky, but it did once for Outside Joke. Figuratively. We performed lunchtime short-form sets in a mall courtyard for the Winnipeg Comedy Festival on year (side-note: we were given headset mics and looked like we were in a boy band). Every day, the opening act was local comedian, Big Daddy Tazz, and we gushed to him about our upcoming road trip to Toronto to perform in the Catch23 Tournament of Wonders. One day, he quietly handed us a wad of cash and told us to use it for gas, to which we awkwardly stuttered our eternal thanks. The next day, we offered more eloquently phrased expressions of gratitude, and a yogurt container of chocolate chip cookies.

4) Finally, where would any of us be without the generosity of our fellow improvisers and our fans? My fellow players, in Outside Joke and across the country, have accepted my offers onstage and run with them, no matter how bizarre, inappropriate, unfunny, gross or wonderful they may be. They take these ideas, polish them to a glossy shine and lob them into the audience. Then the audience gracefully catches this shiny comedy mass, considers it briefly and gives us their attention for a little while. I don’t know why it’s so satisfying to tell stories, jokes and songs with a group of people on a stage and have a roomful of people listen and laugh, but it is! It’s one of my life’s greatest joys, and I thank all of you out there who give me the chance to do it.

Previous guests: Etan Muskat, Rick Andrews, Kristen Schier, Andy Eninger, Jeroen Van Dyck, Remy Bertrand, Caspar Shjelbred, Sean Michaels, Kareem Badr, RobYn Slade, Ian Parizot, Rachel Klein, Dave Morris, Alex Wlasenko, From the old blog

Guest Writer: Etan Muskat (Toronto)

Etan Muskat is an actor, writer and improviser. He is a member of the improv troupe The Bitter End and co-creator of the Bitter End webseries http://thebitterend.tv. 

“It’s Improv. It’s never gonna be that good.”

I heard these words come out of the mouth of a fellow improviser, during a particularly grueling post-show notes session, and it’s become something of an in-joke for a bunch of us: an easy-out catch-phrase for when you feel like there’s nothing more to be said about a scene, a show, or especially, a mistake. At the time I heard it, it was the ultimate blow-off: “Who cares whether we succeed or fail, we’re just making all this stuff up.” But as I’ve thought about it over the years, I’ve found there’s a kind of wisdom in this statement, despite the gloomy nihilism. 

It begs a question: how ’good’ can improv be? I mean, can there be improv masterpieces, the way there are movies, books, paintings, or plays? Why do we commit ourselves this crazy artform when our greatest achievements disappear the moment they’re over? WHAT ARE WE DOING?

Okay, I’ll back up a step. I came to improv fairly late, at the ripe old age of 25. I had done a bit in high school drama, including a stint in our school’s Comedy Troupe in the 10th grade, but after that I didn’t think much more about it, other than catching the odd episode of “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?”. I went to university to study english, film and art, planning all along to write fiction and draw comics. Both of these activities involved endless hours of sitting alone in a room, hunched over a computer or drawing table, obsessing, perfecting and polishing a piece of work that, if it ever even got finished, may never get seen by a single soul. At the end of the day you can stick the finished product in a drawer and keep it there forever.

After a couple of years at this I was coaxed into trying out a free improv workshop in Montreal, and the rest is history. One thing that was revolutionary for me was the notion of embracing spontaneity. When you write, you feel the need to get everything perfect, every word and punctuation mark (this comes from school, I think). You also feel the need to be totally original in every idea, because of the pitfalls of cliches, and the fear that you’ll be compared to the entire history of literature. And these are valid concerns, but they can be STIFLING! Writer’s block isn’t an inability to think of ideas, it’s a refusal to BELIEVE in your ideas. It’s second-guessing everything.

But how thrilling to be totally spontaneous, having no time for doubt! Rather than torturing myself over whether to describe a character as “ebullient” or “effervescent”, I could just go up on stage, be the character, and smile! There is a freedom in improv that’s exhilarating. When I would get stuck, directors and teachers would say stuff to me like “You know what to do!” or “Just tell us what’s in the box!”, and rather than hum and haw trying to come up with a good answer, I could just say whatever the heck popped into my head! Of course it wasn’t always so easy, but I really WANTED it to be.

In “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre”, Keith Johnstone says this: “We struggle against our imaginations, especially when we try to be imaginative. We are not responsible for the content of our imaginations. And we are not, as we are taught to think, our ‘personalities’, but it’s the imagination that is our true self.” He talks about ‘freeing’ the imagination, of allowing it to spill out untainted by self-consciousness. Our job as improvisors is to curate what we put IN to our heads, not what we let out. 

Recently I’ve found myself teaching more, and I’ve had a number of conversations with students having the same problem: hesitation. Being afraid to say the wrong thing, because they don’t want to say something stupid and ruin the scene. You can always tell which improvisers are the writers, because they so rarely smile on stage. They are THINKING. And thinking is a surefire way to spoil the moment, like trying to make a joke right before kissing someone for the first time. 

So if I have any wisdom to impart, it’s this: Stop thinking. Be bold. Take risks. Look stupid. Let your demons out. Bug your scene partner. Play. If you’re honest, playful, open and bold, you can pretty much get away with anything you want on stage. And the audience will love you for it.

There are no second drafts in improv, so you’ll never benefit from thinking about what you could have done, should have done differently. Instead, think about what you could try next time.

When I think back on the quote that started this off, I realize that what this improviser meant was: “It’s improv. It’s never going to be perfect.” Now isn’t that an inspiring thought?

Previous guests: Rick Andrews, Kristen Schier, Andy Eninger, Jeroen Van Dyck, Remy Bertrand, Caspar Shjelbred, Sean Michaels, Kareem Badr, RobYn Slade, Ian Parizot, Rachel Klein, Dave Morris, Alex Wlasenko, From the old blog

Guest Writer: Rick Andrews (NYC)

Rick Andrews is a teacher and performer at The Magnet Theater in New York City.  He teaches and performs around the country with The Magnet Theater TourCo, with ensemble Brick, and his duo, The Cascade.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about two words we hear a lot when improvising: “Fear” and “Trust”.  

Fear

One of the biggest hurdles in becoming a good improviser is our fear. Fear and threat are pretty good motivators for all kinds of things. Simple, physical tasks respond super well to fear. If I wanted you to move a bunch of boxes across the room, I could easily get you to move them faster if I made you afraid by, say, threatening you with a whip.

Creativity, however, doesn’t respond well to fear. If I gave you a pen and paper and told you to “write a beautiful poem,” threatening you with a whip if it wasn’t beautiful enough probably wouldn’t lead you to write a better poem. It’ll actually probably lead you to write a worse one. There’s a whole bunch of pretty solid research to back this up.

This is because when we’re being creative, we need to be able to take risks, to make choices that reflect our personal voice, desire, and discovery; we need to be all-around mentally unencumbered by anything other than the creative process. Improv is a creative process, and as a spontaneous one, and one that we tend to do in front of other people in scary situations, it’s pretty susceptible to fear.

This fear makes us worse improvisers. It leads us to say and do things we don’t want to say because we think they’ll get a laugh, or the audience wants to hear them, or they’re the “right” things to say and do.  We threaten ourselves with laughter, or rather, lack of laughter. As improvisers, we often hold an imaginary whip over our heads when improvising. Sometimes scenes feel like a sprint to get the first laugh, as if were the scene to go on for 30 seconds with no one laughing, the audience would simply stand up in unison, give you the finger, and leave.

Trust

To become a great improviser, I think it’s essential that we conquer this fear in some way. The way we do this is by having trust; we put trust in our scene partners, our team, the audience, and ourselves. We trust that they will help us, make us look good, look out for us, etc; we trust that they will help us avoid the things we are afraid of.  The comfort afforded by the trust allows us to be our most creative selves.

When we first begin improvising, we trust specific, singular individuals on a kind of “prove-it-to-me” basis. If we get up there and do a scene with Michael, and Michael seems nice enough and Yes And-ed me and didn’t throw me under the bus, then pretty soon, I’ll trust Michael.

Then, if the classroom or team environment affords it, improvisers might extend that trust to a whole group of people, e.g. “I feel pretty comfy, more or less, with everyone in the class/team. No matter who I do a scene with, they’ll have my back.” This allows us to step out into a scene without fear, because we know that whoever joins us, we trust them. This isn’t always the case, but it’s wonderful when it happens.

Next, after improvisers do and watch enough shows, they begin trusting based on observation, e.g. “I saw Jermaine do that scene, he seemed pretty supportive/good/funny; I trust him.” At this point you might be stepping out with people you’ve never personally played with but still can find the freedom to be creative.

A little more, and improvisers start to trust the process of improvisation itself. When you see quality players come together and jam, they’re more or less putting faith in the process of improvisation, of Yes And, listening, heightening, etc.  “I’ve never played with Tito or seen Tito but, oh well, let’s go do the improv thing and I bet a scene will happen.”

This is closely followed by trust in yourself as a capable improviser. This is great because it means you can confidently improvise with anyone at all, novice or expert, without feeling afraid or stifled. At Magnet in New York we have these great shows called “Mixers” where anyone can sign up and do a scene. New folks who’ve never done improv before are often paired with experienced house team members. From the experienced player’s point of view, they have no idea who this person is or if they’re any good. In fact, they probably have evidence that the person isn’t very good, since most everybody isn’t very good the first time they do improv. And yet, these scenes are almost always fun and funny. It’s not even like the experienced player is “carrying” the scene. They simply trust themselves, trust that if they keep YesAnding and listening, that a scene will happen, and that they’ll be able to find some fun.  

All this trust is so that we can overcome this fear; we trust that these bad things won’t happen. However, for the most part, the worst thing that is going to happen to you because of a bad improv scene is that a bunch of people won’t think that you are very funny. And at the end of the day, that’s not so bad. No one dies, no one gets hurt or sick, everyone who cares about you still loves you, etc. Even for those who make or hope to make their livelihoods off of improv or comedy, one bad scene or show won’t ruin that. Whenever I’m feeling strangely nervous before a show, I try to remind myself of that. It’s not perfect, but it helps.

At the end of the day, there’s probably some combination of a few, many, or all of these things going on when we “trust” in improv. And the more you’re able to face down that fear, trust yourself and others, the better an improviser you’re going to be.

Previous guests: Kristen Schier, Andy Eninger, Jeroen Van Dyck, Remy Bertrand, Caspar Shjelbred, Sean Michaels, Kareem Badr, RobYn Slade, Ian Parizot, Rachel Klein, Dave Morris, Alex Wlasenko, From the old blog

Guest Writer: Kristen Schier (Philadelphia)

Kristen Schier has a B.F.A. in Theater Arts from the University of the Arts and has been working in Philadelphia Pennsylvania as a professional actor, improviser and teacher for many years. She is the Artistic Director of The Philly N Crowd, which a short form improv ensemble. Kristen also teaches, directs and performs at the Philly Improv Theater. Kristen has studied clowning intensively with Giovanni Fusetti. She has also studied improv briefly at The Second City and at the Annoyance in Chicago, Illinois. She has taken workshops and classes with such improv notables as Michael Gelman, Scott Adsit, Christina Gausas, Armando Diaz, Jonathan Pitts, Jill Bernard, Asaf Ronen, Mick Napier, Susan Messing, Tara DeFrancisco,  Joe Bill and Mark Sutton, as well as various members of the UCB and Magnet Theaters in New York City.

What to Do After a Bad Show

If you have been improvising for a while you have probably had your share of good, bad, and, hopefully, great shows. We all want a majority of our shows to be effortless and brilliant. What happens when – well, … when … they … aren’t?

When you have the good fortune of experiencing a great show there is little left to do besides bask in the glory of it. Enjoy it as much as you are able because you will never do it again. Sure, you might do an equally amazing show but you can never do that show again. You will have to keep finding new ways of being marvelous - such is the ephemeral nature of improvisation.

However, when you or your improv troupe have a bad show (and trust me, we have all had them) it can be harder to know how to push through that terrible sinking feeling, and make it a positive learning experience. Most of us just go on making excuses, beating ourselves up, and sadly, not learning from our mistakes.

Here are some things to think about the next time you or your team have a show that didn’t quite go the way you would have liked:  

• Say Thank You

Say thanks to the people who tell you “Great show!” afterward. This may be hard to do, since every fiber of your ego is screaming “I am better than that show, I swear”. I know that this was the one show your Aunt Mable was able to come to, and that if she had only seen the last show - which went so much better - she would have been truly floored. It does not matter. Your Aunt said it was a great show. She probably meant it. Say thank you.

Don’t discount the fact that the audience may have enjoyed the show much more than you were able to gather from onstage. Every audience has different comedic tastes, and ways of expressing their enjoyment of a show. Some audiences are quiet appreciators. At the end of every show bow like you have just done the most brilliant piece of work you have ever performed. You never know, someone may have thought it was wonderful, even if that someone wasn’t you.

I know you. You have great taste and high standards. This leaves you with a great sense of dissatisfaction when your work does not live up to those standards. Remember however, that what you thought was a terrible show may have truly delighted your audience, and after all, isn’t it them you aim to please?

Even if your Aunt did not mean what she said when she told you “Great show!”, she still came out to see you perform, and that is something to be thankful for. Say thank you. You can talk about how disappointing the show was later with someone you trust, and make all the excuses you need to. For now, smile and say thanks. Saying thank you is professional and looks way classier than someone apologizing for daring to create.

• Remember It’s Over

I have heard it uttered by those more experienced than me that one thing good shows and bad shows have in common is that they are both over. Sometimes it helps to remember that you never have to do that terrible show again, especially if you take the time to really learn from the experience. Relax. You will find a million other ways to be terrible.  Remember Sturgeon’s Law that “90% of everything is crap”. You were bound to have a bad show sooner or later. Did you really think you had nothing left to learn, or that you were finally beyond ever having to do a horrible show again? Then I think maybe you are playing it too safe. You are not risking enough. You had better go sky diving to get scared again. Accept the possibility of failure. Daring to fail is akin to daring to be successful. Both are scary and both are a lot to live up to. If you don’t fail big you will never succeed big either. You will be safe and small. 

Embrace your failure, but don’t cling to it, unless you want it to define you.  Look at it plainly and don’t give it too much power over you. It can only truly be “failure” anyway if you don’t learn from it. Otherwise, you have gained knowledge, and that is a victory. Allow the show to be over. Put it to bed and start fresh tomorrow.

• Don’t Let One Show Define You

Chances are you put a lot of pressure on yourself for this show to be good. You wanted this show to be your defining moment. This will be, you told yourself, the show that gets you discovered by Lorne Michaels or any other person you might be trying to impress. Chances are that is why you buckled.

When you perform for a while you get the opportunity to grow over time and develop consistency. One show does not, should not, define you, good or bad. If you allow one show be that important you have diminished yourself, your work, and the art form.

• Learn

Take the notes you are given from your director. Don’t talk back. Take them. I mean it, just shush and take your notes. Good.

I will here posit the virtues of having a director or coach for your improv ensemble. It can be hard to take a truly objective look at what might have gone awry from inside of it. Get a director for your team who does not perform with you, if at all possible, and have them give notes. A good director will be an invaluable resource for growth.

If you do not have a director, but you can still point to something definable you can do to improve on after a bad show, other than “I was in my head,” be cheered! You have found something to actively work towards! However, do not allow yourself to wallow in a general “I suck” mood. Without an identifiable goal to work towards, this kind of mood is not helpful, and nearly impossible to grow from.

• You Don’t Have Control

You cannot change the show that happened. Go ahead. Try. See? Can’t do it. It is this futile attempt at control that may have gotten you in the situation of having had a bad show to begin with. 

Sometimes your effort to blame the bad show on something is really just an effort to a find false sense of control over what happened. If you could only find out what went wrong you could stop it from ever happening again, right? Wrong.

You don’t have control over how a show goes. Ever. I mean, isn’t that what is so frighteningly wonderful about improv to begin with? You cannot determine what happens - you can only accept and support. Sure, there are best practices when improvising, but even they are only guidelines. Sometimes what a show needs most is everything you have been told not to do in your improv 101 class. The undeniable heart of improv is uncertainty.

There are so many factors that can influence the outcome of a show. Think about it. There are soo, soo many - few of which you can control. The space, the audience … soo many. Trust me, the list is long.

Understand, that I am not handing you excuses for why your show was bad. A good performer can intuit these factors and adjust to them. A good ensemble or performer can win over an outright hostile audience in a mere instant. I have seen this done.

I am, however, suggesting that you may have done everything right, or you may have done everything wrong, but the bottom line is that you do not have complete control over any of it.

Improv is a collaborative art form. Even if you are a solo performer you have to acknowledge an audience’s role in your performance. You cannot take full credit for everything that goes well, and you cannot take full blame for everything that goes wrong. Otherwise improv would be a formulaic science and we could read a book about how to do it right, and be done. Completely boring. In fact, the closest we might get to science is the erratic alchemy that is the chemical reaction between performer(s) and audience, composed of mostly mysterious elements. The sooner you learn that you cannot control everything that happens is the moment you are freed from worry and you open yourself up to the possibility of great failure, and by extension, great success.

Ironically, when you relinquish responsibility for everything that happens on stage you take more ownership over what you can control – which is simply how you respond. You can choose to refuse or to accept. When you take more ownership over your response you are likely to realize you have the opportunity to find fun in any situation. The terrible offers from your scene partner, or from yourself, with a healthy dose of humility, become fuel for brilliance, rather than judgment. When you are having fun you are probably fun to watch, which means you are probably having one of those rare things performers call a great show.

Enjoy the opportunity to play and be careful not to trade it for a pile of worry, judgment and fear. When it is over, let it go. Remember only that you are brave, and human.

Previous guests: Andy Eninger, Jeroen Van Dyck, Remy Bertrand, Caspar Shjelbred, Sean Michaels, Kareem Badr, RobYn Slade, Ian Parizot, Rachel Klein, Dave Morris, Alex Wlasenko, From the old blog

Guest Writer: Andy Eninger (Chicago)

Andy Eninger is the Head of the Writing Program at The Second City Training Center in Chicago, and performs his solo improv form “Sybil” all over the world.  He will be appearing next at IMPRO International Improvisation Theatre Festival in Amsterdam in January 2012.

8 Reasons Why I Love Working With Improvisers 

Over the past twenty years, I’ve worked with thousands of improvisers.  Sometimes, we were doing actual improv stuff - shows, classes, playing giant tomatoes for a corporate event.  Sometimes, we were improvisers in daytime drag, freelancing in our ‘day jobs’ while taking classes at night and performing on the weekends.  Through it all I’ve realized that improvisers are great people to be around. Even if I’d never discovered improvisation, I think I would gravitate toward improvisers for their many qualities. They may not be tidy, but they’re very entertaining, and they have specialized skills that make life better for everyone.

1.) They know how to say ‘yes, and’
Improvisers are good at saying ‘yes.’ More than that, they’re good at saying ‘yes’ and then building on a idea.  They take pleasure in heightening a bit, pushing a game, or exploring a line of thinking - usually in hopes of being the first one to the funny comment about something.  Improvisers make YOU feel funny by jumping onboard your idea.

2.) They make good listeners
As much as they love to talk, the best improvisers make great listeners.  This is because they know they’ll only be able to make fun of you if they pay attention to the details.  Still, everybody loves being deeply listened to…at least until your personal revalation gets ‘called back’ in a bit 30 minutes later.

3.) Improvisers have your back
If you go down in flames in a scene or in a stressful moment, improvisers know to take one for the team.  Sometimes this means getting you off-stage so you can recover from a bad scene; sometimes this means stealing your potential date the moment you’ve been shot down at a pub.  Nonetheless, they are there to fill the vacuum you made when you sucked, and for that, you should be thankful.

4.) Improvisers are forthcoming
Improvisers are not afraid to tell you about themselves, both in real life and in made-up improv-character life.  “Let me tell you about my gluten allergy…” is not so different from “I bet you’ve never seen a man with lava-feet and ice hands like THESE.”  The same instinct that can feel like a curse when you’re trapped at the office party can be a gift on stage.

5.) They see the humor in everything
They say that Comedy is Tragedy plus Time; Improvisers are so ambitious, they like to cut out the “time” part.  Nothing is off limits.  The bright side is that you always have a support network that can bring you up when you’re feeling down.  The down side of this is watching your improv team gleefully launch a thirty-minute longform inspired by an audience suggestion of some inappropriate recent international tragedy. 

6.) Improvisers are better than a Twitter Feed
You think you know what’s trending?  People who ask for suggestions from drunk strangers every night REALLY know what’s on the public’s mind. Want to know what’s ‘hot’ right now? Ask an improviser.

7.) Improvisers are always up for a beer
After years of late night shows, late-night rehearsals, and late-night beers after late-night shows, improvisers are conditioned for late-night action.  Want a beer on a Wednesday?  I bet your improviser friend is up for it.  Heading home late from work and want to blow off steam?  Text an improviser - they’ll be there for you.  Of course, you may have to sit through their late-night show first…

8.) You never have to worry about who’s going to pay for drinks: You are. (Hey, at least it takes the guesswork out of your evening.)

If I was going to be stuck on a desert island with one person…I’d choose an Engineer. Maybe a Doctor.  But otherwise, in this world that moves too quickly and takes itself too seriously, I’ll take an improviser any day. 

Previous guests: Jeroen Van Dyck, Remy Bertrand, Caspar Shjelbred, Sean Michaels, Kareem Badr, RobYn Slade, Ian Parizot, Rachel Klein, Dave Morris, Alex Wlasenko, From the old blog

Guest Writer: Jeroen Van Dyck (Antwerp)

Jeroen Van Dyck has been the coordinator for the Belgian Improv League (www.bil.be) since 2007.

Hate to break the news to you guys, but I am not an improviser. I have never been on stage and do not plan to ever get on there. I work for BIL (Belgian Improv League) and my job description is basically to do everything but be on stage. So, writing for this blog was a bit daunting as I do not have real insights to share in how to play improv, how to grow as an improviser, and so on… So what the hell am I going to talk about?

Maybe how it all began?  I started out with BIL just over 4 years ago. They needed a coordinator and I needed a different job. At that time I was sales representative for a company that sold photo frames and designer furniture. About 7 years before that, me and some friends in Antwerp started organizing all kinds of events: music, theatre, literature, but also a lot of stand-up comedy. I wrote my thesis in university about stand-up, so I was into that a lot at that time (and I still am, I confess). BIL was the headliner at our first big event (900-seat venue in Antwerp). 7 years later, I sit down for the interview for the job. It was supposed to last about 30 minutes, but I ended up spending nearly two hours with the two guys I have since come to know a lot better. They had questions for me that I couldn’t have prepared for in a million years. So I improvised.

Improv was, at that moment, a pretty blank page for me. I had seen BIL twice. There used to be a TV show here with improv in the 90’s and I had seen some bits of shows like Whose Line is it Anyway, etc. But I had never seen an impro-match. That’s the format our company plays in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), by the way. Our opening match that season was in Antwerp, in a venue that holds about 500 seats, and it’s mostly sold out. I can tell you, If you have never seen an improv match like that and have to organize the whole shebang, it is slightly scary. By now, it’s close to routine, but back then… The ice-hockey setting, the outfits, the technical part of the show, the line-up with almost 15 improvisers, staff, musician… You can plan all you want, but stuff is always bound to go wrong in such a complex set-up. Bookings lost, broken microphones, a weird smell just under the main seating area, a lost child wandering around in that same seating area during the show… All true examples, by the way.  So you improvise.

Next to shows in the match-format, all our other activities are set up to pay for the touring of these shows. For example, we run our own three-year Academy and do open workshops for beginners. We also work for the corporate world quite often, playing shows at personnel parties, giving workshops or trainings to managers, hosting as special characters at fairs, seminars… I handle all bookings for these things and do all the preliminary work so our actors/improvisers just need to be creative. Now, you may not realize this about yourselves, my dear improvisers, but you are not the easiest lot to work with. And, as you will acknowledge for sure: neither is the corporate world, but in a different way. Getting those two worlds to match is one of my main daily occupations. Things go wrong all the time: people get ill, companies change their ideas about something at the last moment, wrong briefings are given because some intern messed up and now your actors are one hour away from where they should be 15 minutes before the start of something… Funny stuff in hindsight, but at the time… However, you always need a solution to an uncommon problem. And so you improvise.

You can probably see the theme there. I am not an improviser, but I improvise all the time. I find solutions backstage, like you guys find solutions on stage. I try to make the setting predictable and comfortable, so you can find a way to do something unexpected.  Improvisation to me is more than a theatrical form; it is a set of skills, attitudes and ways of thinking that is useful in any situation. It is a way of life: keeping cool, trusting your gut feeling (and knowing when you can and when you can’t), thinking creatively about whatever problem you encounter and most of all, not being afraid of making a mistake. In the end, there are no real mistakes to make unless you’re a surgeon or something like that. So, in everyday life, don’t be afraid to improvise!

It’s a funny business I rolled into. The hours, the pay, the job security,… none of them are great. But I love my job. Because I get to work with people with a passion. Because I get to look for solutions and there is never a clear-cut right answer, but always many possible ways to approach a problem. Because I never know what the next day is going to have in store for me. Because I’m never 100% sure that everything will be going right. But then, I can always improvise. Just, never on stage…

Previous guests: Remy Bertrand, Caspar Shjelbred, Sean Michaels, Kareem Badr, RobYn Slade, Ian Parizot, Rachel Klein, Dave Morris, Alex Wlasenko, From the old blog

Guest Writer: Remy Bertrand (London)

Remy Bertrand runs imprology, a London-based training company and Friendly Fire, a performing group using physical, musical and verbal improvisation.

Mirrors and status, let’s all be friends.

There is a great divide in improvisation between comedy and, well… non-comedy. Lets mend the rift because we’re all brothers and sisters after all, or at least cousins, or maybe our mums used to shop at the same store. I’m doing my bit here to reconcile two staple games on the opposite corners of the ring in an attempt to show that status games and mirroring games are very similar in nature, even though one is more often played by the wordy, all in the brain, comedic brigade and the other by lovely arty people who would never ever dream of gagging on stage. Both games require players to be completely focused on each other. If the rules are different, the skills being developed are almost identical and I will prove it now. So wish me luck.

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Guest Writer: Sean Michaels (Montreal)

Sean Michaels is a writer and improviser based in Montreal. He has been doing improv since 2000, including performances at festivals in Toronto, Ottawa, Chicago and at home - most recently as a member of the duo VENEZUELA. He founded the music-blog Said the Gramophone in 2003.

Sometimes I am at a party with improvisers, and it is late at night, and each of us has drunk ten thousand beers, and little swallows are flying circles around our heads, and our bellies hurt from laughing, and at this juncture - dumb, drowsy, with salt-and-vinegar-flecked lips - we get heady. We talk shop. We talk shop at other times but it is especially at this time, in the weeer hours, that the headiness becomes earnest, spirited, divisive. Arguments waft from our minds. Counter-arguments are made. Sneers are sneered, retorts are torted, the house falls down. Shit gets real.

One of the biggest arguments of all is this one: WHO IS THIS FOR? By THIS we mean improv. By FOR, we mean what is the telos, the purpose of this on-stage tomfoolery. For whose benefit is it? Who must be entertained? When you get down to brass tacks, sometimes, it’s this: Is the customer always right?

Everyone has had this discussion. The audience didn’t laugh. Was it still funny? Or, worse: Were we being self-indulgent? Sometimes it is a debate about laughing at yourself, or breaking character; sometimes it is about experimentation, the avant garde. It has a thousand manifestations, but it comes back to that fundamental question: WHO IS THIS FOR?

I have heard four different answers to WHO IS THIS FOR?: it is for the pleasure of the audience; it is for the enjoyment of the performer; it is for the benefit of society & the world; or some combination of the above. All have their problems. Let’s dig a little deeper.  

THIS IS FOR THE AUDIENCE
For most improvisers, this is the first instinct. Try to make the audience laugh. It’s harder than it seems. In improv, the biggest laughs aren’t just from a string of self-defeating gags. Story, character, rising stakes - this stuff adds traction to the jokes, helps them kill. It’s easy to imagine that the best improv is the kind that tries to serve the people watching it; what better (and more pleasurable) barometer to your success than people’s fun?

At the same time, audiences always laugh at swearwords. They laugh at toilet jokes, gay jokes, gags about getting your genitals stuck in revolving door(s). They’re sometimes oafish or drunk, and often impatient. Certain audiences feels like the worst possible judges of improv. If improv is for the audience, if it’s just a populist art-form, then it risks being reduced to the lowest common denominator. The stuff that’s truly beautiful, provocative, or funny in a different way - not everyone likes it. And as soon as you start spurning some members of the audience, you’re rolling down the slippery slope to…

THIS IS FOR US
Most of the world’s great artworks are understood as works of self-expression. The Tempest, “Billie Jean”, Annie Hall, Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”, Satie’s Gymnopédies. An original spirit, set down in paint, in ink, on wax. The mingling of experience and invention. Sounds good, right? Improv rarely aspires to this: it’s a form reared in comedy, not theatre. (As opposed to, say, modern clown.) But it gets there sometimes. For a beat, for a scene, for an entire show. Sometimes it’s about speaking to our deeper hearts, sometimes it’s about skimming some high strange funny. When improv is for the performer, it forces you to challenge yourself, search yourself, experiment. To figure out what excites you and the way your vision is different than every other performer’s. It risks failure, breakdown, an echoing and awkward crowd.

And so it isn’t always funny. Sometimes it’s deliberately not funny. Which sounds OK until you realize the corollary, in the eyes of your audience: Sometimes it sucks. Pretentious, self-satisfied bullshit. Performers in their little bubble, entertaining only themselves. Arrogant. Indulgent. Masturbatory.

So, I guess, was Shakespeare?

THIS IS FOR SOCIETY
I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has argued that improv should serve society - that somehow it should serve the world, make it a better place, through laughter, story and spontaneous invention. But it seems like one of this craft’s possible purposes. It’s high-falutin’, aspirational, sorta absurd. But it’s possible. So I leave it here, to consider.

THIS IS FOR THE AUDIENCE, FOR US, AND/OR FOR SOCIETY, i.e. SOME COMBINATION OF THE ABOVE
Like all wishy-washy answers, this is the most boring option. Compromises are sometimes muddier than the problems they aim to solve. But there’s something seductive in taking the best of two answers, and none of the problems. (All the same - Is it a cop-out? Yes!)

IN CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I have no fucking idea what improv is for. I will continue to argue about it, before, after or during the consumption of ten thousand beers. I lean toward the proposition that improv is for the performer, just because I feel that at its best it is a mode of self-expression, of individual artistry, more than just tickling the crowd. But I also feel that improv deliberately sites itself, most of the time, away from high art. Most of us like slipping on banana peels, or yelling a swearword from time to time. So I’m not really sure.

More important than the philosophy or teleology of improv is what we do with these thinkings. How do you take your theory of purpose and apply it to your craft? For me, these meditations manifest in a couple of ways. I try to play on stage, experimenting with my partners (& challenging myself) in a way that is, I hope, infectious for the audience. And I prefer when an improv show is a real performance, a cohesive whole that’s just-professional-enough. From the format to the backing music, a complete iteration of someone’s precise & private vision. Something for us, presented to you, with sincerity and love.

Previous guests: Kareem Badr, RobYn Slade, Ian Parizot, Rachel Klein, Dave Morris, Alex Wlasenko, From the old blog