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 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.
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.
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 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