Improv Nerds Only

Ever since I joined a UCB Harold team, I’ve been searching for ways to amplify a sense of discovery and fun in an environment too often full of overthinking and overanalysis. A recent very fun workshop with Anthony King got me thinking, as did my team’s fun show last night, and I wrote up a little personal manifesto of sorts. (If you’re not into improv, this might be boring.)

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Improv semantics drive me crazy. Pattern. Premise. Heightening. Game. Stakes. Status. Analogous. Plot. These words/concepts exist for a reason, help make for a unified UCB Theatre curriculum, and can be helpful as we learn and grow as improvisers. But what if we decided we’re done lying under the weight of these words, and we put them in a drawer and closed it?

What if improv only had two rules:

1. Make each other right and make big decisions & assumptions until something fun happens.
2. Follow and expand upon that fun thing, fearlessly and without looking back, together.

If you haven’t found something fun, it’s because you’re not making each other right or you’re not making big decisions or assumptions.

If the fun thing starts to become less fun, it’s because you’re not fearlessly expanding upon it together.

I honestly can’t think of one concept in improv’s vast semantic treasure chest that isn’t addressed by this simple philosophy. All the axioms we know and love (“Don’t be coy,” “if that then what else,” “play game not pattern”, etc) are contained within it, but instead it puts “fun” at the center of good improv - right where it should be. All this talk of pattern vs. game, active vs. inactive, unusual thing vs reaction to unusual thing - this stuff is not incorrect. But maybe it also sort of fucking sucks, because it gets you thinking of improv in math terms, and improv isn’t math. Improv is discovery and fun.

Semantics can mean a lot. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to be onstage in front of 150 people thinking “I better react to this unusual thing with a game (not pattern!) move that we can heighten.” That’s valid theory, but it’s not helping me create and discover funny things in the moment. I never used to think that way before someone told me to.

I just want to get up and make you right and make big choices until fun shit happens, and then have fun fearlessly exploring that fun shit. Still doing the same thing, just thinking about it with a simpler and more inherently positive lens that puts the focus back on the reason we do this: joy.

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I realize this is just a rephrasing of an age-old improv conversation, but I’d still be interested to hear other performers’/students’ thoughts.

benjoseph:

“Improv is awful. Ten percent of it is fantastic, and it’s hard to find the gems…. I’ll watch it and I’ll either be frustrated or jealous. So I avoid it.” -Scott Adsit

“Improv [is]… either very good and it’s annoying how good they are and it makes you feel bad, or they’re not too good then you’re sweating for them.” -Fred Willard

Do seasoned comedy professionals only react to improv with exasperation or bitterness? I’ve personally grown to love improv over the past two years, but it’s weird to see such similar, negative sentiments in two separate interviews. Thoughts, comedy friends?

Well, Scott Adsit and Fred Willard are improvisers (both are Second City alumni), so they’re certainly not bashing the art form outright.

I think the sentiment shared by both is that it’s hard to do improv that is simultaneously joyful for the performers and the audience. It’s hard to do good improv, period. However, I maintain that a great improv show is transcendent in ways that a great sketch or stand-up show is not, and a bad improv show, while painful to watch, is less painful than a bad sketch or stand-up show.

Truly joyful improv that blasts everyone in the room with a sense of surprise and wonderment and discovery is an experience I will never tire of chasing, as a performer and as a spectator. I worry that it’s increasingly rare (especially lately, with the absurdly fast and competitive growth of the NY scene, and its ever-changing cast of characters), but if you have patience, I think it’s one of the most worthy and noble creative pursuits out there.

All-Nighter Recap

14 videos in 12 hours. That was very fun, and now I am sleepy. Thanks to all of our guests for hanging out. And thanks to our fans for helping us convince the Twitter-verse that Shaq retired, for no good reason.

My tired-looking mug appears in Write That Down, Pee Quirks, Spin the Bottle, Exterminators, Hans Gruber and Juke. You can see all 14 of our frantic speed-sketches here.

Zzz.