Online Improv: Zoomed Out

Very few people would have predicted that we would all be doing our shows online so soon into the future. But that’s what has been happening. And as many of us discovered or are discovering, it’s not the same as doing it on stage. Whilst a lot of the core skills are transferrable, there are some things that are very different.

One huge difference is the lack of an audience and the direct feedback of an audience responding and thus shaping what we are doing. The shows lose a lot of that “live factor” which is a big part of the appeal of an improv show for an audience and is the reason that even the best improvised TV shows have none of the excitement of seeing it live.

Probably the biggest hindrance for performers is not being in the same place as our fellow players. We can’t truly look them in the eyes and get that deep connection. There is a lag in the conversation so our reactions don’t feel in the moment as much as in several moments ago. We can’t often be as big physically as we once were as we’re either performing within a narrow rectangle or we’re sitting down. This leads to a lot of ‘talking heads’ scenes where two actors just stand (or sit) there and talk with little movement or emotion.

Part of what makes it difficult is that we are trying to apply our skills to a new medium. We all learnt the core skills of paying attention and reacting constructively, and at the same time we learnt how to express them on stage, in a theatre setting. We call ourselves improvisers, but we could more accurately call ourselves “stage improvisers,” the same way you talk about “stage actors” and “screen actors.” The main reason we don’t is that screen improvising didn’t happen all that often, and when it did, it was usually done by stage improvisers and the setting was usually stage-like. Or it was done by screen actors and it was only part of a thing that was mostly scripted.

But now screen improvising is happening all the time and we realise they are different beasts.

As an actor, the transfer from stage to screen is often a difficult one. If you are used to performing on stage, you are used to projecting so the whole room can enjoy you. Bellowing like that into a mic will not win you many friends. You are also used to injecting your emotions into your whole body, often exaggeratedly so. In acting on camera, less is more.

The style of improvisation that many of us learnt (cheeky, exaggerated, stage comedy a la music hall/vaudeville) doesn’t really work. We have to take our inspiration from TV acting. It can still be exaggerated and comic, but within different parameters. Acting for screen is smaller, but still there is energy and intensity, it’s just very often internalised.

Sets are another limiting factor. In improv, because the action can be set literally anywhere, a group will either perform in front of a neutral curtain with some plain chairs for everything else or have a million pieces of furniture all lying back stage and a set of stage-hands ready to deploy. At home, the default choice would be to find a blank wall or hand a neutral curtain. As any visible furniture kind of gives a location. If you have the time and your device is portable, you can quickly create a location in another part of your house to best represent the next scene, but again, this is can be a distraction or possible delay although can be impressive if pulled off well.

Now there are virtual backgrounds, but not everyone can use them and quite often they are more of a distraction than something that genuinely sets the location. So be careful. Practice using them with your group but see how you (all) feel about the results. Unless everyone has devices that can handle it well (and not all can) and you know how to set them up quickly, they might just get in the way and take you away from being in a few moments ago.

The place where there is a real win is props. On stage, miming objects makes so much sense. In improv, most of the time we don’t use them, because you either have a large enough collection of them that you can find something usable or you have nothing and mime everything. (The middle ground is where you have a limited set of props because you know the setting / genre beforehand.)

Miming, however does really work on screen. Fortunately, we are mostly performing at home now, so we have within a short sprint, practically a full set of everyday household objects. (Maybe the history of improv ask-fors hqas been leading us to this moment. “Can I have a house-hold object and a room in a house?”) If you know there are things you are likely to want in a scene, it just takes a little thought to have them available within arm’s reach.

One other area, we have to adjust is in our director’s heads. As improvisers, we have different heads: we are actors, co-writers and co-directors all at the same time. But there are big differences between directing for stage and for screen. So instead of thinking about where we are on the stage, we can think about how far we are from the camera and where we stand in the frame. We even have extra choices we don’t often have on stage, such as extreme close-up. We can even play with angles in a way the stage doesn’t lend itself to.

All these are things an audience understands and to a degree expect having been watching TV for much of their lives. We also, really, should be thinking about what’s on screen: i.e. the shot the audience is seeing. A dialogue on TV will usually cut between the two speakers, but the convention for an improv show is that the two people keep their video on. The main problem being that as it usually has to be controlled by the actor and switching your own video on and off is clunky, but some conferencing software allows a host to control what is seen and I’ve seen some shows using live-TV software. Both of these mean that actually means the role of a director (or live editor) makes sense. Very much the way it makes sense to have a lighting improviser in many venues.

A director can swap between views and “pin” specific videos to simulate cuts between actors, they can share pictures or video to set up locations, they can share music for emotional or dramatic moments, especially when there is no dialogue.

Actually, music can be a place online shows struggle. With the lag and the fact speaking often cuts out other sounds in Zoom, for example, it’s impossible to improvise songs, except when the music comes from the same place as the singer. Indeed, speaking over music can be problematic on things zoom unless the speaker is the one sharing the music, which makes it yet another thing that most actors never have to think about.

I’ve very much taken the stance that our inspiration on how to produce content should come from TV. This is my opinion. 

Perhaps we should look at the other online phenomena such as podcasts and vlogs and make things that are less visual and more like stuff to have in the background whilst cooking. This is presumably why many improv groups have gone the way of live discussions about improv as part or all of their online output.

Or we maybe we should look at youtubers and go for lots of short content with running themes, with the emphasis perhaps on editing.

Or we could take our cues from TikTok and simply lip sync to sound clips from Whose Line Is It Anyway.

When I started writing this it was very early in the whole lockdown thing, other things kept usurping it. It seems less good timing with many places going out of lockdown. But with a potential second wave may be it’s pertinent still. Plus, I don’t think the concept of online shows will completely go away just because virus does.

END CREDITS

Personal Boundaries And The Stage

You are on stage in the middle of a scene. The other player is someone you have seen around but have not played with much before. The scene started fine, but somehow it seems to be going out of control and suddenly your scene partner is up very close and grabbing you. You feel uncomfortable but put it down to being inexperienced or that you missed something. After the show, rehearsal or workshop is over the incident sticks with you longer than you expect. Does this sound at all familiar to you?

An essential thing that is missing here is not experience; it is trust. A comparable interaction with an improviser you have played with a lot maybe does not bother you. The trust is there; you are looking out for each other.

In improv we spend a lot of time out of our comfort zone. So much so, that we can find it difficult to realise straight away when things go too far. It can be hard to differentiate between the discomfort of being on stage with no idea where the scene is going and the discomfort of doing things that are crossing personal boundaries for you.

For some things, the best illustrations come from workplace stock photos.

There is a difference. On a low level, it feels different. But it may get mixed in or confused by the higher part of your brain with everything else that is going on.

Things that cross personal boundaries are varied. They are things like physical closeness, bodily contact, especially if not gentle, and things that are more intimate. It can also be of being in a scene where the content is uncomfortable somehow. Mostly I’ll be talking about physical contact as this is where the greyest area is. I’m not even talking about when it is actually violent, dangerous or genuinely sexual as this is never okay.

We all have boundaries about these sort of things. They vary for different people; they vary by situation; they vary depending on who else is in the scene, who is in the audience, and what has happened that day. And it’s made harder because when you begin, most of improv is putting yourself out of your comfort zone.

But these boundaries exist and they should be respected. By yourself as well as others.

As I said, we tend to blame ourselves that we aren’t better improvisers or that we didn’t understand what was going on. And worse, scene partners can also often blame us if we don’t fully go along with where they thought the scene was heading.

A very clear example of what I’m talking about is being handled roughly in a scene, say grabbed forcefully. This will almost certainly cross a boundary in the other player if you don’t know each other so well and haven’t discussed this sort of thing.

Sometimes, players do realise their boundaries are being crossed on stage and their response is influenced by that. But even here, there is a tendency for the performer to criticise themselves for their response and even for the other player to do so too.

This scene has been recreated by actors.

Let’s take as a specific example, Augustine has gone to touch Bertha’s hair and Bertha, not feeling comfortable with this, has leant back to avoid the touch.

A frequent response to this is afterwards for Augustine to complain that Bertha blocked him. Which is not true. You can say that Bertha yes-anded their own sensibilities (boundaries), and, indeed, that of the audience, who would not want to see a player truly uncomfortable.

Now, was Bertha overriding Augustine’s offer with her own internal impulse? I say no. The impulse was a reaction to the offer.

Yes, in  a different situation, if Bertha trusted Augustine more, she would have possibly allowed him to touch her hair. But this is irrelevant. What matters is what happens in the scene between these players at this moment.

The problem here is not Bertha’s reaction to the offer, but Augustine’s response to Bertha’s reaction. If Augustine was paying full attention to Bertha, he should have realised Bertha’s response was due to boundaries being crossed. He could even have seen the signs before hemade the move and made a different offer that indicates the same emotion but less intrusively. Bertha’s response is an offer, and as it was so nicely put to me recently: “Your job as an improviser is to make your scene partner comfortable. If they feel uncomfortable or scared, you have failed.”

Augustine’s objection comes in part from only seeing his offer as he originally intended it. He is seeing his offer as “A touches B’s hair,” but this is presumptive. The offer is in fact, “A tries to touch B’s hair” and the response is “B avoids the their hair being touched.” In terms of wants of the character, there is no blocking. In fact it’s fine for two characters to want different things as long as they acknowledge the others want.

The real problem, of course, is the fact Augustine reached for the hair at all when Bertha wasn’t ready for it. It shows there isn’t a good connection between the scene partners and/or the offer to touch the hair really wasn’t the next step in a process of discovery by the two players in that a scene. In fact, in most cases this sort of thing happens because one actor is railroading the scene, pushing forward their own vision of what should happen whilst taking little input from the other player.

I’ve heard people explain that they went too far because they were “in the moment.” But “the moment” is not just whats going on in your head, it’s what is happening all around you, between you and your partner. Being so into something you are doing that you don’t notice your partner is NOT improvising.

Improv is about taking care of each other. It’s about paying attention. Inattentiveness is not an excuse. We have to be attentive: it is the CORE of what we do. If you are not paying attention how can you accept?

Being aware; Read signals; Always be respectful.

And this doesn’t just happen between actors who don’t know each other, it can happen between people in the same team, people who have played a lot together. As we said, it’s not about inexperience, it’s about not paying attention

If you do accidentally go too far, which can of course happen, you should be aware of it and adjust. Use the response from the other player in an accepting way, and most of all apologise after the scene. You might step over a line very occasionally, but have the awareness to realise it and the humility to apologise for it. The big problem is not that it happens at all, it’s when it happens frequently.

If you find yourself in the situation of being uncomfortable due to boundaries being crossed, don’t be afraid to let your scene partner know. Any good, attentive improviser should pick up on this and use your response as an offer and certainly they should not push further.

You are not being a bad improviser for not accepting something you feel highly uncomfortable with (i.e. something beyond any normal feeling of being out of your comfort zone in improv). As I have explained, this is usually not actually blocking.

What can you do if your signals are not seen?

• You can make them more obvious.
• Make an offer that deflects where the scene is going. 
• You can even call out the actor’s behaviour attributing it to the character.
• And if still, it continues, you can always leave the stage. No show is worth being made to feel unsafe for. Your integrity as a player is more important than the scene.

(These are easier said than done, I know, but it’s good to be aware of options.)

Players on the side can also help.

• Edit the scene and start a new one or tag one of the players out.
• Intervene as another character or voiceover.
• Bring it up after the show/rehearsal.

The audience will probably have sensed your unease and will not want it to carry on as it is. In fact, in cases like these, often only one person wants the scene to go the way it is going, and that’s the player forcing the offers.

This sort of thing affects us all, whether you are a victim or not. In fact, I’m sure more people have had this happen than you think. Maybe all of us. Not too long ago, I was groped on stage by an actor I did not trust who did it because he knew I would accept it and because he thought it was funny. (The audience did laugh, but mostly at the how weird and inappropriate it was.)

Discussing this sort of thing within you group, saying what people do and don’t feel comfortable with is the best way to raise awareness and prevent things going too far.

Everyone, especially more advanced players, should be more attentive to this sort of thing (and not just on stage). We should edit uncomfortable scenes, call-out inappropriate behaviour, remind everyone that this is a medium that only works when we work together. As always we should remember the words of the great guru, Gerald Springer, “Take care of yourself and each other.”

Improv vs Comedy

Like a lot of people, I got into improvised comedy because I enjoyed being funny. And like a lot of people over time I came to the realisation that comedy is not at the heart of improv, but the genre it is generally played in. In fact, comedy can often be at odds with improvisation.

A lot of comedy comes from breaking things. There is much comedy in destruction. Many a punchline reveals that things are not what they seemed. That's all very fantastic when it’s the end of a joke, but in a scene it can be hard to recover from. The rug has been pulled out from under the scene and you effectively have to start again. Jokes like these are called "gags" in improv – jokes that halt or destroy the action. They don't always seem so bad in shorter scenes, but they can be lethal if you are trying to get an audience to care about what's going on enough to make it last longer than 5 minutes. It is especially damaging when the gag reveals the situation to be sexual, gross, racist, sexist or other things like this. The laws of improv means you need to go down that path once it has been stated, which might have a very negative impact on the engagement of the actors and audience.

Other destructive forms are outright nos. Saying "no" is funny. Any form of spanner in the works can be very funny. Here's a classic example which nearly always results in a one-dimensional scene:

"You are a highly respected doctor with so much experience."
"It's my first day."

I've seen several groups who somehow manage to block so much for humorous effect, every offer seems to be inverted in the manner of the one above. If that's fine with the rest of the group, it can make for a show with lots of laughs. But I argue that these sort of laughs coming from the laughter response to surprise only work on a very shallow level, become predictable quickly and make it very difficult for the group to create something with any depth.

Laughs that come from connecting two seemingly unconnected things, from the characters themselves or from a great reincorporation are much deeper and much more satisfying.

Concentrating on the funny often leaves the relationships and story untended. People going simply for laughs will much quicker go into areas of sex, bodily functions or having a go at whatever racial group is out of vogue at that time.

Actors who concentrate on the funny are often the least supportive of their fellow players who tend to be the ones running around justifying the crazy stuff the one trying to be funny is saying. The problem, of course, is that the player going for the funny is (often) getting laughs, especially from people new to improv, so this is behaviour easily reinforced.

I don’t want to sound like I'm against funny. I'm not. I describe myself as a comedian and love nothing better than getting a room to laugh. But over the years I have, in improv, been trying to shy away from the selfish, destructive laughs and trusting that if we all work on making the scene awesome, there will be moments of humour that arise. In fact with the right group and experience, they'll arrive almost as much as if you block every offer that comes along and they'll be a hell of a lot more satisfying to everyone.

Are you with me?
(It's okay, you can say a big "NO!!!!!" here, that's actually a good out.)

What if there is No Chase?

In my last post, Cutting to the Chase vs. Building to the Chase, I talked about how if you set something up, you should do it. You can delay it, but you have to do it. Now I'm going to tell you that you don't always have to do it. Just to muddy the waters. But to clarify if delaying the action happens for 10% of things set up, not doing them is closer to 0.1%. (Percentages estimated.)

The main tenet to follow is that everything happens for a reason and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen for a reason.

Thus if a character says he'll do something and doesn't early on, this clearly establishes him as the sort of person who doesn't keep his promises, is flaky, etc. Or things set up and not done might be a game in itself. I haven't thought of other examples apart from the following...

Sam Super, Ryan Millar and Peter More by Tatjana Todorovic

In the last entry, I mentioned how Shakespeare would love to build up action by having the character torment him or herself over it. I gave the example of Hamlet doing his "To Be" bit. Hamlet in the mentioned scene is contemplating the pros and cons of suicide, which he doesn't go through with. So, that begs the question do we always have to go through with what's set up even if we have made a big fuss about doing it? The answer is no, but you nearly always should. So there is another guideline we can consider...

If you set something up, you don't have to go through with it, as long as you have a compelling reason AND there are consequences of not doing it. 

This is harder to deal with from a conventional improv-training point of view. To not do what is set up. I agree, this should not be the norm. In fact it should not be the first offer that is not fulfilled because that initiates a pattern of not doing what is set up and is like the first example of a flaky character.

In fact for beginners, we should be wary as it is probably an example of the actor wimping, i.e. not wanting to go there. But it is okay on occasion for the character to "wimp" if there are consequences for this character or other characters by the inaction. So the event not happening should, generally, be marked as a point in time where a decision was made NOT to do it. It should come from a strong reason that compels one or more character.

A classic example of a story which includes something like this is Snow White. The huntsman is charged with killing Snow White. In most conventional improv terms, this means Snow White should be killed – we should do the deed and see what happens next. But in the story, the huntsman takes pity on her and lets her free. The pity is a compelling reason. And the consequences? Well, the whole rest of the story hinges on Snow White not being dead, otherwise it would be a story about a wicked queen who simply kills anyone more beautiful than her and then marries a wondering prince. Or maybe the tale of a huntsman who carries out a killing ordered by his mistress, and the effect that has on him.

The compassion shown by the huntsman heightens the cruelty of the queen and the innocence of Snow White. In a Fairy Tale it helps establish her up as the main character. And in terms of a hero's journey, she has undergone a near-death experience and been forced out of her ordinary world, which clearly defines her as the hero at that moment.

This is interesting, because from an 'unstructured' story point of view, the moment Snow White is not killed the story has the chance to fork into three possible broad paths:

1. It is Snow White's story as the person who has lost the most and thus has the most to gain.
2. It is the story of the huntsman who has now been shown to be compassionate, but has put himself at risk of displeasing so cruel a queen.
3. It is the story of the wicked queen and this is almost certainly planting the seeds of her destruction.

 If this story was improvised, I do think it would more likely end up as (3) or (2) than (1) which is what the fairy tale actually is. Partly because these are the order of the strongest, most defined characters.

Not killing Snow White is not blocking as long as it's justified why the huntsman doesn't go through with it. The offer from the queen can be stated, "I want Snow White dead." It is a desire and desires and opinions can be contradicted by other players – they are allowed to have opposing desires and opinions. And as long as the huntsman agrees that the queen wants Snow White dead, agrees that the queen has ordered him to do so and that the queen is powerful and disobeying her is not something one should do lightly, not killing Snow White is "yessing" all that and adding that he himself has compassion and morality. In fact this acts to heighten the evilness and power of the queen. After all the huntsman didn't simply turn to her and say, "no way, José! That's just wrong." He is afraid of her and at least goes through the motions of going through with it. It all proves she rules the kingdom by fear.

Dizzy and the Pit Kittens by Catherine Gray.

As you can see, this can be complex to analyse, but not if you view it in terms of the wants of each of the characters. And at that moment (and for the rest of the story), the queen wants Snow White dead, Snow White wants to live, and the huntsman wants to do his job, but does not want to upset his own conscience. The huntsman, with his dilemma is, in a way, the focus of the story at that moment.

In fact, tragedy can often be seen the hero not doing something he ought to do, or doing something he has been warned not to do, which all leads to his demise. If the huntsman had killed the innocent Snow White after some moments of uncertainty, then this has all the makings of a tragedy whereby the echoes of that killing reverberate throughout the story until the tormented huntsman takes the life of the queen before turning the axe on himself.

So, to summarise...

If you set something up, nearly always do it. However, getting there can take time depending on how important or difficult it is. In rare circumstances, it might not get done as long as the character(s) have a compelling reason and its not happening is significant to the story.

That's enough complications. Please don't think about this during shows, but feel free to use it in the analysis of the stories you end up telling. Or don't use it, if you have a compelling reason not to. ;-)

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are" - Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are" - Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919)

Theodore was a member of the great long-running improv troupe, The Presidents. And this quote really gets to one of the biggest lesson beginners have to learn... you don't need more stuff. Most scenes already have so much information you can use that whatever is wrong with the scene isn't a lack of emotion or that you are in the wrong place, it's usually that there isn't enough emotion or relationship.

Impro vs Ego

A recent workshop with the great Patti Stiles, set me thinking about the Ego and the performer. Something that's fascinated me since I first realised the Ego doesn't come about through being overconfident (as it seemed), it comes from fear. Patti reminded us of how the Ego is the nemesis of Impro and pointed out the ways it tries to thwart the noble Impro on its quest to tell the best stories it can.

• The Ego is what makes an improviser do what he wants to do rather than what the scene needs.
• The Ego makes the actor go for the gag instead of the story.
• The Ego is what makes us hate getting notes from our fellow players and treat them as attacks.

The Ego is created and nurtured by fear and mistrust.

• A performer without an Ego will jump on stage and make you look good without even thinking about it.
• A performer without an Ego is concerned with presenting the story to the audience and not looking for their moment to shine.
• A performer without an Ego takes a note as a suggestion to try a new path or a helpful insight into performing habits.

Fellow travellers, we must join forces and fight along side the hero impro in its struggle against the forces of Ego. We can only do this together, for when we think as a team and are concerned with the welfare for all the other members of our merry band just as much as for ourselves, only then can Ego be defeated.

Tension and Release

For a while, I've been thinking about tension and release. It's a very prevalent and yet difficult to define concept. We all know what tension is, but it's hard to describe. We know when it's there, but it's really hard to create it. It's a very important part of modern film-making.

semi-random picture to increase the tension.

I suppose one quick attempt to define the terms is this: Release is resolution or closure and so tension is the absence of that resolution, i.e. a situation requiring resolution. Clear? We get onto more concrete definitions in a later entry.

To think about it in terms of broad genre, drama is about the building of tension and comedy is about the release of it. Roughly speaking.

Below is a quick list I made of emotional situations which create tension and a possible release...

sadness - happiness
regret - forgiveness
anger - relief
loves me not - loves me
enmity - reconciliation
tragedy / loss - coming to terms with it
serious - laughter
hate - love
argument - making up

There will be more on this soon as it's something that's definitely on my mind. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this fascinating but underexplored area of performing. My thoughts are currently all over the place, as you can tell.

Impro Thought of the Day: "it pays to consciously separate good instincts from bad habits"

from scottmccloud.com

"Every technique we use begins its life as a conscious process and, with luck, gradually becomes second nature. But not every technique works to our advantage in the long run and it pays to consciously separate good instincts from bad habits once in a while."

– Scott McCloud, Making Comics

The Three Pillars of Acceptance

Improv is basically about two things – acceptance and building on that acceptance. This acceptance occurs in three ways...

The Three Pillars of Improv first developped by Yesandocles.

1. Yes, and: Agreeing with your Partner

A lot of time is spent on this in improv. And quite rightly so as the core tenet of improv - accepting the offers of the other players (and building on them).

2. Free Yourself: Not Self-Censoring

Allowing free flow to whatever ideas you as the improviser come up with or to whatever your character wants to say. Not judging your own ideas, but jumping in when your instinct takes you. Allowing yourself to make mistakes. If you never make mistakes, you're not pushing yourself hard enough.

3. No Judgement: Not Judging the Other Players

Improv is impossible when not done as a team. The best improv comes from accepting everything the other players give you. Even if it is not what you were expecting or was a mistake caused by a misunderstanding, nervousness, etc. Allow other players to make mistakes; accept that there may be players in your group or class who are not as adept as you at certain things. But trust they are trying to improve. Unless you accept everything they do, mistakes and all, you're never going to have great scenes together. It's when there is an environment of trust that people grow and overcome their own deficiencies and only then can the group grow.

Would Like to Buy: Transaction Scenes

When we first learn improv we are given a set of rules to follow. One of these is to avoid transaction scenes. As we progress, of course, we realise that many of these "rules" are more like "guidelines." The question I wanted to explore is: "Are transaction scenes inherently bad?"

The answer from the observation of scenes is that they are. Because very often they are dull and the same thing always happens. Here's some typical examples...

A I'd like to buy loaf of bread.
B Here's one. That'll be 2 euros please.
A That's too much.
B Then you can't have it.
A I don't want it now.
A leaves

As people learn to accept more, it doesn't really help.

A I'd like to buy loaf of bread.
B Here's one. That'll be 2 euros please.
A There you go. Thank you.
A leaves

Upright Parrot Brigade

However I've seen great scenes set around a transaction, so it isn't a hard and fast rule. The problem is because a transaction is an easy pattern that we fall into every day of our lives. A pattern where 95% of the time the people involved do not know each other and there is no emotion invested in it. A scene should always be about the people in it and their relationship, not about what they are doing. What they're doing is the vessel through which they can express their character, relationship and feelings.

There's a great exercise to help stop transaction scenes being purely transactional. Actor A makes a "bland" or "transactional" offer and B has to respond to by making it personal (i.e. have an established relationship with the other player and/or emotional). Examples...

Recognition of other character (relationship and hopefully emotion):

A I'd like to buy loaf of bread.
B Is that you Simon?

Regular customer (relationship and hopefully emotion):

A I'd like to buy loaf of bread.
B Well, of course, Mrs Habersham. I've got the usual all ready.

Emotional (not about other character, although the other character will probably become involved):

A I'd like to buy loaf of bread.
B Thank you for coming to help. But there's no way we can save the shop. I'll give you this loaf for free – it's the last one I'll ever make.

Relationship and emotion:

A I'd like to buy loaf of bread.
B (suggestive) Of course. Let me get you a nice firm one.

Relationship and emotion:

A I'd like to buy loaf of bread.
B Don't pretend you don't know me, Daphne.

So a transaction is not inherently bad, but it's a trap for inexperienced improvisers who don't want to make the scene about character, relationships and emotions.

And although the characters knowing each other certainly helps, this is not necessary as long as there is some sort of connection or attitude to each other. Two people who have just met who have a strong connection or clear attitude to each other can make for an interesting scene. This can be positive attitudes: They are attracted to each other or instantly really enjoy each other's company; even negative: they antagonise each other from the word go; or a mixture: A is suspicious of B who is trying hard to please A.) If Daphne has to go into the shop of her bitter ex-husband because it's the only place to get the medicine for her mother – that's one interesting transaction. But two bland people in a nondescript shop trying to buy something neither of them cares about – that is highly unlikely to make a great scene.


PS Whilst the Dead Parrot sketch is based around the premise of one of the characters lying ("it's not dead, it's pining for the fjords") which is really very, very hard to do in improv, the scene works because of the attitudes of the characters to each other and the situation are clearly defined and heighten each other. (John Cleese's annoyed insistence causes Michael Palin to lie which causes John Cleese to get more annoyed.) It's also an argument scene which transgresses another rule, but more on that can of worms another day.

Whose Agreement is it Anyway?

When we learn improv we are taught to over-accept everything, even the smallest thing. We are taught to say "yes" to everything the other players say.

Very soon in our training we realise "saying 'yes'" is merely a convenient shorthand for "agreeing with the other player" and that occasionally to say "no" is the correct way to accept an offer.

"We're always arguing."
"No, we're not."

"Stop disobeying my orders and get off this ship."
"No!"

Often when "no" is the acceptance of an offer, it is due to the way the offer was made. Frequently, because it was in the form of a question expecting a negative answer.

"You've packed. Are you going to stay?"
"No, I'm leaving. That's why I packed."

This is another reason why a statement is better for passing information and making offers than a question.

Photo by Rick van der Meiden

Often it takes a while for it to really sink into an improviser's improv brain that the agreement is between the actors, not the characters. The characters can have different opinions and, in the hands of skilful improvisers, argue. But the actors should agree on what's going on. The "yes and" we talk about is not so much about the response to what the character says, as to what the actor wants.

Much of the confusion comes when improvisers play characters which are pretty much themselves, and the line between the words of the character and the wants of the actor is blurred.

The practical lessons from this aren't radical – avoid questions, play characters – but what it does remind us is that agreement in improv is not at the surface, i.e. at the verbal level, but deeper, between the actors. The core of any scene – the foundation upon which the magic of improv is it built – is that the players must agree as to what is going on.

Agreement and the Comedy Store

When I first was learning improv in London, I went to the Comedy Store a few times. I would often be shocked at the amount of gagging and blocking that went on there. There was some great establishing and some awesome songs, but scenes would often be ended with gags that pretty much destroyed everything that came up until then. The audience loved it. Much of comedy is, after all, establishing a routine and then breaking it, so a block where you tear down everything that has been established is hugely funny. (Especially as in the back of the audience's mind is the fact that nothing you are creating is real because there are no props or scenery, it's all thin air.) So why are we taught not to block, when it can be the funniest thing that evening?

We're taught not to block, because without learning not to block, we never establish anything. And the funniest gags come after something of substance has been set up. Not to mention that after a few scenes of setting stuff up and then tearing it down, the audience gets the pattern and it doesn't have the same impact. They'll get bored of the gags. On top of this, whilst a well aimed gag-ending can be very funny, it will never be satisfying the way a nice tie-up with a funny line from one of the characters is.

Of course, once you get into telling a longer story, however, a gag will throw the audience out of your world and you may never get them back in. If you don't care about the story, they won't care. And to end a long-form story that you've spent an hour building up with scene-destroying gag will almost certainly make the audience feel cheated. They may well find it funny; and if your style is somewhat gaggy and comment-heavy, they may well accept it; but they'll never be satisfied.

If you follow the "improv as sex" simile, it's like pushing your partner's head under the covers and farting instead of achieving orgasm together.

Back at the Comedy Store, the sheer number of gags and blocks made my newbie improv zeal ruffle. If a zeal can ruffle. Why were they doing it like that? And why were they happy? Why were the two people who set up the scene joyously happy when Paul Merton took their scene and tore it apart with a single one-liner.

Well, partly because the one-liner was usually very clever and very funny, and also because there was an agreement between the players that this was their style. This was part what they did. They were a bunch of (mostly) guys having fun together. They weren't there to create high art and long cohesive stories, they were there to have fun and entertain an often-drunk crowd. It worked for them because there was an agreement (probably unspoken) that this was how things went down.

It draws the question: If a block is accepted by all the other players as an valid method of transaction in their scenes, is it no longer a "block" in improv terms? It also illustrated that agreement in improv goes far deeper than what people actually say.

And the young me, with my priggish improv-purist ways, I could choose whether or not I wanted to go see these guys do this popular show in their busy Central London venue. Or I could always go and sit with three other people and watch four actors above a ropey old pub in a dodgy part of town create a full-length improvised Greek tragedy based on a vegetable and three emotions. I could, and very often I did.

Obviously, I'm not heralding the block and the gag as great improv tools, but I was fascinated as to how they could be happily used in some shows without everybody feeling their ideas have been trampled all over. But before you cleverly shatter your next scene with a well-placed, but all-destructive scene-busting missile, remember your group almost certainly won't be so forgiving.

So, until next time, take care of yourselves, and each other.

Shelving (Incoming Knowledge Expecting Acceptance)

Shelving, in improv terms, is putting an offer on ice; putting it up on the shelf, out of the way. It's not a block, as you accept the offer. The intention is: "we will deal with this later."

So it is clear there two types of shelving: The first where you accept the offer, shelve it and then bring it back later. The second is where you shelve the offer and forget about it. Technically, this isn't shelving; this is throwing away.

In general, in a short form scene shelving is not worth the effort: the scene will be over in a couple of minutes.

In long form, it is acceptable (as long as you bring it back off the shelf before the end of the scene or show). It's as simple as this: "If you shelve something that is not brought up again, that's pointless and disappointing; if you shelve something that is brought back later one or more times, that's brilliant." Alas there isn't any half-way house. You have to remember.

When you're starting out, shelving is a bad idea. It detracts from the training to make every offer matter, plus with all of the 101 things you have to remember in an improv scene, why add yet another one. Deal with it there, incorporate it and move on with the scene.

Once the laws of improv become more instinctive, remembering things becomes easier and putting an offer aside becomes viable. Shelving, clearly, shouldn't be the standard response to any old offer, So, what functions can it serve?

• If you are in the middle of a dramatic or important moment, a new offer might derail or sidetrack you, force you out of the moment. This offer is probably best shelved to be dealt with later.
E.g. Lady Sally is mourning the loss of her husband and her butler hands her a letter. She thanks him and pockets it. Sure, she could read the letter and it may help project her understanding, but if the actor thinks she doesn't need this catalyst, she can shelve it. As long as later she remembers about the letter or the other actors take this as an offer that Lady Sally has a letter she has received but hasn't read, from which hilarity ensues. [There'll be an entry on the Relative Importance of Offers and Offers from Outside the Scene coming soon.]
• If you think the offer will be best served by being used later, you can shelve it. This could be called the Hitchcockian Offer.
Actor A gives actor B a cigarette lighter. B thanks him and pockets it. Later on the cigarette lighter becomes vital to the story, possibly saving B's life.
• There are too many offers on the table already.
• Running joke or characterisation. Albert walks in and says, "Here's that report." Robert barks, "I said, later!" This illustrates Robert's character or the relationship between Robert and Albert. Also, if Albert comes back in every ten minutes and gets the same response, perhaps with a different item, it becomes a running joke.

You should be very, very wary of shelving anything that is important to the here and now of the scene. I'm just saying once you come of age, impro-wise, had your Ad Libsvah, it is a tool that will help you out in certain situations and add some spice to your longforms. But it must be used wisely. In fact, there is something absolutely vital I have to tell you about this that you must know. But that's for another entry.

Welcome to Crazytown, population: 3 blue frogs and a wispy banana

For someone who grew up liking surreal comedy, I find it odd I dislike going to crazytown. Crazytown is that place on Planet Improv where everything is ultra, ultra weird. It's the place a lot of improvisers go when they think the scene isn't funny enough, or they don't trust that the audience wants to see scenes that are about real people and real things. I think I most dislike it because it is easy.
Most improvisers can stand there and list off random, quirky things, one after the other in a stream of conscious non sequiturs. I could do it for about an hour easily, I think.
It's a great tool to have, in the right scenes it can be perfect. But if you find every domestic scene has to have something incongruous like a dancing alligator or a portal to Spandex Hell or an elephant reverberator or unctuous middlemousings or "winding hours of taramasalata," something might be amiss.
I do realise that in improv a spanner in the works sometimes is exactly what the scene needs. But a spanner in every works is quite monotonous.
The harder thing to do in an improv scene is to keep all of the story strands together, keep your character up and play the reality of the scene. That's much harder than to simply become a dancing frog. And believe me, an audience would much rather see a good scene come together with an ending related to the elements of the scene than see a dancing frog. Unless they are six years old of course.
Crazytown is one of the many locations you, as an improviser, can take a scene. And there will be times and scenes where this the place to go. But only go there when the scene demands it. And I do mean the scene, not the performer.

Get Up (Git on up, y'all)

Very interesting and useful workshop today from Shannon McCormick and Shana Merlin of Get Up! from Austin, Texas. They do a two-person longform show and today they showed us some of their tricks. Not surprisingly, the secret of doing a two man show is really knowing your stage partner.

Thinking about trust made me able to articulate a point I'd been dwelling on, which is this:

Trust can be demonstrated by your reaction to your scene partner's wilder (or more left field) choices. If your reaction is, "cool, where’s this going to go?" it indicates a lot of trust. If your reaction is, "good God, what on Earth is she up to now?" trust is lacking.

It is a good way of gauging your own trust of your fellow players and made me realize I don't always trust everyone. But I do know I have the skills to cope with most things. However, trust in your own skills is different to trust in your fellow players and is no way to hold a group together.

The workshop also reaffirmed the importance of the Hero model as a device for informing longform. I'll write more on this and start teaching this very soon.

Get Up! performed their show two days ago at the Amsterdam International Improvisation Festival (Or similar words in roughly that order). It was lighter and slightly more casual in style than many of the American longforms I've been seeing. This threw me a little as I do enjoy seeing the American commitment that often lacks in Northern European improv. But it wasn't actually a lack of commitment; it was more confidence and a decision that they could be a bit more jokey when the time came.

Anyway, tomorrow I have to teach and then do my own two-man show with Jochem (Meijer of easylaughs). Not sure yet what watching the get Up! performance and taking that class will bring to this show, something I hope. Although one thing is sure, Jochem will slap me, try to kiss me and the audience will almost certainly enjoy themselves.