The temperature has started to dip, just enough anyway, to where I can break out a jacket in the evening, and for some reason, it makes me think of improv practice back in college. Thursday nights, 9:00, we'd all come stumbling out of the student union, and the next stop was always the Keg for drinks, all of us still giggling and tittering on our own brilliance. (Why mild weather makes me think of southern Mississippi, where it is rarely something other than blinding hot, is an interesting question unto itself.) What I really miss about that time though, is how familiar we all were with each other, and how much we enjoyed the craft.
This is the rarely discussed “soft skill” of improv – the part about really knowing and enjoying the company of your team mates, and this is the part my group is really struggling through right now. For part of it, I blame just on San Diego in general – this is one of the busiest cities I have ever known: hardly anybody just hangs out around here, instead everybody's always taking trips, going to events, etc. College, and Chicago as well, differ in that everybody generally stays around, in both cases because everyone's generally too broke to travel and do stuff. For example, at the last couple of shows my group has done, it's only been me and one other troupe member going out (even on a Friday night) for some post-show good times, and it's shown: I have a bunch of very talented, knowledgeable improvisers in my group (and dare I say, well taught), who treat each other like strangers on stage, and we are struggling through shows. Scenes are technically good, but are sluggish and uninspired, and the answer is we have no “esprit de corps”. There is no spark in the players, and I sometimes catch actors eying each other with a cautious leer, like wolves circling a kill, but none willing to dive in and get to roughin' each other up. At issue is the “soft skill”, which is under-taught – we spend lots of time talking about scene work, characters, and forms, but little time worrying about camaraderie, fellowship, and morale.
The problem is, how do you make mandatory a thing like “let's all go to the bar after the show”? Jason Chin wrote a great article where he bemoaned the constant drive among some of the Chicago improvisers to make the “bar trip” part of the weekly ritual – just a continuation of practice in a new venue, as an avenue to group mind. (His objection is that this kind of ritual seems to make improvisers seem like alcoholics.) I won't argue that you're not going to get a perfectly jived group just by going to a bar, but you've got to invest some more time in your group than 2-3 hours a week; there are people I work with who I talk to more than that, and most of them I would never even think about stepping on stage and sharing an artistic moment with the hope that they would support me. You don't have to bar trip every week after practice, but you could try a road trip, movie night, game night, go carts – seriously anything. Your group doesn't have to be a boozer group to get soft skilled – you just have to spend some time with your team mates. I still don't know how to make it mandatory and it still be fun (those two concepts are always diametrically opposed to each other). The hope is if you make the effort to get people inspired by each other – to get your fellows soft skilled – that people who are keen to make the group great will also be willing to make the effort.
No one ever said you wouldn't have to make sacrifices to be a good improviser, so why not just try once a week telling your boyfriend/girlfriend that you're going to hang with your team. So you have to work tomorrow? So what – most people do too. You can sleep when you're dead - you can only improvise right now.
I don't know much about improvising, but I do know you're wrong about one thing. Mandatory "hang-out" time is not a bad idea and it doesn't mean you won't have fun together. I know it sounds silly, but I've worked at a summer camp for the last 4 years and we're extensively trained on how to bring a group of people together, how to create bonds of friendship where there aren't any and I would say, unscientifically that it's far more often completely effective than not. There are several strategies to doing this and making it happen but if I could give you a few simple tips it would be these:
ReplyDelete1. Schedule mandatory "together" time in whatever setting you feel like. People like structure a lot more than they're willing to admit and often they feel most comfortable in a setting they feel is appropriate and official. Call it a rehearsal if you want. It's the extra rehearsal that adds the other element. It's the friendship class. If it's as important as you say it is, just do it.
2. Nothing brings people together like "playing," as in games, activities, required group competitions.
3. If you are super opposed to making things mandatory, try inviting people, and not giving up on inviting them. A lot of times you might assume somebody knows they're invited, but they don't. Invite them 15 times if you have to. Eventually they'll say yes.
4. Don't be afraid to orchestrate, plan, create and lead. People respond to confidence and obligation equally.
I actually could not disagree more. When I get too close to the people I'm playing with, we don't play as hard as we play with strangers. It also makes it more difficult to tell someone that what they are doing is hurting the scene/rehearsal/group if that person is your best friend.
ReplyDeleteFor me, soft skills are a killer.