Silver and Gold

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One of the basics I was always taught when choosing people you want to improvise with is to choose people “you wouldn't mind being stuck in an elevator with”. This is to say that because improv is such a personal art form, and also one that is so reliant on your teammates for success, that the mixture of different people is the show – it's what drives the engine. By that logic, the key to a good improv group is to have a mix of people that can enjoy playing with each other – however, I've noticed that just having a good group of people means nothing if you can't get them into the elevator, and is not the only indicator of a “successful group”. What's equally as important to having good group chemistry is having complementary levels of ambition (which, come to think of it, is a facet of the elevator theory).

This is a tricky artform that we do, and its mutability, ease of doing, low cost, and even worse, it's capacity to be just picked up and dropped just as easily makes it very easy to treat it with a certain degree of flippancy, especially for the 90% or so of improvisers that do it as a hobby. The life things that can eventually derail a group altogether are at work everyday; it's just that most of the time, they don't mount up to the point where they mess with your schedule. You have to work late, miss a week so you can go to a family reunion, meet a new boy/girl that you want to spend every moment with – all these things happen all the time. The mastery of improv is a long, grinding process, one that is less a product of talent and more of temperament, which is why having a group of people you can enjoy slogging through it with is important.

The big lesson I teach now to everyone is that “the most important person on stage is the other person”, but this concept doesn't (or shouldn't, at least) start and stop when you are on stage – it should extend to off stage as well. Jimmy Carrane wrote in his book (and has covered additionally in podcasts) that overextending yourself to a bunch of projects is a less powerful use of your time than committing to one or two projects. This is something that has taken me a while to fully appreciate, since one of my goals is to do improv every night for a week. I've realized in the last year though the added value of having people you can rely on. We all have a finite amount of improv scenes in us – we should endeavour to make the few we have the very best.

But what makes the difference, is your commitment to your team mates. No one can decide for you how much you want to play with your team – only you can. Every time one of these life “things” happens, you decide how much you want to keep doing it. You're having a lousy day; do you go to practice anyway, or just stay home, watching T.V. instead? Finding people who want something valuable and are dedicated and are fun to play with is all the more rarer, but that is the special sauce that makes great groups. The ones that stand out to people are ones with long records of constant support. Not every fun improviser will be a good fit dedication wise – some just want to do a practice a week and perform occasionally, and that 's OK. But if you're someone who wants to go further than that, it's important to find the people that match your eagerness. Being in a group with people who are far more ambitious than you will only lead to resentment, and being with people are less interested will always leave you feeling dragged down.

Short term shows or groups probably don't have to worry about this sort of thing, and neither do more casual players. But more invested individuals (which probably includes you, if you're reading this) and definitely those that are interested in creating long term artistic adventures must at least consider the appetite facet (which again, it should be emphasized that this is only a part of the elevator theory) when looking at the people that are fun to play with. Don't just find someone you wouldn't mind being stuck in an elevator with – find people who would agree to join you in a stuck elevator.