The Worst Show

(Author's note: I originally wrote this article in August 2008.)

I recently had a very bad show. Bad and then some. And excuse the hyperbole, but it was quite possibly the worst show I have ever been a part of, which is saying something. What went wrong in this show, you ask? Well, what can go wrong in any show? People not listening to each other, ambiguous people, relationships, and locations, focus issues, low energy, direct and indirect denials, and an all around lack of playfulness. That this show was an iO graduation show, and that it is supposed to showcase everything we have learned in the last year (improv-wise) is itself perhaps telling.

Of course, the only thing worse than a truly horrendous show, is the backlash immediately after it. Because while a horrid (I will, in fact, use every synonym for bad I can think of) show lasts only twenty five minutes (despite the fact that it feels longer), the ripples of it can last much, much longer. This was one of those shows that everyone just sort of hangs their heads afterwards, and one that everyone knows was just bad. Even that one guy in every group who can find something positive about nearly every show (it's usually me). A show so atrocious that everyone immediately starts trying to come up with ways to fix it.
Let's run through the usual list: switch coaches, find a new practice time, required "hang-out/non-improv" time to achieve group trust/synergy, radical form changes, and a list of basics/guidelines/fundamentals/rules/commandments for what will make good shows.

It's interesting to point out that improv groups are much like bureaucracies: they are always fighting the battle they just lost.

This brings me to my point, and one that is especially resonant given that just seven days earlier, we had what was probably one of the best shows I had ever been in. Improvisation is a risky business. Perhaps the riskiest. Nothing is guaranteed, and every time you step on stage, you could easily be stepping on to your worst show, ever. Improvisers constantly tout that their artform is the purest, and the most interesting, because anything can happen. This is true, but to paraphrase a great scientist, the door swings both ways. This is the lure of the unknown, and the reason why improv is so interesting. Shows can be transcendental, entertaining, and intriguing.

They can also be boring, mind numbing, and unwatchable.

To paraphrase someone else, we deal in the unknown, friend. This is our business, and it is challenging, unique, and unpredictable by its very nature. We love it for the same reason we hate it.

So how do we deal with shows then? Can we do all the things mentioned above, and achieve success? Sure.

Can we not do any of the things mentioned above, and achieve success? Why not?

Sometimes we just have bad nights, things don't click, a smidgen of anxiety or apprehension slow a show down, and things just go awry. Not anyone's fault; just the name of the game.  When these shows come along (and they will) the only thing you can do is just keep on truckin'. Learn from your mistakes, keep working hard, and don't get too down.

Relax; after all, it can't get worse than rock bottom, right?

A Cult

People get really put off by the word “cult”; my group, the Stage Monkeys, when it originally started in Louisiana, was (and still is) called the Cult of the Stage Monkey, but when it moved to Mississippi, dropped the “Cult” part, because nearly all of the Miss is in the bible belt, and they don't take to kindly to that kind of talk down there. But improv is in general, a cult itself, and not just in the way that other folks have pointed out before (we make you pay money, we steal your time, we make you more open, emotionally bare weirdos), I mean we are a cult of personality.

Even outside of the near religious reverence of people like Del Close (who does have a shrine at the iO Chicago, for Del's sake) – we revere the people that are involved in it. There are certain people, whose personalities are magnetic – players we love watching, regardless of what show we're watching them in, in fact, we may even prefer to see them in low-concept shows so that we can just watch them. I'm as guilty of this as anyone; you tell me Greg Hess or Blaine Swen or Dave Hill or -stop the presses- Bill Arnett is in a show, and I'm there – I don't even care what they're doing. That's a cult of personality: the devotion of a group of people or community to a single person, based solely on the fact that they are them. A religion built on someone's persona.

Now, in contrast, I just started playing in a community band and noticed something that I had really forgotten about bands – the melding of disparate voices into one sound (“one band, one sound”, to use my Drumline parlance). It's really there in the name: band, ensemble, etc., you have a bunch of very different sounds, that all work together to create a song. Now some instruments are stronger than others (trumpet, trombone) in their big, splashy (often brassy) sounds, while others are cooler, more mellow instruments (saxaphone, clarinet) – but the point is that the entire sound of the group isn't derived from a single voice; it's all the tones working together that complete the sound – it is the very nature of the myriad instruments working together that you can make music. Sure, you can still play some songs without some instruments, but you need all of them working together (and in the right balance) or what you're playing isn't complete.

By the same token, it's important that groups of improvisers recognize the need to have a “complete” ensemble to make “complete” improvs. You can't have an orchestra made of just english horns, and you can't have an improv group made of just smart-witty improviser types. We often lose sight of this when recognizing good improv, in focusing on one particular solo, and forgetting that it was the tubas and bass clarinets that finished the picture. And I say this being well aware that being in two-man improvs, it is all about the cult of personality. Two people can't just be playing the bass line; they've gotta carry the melody and the harmony just to make the song go. You watch a two-man improv, and you buy into the cult of personality: you're saying that what these two people do is interesting enough to sustain your attention.

The Onion's AV Club pointed out in a recent article that rock is currently a post-decadence period: we built nearly the entirety of music (and movies, and a lot of other art) on the backs of artists. “A gross display of power” was how they put it; popular musicians with easy access to money, drugs, and women, and in a lot of ways, we celebrated them for it. Sure, we want them to put out good music, but we also want to see how outrageously oppulent their mansions were, although, the AV Club does point out that now being a “rock band” is discouraged among rock bands. Look at the virtual indiffference to film like I'm Still Here, that follows the faux-destruction of Joaquin Phoenix. These are artistic endeavors nearly more focused on the behavior of the people making it than what they're actually making.

But it's that exact same reason that I am always more impressed to watch a group of people put something together than I am to watch a two-man show, it's just plain harder. You get more people, you add more voices to the sound, which both makes the work harder and at the same time more complex, distinct, and diverse. You are no longer relying on two people to do a duet or an accompanied solo, you're watching the whole orchestra folding themselves into each other to create a rich ensemble piece. Which isn't to demean or diminish the work of a great duo of improvisers, as that has its own inherent difficulties, but its to say that there is a difference between a note and a chord. When you diminish the inherent power of the individual, you heighten the value of the collective – the group mind, or in this case, the group sound. But remember that your group is playing a chord, and every instrument should be utilized to fill it out.

Soft Skilled part II

A few months back, the New York Times reported on Dr. Verghese, a physician who is trying to revive the lost art of the physical examination of patients[1]. As may come as no surprise to anyone who has spent any time in a hospital – either as a patient, visitor, or medical professional – modern medicine has largely been reduced to tests. The MRI, CT Scan, X-Ray, Ultrasound, and a million other fancy instruments and other tests have begun to be repeatedly and exceedingly relied on for the diagnosis of ailments, and for good reason; these instruments can shed light on things that previously could not be seen (not without surgery anyway), but the good doctor's problem is that these instruments, no matter how useful they may be, have begun to be relied on more than good old fashioned observation (an over-reliance, even). (As Dr. Verghese says: “What's the most important part of the stethoscope? The part between the earpieces.”) The powers of close observation of the patient, from what you see medically, to what's around them, can be infinitely useful in understanding the patient, shattering the concept of the “therapeutic distance” and replacing it with something bordering on connecting and caring.

The point here is that we as improvisers cannot survive on stage using a “therapeutic distance” (perhaps an “empathetic distance” in improv parlance). I wrote about what I call soft skills a few months ago (you can read it in my archives, Oct. 2010), and I mentioned that in a blog written by Jason Chin, he bemoaned the idea of going to get a beer after class being the anathema to no group mind, but what I think Mr. Chin's issue is assuming that group mind will be the ultimate goal of such a trip. Now, I won't argue that you're not going to get group mind out of just pounding drinks with your classmates (sorry), but you will become more comfortable with them. Soft skills are not synonymous with group mind – quite the contrary. Group mind is that capacity to follow the invisible drum beat in your group, to accept and work with mistakes as though they were intentional, to understand where your fellow players are going; what an audience often sees as “mind-reading”, or more appropriately to act as if you were one entity, as opposed to a bunch of individuals. Soft skills and group mind do have some overlap, and one may help the other, but they're not the same thing. (At least, that's what I think Mr. Chin doesn't like about the concept; I may be dead wrong.)

Let me reference another New York Times article, one that analyzed research that found that people with sisters were more like to consider themselves “happy” than people who did not[2]. The knee jerk response is that it's because women are more likely to be open emotionally, whereas men are not. However, what really appears to be happening is not that women are more open (because research has shown that time spent talking, regardless of the topic, makes people happier), its that women are more likely to talk more often and for longer periods of time than men. This is what we're doing when we go to the bar with our fellow improvisers (or really anyone). It should be noted that it doesn't have to happen at the bar, just seems that's the way it works out. (What does that say about us as people?) It's not that its the drinking that spurs the soft skills, its the spending time with people, playing games, go-cart racing, or just talking that allows us to become better, more connected people, which in turn helps us be better improvisers.

So then what are these skills we want to acquire? Well basically the concept boils down to players being willing to be open and accessible to each other. I just finished reading Johnstone's “Impro for Storytellers”, and he lists at the end what he sees as qualities players have when they are working well together: “They're taking care of each other and being altered by each other. They're daring, mischievous, humble, and courageous. They're being themselves, rather than fleeing from self-revelation.” (For counter-point purposes, here's what he sees as “bad”: “Being negative (e.g. killing ideas). Fighting each other for control. 'Planning' instead of 'attending'. Wrecking stories for the sake of easy laughs.) What I was struck by was how much those don't just sound like “My list of things that make a good scene”, but more like “My list of qualities that make a good player or group of players”. Especially take note of that middle one: “daring, mischievous, humble, and courageous”, these are qualities that hard to foster in a group of strangers, but if your group takes the time to spend with itself, these qualities come naturally as you get comfortable with each other. (Picture any long-time friend of yours, and even if you haven't seen them in years, you know that if you got together it would be “just like old times”. Or, the proclivity of some people to get back into relationships with people they've previously broken up with (even if just “for benefits – seriously, some guys have all the luck).) Studies have shown that happy people tend to be more creative problem solvers, making decisions faster, with less back-and-forth, and are better at combining material in new ways and to see the relatedness between things (sounds pretty useful for this improv thing, just sayin')[3,4,5,6,&7]. Johnstone also refers to what he calls the kinetic dance, which I find to have a lot of similarity to what I'm calling soft skills (not the least of which because it's a better sounding name).

The kinetic dance is the existence of the “threads” that connect all the players – it's the little, almost intangible and for the most part unquantifiable little physical things we all do: how we hold our hands, our bodies, our heads, how far apart we stand from each other that allow us to maintain our various statuses and dynamics with all the people around us. (Imagine two people talking in an office. A third person enters – how do the previous two people react to accommodate the new addition?) This dance exists outside the stage, but often can be lost when we get on stage – but this kinetic dance is the same soft skills that allow us to react spontaneously to each other. Spending time with your fellow players helps strengthen these threads so that they don't disappear under the watchful eye of the audience – it makes for more playful, more attuned teams.

Footnotes

[1] Grady, Denise. Oct. 11, 2010. “Physician Revives a Dying Art: The Physical.” New York Times.

[2] Tannen, Deborah. Oct. 25, 2010. “Why Sisterly Chats Make People Happier.” New York Times.

[3] Greene, Terry, and Helga Noice. 1988. “Influence of Positive Affect upon Creative Thinking and Problem Solving in Children.” Psychological Reports, 63, pp 895-98.

[4] Isen, Alice M. 2001. “An Influence of Positive Affect on Decision Making in Complex Situations: Theoretical Issues with Practical Implications.” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 11 (2), pp75-85.

[5] Isen, Alice M, K. Daubman, and G. Norwicki. 1987. “Positive Affect Facilitates Creative Problem Solving.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62 (6), pp. 1122-31.

[6] Isen, Alice M., Thomas E. Nygren, and F. Gregory Ashby. 1988. Influence of Positive Affect on Subjective Utility of Gains and Losses: It Is Just Not Worth the Risk.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55 (5), pp. 710-17.

[7] Isen, Alice M., and Robert Patrick. 1983. The Effect of Positive Feeling on Risk Taking: When the Chips Are Down.” Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 31, pp. 194-202.

The Hot Spot

We as performers are constantly charged with an exceedingly daunting task: getting along, working, and performing with nearly complete strangers with the ultimate goal of producing laughter. Improv already has very little set up, and we want to make it as portable and flexible as possible, so as a result improvisers (starting with Charna Halpern and Del Close) formulated those treasured iO ideals of cherishing each other on stage and loving each other's contributions. But it’s one thing to say something (“the earth is round”, for instance) and quite another to make it happen.

Primarily for this reason (and maybe others, hell I wasn’t there when they invented the game) Hot Spot was created. The basic rundown of Hot Spot: everyone gets in a circle, one person steps into the middle and starts singing a song. When it starts to become obvious that they no longer know the words, or are uncomfortable, someone steps out of the circle and takes their place in the middle. My level one teacher said we should use the game to train our own internal instinct to edit. “Feel it in your stomach” he would say. “You already know when things need to stop to make room for something else, and you already know when your partners need your help. Just feel it.” (I am actually paraphrasing; it’s not like I recorded my improv classes.) This game actually sounds great in theory, but I’ve never seen it work the way I think it should.

Here’s what I think the problem is: the game says that someone goes out there and sings for 15 seconds or so and then is replaced. I don’t think the average improviser’s brain allows for this kind of fast editing. It requires a little longer than that to settle into to new input. The other problem, and I encourage everyone to look at this the next time you play, is that everyone is thinking way too hard. It’s just natural. We are all trying desperately to be inspired by something right now so we can get in there with a new song. The result is not a nice organic in and out flow of players, but a forced projection.

I make this humble theory on a few distinct observations. First, the larger the group, the slower the interchanges, which runs opposite to what’s expected. You would expect that with an increasingly large circle size, there should hardly be anytime for anyone to sing. Everyone should be charging the center. (For example, let's say that at any one time, 25% of a group is ready with a new idea. That means in a group of four, one person has an idea, but in a group of 10 two or three people should have ideas.) Additionally, I have only ever seen maybe two times where two people entered the center at the same time, and I have never seen three enter. The principle of the game should result in this constant cascade of nearly everyone entering the circle at the same time, because everyone should be simultaneously recognizing the need for an edit. (Then again, maybe they are, they’re just too busy thinking of a song to get in there.

Does this mean Hot Spot is a bad exercise? Probably not, as its heart is in the right place, but it’s just a weak game. It has a very lofty goal, but just doesn’t achieve it. Or maybe the problem is I’ve only ever seen it done with brand new groups where everyone’s still unsure and nervous as a result of all these new people. Or maybe the larger groups make everyone feel like the responsibility is spread out thinner than in small groups so people don’t feel as big a need to help out. Good group work is everyone's responsibility; one group, one voice.

To Err is Improv Part 2

So how do mistakes ruin a scene? I like to think of it this way: imagine your scene is a ship at sea, thousands of miles from home, no land in sight, driving into the great blue unknown. Now, any mistake made on this ship could potentially doom it: steering, navigation, morale, food, disease and any number of other things that could potentially go wrong. Now with your scene, you have an opportunity after each mistake to treat it as a gift instead; to make it an offer instead of an error. Small mistakes are easier to correct than others – calling a character “Tom” instead of “Tim” or “Bob” are relatively minor errors, in the same magnitude as maybe a minor miscalculation in navigation. An error that small can sometimes be ignored altogether; it doesn't really matter what the character's name is, and a small miscalculation might still get you pretty close to your destination, or at least not that far off course. The larger the error gets however, the harder it is to ignore and still keep the ship together, and the more the error needs to be justified and incorporated. Making multiple mistakes back-to-back without opportunities to justify them drive the ship to the briny deep much quicker (rotten food + off course + dangerous storm + disease = Davy Jones' Locker; rotten food – rationing + off course – course correction + dangerous storm – more beer + disease – medicine = OK).

“You learn more losing races than winning them.” - Frankie Avalon, Fireball 500

It's a little too easy to get bogged down in the details of failure – this is exemplified by what is called hindsight bias. Essentially, when you know the outcome of something, the events that lead up to that conclusion seem inevitable, and significantly changes how we perceive and remember those events. In retellings, irrelevant or inconsistent data is discarded for those data points which bolster the ultimate finding. But before we get to that final destination, the finality is obfuscated and buried in conflicting information – this makes sense, since after all, a good improv scene does not have a predetermined, fixed point prior to the scene, but afterwards all of the information presented make where we got to become the only available option. Which is a sign of a good scene – no conflicting information, or other possibilities, just a singularity of conclusion. The issue becomes that the more familiar we are with something, the less we tend to notice – we assume things as we think they should be, not how they are. The brain doesn't tend to notice a difference between an improv scene and real life, so when we step on stage, we don't tend to notice some things because on a subconcious level, we think we're observing real life, and we have a list of things that we do normally in real life. Except, these are imaginary situations we are presented with, and we need to pay a little more heed to pick up some of the abnormal minutiae. The noticing is what is important, usually as part of an active experience, not a passive one.

The Scripted Theater

I recently did a scripted theater show, which is a switch, because I have previously not done a single scripted show since I played Kenickie in my junior high school's version of “Grease” (called, wait for it: “Greasy”). Let's face it: scripted theater folk look down on us improvisers, seeing what we do as some sort of gimmicky party trick, mostly because the rapid proliferation of a myriad of poorly done short form shows have flooded the market – Sturgeon's Law at work. Improvisers on the other hand, look at the snooty “actors” (with the last syllable rhyming with “bore”) with a pretentious slant. I've probably met an equal number of actors who think of improv as just one of many tools in their belts as I have improvisers who see the artform as being substantially different as scripted acting, both of which are equal to the number who just think of improv as a type of acting. But are they really that similar?

The first thing I've noticed, is that scripted folk work way harder, and way more than the improv folk. I started rehearsals late in the game (England!), mostly as a favor to a friend in the show, and rehearsed three times back to back in my first week, three hours a piece. I even missed a practice that week because of my other group, and the group had already done two previous weeks of practice, three days each, three hours per. One of the people I've met practices every night of the week for one of three different projects (I know, because I've asked her out, and she foolishly accepted, save for finding a single night that she's free). Conversely, every group I've ever been in has rehearsed one night a week, usually for two hours. My group in college tried in vain every semester to get even one additional practice, and found that we didn't have one single other day of the week we were all available. My group right now tried a second practice for about two months on a Saturday, which worked great until everybody kept trying to miss practice so that they could do other things with their Saturdays. I'm playing a gay wedding planner in this show, and it is a workout being that flamboyant for three hours. I only now realize how lazy I am as a performer, as are most of my comrades – we show up to practice and we're not feeling well, or even just a little out of it, and we can stumble through some scenes and it not be a train-wreck. This scripted work requires 100% all the time. (Although the lesson here is that improv probably requires 100% all the time too, we just manage to get away with it.) Who would have thought something pre-planned would require such in-the-momentitude.

The second, is ego. Or rather, the lack of group mind that we improvisers pride ourselves so much on. The idea of “the most important person on the stage is the other guy”, of treating all mistakes as intentional, etc, don't really exist in a traditional theater troupe. Everyone kind of works together, because that's required (and to be fair, most of the folks are pretty cool), there are a few standout divas that really set the standard (the same statement could probably be made for some improvisers as well). But more importantl is the egalitarian nature of problem solving, discovery, and creativity that we have in an improv group that doesn't really exist in the traditional group. The other thing I noted was a wary, leering nature that I seemed to be receiving from the cast, all up until I delivered my lines for the first time – apparently I did well, because I earned accolades from fellow cast members, but I certainly had to earn their respect by showing “what I could do”. I would argue that most improv groups I have been a part of, I have been more warmly welcomed before “proving” myself.

Now back to the central issue – are acting and improvising related enough to be considered father-daughter pairs, or are they more like third or forth cousins? There is definitely some overlap, and the two crafts can lend some useful things to each other, but at the same time, I think there's enough differences for them to both be considered two separate entities (don't worry, they're still both in the family of “performance art”). I've been improvising for seven years, and I wouldn't come close to trying to convince other people that I could act because I've done the other thing (to be fair, I do O.K., but not great). I also wouldn't say that any of the folks in my acting group could walk in to an improv scene and kill it right off the bat. It's not a good thing or a bad thing – it just is. They both require different skills. One of the guys in the group asked me what I've done before this, and I said that I've never done scripted work, just improv, and mostly longform. He stopped me before I could go any further, stating that he was a theater major and knew all about it already. I personally think I know some things after specializing in improv that a theater major wouldn't know, but then again, I'm not an actor.

Expert or Fun?

I recently lost two players in my improv team for identical reasons: both people told me that they felt that were now so good that playing with the rest of the team was a waste of time for them. They indicated that they were now too talented to be working with their team-mates. This of course is disappointing: no one ever wants to hear that their fellow improvisers no longer want to spend time playing with them, especially when someone tells you you're not good enough – what a blow to the ego. This of course is one of the ultimate dichotomies of improv – talent versus playability. Or rather: is it better to find team-mates that are in equal or greater talent than ourselves, or work with who we're with?

I would never begrudge someone the desire to push their talents and improv limits in pursuit of better, more challenging work – I haven't had many, but I've had enough of those moments, the ones where everything goes right and all the disparate elements seem to run together into a critical mass, and step off stage charged by that feeling of, for lack of a better word, magic. Those moments remind us why we do this in the first place, and that rush is improviser's equivalent to heroin – it's what keeps pushing us to achieve more challenging and interesting pieces, and its my hope that every improviser will feel at least one of those just once. But the question is, should we be so hard up to play with other talented folks that we treat ones we consider under-talented with such callousness? One thing I've noticed is that everybody wants to be on a Trophy Wife, or a Beer Shark Mice, or a Cook County, or a Deep Schwa, but no one wants to actually exert the effort required to reach those points. Those teams I just named have been playing for five plus years together, with few, if any, cast changes. Just those guys and gals, every week, stepping on stage together, everyone yearning for the same thing. You, unfortunately, can't just walk on to teams like those. I'm reminded of a statistic I've seen quoted at least four times in as many weeks that it requires 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to master a craft. We often tend to forget that, and blame other people for “holding us back”. The problem is, if everyone only played with people that were already “good”, then there would be no new improvisers, because we all suck in the beginning.

Let us not forget that improv is not just about being the talented, funny independent proprietor of the craft, and that easily half of the entire craft of improv is about learning how to work with others. Improv is, and always will be, a team sport – one where a group of people work together to create a product greater than the sum of the parts. Sure, there are one-man shows of improv that exist, but nothing will ever match up to watching a group of people playing together to create a mutual art piece. It's this half of the craft that is often under-taught, because you can't really teach how to be a good troupe member. But make no mistake about it's unending importance in everything you do in improv, we love to watch these teams perform not just because they are funny people as individuals (as they often are) but also to see how funny they are together.

Now that having been said, you should never stay in a group you don't enjoy being a part of. As I and others have said, look for people to play with who you wouldn't mind being stuck in an elevator with. If your team passes that litmus test, then stay with them; the most talented person in the world who is an insufferable prick will always be remembered as a talented prick, but there is no replacement for a good attitude and someone you enjoy being with. It's only when we value talent over personality that we run into trouble. You certainly don't want to be known as the “guy who only plays with people who he finds talented”, sure people may be flattered at first with your seeming honor, but deep down everyone knows that your loyalty is skin deep and you will be the first to run when the going gets rough. And if your team members can't trust you and be open with you, you'll only ever do the kind of shallow, vapid improv you were hoping to avoid in the first place.

Remember that talent is only half the game, and the other half is learning to love the people you're on stage with. They were willing to risk their selves with you, the least we can do is offer the same in return.

What's in a group?

If we take the presumption that I have made and assume that small groups are capable of self organization, but also that each person will divine their own place, then what do these groups look like? Nobody tells these groups how to organize or what jobs they each will hold, but invariably each person will eventually find their own niche. Successful group dynamics do not arrive where everyone is doing the same job and eschewing other jobs. Somebody has to dig the ditch just as someone has to wear the suit. Even ant hills have workers, guards, caretakers, builders, etc. I did some research and have found what I believe are the classic group dynamics. Its important to remember that there is no dynamic hierarchy or status in these groups – they transcend status (or rather they have to, otherwise its not a lateral communication). So even though someone may play “leader” they're not actually a “boss”.

Two people.

Undoubtedly the simplest group structure. This is the bare minimum required to achieve a group mind, but each person has a lot to do in order for the group to function. At this level groups self organize into opposites: straight and absurd, extrovert and introvert, etc.. This basic “versus” interplay of two different points of view is central to the entire group organization from this point on, but it this level it is its most bare. Classically you've got Laurel & Hardy, Abbot & Costello, but more recently I point to Sheldon and Leonard from the “Big Bang Theory” or Michael & Michael from the web series “Black 20”. The straight man never points out the absurdity; they understand they can't change their friend, they just try to put the fires out.

Three people.

This level has the greatest difficulty in self organization, because the tendency is for it to devolve into a two on one situation – that is to say a pair and an other. The pair teams up and attacks the other, who has no chance, because he's outnumbered. This is an unestablished swarm. A group at this size now actually has options, but at minimum will organize into emotive, reason, and mediator figures. The driving figure is typically represented by the mediator; their role is to act as an inbetween for the two opposing view points in the rest of the trio (this is usually portrayed in fiction as an actual leader role, but it doesn't have to be). Think Alvin from the Chipmunks, Athos from the Three Musketeers, Moe from the Three Stooges. Reason is still playing the straight man, roughly, and is responsible for being the voice of reason, they look at the world in hard, clinical terms – objective and absolute. Reason is typically represented by an individual with high intelligence or unique skills, think Simon, Aramis, and Larry. Emotive is lead by his heart, easily swayed, gullible, and outgoing; think Theodore, Curly, and Porthos, respectively. The emotive is the humanist one – subjective, thinking about the moment at hand. Together, you have emotion, reason, and practical or in Freudian terms: id, superego, and ego, respectively.

Four people.

Logic would dictate that at this point any disagreements would result in stalemate, but in a 2006 study done by the University of Michigan, both three and four person groups reached unanimous decisions roughly the same amount of the time (about 75%). This means that four person hierarchy must develop so that all input is arranged in a way that the correct choice is the only logical one. Self organization yields the following roles: head, hands, heart, and feet. Hands is now the driving force: the leader, ambitious, passionate. Feet is now the voice of reason, he keeps the group grounded, and is calm, rational, and reliable. Heart is the group's cheerleader, responsible for being optimistic, extroverted, and enthusiastic. Head is kind, thoughtful, and creative – the think it through first and look at the angles kind of person. The Ghostbusters are undoubtedly the group to beat; Peter is the hand, Ray the heart (Peter even says “Ray Stanz, the heart of the Ghostbusters”), Egon the head, and Winston the feet. In American Pie, Kevin, Finch, Oz, and Jim are the hand, feet, heart, and head, respectively.

Five People and Up.

Five person dynamics are difficult, and from this point a definite focal point of leadership is almost required if only to act as a funnel for the group's energy to run through. Typically it's a leader, his right hand (who usually serves as an opposite to the leader, but is his friend, so notice again that we have the basic two man dynamic again), the strong, silent one, the smart one, and the heart. Best example is “The Goonies” - Mikey the leader, Mouth as his guy Friday, Brand as the strong big guy, Data as the smart one, and two people pulling the roll of the heart – Andy and Stef. Even better, “Star Wars”: Luke is the leader, Han his right hand (Luke is honorable to the cause, Han to the money – opposites), Chewie as the big guy, two robots as the smart ones, and Leia as the heart. Often the female – especially if there's only one – will be the heart of the group.

From this point on, jobs get more complex – generally the larger the group, the more complicated the dynamic, and the more doubling up of roles.

Special thanks to TVTropes.org for invaluable research and also for providing yet another avenue to burn hours upon hours of time that should have been spent actually writing this thing.

The X-Men Factor

Last month, I was in Bloomington, IN for an alcohol toxicology course, and shortly after I arrived, the program director gave a brief orientation, where it was revealed that the local college, Indiana University (A campus I would describe as “Harry Potter” meets Gap commercial – old, very English castle-like buildings, and not an ugly person on campus. I seriously believe you have to submit a head shot when you apply.) was home to over 50,000 students. As I realized that colleges are one of the biggest breeding grounds for improv groups, a quick search yielded IU's premier improv group: Awkward Silences. I was pretty excited about getting to see a new group that quite frankly I would probably never get to see ever again, but my second discovery was that it was the week before finals, so sadly no show the week I was there.

I did check out their website though, and I found a cast page where I discovered what I believe is an exciting new improv game: Guess the Archetype. An archetype is a system in writing where characters are essentially filled in by generalizations. For example, in “Star Wars”, Luke is the hero, the Emperor the villain, Obi-Wan the mentor, etc. An archetype is essentially a job in a story: someone may be a unique character, but when it comes down to it, he is the “comic relief” (or whatever) to the story. One of my theories regarding improv groups is that each member is a unique element, a specialized cog even, in the greater machine. Each one, though they may play different characters on stage – from goofy to heart-wrenching – in the tapestry of the group they each have a different role. Think about your group of friends (or maybe even the cast of a TV show or movie that is an ensemble piece) and you can figure out which one is the horn dog, the jester, the wallflower, etc. My point is that once an improv group hits its stride, that blessed Group Mind running in full, six-cylindered harmony – you can figure out what each person brings to the group, i.e. what role they play. This often carries over into scenes, where you can usually guess what each person is going to do for a scene or piece. Part of it is just the shorthand way we deal with the world – our own personal comfort zone.

So I found myself looking at the cast page, and tried to figure out, based just on a minimal amount of bio information and a head shot, what each person was in the group machine. (I encourage you to check it out too: http://www.awkwardsilencecomedy.com/) Here's my guesses, and if anyone from IU, or better yet the Awkward Silences ever reads this, tell me how I did:

Sean Liston – Leading man. Probably plays bosses, cops, presidents, teachers a lot. Classic straight man/hero.
Anthony Smith – The smart one. High reference level, puns, big words. Dry, yet goofy sense of humor.
Ben Gagnon – The horn dog. Lots of dirty humor, sex jokes, curse words. Every character he plays is normal, just dirty.
Layne Dixon – Leading lady. Plays a lot of sweet, nice characters; wives, girlfriends, mothers. Very cute.
Ryan Brown – Party animal. Plays his scenes the most physical of the male members.
Dan Haddad – The lovable oaf. Funny, easy-going sense of humor, sprinkled with a fair amount of nerdy, probably superhero, references.
Blair Dietrick – The quirky girl. Plays a lot of strange, quirky characters with accents and physicality – the whole works.

As an added bonus, I'm providing Guess the Archetype: Home Edition. Recently added to the Stage Monkeys San Diego Facebook page are five head shots of the current members, so to everyone reading, I want you to go on, take a look, and see if you can guess what each person brings to the group (what their archetype is), and leave it in the comments section here. Winner is the person I feel has correctly identified the most correct roles. Check back here in two weeks to see who the winner is, and thanks for playing!