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?

The Chi-Connection

I don't think I need to tell you this Chicago is at the very least, one of the undisputed, reigning champions for improv. This isn't to discount what's going on in various other ports of call – every city I've visited has at least a couple of people doing great, challenging work – but I think everyone can agree that Chicago is the epicenter of what's going on. Now I'm an outed, unabashed Chicago-phile, and a lot of people may think that's just a strange knee-jerk reaction to this mecca of improvisation. This is not the case however, and my reasons for loving Chicago improv is also the reason that I love a lot of other place's improvs, but also one of the reasons that San Diego has been a troubling, frustrating city to do improv in.

Now a little background: when I was in Chi-town doing improv, I was also going to grad school at the same time. These two educations I was receiving simultaneously is, hyperbole aside, probably the single most important thing that has ever happened to me in my life. What was great about both of those schools is that while we did focus on specifics needed in each basic education, both had teachers that encouraged and espoused critical, independent thinking. It is not merely enough to teach students what is now – we must also teach them how to find the next what is. In grad school, emphasis was placed on analyzing problems and errors in judgment, or science, or ethics (or sometimes all three) and thinking about what they mean in the bigger picture, and my improv education taught analysis, creativity, self-reliance (and how to intersect all three). What I got out of the combined experience was the capacity to reason independently. I've found this exceedingly important as I remember a lesson my high school science teacher taught: there are two types of people who will not excel in this world, those who can't follow instructions, and those who can only follow instructions.

San Diego has been a tremendously frustrating city because the majority of the improvisers “in power” have no interest in innovation, and actively discourage other improvisers from independent work. An actual lesson that one of these teachers gave: some people try to continue doing improv outside of the theater after completing workshops, but no one ever finds any success, so don't even bother trying.

(While we're on this subject, two actual things I have been castigated and admonished for: “doing other projects”, and “motivating and inspiring players” (direct quotes). The first is because that theater doesn't endorse anyone else doing anything not within its own walls, and because they don't trust players who may have questionable allegiances, whatever that means (and also because you're trading on the implied authority of the first theater in other projects). The second is because, as it was explained to me, when I started doing longform in the SD, I motivated and inspired a lot of these previously shortform only improvisers into wanting to do more longform. That however came at a cost, as those players were now skipping regular rehearsals and showing up for shows tired due to conflicting interests with their other projects. Neither of these things are made up, because no one could make up that kind of logic.)

Now if a particular theater wants to run itself like the KGB, stamping out perceived enemies of the state who just want to do more improv, there's not much anyone can do to stop them, but I can still object to the attitude they take, especially towards younger, newer improvisers. This kind of discouraging, negative, and selfish view towards the craft stifles creativity, originality, and invention, not to mention breeding bitterness and animosity. As teachers, we have an obligation to encourage and engender improvisers to find and embrace the cutting edge. Teachers in Chi/LA/NY don't take a “go away, this is mine” mentality, they understand that the craft is more important than the individual (and also if you're good, you don't need to be defensive) but also that the next generation of improvisers are the ones who will solve the next piece of the puzzle. Try new things, see what works and what doesn't, build on what's been previously discovered, and add your contribution to the growing archive of knowledge – that's what science has done, and that's what most improvisers have done too.

If we are not teaching and – dare I say – inspiring and motivating our students and fellow players into pursuing more work, we are doing a grave disservice to them, not just as improvisers, but as teachers and human beings too. We are gravely failing our charges by not promoting independent work. Self-reliance and independence are noble character traits, not criminal trespasses.

(And to the teacher and coach who told me to not bother trying, the group I started just celebrated it's fourth year.)

Our Scenes are Our Children

I still remember the first scene I ever saw that I actually knew was going on too long. It was Fall of 2004, we were playing a game of "Stand, Sit, Kneel", and after a minute or so of some intermittent laughter, the scene suddenly went decidedly unfunny. This isn’t to say that all the sudden someone was getting raped, or there was talk of killing puppies - it just ceased getting laughs. And it wasn’t that it just became unfunny, it (even worse) became uninteresting, and unwatchable. And gradually the audience began to tune out, and very quickly a feeling of panic swept over all the performers.

Everybody wanted the scene to end, but we also distinctively wanted the scene to have just one more laugh to end on. I was the one in charge of the bell during this little fiasco. Afterwards, I silently cursed myself for letting a scene run WAY too long, and also for not saving my fellow improvisers.

Generally, only very rarely will a scene pop up that is this bad, but boy when they do, they can easily cripple a show, especially if they come near the end. And they don’t always have to be three minute fiascos; I’ve seen thirty second scenes that have already gone on too long (though they often feel much longer).
It’s too easy and by definition wrong, to say that a scene was just doomed to failure from the beginning. (How depressing is it to hear that? That statement says that no matter what you did or how hard you worked, you wouldn’t have succeeded anyway.) As a general rule, a random combination of any number of performers from all across the universe should never be the death knell for a scene. This is because the basic dogma of improvisation is to just let any two people interact and enjoy the sparks that fly from basic human interaction.
It shouldn't be the premise; the previous scene's premise was a Boy Scout leader and two scouts at a strip club. Sure, maybe a premise that is a little too SNL, but certainly no one can say that that scene can't be funny or at least interesting to watch. And any postulating post-show with your fellow improvisers will undoubtedly prove any idea can become a funny scene (or course the difference here is the amount of time you have on stage versus the bar).

Here, though, the real question isn’t why it failed, but more why it failed so hard. And as a result, when and why we edit. As improvisers, we are all taught a basic rule, that all scenes have the potential to be great. If we can just be patient and follow all the improv rules we have learned, every scene can be a winner (hence all the talk of performers and premises). At the same time, we know that not every scene will work; something which we prove all the time in the laboratory of the stage. But just like any great theory, it’s still hard to say that this one is unproven (see the previous bar comment). This firm holding to this very basic rule of improv is what makes us hold on to scenes for dear life. Even good ones. If we take the time to get on stage with each other, we feel the need to explore each scene all the way out, often well past the edit point.

The other problem is part of our basic programming that we get from watching T.V., reading books, etc. We want to logically end our scenes. A big laugh, a logical conclusion to the plot, a change of heart in a character, or at a cliffhanger. Sure this is all well and good, but we operate in a universe where those things are not guaranteed, or even possible sometimes. So instead of holding out to tie up our work perfectly, or hanging on to our scenes like they are the only ones we will ever have, remember your primary obligation: to your fellow performers.

But possibly remember the even more basic tenet of improvisation: nothing is planned or pre-written, so who says you have to keep doing anything if you don’t like it?

Character Arrested Development

I still occasionally get emails from my old college improv troupe, and I'm always excited to read ones where they're discussing improv theory; I love it primarily for nostalgia, but also because I like reading how the philosophies of people I trained and performed with have evolved. For a lot of college troupes in the hinterlands, each group is its own little microcosm of improv exploration, and as a result, they're generally limited to things they learn through books on the subject.
 

My favorite pops up like clockwork once a semester: the "character development" email. It goes like this: "we had a rough show, we need to work on fundamentals, so next week we're going to go over character development." But why do we pick character development over things like scenework, being "in-the-moment", or a bajillion other skills? It's the improv scapegoat. Had a bad show? It was probably bad character development. Why? Because I have no idea what it means, so I probably don't have it. It's a term that falls into the same category of "process development", "synergy", and "paradigm shift" of abstract things that sound great on paper, but have no real definition. I don't even remember how the term entered into our vernacular; I've never read it in a book or heard any teacher use that exact term anytime since. It was always just there.

For years, I broke the term down to define it. "What is character development?" someone might ask me on an improv game show. "Why, it's the development of a character arc throughout the course of the scene!" I would answer proudly. While it's true that that kind of character development (which is probably more likely to be called emotional development, scene development, or some other such acting term I'm too ignorant to know) is important, that's not what's meant by character development. The problem with trying to do it that way is we get a bunch of scenes where person A is trying to change person B in three minutes! 

Our character development practice became, every semester, two hours of scenes about breakup, love, or death. They were boring and uninteresting, and we would immediately go back to doing other things the next week.
What we all meant (but were unable to articulate, and, even worse, unable to teach) was creating rich, unique characters. Characters that were more than just a funny voice or a strange bodily affliction. What we wanted was to create characters that the audience would be interested in long enough to want to see a character arc.  (Something compounding the problem: improv shows like "Whose Line" rarely, if ever have richly defined characters.  Their scenes tend to, unfortunately, be just a funny voice or strange bodily affliction.)

So if we're not trying to negotiate a character change, what is character development actually supposed to be? The now-me, on the same gameshow, would answer "creating a character on the fly that can survive on his/her own in the universe we've created". What you need to take away is this: a character needs at minimum, two things to survive. One, a point of view, and two, a want. The other stuff (occupation, mannerisms, etc.) is good, but you've got to leave that to be discovered. And most importantly, just relax in the scene and remember that this is the universe that your character inhabits and to try to react as that character would.

For Charity!

A few weeks ago I caught a disaster movie marathon at a local theater, the centerpiece of which was Irving Allen's disaster epic “The Towering Inferno”. “Inferno” is a movie on a grand scale, and is first and foremost proof that viewers had an obsession with procedural dramas well before “Law & Order”. There are some things that are a little dated, but what sticks out the most are some rather clunky dialogue bits – ones that don't advance plot, deepen characters or stakes, and are often uttered by random characters: for example a shot of people evacuating the building holds on an older couple who say that there were supposed to be fire drills, but none were ever conducted. There is a clear point to the movie – entertainment, but the filmmakers took the opportunity to deliver important (though not subtle) messages about fire safety.

As artists, our goal is often very basic – to entertain (or on a deeper level, illustrate on the human condition). This doesn't make what we do normally ignoble or unvirtuous; something could be said for providing laughter to the masses, but often that is as far as we go. The possibility is there to do something good with our craft either by message (even if it is the hamfisted approach that “Inferno” takes) or by product. Improv is actually a very useful tool for both kinds of change – it is unique in that it is able to instantly change to meet developing pop culture, news, or social changes as well as being an exceedingly populist craft in that its inspiration is derived directly from audience influence.

I've now organized two different improv charity shows, and I firmly believe that this craft can be very useful for doing good, and appropriately so – it is the most populist art form, one where even the objective audience gets to participate and also because it is cheap to produce. Most improvisers are used to doing gigs for no money, so you typically can get away without having a limited (or no) performer's budget; the only true cost that you won't be able to escape from will be space rental. If you want to do a charity show, you can always look into cheap options: the first show I produced was on a university campus and because we were a student organization, we could rent a very large, very nice space on a Saturday afternoon for no cost. With enough logistical working and sufficient advance notice, you may even find a space willing to allow you to use their usual space for free. (People are very rarely loathe to help out a cause, they usually just lack the initiative.)

As for the show itself – I recommend the simpler, the better. You may have a fantastic, high concept idea that you have been just dying to put in front of an audience, but the key is to make the show lean & accessible. Something fun, and light – with emphasis being on things that anybody can step in and enjoy – is better. Save your new, experimental 'prov for your regular showcases. What can often work well is a drawing: at the university show, we had a bunch of local businesses donate some gift certificates and the like which we raffled off (mostly because university regulations prevented us from selling tickets, so this was how we raised money). For the current show, we're just charging admission, and everything over cost (which is, with free actors, only space rental) we're donating. Beyond that you just need to market the hell out of it. Unfortunately for productions like ours, which have limited budgets, you need to get creative, but the internet actually provides a bunch of cheap alternatives which have varying levels of success. Any free print listing is a must get, but never underestimate the power of word of mouth; the strange energy of these kinds of shows is a product of the “special” or “one-time-onliness” factor, but also the rather common desire among people to help others, especially if you're giving them something in return (that's the performance!).

Now, go out and spread some cheer; for charity!

Graduation Shows

Ah, the graduation showcase: the time honored final send-off for the recent graduates of an improvisation training program. It’s kind of like prom for improvisers; everyone gets dressed up, really nervous, some people kind of don’t even want to do it, but in the end, you’re glad you went. Afterward, everyone shakes hands, high fives, takes pictures, and then hits the bar. These showcases offer a unique opportunity for an improviser’s friends and family to finally get to see what their junior improviser has been up to every week for a year. It also affords a special chance for the senior improvisers to see the new crop and start picking who will get picked to go on to the main stage.
It’s this last purpose that can make the graduation show one of the most emotionally wrenching times for the members of that class. Let’s face it: if you are even remotely interested in doing improv, then you are heavily invested in getting a spot on the main stage. Main stage means more practice time, stage time, prestige, and presumably the chance to hobnob with the experienced folks in hopes of teaming up with them. It’s usually seen as more than just a stepping stone: it can easily be the big “break” that leads to all sorts of stuff. And for this reason, your fellow classmates will gladly slit your throat if it means they get picked over you. (For a bunch of comedians, improvisers take this stuff very seriously.)
The iO (formerly Improv Olympic) shows have a big leg up on the local program in that there are multiple shows, instead of the one (Duhn, duhn, duhn). What’s strange is the kind of overnight kind of switch that occurs with your classmates; these are people you joked with after class, grabbed a beer with, saw improv shows with, but just as soon as the specter of getting picked for a team settles in, all bets are off. Suddenly everyone is only interested in performing the best show (which is often interpreted as “the kind of show that gets you noticed”). Suddenly this one show becomes the end all be all. I have provided the following time line to get you familiar with the insanity, which is primarily applicable to those who have eight weeks of shows:

1. Two weeks before your first show – there is a flurry of emails between the members of a group. Everyone is heatedly arguing for a coach, practice time, etc. and everyone just generally seems to have their panties in a bunch. Also, a group of people will want to go see the current round of graduation shows (“To see what to expect.”), and another will adamantly oppose seeing the show (“I don’t want to get distracted/nervous.”) You also discover that Gmail can actually keep an email string with 300 replies active. Those guys are amazing.
2. First two shows – people are exceedingly nervous about performing, mostly because they want to impress the people who will ultimately pick them for teams. After they get off stage, they realize that none of the people who are picking are even there. Strangely, no one seems nervous about performing in front of family and friends.
3. Third and fourth shows – these will be the worst two shows you will perform. The early excitement over performing has passed; everyone gets a little sloppy when they realized how good that other team is. Everyone seems to say “Why should we even bother? That whole other group is going to get picked!”
4. Fifth, sixth, and seventh shows – these are progressively the best shows you will ever do, as everyone is slowly finding their respective grooves, figuring out the games/forms, and actually starts to have a good time.
5. Eighth show – this will, contrary to logic, not be your best show. It will be sort of like your third best show. At this point, everyone has just kind of given up worrying about the whole damn thing, and is really just having a good time. Plus, everyone realizes this is the last time you will ever perform together (Expect lots of hugging, picture taking, and making plans to get together and practice). (Improvisers love making empty promises like these. It says something about our mindset that we do an art form that necessitates a non-planned, free-wheeling attitude. That is, we’re as a whole unmotivated.) Also, this is the show the recruiters are watching.
6. A Week-ish after your last show – you find out who gets picked, and who didn’t. Generally there are no surprises. You also discover that you still talk to the people you actually enjoyed improvising with, who may or may not have been the “best” ones in class.

Now, that all having been said, I did go to graduation show this week (and did see the recruiters sitting in the time-honored recruiter spot: the back row, with a clip board). The graduation show serves as an interesting case, though: it is a show after all, but then again it kind of isn’t. There are some people who will never make a team, some will move afterward to some other city, others may drop out entirely; but the real purpose of the graduation show is to give your friends and family an opportunity to come see what you’ve been doing – to watch you be funny, and put on a good show. The graduation show isn’t supposed to be groundbreaking; it’s supposed to be polished enough to feel good about and for all your friends to see just how freaking funny you are. A graduation show should be simple, because it’s easier to show off your talent that way. I make this last point because improvisers tend to overplay things when they’re trying to show off; they want to do the hardest form, the craziest games, and play everything hard core because they feel like they need to blow people away. (The lesson here: that never works.)
So, to my fellow graduates (and soon to be graduates): Enjoy yourself, ignore the man in the back row, play with abandon so your friends can laugh at you, and for god’s sake, give the emails a rest.