Wednesday, September 7, 2011
YMCA class pictures
I taught an improv class to a YMCA class (I honestly don't know what to call them - they weren't teenagers, they were probably in the 10-12 year old range. "Pre-teen" or "young adult" feels to official, and "kids" is a bit condescending.) a few weeks ago. Here's some pictures that were taken during the class (which was one stop as part of a larger, rotating afternoon - including art, fashion, and screen-printing).
Monday, September 5, 2011
An Open Letter
*Writer's note: I wrote this article about three years ago - I had just saved it because it is a vitriolic, but I also needed content today. Though it is directed to one person, the point I believe is endemic to more than just this one instance.
Dear White Shirt Guy,
Hi there! I saw your improv show last Saturday night; I was the guy in the third row, center stage who wasn’t laughing (more on that later). It might help if I point out that I was sitting next to the two older couples who wouldn’t shut up and left fifteen minutes into your set. They may have had the right idea.
Now you may be asking yourself: “Why am I being targeted for this letter?” Well, there are a couple of reasons, the first of which is that you were one of the two hosts, and therefore I assume that you are in some semblance of in charge of the group. Additionally, you are undoubtedly the most handsome member of the team. Now, I may not be gay, but I do appreciate and respect handsome looking fellas. And you are definitely aware of this fact, as you fulfill the role of “handsome leading guy character” in every scene you’re in.
Allow me briefly to emphasize that last point. You see, what I really mean to say is: every single scene. I’m not sure if you’re aware of the fact, but you were in nearly every single scene. At first I sort of suspected it, like when you’re walking past a window and you think you see two people having sex out of the corner of your eye. But just like my two lesbian neighbors, I had to stop, and step back to see if my initial observation was correct. (It was, and they were. And boy were they going at it.) I started paying very close attention to you, and you were in every god damn scene.
I reckon you fancy yourself as the guy to beat in your troupe. You’ve probably been doing this for a couple of years, and in the tiny fishbowl that is the San Diego improv scene, you’re kind of a big fish (perhaps a halibut?). But I’ve seen this kind of thing before. You feel it’s your duty to make all the scenes funny, and by god, you’re the only man who can do it. Problem is, you’re not very funny, and you play the same character every time. Now, I don’t want to come off too harsh; after all, there wasn’t a single person I saw that entire night who was particularly funny, but I’m singling you out, because at least your problem can be fixed.
Improv is a team sport, man. There is no quarterback, no point guard, no Queen. Now, I’m a big proponent of people playing their group roles and group strengths (you’re the good-looking one, okay), but I have never seen a scene be saved and only rarely made funnier by the addition of another player. And trust me, I have tried. My friends have tried. I have seen the experiment played out in the laboratory of the stage over a dozen times, and it never works. If a scene isn’t going well, the best thing you can do is just edit it. If it is going well, then leave it the hell alone.
Very respectfully,
Dude in the third row, center
Dear White Shirt Guy,
Hi there! I saw your improv show last Saturday night; I was the guy in the third row, center stage who wasn’t laughing (more on that later). It might help if I point out that I was sitting next to the two older couples who wouldn’t shut up and left fifteen minutes into your set. They may have had the right idea.
Now you may be asking yourself: “Why am I being targeted for this letter?” Well, there are a couple of reasons, the first of which is that you were one of the two hosts, and therefore I assume that you are in some semblance of in charge of the group. Additionally, you are undoubtedly the most handsome member of the team. Now, I may not be gay, but I do appreciate and respect handsome looking fellas. And you are definitely aware of this fact, as you fulfill the role of “handsome leading guy character” in every scene you’re in.
Allow me briefly to emphasize that last point. You see, what I really mean to say is: every single scene. I’m not sure if you’re aware of the fact, but you were in nearly every single scene. At first I sort of suspected it, like when you’re walking past a window and you think you see two people having sex out of the corner of your eye. But just like my two lesbian neighbors, I had to stop, and step back to see if my initial observation was correct. (It was, and they were. And boy were they going at it.) I started paying very close attention to you, and you were in every god damn scene.
I reckon you fancy yourself as the guy to beat in your troupe. You’ve probably been doing this for a couple of years, and in the tiny fishbowl that is the San Diego improv scene, you’re kind of a big fish (perhaps a halibut?). But I’ve seen this kind of thing before. You feel it’s your duty to make all the scenes funny, and by god, you’re the only man who can do it. Problem is, you’re not very funny, and you play the same character every time. Now, I don’t want to come off too harsh; after all, there wasn’t a single person I saw that entire night who was particularly funny, but I’m singling you out, because at least your problem can be fixed.
Improv is a team sport, man. There is no quarterback, no point guard, no Queen. Now, I’m a big proponent of people playing their group roles and group strengths (you’re the good-looking one, okay), but I have never seen a scene be saved and only rarely made funnier by the addition of another player. And trust me, I have tried. My friends have tried. I have seen the experiment played out in the laboratory of the stage over a dozen times, and it never works. If a scene isn’t going well, the best thing you can do is just edit it. If it is going well, then leave it the hell alone.
Very respectfully,
Dude in the third row, center
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Improv and Thank you
I taught an improv class for a YMCA teenage program last week, and this week I have a very nice thank you letter from them.
Monday, August 22, 2011
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 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.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
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.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
The Abyss of Status
As a second entry into my series of Things That I Have Learned Doing Improv That Were Ill Understood And Yet Still Taught To Me, this week we will be discussing status. Status is the dynamic between two people as expressed in how they either command or acquiesce to each other. Improv teachers say that well defined, big status offers are interesting and powerful to watch. A teacher and a student traditionally have a fairly large status chasm between them, because the teacher is in charge, and the student(s) have to follow the teacher's instructions. (This is, as is turns out, quite necessary, as anyone who has ever tried to control a large group of underage children and also teach them something). The teacher and the principal also have a fairly large status chasm between them, as the principal is the teacher's boss (and can also fire the teacher). When discussing two characters, we usually say that one character is “high status” and the other is “low status”, though bare in mind that these are only relative terms.
A high status character is usually more still (little head movement, gesturing, definitely no fidgeting or nervous twitches), speaks and moves with brevity and purpose, is comfortable, and makes themselves seem bigger or taller.
A low status character is usually more fidgety, nervous, rambles, tries to keep distance from others, and tries to make themselves seem smaller.
Ultimately, status is a relative measurement of how more or less in control, and confident a character is (but always compared to a second party). We typically associate high status with police, judges, bosses, soldiers, while low status are usually employees, students, or children. The examplar exercise for this is the card game – affix a playing card to each player's forehead so that they do not know what they have, and everyone treats everyone else based on what they know about other people, with Ace being lowest and King being highest. At the end, have everyone get in a line of increasing status, and then take their card down and see how well they did. The concept of establishing status is very Johnstonian (and as a result the people I see teach it the most are either Johnstonians, TheaterSporters, or ComedySporters) and is often one of the first concepts taught to new improvisers. Establish the status, establish the scene.
There is nothing inherently wrong in pursuing strong status at the start of a scene – finding out who the boss is and who the employee is tells us a lot about the relationship, dynamic, and setting of the scene with very little effort. However, the way the concept is taught is often to make big status offers (“I'm the King, you're the peasant.”) which, while very edifying, make scene management very difficult. One of the most common questions I hear from improvisers is how to make a scene last longer – and often the answer is one of status. A scene between a king and a peasant has a very large abyss of status – the king is very high, he is, after all, ordained by God to be the supreme ruler of the kingdom, whereas the peasant is, quite literally, a nobody (no offense to any feudal era peasants who may be somehow reading this – now back to the field!). As you stare into an abyss of status this deep, know that it stares back into you.
What you can do to make your scenes last longer is to narrow the abyss of status. The slimmer it is, the longer, richer, and more interesting your scenes become. The first strategy is to make offers of slim status difference between you and your scene partner. The vast majority of truly amazing scenework I've seen has been between two equals (for example, friends) – you may not feel like the scene is going anywhere, but it is – it's just not going as fast as would with the king and the peasant, a dynamic that has a lot of power, but can't necessarily continue forever, and often will burn out much sooner. The other tactic is what often termed a status shift or switch, but is often just a narrowing of the status abyss. The boss and employee are talking, and the boss admits he's broken up because his wife is sleeping around – now the boss is closer to the same level as the employee, and they can communicate.
This all really boils down to the capacity to be changed, that is, your character's capacity to be changed by what's going on – static environments are boring, dynamic environments are exciting. That's why your big status offer stalemates the scene after 60 seconds – a high status boss who won't be changed preserves the status abyss, and it swallows you whole. But show me the king who is conflicted about being supreme ruler and confides in a lowly peasant or two guys sitting around drinking beers commiserating about women mistreating them, and you'll see a chasm that can be crossed, and it will seem all the more interesting for it.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Group Suck
There was an improv article that I found circulating the internet a while back, written by Adam Felber, titled “Why Improv Sucks” (the article can be found here, for those who want it in its original context: http://www.improvresourcecenter.com/mb/showthread.php?t=1075). The article is a fairly succinct missive about the many shortcomings that improv has that continue to prevent its professional evolution, and one point in particular stuck with me, if only because I've written on a related topic about a year ago (you can read it in my archives in August 2010, “Expert or Fun?”). I'll only paraphrase Adam's point here, which is that improv groups have a unique organizational structure, by which he means (and I agree with) that unlike in other endeavors, under-performing, weaker members are often allowed to remain on a group's rosters forever effectively hindering what the group can ultimately do.
Now obviously, being an improviser himself, I'm sure Adam is aware where this attitude comes from; it's the “Theater of the Heart” concept put forth by Close. In order for improv to be successful, we had to train people to cherish and celebrate each other's ideas on stage, or scenes would never form (or just one or two railroading individuals would control everything and everyone else would just follow along). This “treat others like geniuses, artists and poets” (as well as “yes, and...”) conceit extended from the stage into the organization, which was great, because that helps encourage along the “group mind” books are always going on and on about. Groups have to be more than people holding each other at a detached, professional distance to achieve the level of powerful artistic intuitiveness that leads to great improv – they need to be open & available. (This quest for group mind, I believe, is largely the reason for the current immobility of membership – I disagree with Adam's notion that “there's too few good improvisors [sic] around”; that may have been true back in 2001 when Adam wrote the article, but I see too many talented people for that to really be a valid argument anymore. Alternatively, it may be because, as Carrane and Allen put it – we're “too nice”. Or even more, that improvisers see themselves as so different from “real acting” as to be more accepting of mistakes – the “populist”, “accept all mistakes as offers”, or “acting-is-bad-because-actors-are-snooty” theories. I personally think that there is an unfortunate spiral of having a flippant attitude towards improv – there are too few that take it seriously, and too many who just see it as a whatever hobby – the latter, majority viewpoint has more people adhering it, and tends to make even people in the former camp switch sides.)
However, we've allowed that to extend into a family-oriented dynamic that overrides our professional sensibilities about making good art. I had a conversation with a fellow improviser who is a member of a group that has that kind of people-don't-leave-except-by-their-own-accord dynamic, and he told me how much he loved being a member of such a group because it meant not having to worry about getting kicked out of a group – essentially, he liked the fact that he could coast once he got in (alternatively, he could continue to work hard, and he does because he's a good improviser, but not everyone will have the same work ethic). That group as a result has a some really talented people, and some real clunkers, but no system to foster creative or talent growth, other than a wish and a prayer. The plus side of this approach, it should be noted, is that no one needs to feel afraid of failure, because nothing bad can happen to you in such an event (side question: is that such a good thing – improvisers are lazy enough as is).
But this is the other side of Adam's rub – if members are never removed, even if they under-perform (like my friend likes), then the group suffers by having a few weak links, but because new people can't be brought in, then improv suffers (because you're not putting the most talented people together – you're splintering your talent pool). My friend compared this to groups he was familiar with in NYC (though the comparison holds true to other large cities as well) where getting in the theater is a struggle, as is staying in it – though this fosters growth and does not allow “coasting”.
Now, I am by no means am going to tell you what to do (but you're likely interested if you've read this far), but you're two option are thus: 1) value friendship, fellowship, and fraternity or 2) value talent, productivity, and skill. Notice at no point did I say that the first option is wrong in any way. I have a friend who has been practicing once a week for the last seven+ years with a group and they've never done a show. There's nothing wrong with that; it's just a bunch of people who like the artistic outlet and the social aspect, but don't need to do the whole show thing. If you take option one though, you can't be upset about your group not exceeding expectations and breaking new ground artistically – you have to be happy with the people you have, whether they're an “A+” improviser or a “D-” who's just doing it because he has time and it's fun. (It should be pointed out that even your iO or UCB or Second City rosters aren't immune – but the difference is that new additions are heavily vetted, and those that are at the point that they don't have to worry about being removed have been doing it for a great number of years, and are usually, let's face it, really good.) By the same token, option two isn't automatically right – it certainly won't make you any friends among those you don't deem up to snuff – but getting the best people together is how you make the new cutting edge, and hopefully you won't forget to still love and cherish each other once you get there. Though do read my previously mentioned article – even in a superstar team, you'll still need to grind the whole thing out and stick with it.
It would do well to remember that even under option 2, we still have a duty to our fellow improvisers that we share the stage with to be supportive, and to still look to play with people we enjoy the company of (see my previously indicated article). We can still strive for constant improvement, push harder and farther in our craft without being snooty, self-absorbed blowhards. Got a player in your group who's not working like everyone else is? Push them harder – make it clear that the group wants to keep moving, and they'll either step up the game (which is awesome if you like playing with them) or both parties will realize that it's time to part ways (which sucks if you like playing with them). Improv is still a team sport if you're taking it seriously, and the whole team will have to go along pushing it up to the next level for it to work.
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