The Summer

 

Back in 2004, I used to write movie reviews for the USM student newspaper, the "Student Printz". Because I occasionally feel lazy, and it seems a shame that all of five people ever read these, I've decided to repost them here, in the original versions that I emailed to my editor, Noel, all those years ago. 

Though Hollywood is not known for consistently releasing good movies, most visitors of the Cineplex can at least look forward to the summer movie crop for some big budget, special effects-ridden movies to break the summer heat. Usually, even with a big budget, the movies can actually surpass the “eye candy” mark: the summer is where we got movies like Back to the Future, Star Wars, American Pie, Men in Black, Spider-Man and Raiders of the Lost Ark. But this summer, we were instead treated to not just a few, but an entire slew of empty Hollywood spectacles. While copious special effects can still leave an amazing movie (a la The Matrix), there comes a point when you need some meat with your popcorn.

For example, the summer opener, Van Helsing was little more than 2 hours of loosely strung together special effects and a hefty price tag ($175 million). The acting was mediocre to bad, and the plot was so bad that it seemed to have been written over a few hours. Two weeks later was the even larger budgeted Troy, starring Brad Pitt and Eric Bana, which was without a doubt modern cinema at its worst. First, you have really neat characters, with long, well explained back stories, then set them in a really neat story, and two and a half hours later, all you’ve done is a few short action sequences. With everything the movie had going for it, they ended up saying absolutely nothing, and doing next to nothing.

Of all the special effects extravaganzas, The Day After Tomorrow was without a doubt the most enjoyable, yet still ended up being very disappointing. Directed by Roland Emmerich (of Independence Day), the movie details the events of a storm spanning the entire globe, therefore requiring special effects for nearly half the movie (and not always good FX either). The characters were fun to watch and the plot was interesting, but the movie was so similar to Independence Day that it seemed as though we weren’t seeing anything new.

Perhaps the worst movie all this summer was Catwoman, which was basically a ninety minute movie whose sole merit was a scantily clad woman (in fact a male body double). The film showed complete ignorance of the source material (that is the DC comic character Catwoman). The director had the absolute brilliance to use the exact same song anytime Catwoman was about to do anything and make sure that Halle Berry wore the most form-fitting outfit for no particular reason. The real down side is that Berry was actually played a man (not kidding) during all the action and fight scenes.

The big word to sum up this summer at the movies would be disappointment. Though Hollywood did deliver with a few good movies we were all looking forward to (like Shrek 2 and Spiderman 2), nearly everything else from start to finish fit in the apparent summer movie theme of lackluster entertainment. This summer’s movies were almost all big budget special effects let downs, unoriginal adaptations and astonishingly unfunny, lame “comedies”. Though we can’t expect Hollywood to deliver funny, entertaining, special effects blockbusters all the time, summers like the past one remind audiences just how bad Hollywood can be.

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 Rule Breakers

When I was in high school, I tried out for the part of drum major for the band, which was an altogether fun experience – I didn’t get it, but it was fun nonetheless. One of the things I learned for the tryouts was how to spin a mace. A mace, for the uninitiated, is the long pole, about five feet in length, with a large silver orb on the top of it. The mace is largely ceremonial, probably its only original purpose was to be a shiny object sticking above a marching formation so that the members can keep rhythm. Somewhere along the way though, some drum major got tired of just holding this thing, and after probably attempting to use it as a sword, decided to start spinning the thing around. Modern drum majors will almost always be seen spinning this ungainly monster of a baton (or sometimes two) causing it to dance, spin, and fly through the air to the delight of the crowd.

The band director who was showing how to do mace-work (his term) explained that there are two approaches to mace spinning: an east coast and a west coast. The east coast, he explained, was all about performing the mace-work with ultimate precision; every single move should be text-book perfection according to the east coasters. The west coast he summed up with a simple mantra: “Hey, check out what I can do.” The west coast wasn’t concerned with doing things according to any “official” pattern; instead they did their mace-work for fanfare and showmanship (and a heavy dose of one-upmanship). In other words, do things so unbelievable that no one else can copy you. The east coast was like a game of Horse, and the west coast was an “And 1” tape. It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized that this didn’t just apply to mace-work, but to everything – music, food, scholarly pursuits. Maybe it’s the weather.

In improv there is still those two different rules of thought, what I like to think of as the rule-followers and the rule breakers. A rule follower is always trying to improve upon an idea: that form worked mostly, except for this, so let’s fix that for next time, or that didn't work at all, let's scrap the whole thing and go in a new direction. Followers are about form and technique, so they focus on drilling basics and fundamentals and attempting to follow the rules. These would be the same rules that were published in “Truth in Comedy” many, many years ago and have since become more of a burden on the improv world than they’ve helped. Mick Napier denounced them in “Improvise”, and there are even rumblings all throughout the iO that the rules are not all they’re cracked up to be. The problem? The rules are largely negative in their wording (e.g. “Never ask questions!”) and they make improvisers think too much. “Oh, am I doing this right?” “Is this following the rules enough?” Give a man a rule, and he will do his best to follow it.

Except of course, for the breakers. Rule breakers cast aside simple notions like classes, workshops, and improv books in favor of a more customized approach: “Watch what I can do.” Even the greatest improv teacher in the world can only take you so far and at some point you have to be ready to come to a Zen level of connectedness with form, technique, and structure. At risk of sounding any more western (or Californian, heaven forbid) a “one-ness”. All improvisers are, for lack of a better term, artists, as the outcomes on stage are the result of our unified point-of-view and interpretation of the world around us.

The rules do have their place; they are the foundation for a basic appreciation and understanding of the art – but don’t be afraid to spin improv in your own way and maybe show it off, all the while screaming: “I dare you to follow me!”

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.)

I Do

I originally wanted to write a column about “improv coach pet peeves” (which is a topic I may still write about later), but everyone I talked to pretty much gave the same general answer as the biggest irritation in coaching a group – a flightiness, or lack of commitment to a group. Now one of the reasons that I'm hesitant to write about what makes coaches upset is that it's not a very “nice” topic, one that may put improvisers in a defensive or upsetting space in regards to the team/coach relationship, but I have noticed that that same pet peeve is actually quite common among team-mates and not just from coaches or directors, which makes me think it's something that bothers all improvisers, be it your peers or otherwise.

I was listening to an “Improv Obsession” podcast recently with Jimmy Carrane (who also hosts the “Improv Nerd” podcast and wrote “Improvising Better”) and the interview turned at length to the state of commitment when it comes to teams. The issue is the “over-commitment” of players to many teams, to the point where they may be doing improv multiple days a week, sometimes multiple times a day. The issue comes from an over-extension to multiple groups and a dilution of the time spent doing non-improv to inspire scenes. Jimmy invokes the venerable UCB as an example of a team that made the decision to move to New York as a team, and constantly renew their commitment to each other and the work their team was doing, generally really doubling down on their own work, and mourns the fact that he doesn't see another team capable of reaching those heights. I see a lot of passion in my fellow improvisers, folks who drive four hours on a weekday to watch improv in LA, who buy every book, take every workshop, people who I'm not even sure have real jobs, but I have to agree that while our passion is enormous, it's also a little crazy. We love improv something fierce for sure, but if improv was a woman, we don't marry that girl, we instead try to impetuously pick up every single woman we see.

Any discussion of commitment when it comes to an extracurricular activity is always couched in a very delicate territory. For nearly all improvisers, the player is making a balance between improv and other elements in their life such as family, work, and health, and those things generally do (and necessarily should) remain a higher priority. As such, conversations about it can be touchy in some cases, but it should also be noted that what we're talking about here is less about “can someone make time for improv” and more about “why is our attention so divided”. (Although I do notice that groups tend to be more accommodating to those who can't seem to find time over those that take their improv pursuits seriously. Let's meditate on that.) I find however, that those two elements are quite intertwined – two sides of the same coin. They all boil down to the fact that there are so many hours in the day (and in our lives), so how do we prioritize? And more importantly, why can't we settle down?

1. We'll start with a fairly non-toxic idea, and that is that improvisers have fairly broad interests, and we may need multiple groups to fulfill some of those needs. For example, not every improviser is into improv musical stuff, so some players need that team as an outlet that others won't. Conversely, people in an improv musical group probably just want to do musicals, and may not be the best fit for some slow, two person mono-scenes (not to mention cast size constraints). So very simply, having a couple of groups to have different ways of working the muscles doesn't seem so bad, akin to using different equipment at the gym.
2. The most obvious reason to me is a relatively new term “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO), and its a fairly new idea – the product of being overly connected with Facebook and Twitter and the fact that generally the only things posted are good news. As a result, it can leave a feeling that everyone is always having a better time than you. (If you hadn't heard the term before but have experienced it, doesn't having a name for it make it feel less “bad”?) I do think that a lurking sense of FOMO makes improvisers feel that they need to do everything, because they don't want to miss out on some great playing opportunity. Related to this is a “don't put all your eggs in one basket” mentality. A lot of players I know wouldn't commit to one group, because they don't want to invest everything if there's a possibility it won't work out. Together they reflect the same issue: it's easier to live a life of disappointment (in that you may never have a successful team) than to risk it on a single bet. Unfortunately, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the less likely team members invest in their group, the more likely the group won't succeed.
3. There's also an issue with vulnerability – it's no surprise to anyone at this point that more meaningful scene work requires a degree of acting, which requires a degree of vulnerability. A raw, tapping of the emotion is needed to create something more than “Five Things”. The high bar we aim for when we shoot for “improvised theater” requires brutal honesty. Now, we're aware of that, and that it's necessary, but we're attempting to shortcut the process. Instead of opening ourselves up in one place and really baring ourselves to one group of people, we diversify our investment in multiple groups, thinking that we won't have to reveal so much of ourselves (which is scary) while still increasing our skill.
4. In this “golden age of improv”, one would think that a lot of people take the craft very seriously, but this is not always the case. Sure there are those who view improv as just a hobby – a fun thing to do every once in a while, and not one to relentlessly strive for. And it is easy for those people to get swept up in the jet-wash of more passionate players. But even among people who seem to indicate strongly that they are interested and enthusiastic players, I find players who don't seem to think that rehearsals are important. Improv is intoxicatingly deceptive in its simplicity – it can seem so easy to do, but is exceedingly challenging to do well. If you have players that won't acknowledge that, then those same players will constantly put other activities over practices (and sometimes shows, if those shows are seen as less urgent). One other thing is at play here, and that is the issue of pay. I think we all realize that you don't make money doing improv, very few do; we do improv because we love to do it, and we are always in relentless pursuit of the craft. Nonetheless, I (quite recently) had a player who claimed that because we weren't paying her, we were a low priority. Unfortunate. A passion and an attitude of cheerful service can't be taught and if players don't have it, we just have to keep lighting the way and hope they find it.
5. We all want roughly the same thing out of improv, be it to be the next Bill Murray or Chris Farley, get on SNL or movies, or become the next TJ & Dave, it all boils down to wanting to become comedic actors, and ones that hopefully get paid for what they do, or at the very least respected for their accomplishments. I think that is a powerful motivator, we know what the objective is, and we want to get there already. We have a goal, and we are always desperately scratching at that objective. This is endemic to our culture here in the U.S., where we have over-glorified the idea of “busy”. We canonize the productive, and especially those who are productive at an early age. As a result, we don't enjoy the ride of learning (and living), we just grumble that we haven't reached the finish line already. And resultingly, and not surprisingly, the effect is that we have a tendency to sell each other out at any moment for individual gain. A show or group comes along that has more clout, and players jump ship in an instant in the constant pursuit of fame or notoriety.
6. That people are kind of scattered shouldn't be a surprise; look for example at Netflix. This great tool has revolutionized and epitomized modern media consumption (of course the DVR in general trail-blazed, but Netflix did a plus one to that idea by adding a library of shows as well). You miss a TV show, no worries, you can watch it whenever you want – even shows that you missed multiple seasons of can be easily caught up on whenever its convenient (hello sick day). This has materially changed the way shows are built as a result, and exactly how that's changed is (unfortunately) outside the scope of this essay, but suffice it to say, it's unlikely a show like Mad Men would have survived in an age of having to be home at a certain time in front of the TV set to catch it (I still remember having to program a VCR for my mother if we were going to out of the house when “Buffy” was on). This is, of course, great, and I don't think anyone would want to return to those days, but it is undeniably changed the way we view everything. We don't make hard appointments for things anymore, and we've evolved into a culture of people that is easily distracted, and can't be bothered to commit to even a TV show unless we can watch it whenever we want – where we can gorge on twenty episodes in a day and then not watch it again for a month. The mere fact that we try to meet every week seems to reduce the urgency of presence, we trade into the idea that we can catch up whenever. The idea of “we practice every week so I can miss this one” very obviously mis-underestimates the craft – a pilot wouldn't say “I fly the plane from Chicago to Denver every week, so I'll let my co-pilot do everything this time and I'll phone it in”, so why should we?
7. One of the assumptions that Mr. Carrane makes about commitment is that the UCB gang were all friends, and I think that is an important distinction against modern groups. We all have fairly lofty goals (see #5), and a lot of times I think we approach achieving them from a fairly cut-throat approach. We don't necessarily make participation choices from the viewpoint of “what will be fun” or “what do I want to do”, but more from the perspective of “what will have the most prestige” or “what will give me the most recognition”. We do multiple groups because we want more networking or notoriety (a status of “omnipresence”, a kind of esteem by way of ubiquity), and we don't commit hard to groups because we approach improv like a business or a task to be conquered, and not like the UCB folk did, which is as friends with a mutual goal. I see over and over again teams filled with casual acquaintances, and I don't think a new revolution in improv can start without that.

I wouldn't want to begrudge someone the opportunity to do lots of improv, because practice will make you a better player, but at the same time we need to be aware of the consequences and effects our choices make. If we treat improv like a series of drunken bar hookups, we shouldn't be surprised at the ultimate community product.

I'm not sure if this list is complete - it might be - but it's worth noting that it's probably a combination of factors that ultimately influence how much you can rely on your fellows.   More importantly, knowing what the potholes are and why they occur is the first step to learning to handle them.  Ignoring them, however, is a recipe for failure.  Nothing great has ever been built without total commitment.

I was taught that a good rule of thumb for selecting team-mates is to find people you “wouldn't mind being stuck in an elevator with”, but that rule tends to overlook the commitment issues it seems that a lot of people are encountering. Differing and conflicting levels of commitment from players will un-erringly result in disagreement, conflict, and disappointment. Knowing that you can count on your fellows and that everyone is equally invested in the end product is obviously central to success. I think a better rule of thumb is to pick people you “would happily go into an elevator with knowing you're going to be stuck together”. And knowing that no matter how long you're in the elevator together, you are, at the very least, in it together.

Close Encounters of the Longform

I was speaking with the director of one of my short form groups a few weeks ago, and we started talking about how much we both want to see and do more longform in San Diego, and I confessed my love of longform; namely all the different kinds of forms and how they’re all useful, and how I want to see more groups capable of improvising beyond form. I didn’t realize it, but I was actually being interviewed, in a way. He asked me about different forms that I knew, how long it would take to do them, etc. Then, he asked me to teach his group some longform. He didn’t know anything about longform, and I said I would love to teach some workshops on longform. When I asked which one he wanted me to teach, he replied with the words it seems everyone would love to hear, but no one really wants to hear, “Whatever one you think is best.”

I’m certainly not an expert by any means on longform. I’ve seen a bunch of it, taken a bunch of classes, and asked as many questions of performers as possible, but that doesn’t mean I know everything about it. (I asked one of the Cook County Social Club members what their form was after a show, to which he replied “It’s not so much a form as it is a style.” Good luck to any other group trying to replicate their show, but no improviser should ever get their hopes up for cloning success.) Now, I do have a real love for longform – I love the things that it’s capable of doing, by being free to really run, and I love the philosophy associated with it that improvisers can actually be artists and make something on-the-spot and meaningful. But I was suddenly saddled with representing longform to a longform-naïve group, and hopefully making it interesting enough to make them want to do it again. Essentially, I was given two hours to introduce longform, conceptually and functionally. The one thing I can applaud the iO with teaching me that was more important than just how to improvise was how to yearn for expression, but heck, it took me a year of being there and almost a whole other year to begin to comprehend that concept. How do you convey that kind of mindset and teach a group how to longform in two hours? I feel that the two are intertwined: you can’t really do a Harold until you appreciate the “Theatre of the Heart”, and you can’t full comprehend formic creation until you’ve done a few by the book Harolds.

Now, that crisis avoided (by sheer virtue of probably being unable to convey it), now I have to decide which form to teach. Which form sums up the entire longform experience? Which one is the ultimate in inspiring creativity and play? Which one has the most room for artistic expression? Which one is easy? (I do only have two hours here, people.) Not to mention I want one that will allow everyone the chance to experiment around with it a bit (so Shotgun! and Dinner for Six are out) but also won’t require any special new skills (so long Armando, Orlando, and Eavesdropping). One that isn’t too complicated (sorry Close Quarters and JTS Brown), but that also fits the style of this particular group (Living Room, Deconstruction; gone, gone). Of course, there’s always the mainstay of the Harold, but I always feel like people who haven’t seen a few already seem a little daunted by the Harold.

These two crises now in full place, I thought about it in this way: if a group of aliens from another galaxy descended on to earth after hearing about longform but only having done shortform and only had two hours to learn before they had to return home, what would you teach them? What single longform structure and philosophy could you give them that they could take back to their home planet so that they could start exploring longform on their own? I spent a year studying in Chicago, and I only now just feel like I could go to some completely unknown place and inject new thought about improv.

Of course, I know that this will probably not be my only chance to teach improv to this group, but I can’t shake the feeling that this is my one chance to really get this group started off down the right track. This single ideological shift can change everything, if I can just get the points across right. After all, I really could teach any form (that is to say, there’s nothing stopping me), but I don’t want to teach just form – I want to teach the mysterious force about long form in general that I am so enamored with.

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?