I Hate Improv Class

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(Author's note: I wrote this essay around February 2009.)

Since moving to San Diego, my once weekly fix of improv with my long form group has yet to fully satiate my improv hunger. I decided to sign up for classes at the local improv house. It's a short-form in the style of Comedy Sports kind of place, and even though I don't particularly want to do that kind of 'prov again, I was so hungry to do some improv, any improv, I was willing to go back to “class one” again. Additionally, I'm hoping that I can get a place performing at the theater regularly when it's all over with, and get some stage time and start building a group of improv friends to hang out with. (What can I say? I'm lonely.)

I signed up for classes no problem (though, to my surprise, almost the same price as a session of classes at the iO in Chicago, and only six weeks instead of eight), and as I was driving to the theater, I noted a distinct knot in my stomach. I was nervous. I was dreading going to class - I was honestly afraid of getting up on stage and making a damn fool out of myself. Now, I have never been afraid on stage. I have proudly stepped on to many stages and have been animals, people getting sexually molested, doing the sexual molestation, and inanimate objects (that are being used for sexual molestation). But this class, and as a matter of fact, every single class or workshop I have ever taken, I feel nervous right before the first one. I am constantly afraid that this class is the one where I will completely screw up, and no one will ever want to improvise with me ever again. And, I would argue that this nervous feeling has gotten worse the longer I've been doing improv.

While most people would say that after they've been doing it longer, they've gotten more comfortable because they're more experienced. For me though, I feel that the longer I've been doing improv, the less of an excuse for screwing up I have. When I took my first class at the iO in Chicago, I was bold as hell (probably too much, my teacher Andy had me rope it in a little bit) because at that point I could have screwed up, and just said: "Oh well, I've only done improv at college". Now though, if I screw up, people can only say: "I thought this guy did improv in Chicago!"

A failure on stage is almost always the result of no support, etc. But I can't fault new players for messing up. A flub now will definitely support the theory that I have no business doing this. As a result, I find myself working ten times as hard for everything, just to keep my head above water (it also doesn’t help that I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I’ve only liked maybe 5% of all the improv I’ve ever done). I feel the need, the absolute life-ending need, to prove myself every time I’m around a new group, and especially a new teacher/coach. I hate improv class for the exact opposite reason that people take classes: wanting to prove that I’m good enough. I’m a student! Shouldn’t I feel comfortable enough to make mistakes in class?

Unfortunately, I now wear my Chicago improv tutelage like a weight around my neck.

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 Scripted Theater

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

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

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

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