Tag Archives: improvisation

Jun 18 2015
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Warm Up By Doing

I am a fan of warming up for improv by doing brief scenes. I am not a fan of warm up games. This is because scenes closely resemble what you are warming up to do, while warm up games don’t resemble in any meaningful way what you are about to do. Pavel Tsatsouline refers to it as ‘greasing the groove’, i.e. If we want to get better at something, we must do that something.

Seattle dance artist Elia Mrak once (inadvertently) summed up my feelings on “warming up”.

is breakfast warm-up eating? is washing hands warm-up showering? are “good morning” warm-up words?

no. they aren’t warm-ups. they are just the first part of the entire meals, hygiene, and talking situations. and that first part should always include the elements of the whole.

you practice eating lunch by eating breakfast. you practice showering by washing your hands. you practice sentences with phrases. you practice in the doing. you practice full. from the start.

a “warm-up” doesn’t exist in life. so why does it exist in movement?

let’s look at what you do.

getting ready to dance? start dancing. getting ready to run? start running. getting ready to play tennis? start playing. getting ready to lift weights? start lifting your (body) weights.

f the warm-up. don’t do lunges unless you are about to do lunges. don’t do high knees unless your activity involves high knees.

just start at 10% of your full range of movement possibilities. start slow. start soft. start small. but start full. with all of the movements you will be performing later. and remember, 10% only refers to a tenth of your total energy output. 10% energy is still 100% of your movements. now gradually build that into 20%, 30%, 40%, etc…

(great. hope you enjoyed said activity)

now, getting ready to warm-down? no you’re not, cause that doesn’t exist either.

just taper your activity level down from its climax, gradually back to 10%, arriving at slow, soft, small. but always full.

like a good meal.

The application of games like Wordball and Kitty Cat Careers to improv don’t make much sense to me. Yeah, I suppose they work on initiating action, basic communication with players and reacting to players… but so does tossing a ball back and forth. Or, hey, improvising scenes.

Are we in class to study the performance of passing noises and gestures to each other for an audience? Are we about to go on stage and spend 60 minutes pretending to be a cat doing a human occupation while the other players guess what career we’re emulating?

No. So why the fuck are we warming up to do that instead of playing improvised scenes?

There appears to be among those in favor of warm up games a mythos against warming up with brief scenes, like we’re not ready to do them yet when the session starts and to do so would be somehow damaging. What’s going to go wrong if we do simple, basic, brief low-pressure scenes just to warm up, without being “ready” to do scenework? So what if these short warm up scenes are clunky, not good, not deep, not interesting? Is the Improv Police going to shut down the theater for doing scenes without officially licensed, sanctioned preparation?

Warm up games are like basketball players warming up for a contest by standing in a circle and tossing a balled up towel at each other. Or football players warming up by lifting boxes and carrying them across the field. Or baseball players warming up for baseball by making pizzas and swatting houseflies. While some of the instincts practiced may generally apply to what they do, these tasks are not at all like what they’re getting ready to do.

In reality, baseball players warm up by throwing the ball, running the field, taking batting practice. Basketball players warm up by taking shots with basketballs. Football players warm up with field runs, tossing the football and running agility/contact drills in full gear. Note that these tasks all closely resemble what they will need to do in games.

It would thus make sense that improvisers are better served warming up by doing scenes, since that closely resembles what they will need to do in shows, classes and practices. Brief two person scenes, 30-60 seconds, no notes or judgment, about whatever the hell you want (within legal parameters and reason), and your only goal is to start and maintain a connected scene. Everybody does 3-4 of these scenes.

Warm up games are one thing if you’re preparing to learn or perform short form games. Even then, the games should be similar to the scene-based short form games you’re about to practice once you’ve “warmed up”. Zip Zap Zop and Pass The Chlamydia aren’t really warming up the scenic skills you will need to play these short form games, whether or not they’re warming up your awareness. In fact, it may make more sense to just warm up with scenes anyway.

Playing simple, brief two person scenes will do just as much to engage your needed awareness and reactivity… as well as your improv lizard brain and the scene building skills you need to do actual improvised scenes. The best way to prepare to practice improv scenes is to practice improv scenes.

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Warm Up Games are one of the more divisive and controversial topics in improv. Some swear by warm up games and can’t imagine doing away with them. Some hate them with a passion and insist there’s a better way to warm up.

You can go ahead and lump me with the latter, though “hate” is a strong word for my opinion on warm up games. In fact, when I have to do them I have as much fun playing these games in the moment as anybody.

I just don’t find warm up games relevant or productive. Usually, once done, the players are nowhere closer to ready to play than they were when the games started.

Here’s a couple of ideas behind what I suspect is the real M.O. for people who support warm up games:

For many younger players still intimidated by improv, or who still struggle with it, warm up games are merely a fear-driven forebearance of the dreadful moment they’ve finally got to go up on stage and make scenes for real. This opening practice is done under the guise of getting “ready” for a task they mentally will never be truly “ready” to confront. Basically, they’re an excuse to put off doing actual scenes, for now. The games are a “safe” way for players to begin practice, if nothing else a ritual for ritual’s sake.

To the ritual or routine idea (and I respect the value of routines), I say any routine can be a ritual. So why not make doing brief scenes your opening routine or ritual? It will actually get you into the needed mindset, unlike Bippity Bippity Bop.

And, if you’re not comfortable jumping off the street into scenework, the only way you’re going to get comfortable jumping into scenework is to practice starting your sessions with actual scenes until you get used to it. If you’re not comfortable jumping into them, that’s something you can only work out by confronting it and developing the habit of jumping into it.

Secondly, conversely, for many coaches and teachers, games are a way to clear the heads of their players. The idea is to overload or preoccupy their minds with the involving inanity of a game (especially more advanced versions of Big Booty, Zip Zap Zop or Bippity Bippity Bop, with all the extra house rules). To the credit of those who reason this way, focusing on following all the rules can mentally fry players to the point where their improv lizard brains then take over for their tired out cerebral minds.

But this is more of a temporary mini-aversion therapy approach to addressing the issue of getting players out of their heads, rather than developing in players the practice and skill to immediately jump into scenework. I have found that the brian-fry effect of warm up complexity is only temporary, and still leaves players struggling to make scene-building choices once it’s time to practice. They may not be as mentally preoccupied, but the scenework is often just as diffused and difficult. Meanwhile, warming up with scenes does a stronger job of getting players into the rhythm of scenework.

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So there’s my opinion on warm up games. Take this or leave it, and obviously none of this ever has or ever will stop me from participating with full commitment in warm up games. But I don’t find it efficient, let alone the best way to get people ready to make up improv scenes. I prefer to warm up by doing: Warm up for improv scenes by doing improv scenes.

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Jun 01 2015
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Be Ham Fisted: Break your comfort zone.

I recently started reading Brian Tracy’s Maximum Achievement, one of umpteen personal development books out there, and one of the oldest (originally published in 1993). There was no specific impetus to seek the book out: During my random Sunday research I landed upon references to it, found it and started reading it. It’s sold as a business book but the principles apply to pretty much everything in life.

What separates Tracy’s book from the others is it has far less self-congratulatory fluff text than the others, and far more analysis and discussion on how our minds fundamentally work, plus how you go about re-aligning yourself for success from the ground up. About 1/3 of the way in, I’d already highly recommend it, even if you just read the first 120 or so pages and put it down with a new understanding of how your brain works.

I bring the book up not just because I’m reading it, but because he hit my current situation right in the gut with this quote:

“A major difference between leaders and also-rans is that superior men and women are always stretching themselves, pushing themselves out of their comfort zones. They are very aware how quickly the comfort zone, in any area, becomes a rut. They know that complacency is the great enemy of creativity and future possibilities.”

A comfort zone, in any area, can quickly become a rut. I am in a rut. It never occurred to me until now that my rut could, in fact, be the direct product of my comfort zone dictating my actions. Why did I suddenly lose confidence in my abilities? Perhaps my growth and experience has just landed me in an unfamiliar place. The umpteen mile road trip of our lives just has me on a steep highway incline climbing up a mountain range. It may not seem that way, since I don’t distinctly feel like I’m struggling with anything in particular, but the combination of my experience with my current work has me re-learning to walk with yet another new set of bionic legs.

Or, conversely, my previous comfort with my work (which I’ll peg from about mid February until about a week ago) may have been a plateau of development, where I had developed substantial ability but at that time wasn’t growing or pushing myself. I had enough time to get comfortable with my ability in that period. Suddenly, I’m once again pushing myself, and that comfort has dissipated.

The next line from Tracy after the above quote eerily echoes another concept I’ve been working with:

“For you to grow, to get out of your comfort zone, you have to be willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable doing it the first few times. If it’s worth doing well, it’s worth doing poorly until you get a feel for it, until you develop a new comfort zone at a new, higher level of competence.”

I did a scene in Jorin Garguilo‘s iO class where I didn’t quite get to the heart of the scene. After the scene I totally knew it, and Jorin addressed it. Instead of telling him yes, I know I know (a defensive tendency I’ve always had to work on quelling), I listened and took the notes.

A classmate chimed in (the following is all paraphrased), “If the dialogue in the scene isn’t conducive to him making that point, how do you do it without being ham-fisted?”

Jorin replied, “Go ahead and be ham-fisted. If you have important information to share, do what it takes to get it out there. It might be awkward for a moment, but it’ll move the scene forward and make it better.”

I realize part of our comfort zones as improvisers is to make our dialogue and actions fit our usual narratives and patterns of behavior. And often times those narratives and patterns can be useful and engaging.

But a lot of great, funny scenes are about testing and often breaking those patterns. The most frequently productive way to do this is with brutal honesty in the moment, e.g…. your character hates another character’s cooking. I bet just saying it as bluntly as possible will not only make a funnier moment and scene than the most clever lines you could concoct, but getting over the hump of revealing that info will push the scene somewhere no one would have imagined it would go, which probably makes a better scene than to dance around the subject and not say what your character is feeling or wanting.

Plus, most of all, we as the audience and your fellow players may not know what you’re thinking, or see what you’re seeing. Trying to figure the scene out if we’re not sure will take us out of the scene. Plus, bottling that detail inside gets you in your head and takes YOU out of the scene. If you as a player get that info out there, everyone now knows, keeping everyone (you, fellow players and audience) in the scene with you and allowing us to enjoy where it goes.

I realize one of the things that draws me to improv is each scene’s fascinating exploration of humanity. That exploration is a lot more possible and fun for players by challenging our comfort zones, which includes clearly communicating thoughts out of our heads and into the reality of the scene. We get in our heads because that is part of our comfort zone. We can’t be present and in the moment without getting out of our heads, which requires we get out of our comfort zones and be willing to take the risk of truthfully being in a scene as a character.

I don’t know if this will break my rut, but I do know this idea is worth considering. Plus, you ought to read Maximum Achievement.

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May 29 2015
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Ruts, and how to get out of a rut

At some point during this past week, my comfort level on stage suddenly, inexplicably dropped. Whether or not my improv looks okay to the outside observer, I don’t feel comfortable with my improv, or feel like I know what I’m doing. This is what people generally refer to as a “rut”.

I’ve taken stock to see if something in my life’s out of whack:

– Life hasn’t been any busier or more annoying than usual.
– My schedule’s actually been somewhat lighter than usual, but still fairly active with things I want to do. So I’m not being overwhelmed. I do have a couple non-improv shows coming up but I feel comfortably prepared for them.
– Emotionally, I actually feel fairly good about where life’s at.
– I’ve been getting decent sleep (even naps!), my diet’s actually improved the last few weeks, I’ve been drinking plenty of water (especially with the rising temperature in Chicago), and I’ve been exercising regularly with good results. So health wise I’ve taken reasonable care of myself.
– I’ve felt tired at times, but no more than usual… and the occurence of those tired periods have mostly made sense, e.g. after a workout, or after a long and busy day.

You can blame Mercury in Retrograde, my Emotional and Physical Biorhythms being out of whack, or government radio waves or some other crazy thing. But I presume personal ruts randomly hit all of us now and then, like a basketball player who can’t hit shots, a baseball hitter who can’t seem to get hits, a bowler who can’t seem to string together strikes, a runner whose per-mile pace has dropped and can’t seem to pick back up, or even an everyday worker who can’t seem to stop making little mistakes.

The important thing about ruts, and what gets people down within them, is to realize you’re better than this. You know what you’re capable of doing well, and it eats at you that you’re in a stretch where you’re not doing them well.

How as a performer do you work through a rut and get out of it? Being in one right now, I gave it some good thought… and came back to six principles(, because I figured since this is a period of bad luck, I’d go to my lucky number six).

1. Stop caring (for now) about the results.

The negative emotions we feel in a rut are a product of letting the small sample size of our results emotionally affect us, which can create a vicious self-perpetuating cycle of more negative results. So stop caring if you’ll fail, especially if right now mentally you believe you will fail again anyway. Be in the moment and let the results of your actions happen without emotional judgment.

This will feel liberating, success or fail. The subsequent results may (pleasantly) surprise you a bit.

2. Focus in the moment on your practice of the basics.

In improv, I like to re-double my focus on what I consider the key improv principles: Relationships, attention to detail (in listening and in action), and commitment to the moment. Sometimes we get in ruts because we’re out of whack with one or more of the basics. Even if not, focusing on the basics gets your mind off being in a rut, while keeping your practice and focus on things that will get you out of it.

Other disciplines have their basic foci. Runners can focus on consistent breath and form as they run. Basketball players can focus on their shot/dribbling/defense mechanics and the correct range of motion to take effective shots. Baseball hitters can focus on the mechanics of their bat swing. In the workplace, you can (usually) double check or methodically work through your tasks.

In every case, one important point to remember is to:

2a. Finish every action before you begin another one.

This is a holdover principle from my theatre training (thanks to George Lewis and Geof Alm). Too often, sloppiness and poor execution comes from rushing our actions and not letting them “land”. You can’t take the next step without the last step hitting the ground. Ruts often come with a lacking attention to detail, and making sure to finish every action will force a restoration of attention to detail.

3. Take notes (and I don’t mean write ideas down).

Being in a rut during an improv class, practice or rehearsal, or if you’re on a sports team with a coach, may be a blessing. An instructor, coach or director watching you can give you notes on things they see you need to do or improve. When a mentor gives you a note, make a point to apply it as soon as you get the chance. With improv this is easy: Take the note and immediately endow your work with it in the next scene, and (if it’s a general note) the next scene. This almost certainly will produce positive results, even if merely a positive reaction from your mentor and peers. It may not clear the rut but it’ll get you moving in the right direction. Be open to notes, then make sure to apply them early and often.

The last three aren’t as relevant to your practice as they are to your life.

4. Get your exercise.

Do you do or have you done an exercise plan? If so, great. Do it regularly, whether or not you already have. Staying active and helping improve your body’s circulation will do wonders for your general outlook, which will also help break you out of your rut.

Oh, you don’t exercise? Now would be a good time to start. If you get no exercise, walk around the neighborhood or workplace for half an hour a day. If you already walk, consider something easy to break into, like jogging. Or the Hacker’s Diet or 5BX exercise plans, which are easy exercise plans designed to be done quickly each day.

5. Eat some good (i.e. healthy) food.

Chances are your diet isn’t anywhere close to ideal, whether or not you make the effort to eat a healthy diet. If you practice a sound ans somewhat strict diet, then great. More power to you, and make sure to get a good share of protein and brain food (however your dietary choices allow you; vegans, cut down on the soy and eat some fucking quinoa. Way more vitamins!).

If you do eat a lot of processed food and assorted junk, try cutting it out for a meal or two. Mix in some fresh fruit, vegetables, lean meat or non-meat protein, some juice. And of course, drink plenty of water. Our diets can mess with us, both in good ways and bad. Eating a lot of crap over an extended period can leave you feeling worn down, which can contribute to a rut.

Likewise, eating more wholesome food than usual can do more for your outlook and energy than meets the eye… and can help you break a rut, whether the nutrients boost your energy and help flush the crap from your body, or the act of eating better has a positive placebo effect on your outlook.

6. Get as much rest as you reasonably can.

Chances are you’re not getting 7 or more hours of sleep a night, if your sleep habits are consistent to begin with. Losing sleep, whether over a day or over a long period, can start to wear on your outlook and everything else you do. If you can force yourself to turn out the lights at 10-11pm for a few nights in a row, or mix in a nap on a free afternoon, the extra rest can not only re-energize your body but it may improve a sleep-deprived dour mood and might help crack your rut.

Also, if you’re working a busy schedule, try to book some time to relax, not do anything and not feel guilty about it. Sometimes our work overload gets us in ruts, and clearing space to not work can help the brain reset. Often, getting away from a problem for a bit can help us solve it once we come back with a fresh, rested mind. When we memorize material, taking time away from memorizing helps the material settle in our minds. When we exercise, it’s the time spent resting and recovering when our muscles grow from the workouts.

Sometimes, even when we’re getting enough rest, some extra rest can help us break a rut.

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So there you go, six points of focus to help break a rut. I wrote this as much for myself as I did for you the reader. I’m in a rut, but with some simple points of focus and self care, I expect I’ll either break out of it soon, or stop caring about it enough to notice either way.

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May 15 2015
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Make your own opportunities to practice and perform

When I called into question the utility of auditions, I alluded to but didn’t really discuss an important point: The ability of performers to empower themselves and create their own opportunities, rather than rely on auditions to get performance opportunities outside of classes and jams.

While forming a group to practice and play with isn’t a slam dunk, the real barrier is fear, a lack of self confidence and a resulting unwillingness to commit by players. You don’t do it because you don’t think you’ll have the commitment and the ability to a) follow through with a regular schedule on your own as players, and b) get better and challenge yourselves.

With classes and jams, you have an instructor or a leader buggy whipping you all the way, plus an audience of peers who (usually) are cheering your efforts on. If a group of you decide to meet and practice together, there is usually no experienced mentor leading the way. You are effectively directing and leading yourselves.

Without that mentor or leader to answer to, there to push you, there’s a great temptation to either flake and not attend, or to not try as hard as you would in class or a jam. People don’t have the respect for a voluntary practice among a group of peers that they do for a class they paid $200-350 for (and in some cases get punished for not attending), or for a jam in front of mentors and peers (which they often paid to participate in).

Don’t think I didn’t run into this challenge when a bunch of us formed Wonderland in Seattle, or with myself in everything I’ve done. It takes a collective commitment, as well as a bit of personal investment, to start a group and not only keep it grow but to continue growing and improving together. It was hard to keep the group on the same page, to have the lacking commitment of some not derail or bring down the work of everyone that’s committed to getting good.

Someone has to wrangle everybody. Someone has to find rehearsal space and (usually) pay to book it. And, most of all, people not only have to agree to participate but actually show up, almost every time. And that never minds that the success of the group from there is about how seriously everyone takes the practice. Or actually booking a show, paying for the venue, and somehow finding enough friends, family and word of mouth to fill the venue for that show. It’s very hard to be a leader of something so relatively nebulous.

I recalled this whole idea when I read Joshua Ellis’ piece this morning on empowering people to learn to code. The title and premise of his piece mirrors my point on starting a group: The trick is that there is no trick.

The barnstorming improv groups you see in Chicago, Seattle, NYC, LA, anywhere… there was no special requirement (like completing a training program) or magic formula to their success. They didn’t even necessarily have to finish their respective school curriculae (and many didn’t). Once they had a handle on what they wanted to do in improv, and once they discovered a group of people they liked practicing with… they formed a group, met and practiced regularly. Eventually, they developed the confidence in each other and their work to produce or appear in shows, and that was that.

Yes, it certainly helps to be well trained, to have a knowledgeable and strong-minded leader, to have an uncanny sense of cooperation among the group and the right people, to know people that can hook you up with space or gigs in improv shows, etc etc etc.

But so many groups came into it sort of trained, with no hookup other than a space they could afford to rent, with a rough idea of what they were doing and maybe one or two people confident enough to steward the ship.

And that’s the secret. There’s never going to be a right time, when you’re ready. You’re never ready. And yet, you’re always ready. You’re always going to be learning, and always going to feel to some degree uncomfortable.

You’re never really going to figure out what works and what doesn’t until you actually, seriously attempt to do it… much like you were never going to learn improv until you made the effort to sign up and come to classes. And often times you not only won’t have that expert assistance, but you probably don’t even need it. You can learn how to do it yourself, and can learn a lot more about being a practicing improviser from actually trying and failing and learning to do it better than to go to class and then hardly get to practice at all unless you go back to class, become addicted to jams, or somehow score off an audition.

If you take nothing else away from this post, and my audition post, it’s that you and your peers have the power to create your own opportunities. And that rather than wait and hope that someone will cast you in something, all of you should get together and just make your own opportunity. Take that $5 you’d have spent on a jam, pool it with 6-8 other people, and rent a rehearsal room for 2-3 hours a week. Find some exercises you want to practice, or just do some scenework. If you want to do a show, practice scenes for a couple months, then get in on a show or find another group to split the bill with. Just do a 20-30 minute montage if all you want to do is scenes. Just do it, see what happens and learn from it.

As with many things, 80% of the challenge is just making yourself do it.

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May 04 2015
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Talking about auditions

On a relative whim, I auditioned this past week for three groups I had an interest in working with. These were longshots and I did not expect to get called back let alone cast (sure enough, I was not). I mostly wanted to test how I handled improv auditions, and see after all this time how it felt.

I had fun for the most part. I felt like I could play and have fun with all the other players in the room. I felt that, if the process had been completely (unrealistically) objective, most of my auditions were more than good enough for at least a callback, if not serious consideration for a role. (That’s not to say I deserved anything. But the work I did felt that solid.)

I’m lucky: I not only have (and have had) opportunities to practice and perform going forward, but have the wherewithal and ability to create my own opportunities. So for me the auditions were not my only shot at a regular opportunity to perform. They were an inquiry. Either way, I’ve got things going on and places to practice.

However, I feel for many of the others who auditioned. A lot of these people were super good, and many feel they don’t have anywhere else to go. For many of them, improv is pretty much their passion and creative outlet, and if they can’t get cast in something, they won’t get any experience or chances outside of classes or jams.

So let’s talk about auditions. There’s two big issues I have with the dog and pony show that is Chicago improv auditions.

One: Auditions themselves, in a big and talented metropolis like Chicago. Every director ever says they wish there was a better way to select talent than auditions. The problem with such a statement is that there *is* a better way that better serves most shows, ensembles and directors, a way that for various reasons they simply won’t utilize: Simply hand pick and solicit the people they know and most want to work with, and not waste anyone else’s time. You know the talent, you know the risks and potential, and you can comfortably trust those people.

This is even easier if the production company in question has regular classes, workshops or drop-in jams. They’ll see a lot of talent come and go, or come and stay and study. They should have a fairly good idea of many player’s skillsets and abilities, plus have some sort of relationship with many players.

Simply put, today’s audition will not shine a beacon on some new undiscovered talent that will compel you to offer them a significant commitment like an ensemble role. You’re going to go with known quantities, whether they’re people you know or people with significant history or training from somewhere known.

Sports teams don’t just draft prospects sight unseen. They scout talent at college games, workout showcases and so on. They watch a ton of video of every potential draft pick. By the time they make their picks they have seen quite a bit of every potential prospect and have a strong idea of what they’re getting. It baffles me that in 2015 directors still think that one-off auditions are a way to discover talent or determine who to cast.

Whether or not they have shows of their own, why aren’t these auditors sitting in on advanced classes or showcases? They know they’re going to produce shows. They’re already planning to spend time to hold auditions. And they’re not *that* busy: Sitting in on a couple of shows or classes every week or two is no herculean task. Regular improv work doesn’t take more than 4-5 nights a week of your life, and that’s if you’re actively working on multiple projects and/or playing on several teams/cast with weekly shows. Many aren’t. A lot of auditions are audited by multiple people. Even if you can argue the AD is too busy to go see shows, others in the company can certainly make the time. So I don’t buy the likely excuse that a director or auditor is simply too busy.

And if in fact they are scouting shows/showcases/cabarets/classes/workshops/whatever else… then why the hell are they holding open auditions? They already know quite a few active, available players in the scene (inexperienced or experienced) they’d love to work with. Why not just ask them to come aboard, or audition a group of those known players, and not waste the time/money of the other 100+ people who otherwise have no chance in hell?

Shit, back in the day, this is how Second City and iO casted their shows. They just plucked people out of class to fill or create teams. Now, with the sheer quantity of trainees and existing teams, they’ve been spooked into going Broadway on their selection process. But even now I don’t think that’s necessary, or even productive, on the local level (maybe for the touring or cruise ship stuff shit, where regional directors obviously can’t know everyone everywhere… but local companies don’t have that excuse). Those players who aren’t in know it’s tough to get in. Auditions don’t make it easier for them.

Two: Young, inexperienced performers looking to these auditions for opportunity, instead of at each other. Let’s face it. With the big improv schools spitting out dozens of fully trained improvisers every couple months into a scene already ridiculously saturated with trained improvisers that have nowhere to go… the companies are never going to provide the best long term opportunity for a lot of these young players. They’ll be more than happy to take their money to host them for the umpteenth run of a class, because that’s understandably how they make a lot of their money. But aside from a token curated midweek showcase or a class showcase at the end of the curriculum, the opportunities for these students to play probably aren’t coming unless they win out at an audition….

… or they create their own. Know where I formed a good portion of my improv experience and working relationships? It was not in class, and it was not in an improv show I auditioned for. In fact, I never successfully got cast in a Seattle improv show from an audition. My experience came when my classmate Chris Wong asked me and a few others to start meeting and practicing as a group. We did, almost every week for a couple years, and that’s how Wonderland happened.

The groups Illuminaughty and Biblical Proportions (which splintered off Wonderland) exist because we all took that initiative to create and maintain that group. The current Seattle group Human Propaganda similarly began before that when Wilfred Padua solicited his training partners to start meeting and practicing together. Interrobang began when my friend Dave Clapper and other colleagues began meeting and practicing as a group.

All still produce regular shows today. Many of their cast members have never been part of a big theater’s ensemble, or didn’t join a main ensemble until well after they formed their indy groups.

A lot of those groups you see in improv festivals? Most are not Harold style teams formed by a theater company. Most are just groups that came together independently to practice and do their own shows. A lot of improv theaters themselves came about from independent groups that over time grew their own thing into something bigger.

I wish I could grab every talented but un-casted improviser I saw in these auditions by the lapels and tell them, “Get together and form your own groups! Pool a few bucks together each week and rent a rehearsal room for 3 hours. Throw in to do a one off show or an opening set every month or two. You can do it YOURSELVES! You don’t need these auditions to get experience!”

And this is Chicago. Seattle has a relatively big scene, but it was harder than it is in Chicago to do your own show. Pocket Theater and others have made it easier for groups to play, but back in my day if it wasn’t for the generosity of Rik Deskin at Eclectic Thetare, or joints like The Rendezvous, it would have been very difficult and expensive to produce a show. And no one was looking for improv openers.

But in Chicago, there’s not only all sorts of barprov and open mic options, but serial cabaret shows are constantly soliciting for groups to do quick opening or under-card sets. Sometimes I wish I had a current group that I could submit for some of these opportunities. Many shows happening nowadays can’t find any improv groups to open or fill slots! Which is amazing, because this is Chicago! The Mecca of Improv!

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Basically, we turn auditions into gatekeepers for our improv practice, when we really can create our own opportunities. And with this much talent in this community, there’s no reason we don’t have what it takes to do our own thing.

This is not a mark on the companies holding these auditions. I’m not even saying that auditions in themselves are bad. I’m mostly saying for many there’s better ways to mine talent. And those auditioning have a better way to practice and grow outside of class.

(P.S. – Congratulations to the folks who did win roles from this week’s auditions! No joke. You clearly did a tremendous job and have considerable talent. Best of luck!)

(For everyone else… let’s form some groups, throw in a few bucks a week, and let’s do something.)

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May 02 2015
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Observed key factors to successful (and unsuccessful) improv

Like anyone, I’m no more qualified to call myself an expert at improv than the next player, especially getting back into it after a couple years away from regular practice. Personally, I feel I’m at a place where bad scenes (where I’m stuck and not sure what to do) seem fewer and farther between, and the good scenes (where my scene partner and I have comfortably connected, and those watching seem to enjoy it) occur more often. I’m once again feeling comfortable with the great improv unknown that is starting and creating a scene from scratch.

As I attend more classes/jams and get back up to speed, I’m focusing more on reinforcing basic concepts in practice, whether they’re from a new perspective or something I learned years ago. Every lesson’s an opportunity to develop positive habits, as long as I take the work seriously.

I watch scenes in class, in jams and at shows looking for what choices help a good scene work and what contributes to the struggles of a poor scene. Lately I’m starting to see the good and not so good funnel towards the same key principles. And they’re not what you think.

One school of thought tells you to establish CROW (character, relationship, objective, where you are). Another approach tells you to find the game of the scene and heighten it. Another tells you to figure out what everyone’s doing and how they’re doing it. Another tells you to slow down and ground yourselves.

All of them tell you to yes-and, to not ask questions or negate or bail or steamroll or wait too long or a thousand other things you sure as hell aren’t going to remember (hell,Mick Napier’s Improvise is famous for saying fuck all of that, but also emphasizes finding a key motivating factor to drive the scene, similar to another school of thought).

While all of these ideas can help make good scenes, there’s no way a good improviser can mentally file through a checklist that long (and at times contradictory).

A lot of top Chicago improvisers studied with several of the Chicago schools (e.g. The Second City, iO Chicago, The Annoyance), yet aren’t at all confused about how to improvise well. Yes, experience and personal charisma/talent combined with finding one’s own style plays a role in that, but watch a lot of improv between multiple productions and you’ll notice that despite thematic differences a lot of them approach scenework in largely similar fashion.

Studying at a bunch of schools alone won’t make you better if you’ve been training for a while and still don’t improvise well. If anything, going from school to school can merely confuse you and set you back further. Experienced improvisers filter all their training and experience into a more intuitively simple and universal, and most of all personal, approach.

A few weekends ago, after a very busy week, I spent an errand-filled weekend waiting for Godot in Evanston. While sitting in my car between errands, I got the impulse to grab my notepad and write down issues I consistently noticed in improv scenes that didn’t work, e.g. not listening, talking over others, bailing on a point of view, ignoring what’s been created in a scene and trying to steer it elsewhere, etc.

At the same time I also restated them as more constructive, positive ideas, e.g. listen, bring in new ideas with goal to build on what was created, never let your POV go, etc.

As I did this, I soon noticed that these notes of improvising well revolve around three central points of focus. Everything else you could possibly tell an improviser to do or no do revolves around these three important priorities.

RELATIONSHIPS

The vast majority of bad scenes focus on whatever activity or environment the performers are set in, with no attention paid to who the characters are or how they relate to one other. The vast majority of good and great scenes I’ve seen were built, regardless of the surrounding circumstances, around the relationship between the characters on the stage. (I say vast majority because I’m certain you and I have seen possible exceptions to this. But given the larger sample of data, they are indeed merely exceptions… and in many of those cases, I’m sure we still could point out some sort of built relationship underlying it all.)

It can’t be your sole focus, but when it comes to your character work, establishing your environment, etc, your strongest and most grounded choices are going to come back to how your character interacts with the other characters in the scene.

ATTENTION TO DETAIL

This actually has two parts that go hand in hand.

The first is obvious: Attention to Detail in Action. Good specific offers add character to a scene and give your scene partners something to work with and build on. Vague offers don’t, and on top of it they make it harder for your fellow players to build a scene with you.

However, there is also Attention to Detail in Observation. You also need to *listen and observe* with an attention to detail. Seeing that your scene partner’s character is sad, or has said “I don’t want to go out today” in itself isn’t going to give you much. However, noticing *how* your partner physically carries themselves could give you insight in how to endow them with an offer. Noticing specific things this character says and implies gives you additional material to respond to and build upon, as well as to use to further endow your own character (with specifics, of course!).

It is not enough to listen and pay attention. It is not enough to make a choice. It’s important that you do all these things with an attention to detail.

People harp on TJ and Dave‘s object work as the prime example of their great work, but that’s a subset of their great attention to detail in everything they do, and in observing everything they establish.

COMMITMENT

It’s not only important that you make or observe a choice, or that you yes-and it in the moment. It’s also important that you, as Mick Napier always says, hold on to what you did.

I’ve noticed that the most deflating moment of most disappointing improv scenes is the moment the player makes a choice to drop or give up on whatever POV they established, e.g. “Okay fine, I’ll give you what you want.”… or in responding to new information, they contradict and otherwise completely forget what details they established for their own character. You’ve just taken this reality you and others have worked to create, and just rendered it all moot. That’s not what any of us wanted to see.

To paraphrase Mark Sutton, no one really wants the bike shop workers in a scene to actually fix the fucking bike. Furthering that point, we’re way more interested in the relationship the scenario has shown us, and if the scenario is shoved aside then what we’re watching has lost its value quicker than the stock options of a bought out startup.

Once you’ve established a tension between characters, you’ve got to resist that trained human instinct to look for a way out of that tense situation. Improv’s greatest moments are what we find when we explore what it’s like to live in and work through that tension. And once we break it, we tell the audience and each other that what’s happening isn’t really worth giving a shit about at all. And everyone tunes out, which is not the point of an improv scene.

Commitment goes beyond what you do in scenework. Commitment is itself a practice. When you do an exercise in class or practice, do a scene, run a long form set, or even do a stupid warm up exercise to start a session… doing it with commitment is going to give you and everyone more than just doing what you have to do.

It’s not enough to show up (though showing up every day you can is a big part of success). You’ve got to show up and, for the time you’re in that space, do the work like you mean it, to grow from it. A half assed effort will produce half assed results in a practice full of great performers who are working hard and pushing themselves as much as possible every chance they get. Why bother if you’re going to eliminate yourself from contention by not giving as much an effort as many others who succeed?

The majority of those who don’t succeed at improv quit. They drop out. They don’t put in the effort. The more of a point you make not to do the best you can, the easier it’s going to become to weed you(rself) out.

The habit of approaching your every improv task with commitment will strengthen your ability to commit to bigger moments when they matter. I can’t expect a person who hasn’t practiced running more than a couple blocks to run a 5K well. And one can’t expect an improviser who doesn’t do much of anything with commitment to solidly commit to a scene, a set, or working long term with a group.

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Now, don’t take this as me calling myself some sort of improv expert. Not even close. I have just noticed that these are the common denominator factors I’m noticing in every great scene, every poor scene, and all scenes in-between. I’m not even saying that I do all these things well all the time. If anything, I see that these are things I need to focus on addressing well if my scenework is going to… well, work.

Relationships. Attention to detail (in action and observation). And commitment. Key points of focus.

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Apr 24 2015
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Deliberate practice, focused practice, and a better rule of thumb than “10,000 hours”

Let’s talk about Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours postulate, and performance art.

Let’s never mind he referred specifically to mere practice, when it’s honestly deliberate practice that improves your ability.
The bigger issue is there is almost no one who can amass 10,000 hours of active improv experience, or such experience in many other performance disciplines.

Let’s say the average skilled, hard-working improv performer, between shows, jams, practices, even classes when applicable, can reasonably expect to get in an average of 10 hours of active, feedback-available improvising a week. There are weeks where they can get much more, and weeks where they get little to none at all, but it averages out to 10 a week.

Over a year, that totals 520 hours. At that pace, without a break, it would take about 20 uninterrupted years to amass Gladwell’s mythical 10,000 hours. And again, that’s hours of active practice, not time spent sitting and watching improv, or sitting in class or practice watching teammates, or any moment spent not physically practicing the task.

Even long timers like Del Close and Joe Bill have spent far more time observing, analyzing and discussing improv than they have actually doing it on stage. If we somehow had a transparent view of every moment of their lives, and added up all their time spent actively improvising scenework, they’d each probably fall well short of 10,000 hours. Yet they and many others have undeniable expertise as improvisers.

(While one may attempt to theoretically call observation practice, and there is value in watching the work of others, your act of observing does not necessarily develop your ability to do the task you’re watching… certainly no more than watching 10,000 hours of baseball on TV, even with a trained eye, makes you a great baseball player. You may develop your ability to listen, observe and analyze. But you’re not really developing your ability to *do* what you’re watching.)

There is one time based rule I feel may be more valuable, but it operates on a micro level than a macro level.

The rule is: For every minute of performance in a show, you need to put in one hour of rehearsal. For a five minute piece, five hours of rehearsal on the piece is good. For a sixty minute piece, 60 hours. Even with improvisers, a 20 minute set goes well with at least 20 hours of practice for that show by the team.

As someone who has fallen on his face many times in many performance situations, and prepared pieces with both far more and far less time working than 1 hour per minute of show, I’ve found in my experience that this is largely true. Exceptions aside, pieces thrown together in less time tend to come off slapdash. Once that threshold is crossed, the piece/set feels solid and I feel confident about what I’m doing, whether what we’re doing is a prepared piece or improvised.

Why is this true? Why is this the threshold?

One tenet I’ve found helpful is the notion that you forget 90% of what you’re told. You may remember main ideas or key things said, but you won’t remember most every other word.

Let’s cross apply this to reading a poem you have to memorize. The poem takes about a minute to recite. You read it aloud off the paper, start to finish. If I had you put the paper down and recite as much of it from memory as you could, you might remember 10% of it. That’s not a far fetched assumption for most.

Let’s say I had you read the poem off the paper twice in a row, and try to recite from memory after that. The first recital, you’d forget 90% of it. The second time around, you’d remember the first 10%. And of the 90% you didn’t remember the first time, you still wouldn’t remember 90% of that the second time, but you’d pick up 10% of what you forgot the first time. The parts you remembered the first time are strengthened, plus you also pick up parts the 2nd time around.

90% x 90% = 81% forgotten = 19% remembered

So basically, each time you read the poem off the paper, you further ingrain the parts you remembered while picking up about 10% of the parts you didn’t fully remember.

If you read it three times, it snowballs accordingly.

90% x 90% x 90% = 73% forgotten = 27% remembered

By this rule, you would need to read the poem aloud six times to memorize 60% of the poem. To remember 80%, you’d have to repeat the process 16 times. 90% remembered? 23 times. The more you do it, the more of the poem you remember, but the less new information you pick up each time. However, obviously, your knowledge of the parts you first picked up strengthens with each repetition.

Calculations based on this logic indicate that it takes at least 52 read-throughs to round up to 100%, i.e. 99.6% mastered. Reading the poem off the page an even 60 times gets you to 99.8%. Assuming a minute each time around, that adds up to about an hour to fully memorize than one minute poem. Boom.

You can easily cross apply this logic to scripts, storytelling, whatever. And it’s not even a matter of memory: We can swap out ‘memory’ for ‘mastery of the show’, e.g. blocking, artistic navigation of the material, how you perform it. Maybe I can read the text of Drawn Dead in 25 minutes, so it would take me 25 hours to memorize the script. It would take me 3 hours of physical work to perfect the blocking of a 3 minute physical theatre scene in the show (and that’s not necessarily a 3 hours rehearsal, since rehearsals do have downtime to rest, discuss or analyze).

Part of my difficulty with Drawn Dead is that, once the show’s script was fully fleshed out in 2013, John Leith and I didn’t have 55 hours to perfect this 55 minute show. We had a handful of rehearsals, and shortly before the show I had to shoo him away so I could memorize and practice the revised script and our rehearsed blocking. I’d imagine that, if we had three months (meeting twice a week), we would have felt far more confident. The show still turned out good (thanks in part to the low pressure of small supportive audiences, and some artistic engineering on my part), but it would’ve felt far better for both of us had we had another couple months to prepare.

Meanwhile, my Seattle improv group Wonderland slogged through a ton of rehearsals, but by the time we finally headlined our first show with a 30 minute set, we had been practicing as a group for well over 30 hours. Our show was pretty awesome.

Rather than clocking hours of work towards overall experthood, clock hours towards full preparation for your next performance.

Truth be told, every show is a new situation. Whether or not you’re an expert at a subject, generally you’re never an expert at your next project. You have to develop your knowledge and skill at that project before you perform it. It may be better to focus on preparing for your next piece or show than to clock hours towards a mythical, and unreasonable, expertise.

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