International Comedy Team

improvnonsense:

I mean this as a consolation: you will never completely figure out improv. Not forever, anyhow. You have a grasp on it for a few weeks, maybe even a few months, and then it moves away from you.   You stumble on a new exercise or a new mantra and can do no wrong. Decisive moves. Certain viewpoints. Audiences liking you right away. But then it just fades and you are lost again, searching for the next key.

Things that have given me the key to being good at this in the past:

• “listen and react”
• “find the game”
• “match energy”
• “accept every offer”
• “live life onstage”
• “justify”
• “point of view”
• “be brave and honest”
• “chill out”

Each one of those was like a booster rocket for a while, and then weirdly stopped working! I had to switch up my game and try something else. It’s like improv is this invisible balloon that you cannot get your arms all the way around no matter what. You hold it, just barely, but it gives and starts to slip away you must adjust your arms, and find your grip again.

chrisreblogs:

This is perhaps an over intellectualization (and simplification), but I’ve been trying to categorize the steps we take to make a good set of improv. This doesn’t go into specifics as I tried to keep it as broad as possible. And a lot of these happen concurrently.

1) Starting our scenes clearly and economically.

When playing fast or slow, from premise or more organically, making our intent clear and doing it with minimal detritus right up top can make so much difference. We should be listening so hard (to everything) at the tops of scenes, is is so easy to get sidetracked by things we don’t intend. (Of course that often leads to delightful discoveries but that is beside the point.) We don’t have to have everything planned (in fact, we shouldn’t), but we should at least try to get across what we mean to get across.

2) Recognizing the “fun” thing (or at least the germ of the “fun” thing.

I use the phrase “fun thing” instead of “game” because it probably isn’t a game yet. It’ll start to become game when we react to it. If we make our reaction clear (both in intent and in the fact that it is a reaction), we indicate to our scene partner and the the team what we are interested. And the more specific we make our reaction, the easier it is to get to step 3.

3) Exploring the “fun” thing until we can define it.

Patterns. Justification. Specifics. Point of view. Relationship dynamic. Status. And more. All of these can get us deeper into the “fun” thing so that we can define it. If our definition is both specific and deep, we both know how to play the “fun” thing again and we can play it in different ways… so we don’t get trapped with just a repetitive pattern where all we can do is heighten size, amount or intensity of that first “fun” thing (the old “we just eat more or bigger hotdogs”).

4) Doing the “fun” thing again by the definition we formed but in new and surprising ways.

If we know our behavior and we know why we do it and we have gotten to something deeper than that first thing, we can do the essence of the “fun” thing without just repeating it. We can use different emotional tactics. We can use anything in our environment . We open up a wealth of back line support opportunities. The clearer we’ve defined it, the chance that intent behind each move will be picked up by our teammates. 

5) In second beats, place the “fun” thing in most fun places we can.

Make it active, especially if we didn’t make it active in the first beat. And we can now jump past all those first steps and get right to the fun. Know what things were actually patterns that related to the “fun” thing and what things were just side color. The deeper we have made our definition, the easier it will be to change the some of the specifics of the patterns so that we can play the real essence.

6) Look for larger themes and connections.

What things did scenes have in common? What characters have similar or complimentary world views? Or contrasting world views? What is Are there bigger truths in the set? Especially when we start making connections, specifics from scenes can be instant short hands so that we can indicate connects with clarity and economically.

There are things this doesn’t quite cover - resting the game, orphans/tangents, “other side of the coin” scenes, reversals/turns, pure following the fun, etc.. It has mostly been a mental exercise for me. Not sure if it is really useful. I just like looking at improv from different angles. 

(via improv-is-easy)

improv-is-easy:

nicclee:

I was just thinking over this question Kirk received yesterday. The person said that their partner wasn’t playing straight man to his/her crazy man and just kept Yes-Anding so the scene when nowhere. 

That got me thinking about the function of Yes-And and whether or not we ever stop doing it scenes. 

When we first learn Yes-And, we often do exercises where we say “Yes,” repeat the last line our scene partner said, say “And” and then add information to move the scene on. Eventually we get so used to this concept that we’re able to drop the Yes and the And, while still acknowledging the last line said and then reacting and adding information. So does this process ever stop in scenes?

I feel like I had a coach once tell me that we stop Yes-Anding once we’ve found the game. Then we just play the game. 

Then I feel like I’ve had another coach say that if you feel stuck in a scene, Yes-And until you find something fun. But perhaps that’s just two sides of the same coin. 

Is the function of Yes-And to help us find something fun and get both players onto a plain that they can agree to play together? And if so, is Yes-And merely a tool and not embedded in the structure of any given scene? When we make choices in scenes, aren’t we doing so through the tool of Yes-And?

Something tells me that if the scene partner in the above scenario Yes-Anded and the scene still went nowhere, then the person wasn’t Yes-Anding the way they should have. I imagine that all they did was repeat (Yes) without adding new information or making choices (And). Perhaps then it’s a question of inadequate Yes-Anding. Even if they didn’t play straight man to that scene, the scene could’ve gone somewhere. 

Some of Kirk and Chris Scott’s tips to establish an emotional connection, reacting truthfully and exploring your character’s opinion/point of view all feel like Yes-Anding yourself (assuming you make a choice for your character in the first place). 

I feel like I’m swimming in this pool of thought, so I will leave it there for anyone who feels like chiming in: Do we ever stop Yes-Anding in our scenes?

I don’t think we do. Maybe the Ands aren’t as big as at the beginning of scenes, but we’re still either adding new information or exploring something we’ve already introduced or heightening our emotions — all of which are types of Ands.

Food for thought.

I agree.  My improv philosophy is that everything is a gift - that’s the “yes” part for me. Every element of the scene lives in the reality of the scene. The “and” part is how you bring it to life by either adding information or moving the action forward or living in that moment and having an emotional reaction/character choice to the situation.

Susan Messing says is her workshops that you can play with everybody, just accept everything they say as the reality of the scen, and it’s your job to make it work while not dropping “your shit.” For me, what she calls “your shit” is the “and”. It’s where you add information/react/emote/play the game.

Interesting discussion and definitely food for thought.