Improv
I started another improv workshop this past weekend.
“Improv” is short for improvisational theater–the type of acting/theater that is the basis for sketch comedy and … obviously … improv shows. This is the kind of performance taught at Second City in Chicago, improvOlympic, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in LA and NYC, ImprovBoston (that’s where I go), and many other places. Del Close is considered the founding father of improv and you may have heard of him even if you didn’t really know who he was. A lot of SNL actors got their start in improv, as did a lot of the writers and performers on most of the late-night shows such as Conan, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, MadTV, and others.
There are all different types of improv workshops and no matter which one you take, they are all hilarious. Sometimes intentionally and sometimes it just ends up that way. Plus, a big thing in improv–probably the biggest “rule” (although there really aren’t any rules)–is that you always say “yes” to your scene partners. You don’t negate their ideas; you take whatever they offer and expand on it. Then they expand on what you said, and so on and so on. If you block the development of the scene by saying “no” (literally or metaphorically), you’re kind of putting a dead-end on on the performance and making it hard for the other person to move it forward at all. The resulting effect of this “Yes, and …” mentality is that every idea is fantastic. Every proposal is fucking GREAT. It doesn’t matter how absurd or ridiculous it might be to the general population; it’s absolutely wonderful to the people you’re playing with. (Sometimes, yes, there are better choices one could make; but the idea was still legitimate and exciting and magically delicious.) There is a huge amount of validation you get during a workshop and it is so different from real life where your ideas get shot down, you have to justify them, you have to explain the background, etc. Doesn’t work that way in improv–if you say your new product is a silk-and-cheesecloth Man Bra that’s going to have George Clooney singing “The Way You Look Tonight” for its marketing campaign, then it is taken for granted that that’s going to happen and it’s going to be fabulous. (That was a real scenario we put on last week, by the way.)
Plus you spend most of the workshop laughing in one way or another. You laugh at yourself, you laugh at silly physical movements you are supposed to make–which are either funny because people can do them even though they’re so ridiculous or they’re funny because nobody can do them quite correctly–you laugh at other people both being funny and not actually trying to be funny but it ends up that way despite their efforts to be serious. It’s quite wonderful to spend 3 hours laughing or at least smiling. Nobody can leave in a bad mood.
Everyone ought to take at least one improv class in their lives. You don’t have to aspire to be an actor or anything else; you just have to enjoy having a good time. Plus it’s cheaper than downing a few at a bar every week and it’s way better for your system.