PSRImprovNotes

Improv Notes

Just little ideas and suggestions on how to be a better improvisor that don't fit anywhere else.

• (From Dan Goldstein) Great improv line: "I don't know why I'm doing this, but...."
• Our improv scenes have almost no entrances or exits
• (From Dan Goldstein) When you don't get an audience suggestion, give yourself a suggestion to start from.
• (From Dan Goldstein) Try playing the opposite emotion to what the other performer is doing.

• Avoid the "thirty seconds of vagueness" that seems to start each of our scenes

  • Start in the middle of a scene
  • Remember, at least, that your character's life is going on as the scene starts
  • If you feel initial 'floatiness,' concentrate on spotting every offer and making each one land.

• Useful mantras:

  • General emotional state: <your favorite song here>
  • Confidence: "I'm an expert."

  • Talking too much: "I'm a good listener."

    • Another thing to do -- mentally repeat whatever you've been told
  • Try deriving a mantra off of the setup
  • Panicking: "yes AND"
• Start talking before you want to
• If you feel the scene is coming to an end, say a line and repeat it.
• Try mirroring a performer who does a character beyond what you can comfortably do
• If you're talking too much, switch to physical actions
• Continuity: when the first 10 seconds, middle 10 seconds, and last ten seconds all seem to come from the same scene
• Never worry about how to end the scene; never go towards a preconceived ending.
• Clear, simple choices are easier to play
• Even though nobody cares who wins Micetro, build up the competition for the audience.
• If you play a scene in the audience, don't pretend they aren't there.

• When working with an audience member:

  • Endow everything

  • Accept whatever they do

    • Ideally, be changed by it, too
  • Be positive

• A 'looping structure' has the same thing happening multiple times

  • Usually the scale somehow increases every time
  • Usually the third time is the tilt
  • Remember: the pattern needn't be negative.
• Directors keep big lists of stuff; why not improvisors?
• Directors worry about "Shape of Show"; should improvisors worry about "Shape of Sketch?"
• There aren't nearly enough long-lost fa-thers in our scene work...
• We often indicate that we know another character in a scene, but we don't carry any attitude towards that character. We never even say stuff like "Uh-oh, here comes Mr. Morgensen...."
• We need a list of arbitrary actions, patterned after Dan O'Connor's patented "go downstage left and mix a drink" maneuver. We just need crap we can do when our mind blanks utterly. (Yay spontaneity!)

• I'm intrigued by the prospect of offers that don't get explained immediately.

  • My token example is the scene from The Matrix with one glass of water sitting on a small table between Morpheus & Neo. I spent a good three minutes stealing glances at it, and thinking "Why one glass of water? There's two guys. There's one glass of water. What the fuck?!" I was immensely satisfied when the reason for it was made clear.
  • At the same time, this would be hard to pull off, because directors are always afraid you'll just drop the offer, so they want it immediately explained, even though it might work better dramatically to put it off until the end of the scene.
  • I think I'll add this as a section to my Improv Limitations page.

• The 'audience yes' setup

  • The AM won't change; thus, be sure the AM's yes-es change you
  • Therefore you should feed the AM lines where "yes" will change you

• The hero-based plot:

  1. Set up the hero.

  2. Give the hero a goal.

     • The objective must be clear, must be simple, and must be established early on

  3. Raise the stakes.

     • If you are the hero & you don't feel like you care about your objective, raise the stakes until you do.

  4. Establish obstacles.

     • As the hero, be willing to be tortured by the obstacles.
  5. Have the hero overcome those obstacles.

  6. Have the hero finally win or lose, and be changed.

     • i. e., self-discovery

• I'm beginning to think it's okay to tell yourself you can put off the conflict. Basically the Intergalactic Nemesis was a series of: introduce obstacle; overcome obstacle; repeat. And it worked just fine without ever snagging on some single overwhelming problem that occupied lots of time. It moved along. The lesson I take away from this is, if you don't have a unifying conflict, the worst that happens is that you end up with pretty good episodic theatre that ends arbitrarily. Probably would make Sean go nuts, but it's ok by me.

  • Another way of thinking about it: in improv, don't do conflict. "Conflict" is hidebound. Conflict is "I want this, you want that, and we're going to be logjammed until some external factor changes." In improv, we want something more fluid, like "I want this, so I get this, but then you want something else, so you do that, and then I do something else entirely." We never let ourselves seize up on some static "conflict."
• From a book about musical performance I've been reading: If you are relaxed and happy to be doing a performance, the audience will be relaxed and happy to attend.

• As the first person on stage, you can create an environment the other improvisor wants to play in.
  As the first player to speak you can say something evocative -- e. g. a line from the middle of a conversation or a line that creates a character or situation that any sane person would want to play in.

  • I'm not recommending 'instant trouble' here -- still set up platform. The platform can be interesting though.
  • "Create a cool platform that people want to enjoy" is, I think, a good idea. But it seems to go against "be boring." But "be boring" is how we get every damn scene starting in the kitchen, or at the store, and I frankly have lost all motivation to spend my dramatic time in either the kitchen or the store.

• From Dan O'Connor's workshop:

  • If you think the show sucked, for god's sake don't tell the audience.
  • Characters usually want something big and dramatically entertaining.
  • Stick to the offers on the table.
  • If you find yourself joining, vary something instantaneously and justify after
  • An improv character is a flexible "agent-with-direction"

• From the "Hi-Octane" workshop

  • Get rid of your on-stage fear

    • If you're stressed, lower your standards.
    • Trying harder never helps.
    • Be average --> Play to your own normal level.
    • I am doing this for me and nobody else
  • "Discover" the scene, don't "invent" it.
  • Never drop the first offer in a scene
  • Never gossip -- keep it about the here and now
  • Try to identify the thing the scene is about
  • If you get caught up in thinking, then focus on being your character

• Secret Scene Study Notes

  • "An improvisor is a man forever walking backwards, with no idea where he's going, but closely observing where he's been." -- Keith
  • Have stock techniques for ending a scene

  • Endow clearly, but with subtlety

    • It's usually more effective to endow other people than to endow yourself.
  • Pick the strongest choice -- usually the worst thing that could happen
  • Have a pre-show warm-up routine
  • Have status; play status games

  • Play the relationship

    • Desperately reach for playing the relationship when a scene devolves into a shared activity
    • Get here through status exchanges, character/relationship endowments, and objectives that involve other people
  • When you get bound up in an activity, try to draw in the whole world outside the activity. In fact, that might be a general note for any improv anywhere -- draw the (fictional) world outside the scene into the scene.

  • Always look for a chance to change

    • Try to catch the time in the scene when someone should change
    • If your partner refuses to change, it's your prerogative to keep changing on your own.
    • Commit to changes.
    • React to changes.
• I tend to shuffle on stage. I need to keep still.

• When Doing Monologues:

  • Always take an opportunity to show new facets of your character.

  • React to things

    • If you have nothing to react to, then react to your own statements. (Hell, it worked for Shakespeare.)
• Our rehearsal games and warm-ups need more positive reinforcement. Take, for example, "Electric Company." What's the best thing you can get out of "Electric Company?" What's the biggest reward it has to offer? You come up with a cute nonsense word with someone. Yippee. Especially with so-called spontaneity exercises, there has got to be a way to make doing what the game requires rewarding to the players.
• Improvisors, especially beginners, have instinctive negativity. We don't want to go towards the naked man behind the bush. However, to move the scene forward, we have to. It's occurred to me that we can harness this instinctive "no" to make more compelling characters. Basically, let your instinctive negativity come up, and then have your character make a conscious choice to overcome it. So, you're not blithely walking towards the man, you're viewing him with trepidation and then, yes, walking towards him as a conscious decision. Suddenly, your character has an inner life, and dilemmas to deal with and decisions to make. (It's similar to verbal restriction, which gives characters a halting pattern of speech that tricks audiences into thinking that every word is very carefully chosen.)
• I'm noticing that there's sort of an "improv grid" forming in my 'practice' section. On one axis, we have all of these skills we want to work on. On the other, we have the different stages of the improv process: noticing when the skill is lacking learning it, rehearsing solo, rehearsing in a group, warming up, and performing. I wonder if I should rearrange that section to reflect this.

Footnotes