On starting my 401 class last Saturday, I thought it was a good time to take a look through my improv notebook and post a recap of some of the lessons learned in my 301. My 301 was taught by Chris Gethard, who changed the way I view improv. Some of the notes are from Chris, some are from practice with Anthony Atamanuik, some I picked up along the way. While I am writing from my notebook and trying diligently to maintain the accuracy of what was said, quotes may be paraphrased.
Playing
Trust in what’s already been established. It’s all there in the first 3 lines.
Keep it simple and trust in the details.
Explore, don’t invent.
Your characters must be real and truthful. Caricatures and cartoonish characters do not allow an audience to relate, therefore, empathize with you, removing the stakes for a scene.
It is not steamrolling to be specific in a scene and lay out your ideas. Steamrolling is not allowing your partner to contribute by adding information for them.
If you start straight and try to go funny, but fail — It’s much easier to go back to straight, than if you had started with funny, fail and try to go to straight. –Chris Gethard
Get to the action — Make this be the day something happens.
Your purpose on stage is to support your partner. Always put the weight on your shoulders to protect them from looking bad or taking responsibility. –Chris Gethard
Make a scene present by acknowledging your scene partner with “I, you, we” at the start.
React honestly, it’ll make your life easier. –Chris Gethard
Take your time to respond. Allow what has been said to effect you.
Don’t feel you always have to talk. Silence is a great stake raiser.
Have Fun, Have Fun, Have Fun. Stop thinking and play instead.
You got yourself into this mess and you are the only one who can get yourself out of it Gethard to a scene partner and I after a particularly difficult scene where we felt trapped.
You cannot have a great show without taking risks. The bigger the risks taken, the bigger the possibility for success. Failure because of taking risks are far more impressive than failure because of the fear of taking risks.
Play for the stage, not the audience. (Play for yourself, not to satisfy others.)
Group Games
If we talk 50% of the time in a two person scene, In a 6–8 person group game we should plan to talk 20–13% of the time.
In a group game agree with the scene’s reality and, most importantly, support you fellow players.
Group games that focus on the one odd man out, usually become a witch burning.
Everybody hates hotspot. The purpose is not to love singing goofy songs, but to support your fellow players even if it puts you in the firing lines. –Anthony Atamanuik
The Suggestion
Concept from Matt Walsh — Put a question mark after the suggestion. You should try to answer that question, for yourself, by the end of your harold.
Commit completely to your opening. This is when the audience decides if they are with you, or against you. If they feel you don’t believe it, they wont believe it.
I came across this the other night and I can’t stop listening to it…is there something wrong with me?
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To listen to more of these hilariously disturbing phone calls visit Dave the Obscure Fetish Prankster at PhoneSexPranks.com. Be sure to catch Gil Ozeri, the genius behind the voice, perform with his sketch and improv group Hot Sauce.
Turns out I can quit my day job — because I am rich, rich man.
Mitchell Adenuga esq.
Principal Attorney
Alpha Juries Chambers
12 John sole street Amuwo
Lagos Nigeria
Dear Whitehouse,
Compliments. I am writing to inform you, that you happen to be the next of kin to my late client Mr. Morris Whitehouse an oil contractor who died along with his immediate family in the ill-fated plane crash involving a Boeing 727 UTA chartered flight that took off from Cotonou, Republic of Benin and crashed into the Atlantic ocean on Thursday, 25 December 2003. About 111 passengers were killed. For details of the plane crash, please visit:
The money for his last contract with Mobil Oil Producing Limited was paid into his account before his death and only his kin that bears the same surname can come for the claim and for the past 3 years nobody has come, I am contacting you to come forward for the claim of the funds so the money can be paid to you after which you would pay me 20% of the total amount as payment for my legal fees and holding fees for the past 3 years.
The policy of the Bank however stipulates a limited time period for such inheritance to be made or the fund will be written off going by the record of the incident, the time limit for the claim is closing up. In this consideration, I am contacting you to make haste for your right, remember the total sum of money is US$9.1M (Nine million, one hundred thousand U.S dollars only).
Contact me back for further instructions on how to proceed to claim these funds, providing me your private telephone numbers for easy communication.
Yours truly,
Mr. Mitchell Adenuga Esq.
Principal Attorney
Alpha Juries Chambers
Long have I held the belief that a packed audience for any show, including a graduation show, is the key to a great performance. Today the New York times in an article What’s So Funny? Well, Maybe Nothing cites a study which further proves that having familiar people (in your social circle) in the audience, will lead to easy laughs for you.
Laughter can be used cruelly to reinforce a group’s solidarity and pride by mocking deviants and insulting outsiders, but mainly it’s a subtle social lubricant. It’s a way to make friends and also make clear who belongs where in the status hierarchy.
The study showed that people put in a situation where they needed support, or felt at a disadvantage, were far more likely to laugh at even the lamest of jokes. This might also be an explanation why some improvisers find themselves laughing on the first day of classes out of nervousness of not being accepted.
Primal laughter evolved as a signaling device to highlight readiness for friendly interaction, sophisticated social animals such as mammals need an emotionally positive mechanism to help create social brains and to weave organisms effectively into the social fabric.
While there still is no magical formula for creating the perfect joke and getting an easy laugh, this is interesting news for performers seeking laughter. Although my favorite joke still remains this one.
New York City is a tough place to carve out your little slice of life. It’s an urban jungle full of weirdos, small apartments, bad bars, awful roommates, failed relationships, unobtainable goals, bed bugs, exorbitant gym membership fees, and a series of unlivable neighborhoods that have been made hip with catchy acronyms. It’s enough to make a grown woman sick… enough to make two grown women sick… enough to make two grown woman and an audience under a supermarket sick.
MEGAN&BRIDIE: Friends Without Benefits is one of those rare shows that totally surpassed my expectations. From the awesome preview skits I had seen at a few UCB Harold nights, I had pictured Megan and Bridie to be far more self deprecating and creepily dependent story line, but in reality the show is a wonderful mix of scenes documenting the meeting of two totally opposite women in the big city — one desperate for an apartment, one desperate for companionship.
It’s a classic tale of platonic city living.
Bridie Harrington and Megan Neuringer do a terrific job at creating characters that are both totally believable and ridiculously funny. Bridie plays a oblivious, fitness obsessed gal, whose search for the next big exercise leads her towards workouts that I know I have seen advertised at my local Crunch. Megan plays a neurotic Jewish gal whose life is filled with a series of problematic relationships that always seem to leave her unfulfilled. The two are thrown together in a co-dependent friendship, stemming from the need of an apartment, which begins to tear itself apart by their conflicting personalities.
Megan & Bridie: Friends Without Benefits is a terrific show filled with all the detritus that life serves up, viewed with refreshing candor and humor, with characters you can’t help but love. It’s like sex in the city, without the sex and with ladies you don’t want to strangle. The last show plays Wednesday April 4th 8PM at Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre (37 W 26th & 8th Ave). Make your reservations now.
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