Improvoker

After watching 36 hours of a 56 hour improv marathon, improv stops looking so much like improv and more like a math equation. You can see patterns forming between performers and see differences in the way geographic locales play. After watching 36 hours of improv, you become a bit of a machine, analyzing each scene for what worked and what didn’t.It was however in this haze of performers, dank body odor, and beef jerky that I truly saw improv for what it is, a groundwork for group mind. A set of traffic patterns to allow a group of performers act like one singular entity. When a group was acting as a whole, they seemed to be reading eachother’s minds, moving in time with one another. When it worked it was incredible (Buiscutville [Creepy guys in a Van], Delta Force 2 [What Happened? Where Were You?], Bruckheimer [An Army of Homeless People], Reuben Williams [Pierre Runs Away]) and when it didn’t, it wasn’t incredible.

Punctuating this mass of performances were the UCB 4 themselves, who got on stage frequently to talk to the audience and answer questions. That for me, was one of my biggest highlights of the marathon. I must have heard Ian Roberts talking over 3 hours about life, love, and improvisation and the majority was truly brilliant. When the 4 got on stage together they really did seem to transform the space. While they really were performing bits the entire time, the energy was contagious.

From all this watching, I began to compile in my notebook a list of lessons I was taking away from each performance I saw. It was interesting to be actively thinking about what I was watching rather than just deciding if I liked what was happening on stage or not. It reminded me of a quote Rob Riggle dropped earlier that week:

You were a reader before you were a writer.

J.D. Salinger

Meaning that you have to experience as a viewer what you love, to find out what it is you enjoy, before you can do it. Which strangely was echoed by Matt Walsh later that week:

Own everything you are learning.

He was speaking about not only just taking loads of classes without question, but to develop your own philosophies. Improv is not a static medium, it is up to each improviser to take the lessons they are learning and to make them their own.

Below are the notes and lessons I wrote in my marathon haze. These are just things I thought about and are no way some sort of guide for improvisers. I urge you all to read them, agree or disagree, and come up with your own ideas about what you believe.

2007 Del Close Marathon Notes

Do what interests you, not what you think people want

Matt Walsh responding to Kate Spencer’s question about staring your own community or theater.

You are an improviser. If you can’t parody and be well read, you have no business being in this room.

Ian Roberts quoting Del Close

2007 Del Close Marathon 20 Performance Lessons

1. Make this the day something happens - If this were a TV show, why would we be tuning in today? This shouldn’t be another humdrum day in another humdrum life.
2. Start in the middle - drop the exposition, get to the meat as quickly as possible.
3. Don’t draw attention to yourself on the back line - Looking confused, judging, scared, or even too laughy can betray the work being performed on stage. You must, at least, look like you know what is going on on stage at all times.
4. Enter the stage calmly - Jumping around and rolling on the floor can give the audience the wrong impression that you are begging for laughs. Enter, greet the audience, and stand in backline.
5. You got space, use it - It’s a big black box, remember to step away from the wall. There’s a line 1/3 the way from the back called the “line of hesitation” - cross it
6. Knock, Knock. Who’s there? 2 doors and a curtain - Why invent a door, when you have 2 doors on stage? Get used to thinking about using them, even in classes where there are no physical doors.
7. Remember stage picture - Sure you can put a car (4 chairs) straight down the center of the stage, but what about going horizontally? It’s 100 times more interesting for an audience, especially when they have seen 42 car scenes before you that go centered.
8. Game is the most important part of an improv scene - forget big characters, wacky situations, or jokes. Be honest, find the game, and play it.
9. No Jokes - When you tell a quick joke you cheapen everything you’ve built thus far and everything you will be creating from then on.
10. Explore, stop inventing - what’s the difference with exploration and invention? Exploration is when you are on game, invention is when you are off it. If you are adding information to heighten the game that’s perfect. If you are adding information because you don’t have enough material, listen harder up top. The game of the scene was probably in your first 3 lines.
11. Ground your scenes - Going to crazy town right off the bat removes the stakes of a scene, which in turn gives us nothing to contrast our comedy against. “Blue doesn’t show up well on blue.” Start grounded and trust in the game.
12. Belong on that stage - Own the fucking stage whenever you step onto it. -Mick Napier
13. Support to play the game, not to showboat - You enter a scene from the back line to heighten the game, or to support the scene taking place - not to steal the focus.
14. Silence is golden - Don’t be afraid of scenes with little or no talking. (ie - Delta Force 2’s silent Jet Ski scene) Silence is a natural stake raiser.
15. Who are you? Where are you? And Why am I watching you? - yup, yup, and yup.
16. Earn the Right to go “Meta” - Sure it’s fun to jump out of a scene, especially in front of people who appreciate it, to commentate on improvisation, but if you constantly break scene to draw attention to the mechanics of the scene, you cheapen everything and it becomes a parlor trick.
17. All suggestions are transformative - Even “potato”. Respect your audience and the time they took to give you something to transform into art.
18. Stay away from gimmicks, especially one’s that can hurt people - This is going to sound pretty rude, but I think it needs saying as it was the one performance during the marathon that really bothered me. We are celebrating one of the most important people in improvisation, who believed improv could be more than just fodder for other performing art forms. I’m pretty sure he’d be rolling in his grave if he knew you were amateurishly riding a unicycle inches away from injuring audience members and yourselves. Don’t get rid of the name, just loose the unicycles and grow unibrows.
19. Wait for the initiation - Coming into a scene with too much energy or information can sabotage your scene partner’s initiation. If you are entering onto a stage with a performer who has made an initiating move, keep your body neutral until you have heard their line, or you sense that they require some additional information from you. Coming into a scene with too many specifics can often step on the toes of your partner and throw a scene off completely. You have to allow your partner’s brick to be placed, before you know where to add your own.
20. Have fun - There’s nothing to worry about. Everyone in the audience wants you to succeed, take your time and enjoy the ride.

That’s it. Hope you enjoyed my little notebook of thoughts. Thanks again for all of the staff that made this year’s DCM so seamless. See you all next year.