Angela Dee, a fellow New York improviser, discusses one of her favorite group games The Quest. Although I spent years performing the KROMPF improv form, the quest was really not something we focussed on when we performed group games. I think it’s a type of group game many improvisers don’t have in their repertoire, or even know exists and one they should think of adding.

One thing to note, Angela explains The Quest group game is “pretty plot-driven which a lot of improvisers worry about” being that most of the times in scenes, we want to stay on game and not follow plot. However, in this context we are talking about plotty in the sense of having a narrative, not in the sense of the absence of game. We still want to follow the game of the scene, although those scenes are part of a greater narrative context.

Last year I was lucky enough to be invited to do the Gator 600/performance class at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade. I don’t know how that happened (I think a little birdy said a little something to a certain someone, but he flat-out denies it). It was one of the best classes I’ve ever taken and it changed the way I played. I wish Ryan Karels and Neil Casey would teach more than they do, dammit!

One of the many great things about The Gator (the “Krompf” form as taught by Ryan and Neil) is a group game called The Quest.

How is it that no one knows about this game? It is frigging excellent!

First off, I should say that group games are a complete mystery to me. Basically, I had a crash-course in them with my 301 class and we touched on them in one of the eight 401 sessions I had, but other than that I’ve basically been winging it ever since. Gavin Speiller used to teach a Group Game 501/ASH which I really wanted to do, but it doesn’t seem like he does those anymore and, other than that, it seems like group games are not really a focus at the UCB (might be a good elective for someone to teach… hint, hint). So, when we set out to learn The Quest in the Gator class, I was excited!

The Quest is an improv take on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey — If you haven’t read it yet I highly recommend his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

It is pretty plot-driven which a lot of improvisers worry about, but when it’s done right it is magic. It is a great game to play when a character needs to do something very important — i.e. save someone, find something, get home, etc. There are 7 steps to the game:

Continue Reading: An improv post — The Quest group game

What the digram illustrates, rather comically, is the idea of resting the game (point of interest, contention) and exploring something else in the scene. Returning to that point of interest heightens the scene and also rewards the players with a powerful pattern to play with.

I wish I had remembered this diagram last year when I took a class with Secunda, as I have no idea how he would react to anyone naming something the “Secunda Argument Wheel.” Although I do remember that Billy Merritt did preface the SAW as something he admired in Secunda’s playing.

If we hear about a retaliatory “Billy Merritt Wheel”, we’ll let you know.

I’m a life long fan of comedy, and have been intrigued by improv ever since I learned that Ghostbusters was created by a bunch of guys who were good at it. And I thought, from watching many shows, that I ‘had’ it. After all, Truth in Comedy isn’t a long book. I’ll just get this 100 pages under my belt, and then practice until I get good!

Turns out that improv, like any other art, is a little more complex than that.

In my class at iO Theater with Craig Uhler (both the theater and the teacher come highly recommended) we were asked to do a basic exercise. Two people, with a conflict, but the trick was we couldn’t actually talk about the conflict itself. Simple, yes, but as a long time fan and only recent participant, it was enough to keep me occupied onstage.

As the pairs took turns, some groups made excellent scenes. Upon study of these excellent scenes, we came to realize that they were good because they focused on development of the characters instead of the conflict. That is to say, they used the given conflict as a starting point, and fleshed out their relationship from there.

In comparison, the scenes that didn’t go anywhere (I have a feeling mine was one of them) got hung up on the stuff that they were given as a start, and were unable to break away into the life behind the stuff.

When performing in a two person scene, there are exactly two topics that will make the scene work, the audience laugh, and the students sign up for your classes. These two topics are guaranteed to always be the right topics to focus on, from now until the end of time.

Those topics are you and the other person.

Anything else, the setting, the conflict, the situation, all of it is dependent on the two of you (or however many there are on stage). Don’t worry about that. Find out who that other person is, and the scene will slowly unfold organically, and the audience will laugh.

A basic point, sure, one that the experienced and intelligent readers of Improvoker have had drilled into their heads for years. But the next time you’re watching a scene that isn’t quite working, whether it’s a performance, a class, or whatever, be sure to keep an eye on how much character development you are seeing. Odds are, it’s not enough. There’s no humanity in the improv, just an attempt at jokes. And without humanity, there’s no scene and no funny.

This was also true of my first 501 a year ago with Chris Gethard for another reason. Chris had really let us devise our own path with our improvisation and was pushing us to own our philosophies. By the end of 8 weeks we had just scratched the surface of what was possible. After our final performance we all wanted more.

So when news that UCB had decided to start offering classes for August with a 12 week class schedule, I have to admit, I was excited. I think the major reason I was excited was because I have a problem in letting my inhabitions go around performers I don’t know. It takes me at least 4 weeks to feel comfortable enough to let loose in class and by week 8 I am finally feeling totally comfortable (this is one of those ongoing things I battle with in my improvisation).

I’m also a firm believer, due in large part to the teachings of Chris Gethard, that group mind in one of the pillars of longform improvisation. It’s that magic glue that binds performers on stage to one another and let’s them seemingly read each other’s minds. If you are really working on forming group mind, it may be possible by 8 weeks, but again it’s another reason why 12 weeks appeals to me. That’s good group mind territory.

Unfortunately all this extra class time doesn’t come without a price. A 12 week 501 class is now $475 up from an 8 week class of $350. If you do the math, UCB has not raised the price per class, about $40, but for students looking at their scant checking accounts it may be a deterrent. However, I think it’s a move in right direction and as always, UCB still offers other 8 week classes at lower levels.

UCB also let us know that they have no plans at the moment to discontinue 8 week 501’s. So everybody gets the best of both worlds.

So, is 12 weeks the right time, or was 8 great? Speak up.

Hi Improvoker folks-I was just wondering if you could enlighten me on something. With so many improv schools available, it’s hard to decide which one is the best, or if there even is a best. There’s PIT, UCB, Magnet Theater, National Improv Theater, etc., etc. I’ve already taken a level 1 class at UCB. Do you recommend that I stick with them and go up the ranks or is there one school that is better than the other?

Sometimes I get intimidated by all the glitz and glamour attached to UCB and it makes me want to go somewhere that is not as high profile. Of course, then I become concerned that I won’t be getting as good an education from a less high-profile school or that agents tend to frequent one school more than the other yada yada yada. Any words of encouragement for a new improv-er?

I really appreciate it!

–TC

Well TC, as you can imagine this is some pretty subjective and delicate territory. What works for some people doesn’t work for others and people can get very defensive about their chosen school. You will undoubtedly meet people who will slag a school because “they suck,” but at the end of the day, every person’s sense of what is funny is different. I can only talk from personal experience and my involvement in the New York improv community, but I’ll try to give you as objective an opinion as possible

I’m not sure there is one best or worst in terms of improv schools, but rather what do you want to accomplish with your improv and which school is going provide you with the tools to attain those goals? All improv schools have a philosophy behind them that in some way is reflected in their training centers. Whenever I look to take classes, I always see my future instructor’s show beforehand to see if they are someone I identify with. Do I want this person teaching me? What will I learn from them? Do they jive with my improv beliefs? (I neglected do this one time and it remains one of the worst mistakes of my improv career)

You are a reader before you are a writer.

–J.D. Salinger

What I mean by “improv beliefs” is at a certain point you will develop your own philosophy behind your performance. You will decide, from watching others perform, what you think is funny, how you want to perform, and who your heroes are. For instance, I know when I started performing I wanted to perform dynamic scenes that didn’t necessarily stick to everyday reality — whimsical scenes where reality was heightened. When I started looking for instructors, I looked for performers who matched my philosophy and subsequently took my level 101 with Shannon O’Neill who is wonderful at exactly that. You might also want to go out and see some independent improv around town. These are shows where groups are not affiliated with any particular theater’s house teams. See which groups you like and ask the performers, after the show, where they trained — I’ve been asked loads of times where I trained by audience members.

Each school also has a particular philosophy behind it’s instruction. I’ve met countless people who are turned off by UCB’s training center, although I have been there for 2 years and have found it a very supportive environment. This is a harder concept to judge from the outside without taking multiple classes at a school. I know I have met individual instructors that I haven’t connected with or disagreed with — but from class to class, does the school make you feel encouraged or discouraged? Trust your instincts. If you don’t feel at home at one school, try another.

Lastly, define what it is you want to get out of improv. Do you want to be an actor? a writer? a director? where do you see yourself in 5 years? If you’re only goal is to be on a house team, you might want to choose schools with a smaller student population. If you’re interested in television, UCB has a reputation for being the place to find new talent. If you want to learn from direct descendants of Del Close, Armando Diaz of Magnet is a wonderful teacher and has a wonderful teaching style. Whatever your wants, try to remember why you’re doing this. Students often get lured into setting their sites of joining a house team, if this is what you want to do, wonderful — but remember why you got into improv. It probably wasn’t to be on a house team, it was probably to rule the world.

A Grain of Salt

I’ve been taking classes at UCB for about 2 years, and have also taken a sketch class at Magnet. I started taking classes at UCB because an ex-improv teammate of mine Bob Acevedo was taking classes there (Bob now teaches an awesome Slow Improv class at Magnet, I highly recommend it). I’ve never doubted my decision to take classes at UCB and continue to count myself as lucky to be part of such an incredible community. Regardless of where you study, I have found the New York improv community to be a warm and friendly place to perform. I believe firmly that you have to create the community in which you want to be a part of. Don’t get too bogged down with theater-vs-theater comparisons and instead cross-pollinate whenever possible.

Hope that helped, see you around town.

As summer makes it’s ways into our collective hearts and armpits, so do the rise of special classes taught at the Upright Citizens Brigade Training Center. One instructor to always keep an eye out for is the unparalleled Christina Gausas. If I were a bit more pretentious I might even venture to say that Christina is the closest thing to my improv guru I have ever come across.

One of the classes I took with Cristina which changed my perspective was her Openings & Group Games class. I had thought it would be a throw away class, I was bored and wanted to take a summer class after my Billy Merritt 401 to pass the time until my Gethard 501 started up. Group games and openings? That’s like a cooking class on boiling water, right? Fortunately for me, I was completely wrong. Christina opened my eyes to the science of group games. She worked with us on matching energy, unconditional support, devising form out of pattern, listening, using openings more effectively to begin scenes, and showed me how to accurately perform my favorite opening of all time… the true Del Close Invocation.

“An opening is like an artist’s palette — it is the foundation for all your scenes.”

– Christina Gausas

The class was different than any I had ever taken before. Christina’s “from the horses mouth” experience makes her an instructor who can lay ideas out in ways you may never have heard before. I found her teaching style super supportive, extra caring, and unlike anything I had experienced before.

Lucky for you, she’s teaching her Openings & Group Games class Thursdays 7-10pm starting Jun 26, 2008. Get thee registered. Nice work yall, it’s sold out! Hope you enjoy it.

Found this today and have to say, It’s pretty brilliant. Sorry was not the most fun game because it relied too heavily on that big plastic half dome thing. The game itself was boring as shit.

Monopoly is a game.

We use the pattern of moving pieces around the board to play that game.

That pattern in and of itself is not very interesting.

But the pattern serves the game. It moves it forward. It lets us find more fun.

The fun is in what we DO in that game. It’s WHY we’re playing it.

You can play it fast. Or slow. You can spend time in jail. Or you can work as hard as you can to buy up all the railroads.

That’s your choice.

Because monopoly is a game.

Game is what we play.

If something is funny, it has a game.

Pattern is how we play it.

We use patterns to explore and heighten the game.

Choice is up to the individual player.

At UCBT we teach people to make strong choices at the top of their intelligence and then to commit to those choices.

Strong, committed choices show off your sense of play and sense of humor. They bring your ideas to the group mind.

Then everyone gets to play and enjoy and support each others ideas.

You can make a pattern out of anything. But if it’s not a pattern serving a strong game — it’ll be boring.

Just like Sorry.

That’s a terrible game.

– Anthony King

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

1. You are all supporting actors
2. Always check your impulses
3. Never enter a scene unless you are needed
4. Save your fellow actor, don’t worry about the piece
5. Your prime responsibility is to support
6. Work at the top of your brains at all times
7. Never underestimate or condescend to your audience
8. No jokes (unless it is tipped in front that it is a joke.)
9. Trust. trust your fellow actors to support you; trust them to come through if you lay something heavy on them; trust yourself
10. Avoid judging what is going down in terms of whether it needs help (either by entering or cutting), what can best follow, or how you can support it imaginatively if your support is called for
11. LISTEN

• IF THE WHOLE IS TO BE ART, THE PARTS MUST NOT TRY TO BE
• HAROLD IS LIKE A DOCUMENTARY FILM– PART AUTOBIOGRAPHY, PART BIOGRAPHY, PART SIMPLE FACT
• THE TOTAL MAY RESEMBLE A “PLAY” (a dramatic work of fiction) BUT IT ISN’T FICTION ANY MORE THAN A THEORETICAL SCIENCE PAPER IS FICTION
• NOTICE HOW “YOU” ARE A PART OF A HAROLD. HOW YOU FIT. THEN SIMPLY ENTER-JOIN
• HAROLD IS GREATER THAN ALL OF YOUR ABILITIES-OR YOUR INTELLIGENCE
• HAROLD NEEDS ALL OF YOU-YOUR BEHAVIOR, NOT YOUR DESCRIPTION OF YOUR BEHAVIOR

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Tonight is the final Rawhide Presents: The Raw Harold at UCB and instead of again giving my break down of last weeks’ show (which was hilarious) and urging you not to miss it (there is nothing more I can do), I thought I would look at a few facets of the show I have not mentioned up until now, these are the performers and the director Chris Gethard.

Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling?

– MC Escher

One of the reasons I feel so passionately about the Raw Harold is partly because, as a performer, seeing an experimental form such as the Raw Harold inspires me to experiment with my own improvisation and partly because most of the performers on stage are my contemporaries. I have worked with most of these performers, I have seen what they were capable of, and I have seen them fail in the past. This makes watching them excel that much more impressive. These are all talented performers, no doubt, but I have never seen them be so confident on stage.

The Players

One performer in particular, David Bartin, I have a very close working relationship with. David and I have been performing together at UCB since 2006. We were in 202, 301, 401, 501, 504, Gausas Group Games and Individual Attention together (301 and 501 being taught by Chris Gethard). Not to mention we have been on the same 4 person improv group, LD & The Scientist, for a year and a half where we have worked very closely and know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. So to see David move from a player who stays back initially, to understand the playing field and make huge moves, to a player who dives in head first without knowing what comes next is impressive. Even in our group practice I can see David supporting in ways he never had before.

Abra Tabak is another player I have seen countless times on stage with her indie team Thank You Robot. I have had a lot of respect for Abra for some time as an exceptionally kind and supporting player, but seeing her at Raw Harold has shown me a far more confident player who’s not afraid to put her fears on the table for everyone to play with.

The list goes on and on. Honestly everyone on the cast of the Raw Harold deserves recognition for working together in creating something which is wonderful to watch. Especially when looking at all the different skills and experience of all the performers.

The Director

Lastly, but no less important, is their director Chris Gethard. I have mentioned before that Chris Gethard has had more of an influence on my work than any other instructor at UCB (aside from Christina Gausas). What I think I have alluded to in my previous posts is that Gethard has created two groups of performers who work seamlessly together in the Raw Harold. I do not have close to enough insight to understand how Gethard has formulated these two teams, revising them each week — making them stronger with each performance. He seems to have an adept understanding of how improvisers work to be able to pick and choose improviser’s strengths and pair them into groups of 8. However he has done it, it occurred to me in their last show that these teams couldn’t have been better matched. Each of the 2 performing groups doesn’t stand out from one another. The show is made up of two groups, but at the end of the night all you can remember is one show. This is even more impressive because of the differences of the performers on stage.

It also bears pointing out, that this is the last class Chris Gethard will be instructing for the near future. Gethard is taking a hiatus, of indeterminate time, from teaching. And although it saddens me to think that he will not be instructing at the training center or influencing young improvisers, shows like the Raw Harold will continue to inspire and effect improvisers in his absence.

Last Words

Our coach Amey Goerlich, of Krompf, said a wonderful instruction for our group practice a few weeks back that has stuck with me ever since. I’m not sure if she was paraphrasing someone else, but it’s about performing your heart out on stage and it reminds me of what I have seen every Tuesday for the last 3 weeks.

Perform this show like you are going to die later on tonight. you are going to be hit by a car. play this show like it’s your last.

– Amey Goerlich

Getting on in my improv age, as well as my actual age, I have become less and less impressed in the cookie-cutter Harold. Del, from what I have read, never intended the Harold to be the end all be all in improv forms. It was a blueprint and it was up to the improvisers to build their Harold as they saw fit. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Harolds I see, day-to-day, class-to-class, Harold night-to-Harold night, are 8 semi-terrified performers performing someone else’s form without a sense of their ownership.

One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.

–Anton Chekhov

Then I took Chris Gethard’s 501 at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade last year and near the end of the class he threw us the keys to the Harold, telling us in no uncertain terms to make it our own. The result was a performance which we, in the class, termed the “Pink Harold”. It was ours, it was passionate, it was inventive, it was unwatchable. But it was during the Pink Harold that our class realized that with enough support, inevitable listening, and a heaping of group mind — you could do just about anything to a Harold or improv and have it work.

Chris Gethard’s Explosion class, performing under the name ‘The Raw Harold’, has perfected the explosion into something which is truly stage worthy. The class, split into two non-permanent teams by Gethard, opens with something which most closely resembles an organic opening. The group then slides into scenes. The scenes themselves look to loosely follow the Harold structure, but they also seem to follow the focus of the whole piece, rather than stay wed to scene centric themes.

When it is working, the stage is energized and the performers operate in mode often seeing the moves before they are made. There is a sixth sense about the support. Performers seem to always be in the right place at the right time. The scenes last Tuesday, for the most part, really hit me. They were unlike other class shows. Even though there were seasoned professionals and harold team members mixed through both groups, I did not get a sense of any one performer overwhelming the stage.

The first Raw Harold, with the suggestion of skewer, most clearly maintained the structure of the Harold, but had a certain non-linear scene progression that was really fun to watch. The players were playing side games with the main scenes, that intersected and weaved through everything. What was refreshing was to see the team fully risk everything on stage. From the few glimpses of players on the back line, it was clear that a few performers were a little terrified, but to everyone’s credit they performed selflessly in every scene. Abra Tabak’s interchange with Greg DeSantis from the sidelines was a wonderful overplay to the main scene’s seriousness.

The second team, with the suggestion of wrestle, had a wider scope than the first. Their opening was an explosive wrestling match which quickly evolved into a battle of the sexes. This battle of the sexes then was truly explored by the team, leading into fights, arguments, and taunting from both sides. The Harold had referees, some adept pimping, and a show stopping confrontation between Brendan McMullen and Jennifer Bartels about his roughing up of Katie Schorr. Brian Berrebbi also did a very graceful job, being the most most experienced performer on stage, of directing focus without stealing focus of the scenes.

How do you know when you’re on the way? When your map no longer serves you.

–H. Trevino

What I came away with from watching the Raw Harold was a sense that these performers had made the Harold form their own. With that ownership, were not thinking, but rather playing — which is what I think Del would have wanted from his life’s work. I truly believe, that all performers currently studying or performing at UCB should take notice of these performances. They are inspiring, perhaps a little rough around the edges, but also more daring than the majority of Harolds I have seen performed recently. Well worth the extra cup of coffee Wednesday morning.

The Raw Harold continues every Tuesday night at 11pm for the next 3 weeks. The Raw Harold is named after the gay leather bar on 7th Avenue called Rawhide which is offering 2-for-1 drink specials after the show for the length of the run.

Order yours and we can be like Opra’s book club… except that I am white and don’t have a problem with Zebra cakes.

Update: Okay, who’s not a writer? Ben isn’t. The writer of The Funniest One in the Room: The Lives and Legends of Del Close is none other than Kim “Howard” Johnson. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s one of the co-writers of Truth in Comedy, the seminal book on longform improv which he co-wrote/edited with Charna Halpern and Del. In other words, the dude knows what he’s talking about.

I got the book today and so far it’s pretty good. I’m a little mystified by mentions of Del Sr. and Del Jr. and which one Kim is talking about from moment to moment, but hopefully that will end once we get past “Young Del” year, otherwise known as the “Pickle” years. Buy the book yo.

The Upright Citizens Brigade

Now, who loves you like I love you?

[audio:http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-43661/TS-52932.mp3]

Download the episode here.

Visit the Haroldcast to subscribe to the podcast if you enjoy it.

Let’s not get caught trying to be funny.

Chris Gethard

However, the impulse to be “funny” in a scene is also very tempting. As any improviser can attest, a minute on stage without a laugh can feel like an eternity. I’ve been in class shows where we have “funnied” it up for an audience’s enjoyment at the detriment to our scenes. Unfortunately a lot of this “if you’re not getting laughs, you’re failing” comes from my own insecurities as a performer. We are performing improv comedy right? Comedy is about laughs? Laughs are about jokes? Without laughs you’re just two people in a big black box standing in front of an audience right?

Cue mug out to the audience.

Yes, we are trying to perform comedy, but I’m starting to change my opinion on what comedy is, or more to the point, how the comedic element in improv operates in scenes. Is it enough to throw funny lines into a performance? Develop a funny character? Put the scene on mars in a log cabin with robots? Or do we want to build up the scene, through truthfulness, into something which fundamentally emotes humor, pain, and pathos?

Yeah, that’s right I wrote “pathos.” What of it?

And so, in my daily troll through the IRC I found a thread that addressed just this issue entitled Realistic Improv. While the post goes off on a few tangents, the most distracting being the supposed difference between NYC improv schools, it does have some wonderful words of wisdom, the most profound of these by Anthony King, UCB NY’s Creative Director.

In my opinion, good improv should not be about winking to the audience or just focusing on laughs — not ever. However, it’s also not necessarily about being “real.” It’s about being “truthful.”

Now, the types of characters/relationships/situations/scenes the improviser is choosing to be truthful about, and the truths an improviser chooses to explore, as well as how that truth is explored, ultimately comes down to style and sense of humor. The best improvisers I know can play fast and slow, they can play “realistically” (as you define it) and broader (as I presume you define the opposite). Some improvisers are also better actors than others (Christina Gausas, for example, is an excellent actress and she is able to use those tools in her improvisation). Some shows also lend themselves to slower, more “realistic” play (Gravid Water, is definitely one of these shows because a huge majority of the scene is already defined by the actor’s scripted lines — which are, more often than not, incredibly “realistic.”)

But UCBT’s focus on the game of the scene has absolutely nothing to do with these choices in style of play (game is about what we play, not how we play). And good, interesting games are not math problems — they are patterns of behavior that arise out of this truthfulness.

I know I often encourage my students to start their scenes in more recognizable, “realistic” situations (say, a mother and son talking in the kitchen on a college break) rather than more strange, clever situations (say, an alien and a Q-tip playing Plinko) because it’s easier for us to play the truth of a situation we find easily relatable than a situation we have to strive to comprehend, and therefore easier to build patterns of behavior. But there’s equal truth to the Q-Tip’s desire to win Plinko as there is to the mother’s desire to connect with her son, and both of those truths will be decided based on the sense of humor of the improviser, and hopefully the improviser will play them both as “truthful” as possible.

I won’t make the claim that you never see bad improv from performers who should know better. Sometimes the temptation to get that laugh is very high and I have seen a lot of hilarious bad improv. But that old Del quote is right, “Just because they’re laughing doesn’t mean we’re succeeding.” And I think you’ll find that the majority of good improvisers may not always play “realistically”, but they are striving to play “truthfully.”

He then continues.

I think it’s important to remember two things:

1. Everyone you see performing at UCBT (and other stages in NYC) are still learning. You can learn equally from success and failure (both while performing and watching). Hopefully our performers succeed more than they fail, but if they are failing because they are taking risks and working to learn new things — that’s pretty awesome.At its core, the UCBT teaches truthfulness and game. That doesn’t mean both of those things are always present on stage (they are, afterall, the ideal), but it’s what our performers are striving for. The main requirement for staying on a Harold Team at UCBT is a obvious, active desire to continue to learn.I remember being in Level 3 and having ridiculously long IM conversations with people centered on, “has an improv scene ever made you cry?” Some improvisers are really interested in that kind of improv. Some are not. But there is nothing about UCBT’s philosophy that excludes it — which I know is true because there is no way you’re ever going to cry if what you’re watching is not truthful and rooted in behavior (i.e. game).
2. This shit is an artform, yo. That means we’re all going to have different, sometimes clashing, opinions about how to approach it. As you improve and learn more, you’ll have all kinds of opinions about this approach. That’s awesome and necessary. Try them all. Get as much varied experience as possible. Find what works for you. Then get really good at that approach. Discuss it with everyone who will listen. Get in arguments about it. Then try someone else’s approach and work to get really good at that too. The last thing you want to do, though, is cut yourself off from other people’s ideas too quickly.

*Highlights added by me.

Buzz Focus has a great write up on the DeCoster Premier at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

My personal favorite scene of the evening was when Neuringer introduced her team to the Wizard of Oz yellow-brick-road exhibit, which each player cleverly tied into a historical metaphor. The scene culminated in a proclamation that the yellow-brick-road was a metaphor for the gold standard.

I couldn’t agree more, although my personal highlight was DC from Derrick and Ari’s really amazingly heightened analogous scenes about the savior and the eternally persecuted retailer. Really simple, really well played, and DC’s first Harold night scene.

Tomorrow night is the debut of Raynard who is a group of new players, some of which I have had the pleasure to play with. It’s not something you want to miss.

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.

A big Improvoker congratulations to Jumpin’ Joe Spellman, Aubrey Plaza, Rob Cuthill, and all the other improvisers we don’t know yet.

News has it that tomorrow night, July 3rd at 8pm, will be Creep’s last show at Harold Night at the UCBNY. We urge you all to go and give them one last hurrah, before they all become so famous you can’t get near them with a 100 foot pole.* Creep is Eric Bernat, Eugene Cordero, Angeliki George, Birch Harms, Jeff Hiller, Ryan Karels, Megan Neuringer, and Amber Petty.

Creep is UCBNY’s longest running Harold team.

This news coming 1 month after Kill Your Darlings was removed from the Harold Night roster.

*A 100 foot pole is a pretty long pole.

Just last week I had an alarming experience. My improv notebook went missing and I panicked. I started calling all the people I knew, to see if anyone had picked it up while we were out. No one knew where it was. I searched my overflowing backpack, my messy apartment, my paper filled office and still nothing. It turned out, I had written a few notes in it last Wednesday during group practice and had left it by the leg of my chair. Luckily for me, Roy Astorias Studio had it turned in and I retrieved it, but it was a harrowing experience. The history of the last year of my improv education is contained in that little notebook and If I were to loose it, I wouldn’t be able to reconstruct all the lessons, exercises, thoughts, or knowledge contained in it.

This, surprisingly, coincided with an article I have been writing, off and on, for the past 3 weeks about keeping an improv notebook. I considered it a sign that I should finish off the article and post it on the website. And so, without further ado…

Recently a UCB instructor asked me, while I was sitting in the UCB training center’s waiting room, writing in my improv notebook, whether I took class notes.

You now I never see many students taking notes in classes I teach. Back when I was in classes I took lots of notes and I still have all my notebooks.
Yeah, I hardy ever see students taking notes in classes and it sees strange to me as well. I would never remember any of this if I didn’t take notes.

Strangely from that time I have taken 2 additional classes and I am consistently the only student who takes regular notes in my classes and the only student I know who keeps an active written journal (besides improvoker web journal). Of course, everyone is different and has different ways of keeping and recording information. Some people may have brains that can retain class information without the need of a notebook, but I am not one of those people and I would wager that the majority of you all are not those types of people.

Enter the Improv Journal

I take copious notes, because when I started taking improv in 2001 — I didn’t. When I started, I really didn’t take improv that seriously. I didn’t read books, didn’t see shows, didn’t connect with the community; it was a hobby and I was just enjoying the ride. When I decided to come back into improv last year, after a short hiatus, I knew I wanted to invest more time into my craft. Sounds pretty pretentious, but true. I had spent a lot of money and time honing skills that I can barely remember now. Sure most of the lessons, good and bad, have been turned into muscle memory, but I would love to have some record of those early days and the specifics of what were said.

My notes perform 5 major functions:

• Class Notes
• Thoughts/Improv Diary
• Recaps and Reviews of Shows
• Sketch Writing ideas
• Movies, TV, Theater people mention

My notebook is so important to my improv training, that I really don’t know how I would attend classes without it. The sheer number of lesson to remember in just a single class, can springboard me into my head, in no time. My notebook allows me to take the information, that would normally fill my thoughts, and record them elsewhere for later review. This truly allows my brain to focus on the scenework at hand, rather than juggling focus with specifics notes. And as we all know thinking too much can cripple an improviser’s ability to perform.

In a sense, my improv notebook acts like a repository for the things I need to remember long-term. It allows me to compartmentalize ideas and get them out of my short-term, so I can use that space for my scene work. If it all seems a little confusing, why not start your notebook today.