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A few years back I saw an improv show that changed the way I play. I forget the name of the team*, but there was a scene going on and Paloma Nuñez and Kevin Williams were watching from the sidelines. They were both inspired to move onto the stage at the same time. They stopped instantly on the edge of the stage and played rock, paper, scissors to see who got to make their move.

I sat in awe, my eyes wide open. They were both willing to fight for their idea. I watched from the audience and thought, if that had been me with either of them I would’ve said, “You go.” Are you kidding me? How could my idea even compete with one of those geniuses?

It’s taken me years to gain the confidence to know my ideas are just as good as anyone’s. Paloma won and went into the scene and it was awesome. What was her idea? I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. It was perfect for that moment. And she knew it. And Kevin’s idea would’ve been perfect too. And so would’ve little ole mine.

Photo © Kevin Patrick Robbins

*Editor’s note: Little American Bastards

“Conflict is the essence of drama.” – Aristotle
“Conflict is not the essence of drama. Agreement is the essence of drama.” – Del Close
“My head hurts.” – improv student

Conflict.

Some improvisers love it. Others run from it.

In most performers’ minds, the word “conflict” suggests that characters should disagree or fight.

Most discussions about conflict tend to generate their own conflict: Is it necessary? How does it get started? How do you avoid it? Should it be based on what the story needs or what the characters want?

In order to get a better understanding of conflict, let’s begin with the “Today is The Day” scenario that’s often taught.

Often teachers will frame scene work with the view that “Today is the day things change for your character…a scene should be about a life-altering experience.” Scenes that follow will be inherently interesting because we see the character in a new light.

After all, how exciting can it be to watch a character do the same thing they always do?

We want to see a character finally stand up to his boss, declare his love, get a divorce, get a job, get fired…anything to break the routine.

And I don’t necessarily disagree with this so much as I disagree with how it is handled.

For one thing, anytime you use the word “should” in an improv context, you (inadvertently) set up expectations. (A scene should be about…)

In the rush to get to a life-altering experience, performers get so caught up in the theory that something needs to happen, that they miss out on what already is happening.

Before we focus on “Why is this day different than all the others?” what if we asked “Why is this day the same?”

Life-altering often seem less life-altering when we haven’t even established the life that is getting altered.

When we place more importance on what needs to happen than on appreciating what is happening, we lose touch with an awareness of ourselves in our experience.

And when we lose touch with how we feel about what’s going on, we start to guess. Or calculate what “should” happen. Rather than be ourselves and play from a truthful place, we make choices based on our opinion of what’s best for the scene.

In order for a scene to be interesting, it really helps for the improviser to be interested in what they are doing or what is going on. If they aren’t, then why would the audience be? When an improviser believes in the moment, they open themselves up to transformation, revelation, movement, resolution, agreement, and breaking of a routine.

These events are sometimes referred to as “tilts.”

A tilt can change someone’s status or even change the balance in a scene without conflict.

As long as you are invested in the moment, there isn’t any need to introduce or create conflict. The pressure you place on yourself to find the conflict will remove you from your scene.

As a result, you are no longer inside the scene, but outside of it.

If you construct conflict in order to create a scene, then you are constructing rather than behaving.

Just be.

If that’s not enough, be more.

When in doubt, raise the level of need for your character. If you get lost in the scene, it’s because you’re not in character. Dig deeper into how you feel about what you are doing, or how you feel about what is going on and allow it to inform you.

You don’t need to CREATE conflict; your character needs to need.

Other characters have their own needs, therefore conflict will ensue whether you want it or not.

“Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.” – Max Lucade

Allen Key

Steve Hobbs is a wicked smart improviser and an old soul. If you need proof, just read this post. He’s a member of the indefatigable Harold team El Fantoma, the indefinable Jenkins Syndrome, and is a featured player in Pondward Bound’s duos night.

Hi, I’m Steve, and I’m dedicating this blog to a man who doesn’t think he’s read anything good today.

I’ve had an improv-related mental itch that’s needed scratching for a while, but have had a lot of trouble figuring out what it was or how to scratch it. You know what I’m talking about: a real thorn in the brain-paw, something I couldn’t quite get my head wrapped around.

The closest I’ve come to phrasing it is, “How did we/I just do that?” For all the moments where that amazing scenic moment happened effortlessly, or when the audience loves something you’re/I’m/we’re doing when it literally feels like it’s a non-move that’s being made, that question gets asked on some level.

Yeah, we know principles of good scene work, techniques, having a point of view, being “in the moment,” and we learn what works from experience and understanding, and for all remaining occasions those moments commonly get written off as the audience’s energy…but personally? I still ask that question.

There are still moments that don’t add up, and still people that will love how lost in that character one of us was when sometimes it didn’t feel like we were that lost in a character at all.

Am I crazy? Are some of these observations justified? What’s happening in those moments that you can only see from the audience? What am I missing?

It was finally laid out plainly for me (through the most seemingly unrelated scenario possible) when I was playing a 10-minute duo set last week, and found myself in the classic pre-show position of having to take a huge dump (ladies, please, hold your applause).

There was no time, I put it out of mind, and soldiered on. It was a fun set; I performed with a player pulled lottery-style from the audience, we both made some moves (intimate prison cell guard vs. inmate about-to-be-released relationship), and sure enough, I ended up taking some focus to “drop a deuce” in the corner of my cell like a good little bran-filled inmate.

Now, this in itself wasn’t too unusual for me, and I didn’t think twice about it at the time. I’ve become all too familiar with sets becoming affected by topics shuffled around pre-show. In fact, it’s uncanny how in a four-set night, the first group having the over-the-top baby-birthing scene will produce at least two subsequent sets with heavy baby emphasis. Uncanny, but typical as hell. I talked about pooping, I pooped while in character, I went on with my day. So what?

So this: when I got off-stage and the intermission came, I was completely empty. There was no round in the chamber, the kids were unavailable for the pool drop-off, the turtle had defied aquatic science and was no longer in the shell somehow. “Large intestine? Cancel my one o’clock”. Totally empty, totally satisfied. That’s not normal for me, or anyone, I think.

Now, with respect to the average person’s intelligence, I’m not suggesting that my colon became some magical gateway to another universe’s toilet, or that my asshole is the Matrix and that particular load realized there was no spoon and woke up in the asshole of the real. This article isn’t (supposed to be) about poop.

What I’m saying is, this realization brought me face to face with an entity that I have a lot of trouble perceiving, and is frequently danced around while left unidentified in my own improv equations. What am I talkin’ ‘bout Willis? I’m talking about my/the unconscious.

Having taken psych classes and group-dynamics training as a camp counselor, I’ve known for a few years that a) the unconscious mind isn’t supposed to be perceivable (memory and sub-conscious recall memory recall fits into the “pre-conscious” in Freudian models), and b) one of my most difficult challenges has been learning to perceive the things I don’t know I’m doing that others can already perceive. (Take a gander at the Johari window for a crash course in that perception relationship.)

image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

In fact, I made it a goal of mine to spend the last few years coming to better understand and harness those intricacies in general. But I hadn’t previously considered that, with regard to show tendencies and perception, it’s possible the difficult-to-perceive thing coming through is my unperceivable unconscious mind (which explains a lot, and may or may not have let me poop without pooping)!

Is that what’s being seen? Is my unconsciousness making subtle moves on stage that my conscious isn’t registering? It’s like being Bruce Banner and finding out that Hulk has been taking chemistry classes while I’ve been dreaming. “Have I been sleeping later? Have I been Hulking out longer and longer?”

It fits though – we go to improv school and get trained in all these techniques and skill sets (callbacks, dialogue patterns, scene structuring, thematic work, even “Yes and” etc.), hoping to imprint it so we don’t have to think about it (arguably accessed through the pre-conscious), and meanwhile, what do we value most in longform scenework? Affecting each other. Discovery. Relationships. Truth in comedy. Things that aren’t pre-thought out, and shouldn’t be (formula can be cancer in these moments if it undercuts commitment to the moment).

In a world where we’re trained to both make choices and have points of views while truly reacting in the moment, maybe it’s the sincere presence of the unthinking unconscious in these characters/moments that makes them powerful.

Now, I’m not the first person to write about art and the unconscious, and don’t profess to be an expert on the topic, so I’m going to try to steer clear of getting further nerd-booky and technical with all of this. I can only speak to my own unconscious, and mine freaks the shit out of me.

I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure the “id” lives in there, which means mine is selfish, and makes me want to punch enemies arbitrarily, and cheat on my girlfriend, and scream out during a school assembly as a kid because it’s too quiet, and be late for every event in my life, and fight bears for fun, and not care about anything, and a million, much more horrible things (these aren’t things I go out and do*, but they’re in there). If I let every scene run wild with unconscious, there’d be a lot of offended, unhappy audience members.

And I’ve had that moment of asking “how can this chaotic, compassionless beast be the missing part of the equation?” I mean, even if these impulses are the interesting, reactionary character elements that help make scenic moments great, there’s a bittersweet taint to it. Not just from needing to rely on part of yourself that’s largely un-fake-able and unquantifiable, but from selfish, consciousness-loving pride.

Consider for a second that the part of you that’s trying to make moves and be amazing – hell, the part of you that learns – could be doomed to come second place to the part of you that isn’t.

Realistically, I’m sure it’s a marriage. Just like the fun iO West team-dynamic discussion of teams balancing out highly structured robot players with highly impulsive pirate players (and silent credit-less ninja thinkers of course), a balance between the unconscious and consciousness in scenes is the best route to goodness.

I’m not sure what the balance is (is training just conditioning for the unconscious, or a series of filters?), but I know it’s there. I’ve done my best to look my own unconscious in the eye, and I think we’re coming to terms…though factoring in my frequent lateness, un-wake-able dreams, constant impulsive behaviour, and recently acquired ability to mentally cancel shitting, I’m pretty sure it’s a juggernaut and wearing the pants in this mental relationship.

Oh well.

HULK SMASH.

*I may or may not fight a bear in my lifetime. I might actually go out and do that one.

Photo © Becky Feilders

Photo © Mike Riverso

In 2011, a little thing called Shit Girls Say hit the interwebs. Within days it had millions of hits. Then the parodies started popping up: Shit New Yorkers Say. Shit Sri Lankan Mothers Say. Shit Nobody Says. (The line “Can I burn a copy of your Nickelback CD?” alone deserves an Oscar.) Each of them scored millions of hits as well.

We’d already had Shit My Dad Says – the tweets, the book, and the ill-fated TV show. But it took the viral power of video to spawn an interactive phenomenon. What made Shit Girls Say so successful?

First, great talent. Graydon Sheppard is terrific as the writer, actor and director. And Juliette Lewis ain’t so shabby.

Second, relatability. We all know someone (maybe we are that person) who says and does the things these videos poke fun at. And the structure or “game” of the content lends itself to endless variations.

Third, repetition. A lot of the humour involves simple phrases, said multiple times.

One of the simplest ways to get laughs is just to repeat something. You’ve probably experienced this a million times in conversation with your friends. Your buddy says something, then a few minutes later someone else says the same thing in a different context, and everyone laughs.

This can be helpful when learning the Harold, which typically has three beats. It’s easy to bring something back from a first beat (a phrase, gesture, or sound effect for instance) and repeat it in later beats. In improv this is known as a callback.

When beginning improvisers first use callbacks, the high of getting laughs from an audience can lead to overkill. Too many tag-outs, using a character’s catchphrase too often, or repeating anything ad nauseum will quell your audience faster than you can say “John Carter.” Use the power of repetition wisely.

Of course, like any skill, once you’ve mastered it you can go nuts. Portlandia‘s Fred Armisten and Carrie Brownstein are masters of repetition. The “Put A Bird On It” and “Cacao” scenes from Season One are hilarious. Notice how they heighten the humour. It’s not just the same thing every time; each mention gets a little more absurd.

On the other hand, when Family Guy Peter Griffin falls and hurts his knee, it’s funny because it doesn’t change. It just goes on and on and on and on and on. What keeps it funny is Peter’s agony. Every “Ssssssss…Aaaaaaah!” is fully charged.

Sometimes when we’re improvising, we start with something and then drop it – and that’s usually where the scene tanks. Whatever you’re doing, commit. Repeat it, heighten and explore. See where it takes you. As Susan Messing says “Comedy comes from commitment and recommitment to your shit.”

“Ssssssss…Aaaaaaah!”

Photo © Crista Flodquist

Specificity is the spice of scenework. Whether you’re creating a sketch, a play, a movie, or an improv scene, specificity colours and shapes the world your characters inhabit. Here are some ways it can add richness to your scenes.

Names

Names have power. Would Cary Grant have been as successful if he’d stayed Archibald Leach? Looking at this headshot the answer is…maybe. But you get my point.

Giving your characters names helps dimensionalise them, for your scene partners and the audience. It also helps your teammates bring those characters back in longform.

“Names are important. We care about people whose names we know; we don’t give a shit about strangers.” – Susan Messing

Damn straight. Think about news headlines: “Man dead at 50” just doesn’t affect us the same way “Joe Strummer dead at 50” does.

Here’s another great tip from Susan: “What does that person LOOK like? I can guaranfuckingtee that they don’t usually look like your go-to name of ‘Susie’ or ‘Jimmy.'”

If everyone in your scenes is called Bob or Bill, try throwing in a Jatinder and see what happens. Or Quentin. Or Shasta.

An added bonus: unusual names are more memorable. Right, Cary?

Brands

In this age of persuasion, even bleeding-heart liberals like me have favourite brands. Like it or not, the products we choose say a lot about who we are. Watch Dennis Hopper in this scene from Blue Velvet:

Not only do we know what his character, Frank Booth, likes. We also know what he doesn’t like. (Bonus points to Hopper for having an emotional reaction to something so seemingly small.) The next time you find yourself holding a glass onstage, think about what’s in it. It might hold a clue to your character.

Information like this is best used sparingly. The Pabst Blue Ribbon scene would’ve lost its impact if all Hopper did through the rest of the movie was rant about PBR.

The funniest scene paint I ever saw involved a player pouring something onto his burger. One of his teammates leaned in, pointed to the bottle and said, “Diana Sauce*.”

*(Canadian BBQ sauce)

The audience loved it.

That one little detail added so much. No Heinz ketchup for this guy. Now we knew a little bit more about the character, and the setting. Which leads us to…

Environment

Is that a Louis Quinze chair, or a La-Z-Boy lounger? Just deciding that will affect how you sit and move in your environment.

Again, keep it simple. When a team goes crazy scene painting 30 things, it’s hard to keep track of them. It’s not about the things; it’s about the people who use those things.

The way you position your chairs on stage is another way to add information. Instead of the usual “two chairs turned slightly towards each other” set-up, try something different. Two seats side by side become a restaurant banquette, or airplane seats, or a cramped subcompact car.

Physicality and Gesture

Does your character have a prosthetic leg? Does he or she hold things very daintily? Maybe they wash their hands after touching anything.

By repeating and exaggerating a gesture, you can use it to heighten your character. (David Razowsky is a master of gesture. His Viewpoints workshop is a must for anyone who wants to deepen their approach to improv.)

Think about the people you know. Chances are some of them have specific quirks or tics: a habit of drumming their fingers impatiently, or jiggling their leg when they’re anxious. How does that affect their personality, not to mention the people around them?

You can mimic someone else’s physicality, or try leading into a scene with a specific body part. A character who slinks around the stage could be shifty, sensual, or just plain eccentric. Specificity leads to discovery. Let your body reveal your character.

Specificity Is Funny

You can be specific about just about anything. Here are some lines of dialogue taken from live shows. Notice how specificity makes them memorable. Take that away, and you’re left with generalisations, with vagueness. Master improvisers use specificity to paint a vivid picture in their audience’s mind. Be specific.

“I’ll bet you wear a red bra. I’ll take your silence as a yes.”

“My heart is broken, and it can only be fixed through a jazz medley.”

“He died in a brothel in France, right?” “Plane crash.”

“We are Spartans! I believe I can handle a little room-temperature mayonnaise.”

“You’re like a tiny, Jewish Indiana Jones.”

“It’s horrible. It’s like somebody carved a turkey and then put it back together.”

“I’m gonna go straight upstairs and masturbate to Tony Danza for an hour.”

“I think it’s smart not to serve decaf. Fuck those people.”

“You know what I was doing? I was cleaning the oven. That’s how Sylvia Plath died.”

“I used to sniff gas out of a cowboy hat.”

“I love franchised shows.” “Yeah, Special Victims, Criminal Intent…” “Which is the one with the guy that used to be good?”

“Never bring a sword to a mongoose fight.”

 

Rob Norman is an actor, improviser, director, and a writer for Sexy Nerd Girl. He’s also a Second City alumnus and four-time Canadian Comedy Award nominee. You can catch Rob performing at Comedy Bar with the testosterone-infused improv juggernaut Mantown.

I don’t know you (or maybe I do; it’s hard to see your face past this dense, ethereal veil known as “the internet”) but I’m going to guess what your problem is: You don’t have any money.

That’s obvious. You’re reading a blog about improvisational comedy. Only a working comedian trying to unlock the secrets of their craft would think that’s a good use of their time. Or you’re a very, very bored poor person. Either way, you should probably be on Craigslist finding a real job. Shame on you.

Onstage, your improv-related problems are idiosyncratically linked to whatever psychic inadequacies you possess. Each show is a battle fought with internal reminders: Stop trying to control everything. Build on other people’s ideas. Be more vulnerable. Stop trying to be entertaining. Create scenes that make sense.

Despite knowing what you should do, it seems you can’t help but repeat old habits. So for the next fifty kilobytes, let’s abandon the idea of doing “good improv.” Instead let’s focus on improvising more efficiently. After all, you have limited resources (stage time, energy, the audience’s goodwill).

Great improvisers seem to float through scenes without ever wasting a single line of dialogue, while struggling newbies flail about aimlessly, creating superfluous information that only serves to confuse everyone onstage. So how do you focus on the essentials in a scene?

Player A: Oh no, Jim! My best friend of fifteen years. Look, this nuclear bomb is about to explode.

Player B: Quick. Let’s try to fix it!

Player A: Yes and…we did it.

Player B: Hooray!

Great “Yes anding.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t care less. Why do we put so much focus on imaginary things? I don’t care about the nuclear bomb. And your special effects are unimpressive (the drunken audience’s imagination plus your mime skills do not a good scene make).

I also don’t care about the story. If the bomb blows up, it’ll irradiate an imaginary mall and kill two made-up characters (that no one cares about) with a fictitious backstory that probably wasn’t compelling to begin with.

But there is something real happening onstage: the dynamic between you and your scene partner.

Behaviour is what draws us into your scene. It’s the only thing we see onstage and recognize as true.

You’ll be a better improviser when you stop seeing what could be (or should be – all those helpful improv rules you’ve learned) happening onstage, and start reacting to what’s happening right now, in front of you.

Player A: Here’s my test, Dad. I think I failed.

Player B: That’s terrible. You’re grounded until your marks improve!

Does this sound like a decent improv scene to you? Do it onstage, and watch what happens. At worst, it bombs. At best, it bombs with some funny moments. But why is that? Both players are adding information in a simple fashion. They’re developing the scene together.

The problem is, the star of this scene isn’t Player A or Player B. It’s about some imaginary kid (don’t care) and his grades in school (I also don’t care). For the most part, real kids in real schools living real lives don’t care about their grades. Why would you want to make that the focus of your scene?

An improviser’s only job is to create a dynamic between the characters onstage. It’s how you’re affected by your scene partner that pulls us in. Each time your partner adds information, ask yourself, “Do I love or hate what was just said?”

Player A: Here’s my test, Dad. I think I failed.

Player B: Go fuck yourself!

Whoops! You’re not choosing whether you love or hate your scene partner in their entirety. This is equally boring. It creates a dynamic that exists entirely in the past. You’ve already made a firm decision about your scene partner and there’s no room to build (or heighten the pattern). Instead, think “Do I love or hate what my partner just said?”

Player A: Here’s my test, Dad. I think I failed.

Player B: Oh that’s the worst! Now you’re not going to amount to anything!

Player A: It’s only a test…

Player B: I can’t believe you think that. You’re a failure and naïve!

Great! So each time Player A speaks, Player B is affected personally by it. And Player B has chosen to hate it. But the reverse also works.

Player A: Here’s my test, Dad. I think I failed.

Player B: You are so brave for telling me!

Player A: Dad…

Player B: It takes one hell of a man to look his father in the eyes and admit he failed. I’m going to buy you a car.

Player A: I’m fourteen.

Player B: But with the integrity of a man in his eighties!

Also great! Do you see how both of these examples are happening right now? It’s not about the failed test, it’s about how a kid tells his Dad he failed the test. Do you see how both players are forced to immediately respond? Everything else: characters, environment, action, story – are just by-products of being in the moment. And the context of your scene is an imaginary (and often accidental) construct generated by actively playing the dynamic.

And that’s something you can easily create. Try it. Let your scene partner speak, then decide to love or hate that idea. Once you’ve mastered that, expand “love” to any positive emotion (contentment, admiration, lust, comfort) and apply that to your partner. See what happens when you use the same technique with negative emotions.

In the end, there are two kinds of improvisers: Players who invent information. And players who discover information.

You can make a scene happen, or let your scene happen to you. If you focus on creating less, you won’t have to improvise in the future or the past. You can spend more time with your scene partner. Onstage. In the moment. Inside of the scene. And less time reading improv blogs on the internet. Seriously, you really need to find that job…

Photo © Kevin Thom

Josh Bowman is a professional fundraiser, storyteller, comedian, improviser, and blogger. He also writes for tenthingsivelearned.com, The Huffington Post, The Good Men Project, and improvises around Toronto, including regular shows with Opening Night Theatre and Surprise Romance Elixir, and when he tricks other better improvisers into performing with him.

Note: Any scene can be terrific if it’s played enthusiastically and intelligently, but generally when I see players initiate any of the scenes below, it doesn’t end well. PS: I’ve done most of these myself. Blergh to me.

  1. A married couple arguing because the husband came home late from work. He was likely having beers with “the guys”
  2. People just arguing in general for no apparent reason
  3. Somebody teaching somebody else how to be cool
  4. Any combination of two or more of the following: robots, pirates, vampires, Jesus, explosions, time travel, a funeral
  5. Somebody on the toilet sitting beside somebody else on the toilet, talking about toilets
  6. People waiting for the bus
  7. “This is the best (blank) ever!!”
  8. Somebody calling somebody else fat/ugly, and helping them be prettier
  9. Too much talking
  10. Scenes where people keep saying “I don’t understand!” “I don’t know what’s going on here!”