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Posts tagged Susan Messing

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Photo © Marc-Julien Objois

Photo © Marc-Julien Objois

It’s been an intense week for people in the arts. We’ve seen actors, filmmakers, comedians, and musicians called “cucks,” “crybabies,” “snowflakes” and far worse for expressing themselves, or being concerned with “feelings versus facts.”

But no one goes to see a show about facts. No one stands in front of an equation at MoMA, or dances to string theory.

How do you speak your truth and show vulnerability onstage when tensions are so high? We asked a few of our favourite improvisers for their perspective.

Anand Rajaram What we do as artists is unique because it’s the only field in which we are not only welcome to, but required to express our feelings.

Lawyers may or may not empathize with their clients, or police with their suspects, but it cannot get in the way of doing their job or they’re deemed unfit to hold their position. Artists, as a result, do what everyone else suppresses.

Naturally, that causes those who suppress themselves most to respond strongest, either in thanks for petitioning an idea on their behalf, or with vitriol for challenging their beliefs.

There is no potential worse time for democracy. That means there is great potential for intense feelings and self and societal suppression. And that means artists are well positioned, if brave enough, to emerge as strong social pillars in these turbulent times.

But it starts with recognizing one’s feelings, then having perspective, and finally, having the strength to withstand criticism for one’s viewpoint. Improvisers, like actors, need empathy to understand alternate perspectives and represent them honestly. Big ears and openness may lead to a very transformative time to come.

Christine Aziz I haven’t been doing a lot of improv in NYC, but have been feeling particularly vulnerable considering I’m in a country where I have legal status but not really. I’m living in the US, but I’m not an American, so it makes me sometimes think, well, who am I to be having opinions about this? Or my opinion or reactions to the election aren’t as heavily weighted. Of course the leader of the free world makes decisions that affect the whole world, so my reactions are as a citizen of the world, who of course is affected.

I was at a jazz show last week where the headliner talked openly about his feelings, and people appreciated not only his music, but his authenticity. I worry about being too much of a downer as people start to say “Be positive and hope for the best” and “Be the change” etc, but this is totally unprecedented and I don’t think it’s right to suppress people’s perfectly valid fears. I’m so grateful to brave artists who are speaking up, especially the cast of Hamilton, because now is the time for artists to do our work. People are looking to us to inspire them and give them hope, and to propel them towards speaking up and standing up for others in their own lives.

I’m doing a cabaret show on the weekend and it’s comedic, but I want to fully acknowledge what is happening – the feelings of sadness and disappointment – but also the fight. The energy of “We aren’t going to take any bullshit, and we are paying attention.” But still keeping it light and not letting it dominate my act. The show must go on, but the show must also be mindful of what is happening out there in the world and can’t exist in a vacuum.

Susan Messing My thoughts are obviously leaking into my work. I did a show with Scott Adsit last Thursday, and one scene began with him onstage and me in the house and I said, “Mr Gonzales, are they really going to build a wall?”

“Post-truth” means LIE. I find it infuriating how that phrase and “alt-right” are bandied about as if it isn’t hurtful. At the least, comedy is helping us that feel lost and marginalized to commiserate with each other through laughter during a time that is distinctly not funny.

Etan Muskat I think the operative word in “Fuck Your Feelings” is “Your.” One of the scariest things about the American election is how divided people seem to be. There’s real rage on both sides, and a real inability for the politically divided country to find common ground.

This thing about Trump tweeting that theatre should be a “safe and special place” is particularly interesting, because that’s an idea associated with millennials – that they are routinely attacked for – but it’s also at the heart of the current wave of racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia: people saying “I want my world to feel safe and I don’t feel safe around X.”

The SNL sketch with Tom Hanks about Trump voters and black Americans having so much in common was one of my favourite bits of comedy surrounding the election cycle, because it attempted to do something I haven’t seen much of lately: show the common humanity of enemies.

I remember hearing about a study that said reading novels increases empathy, because the reader is compelled to identify with the experiences of the narrator and characters outside their own experience. It’s a more intimate relationship than with a film or TV character. And that empathy translates to real life interpersonal dynamics.

I think improv has the ability to have that same effect, because of the vulnerability of the performers. But that vulnerability cuts both ways, as we’ve seen with Second City performers in Chicago being heckled to the breaking point.

I really believe the best comedy expresses profound truth. But truth is contingent on experience, even to the point that people will deny obvious facts if they don’t fit their worldview. That’s the secret to Trump, but it’s also the secret of all art. To tell a truth that our audience can embrace. So it really just depends on how you see the world.

Paloma Nuñez Share your life, your view, your experience. Everything that comes out of you comes from the filter of your life experience. That is relatable. Someone may see themselves in you and your life, and they might not feel so alone. Art is about feelings, because that’s how we process facts.

(Sidebar: This election wasn’t won with facts, it was won with feelings. People felt unheard and underrepresented, Trump capitalized on that. I mean did he even say any facts? Don’t fact check me on that…)

Fear is the enemy of creation, so you can’t worry about what others think; instead just make them feel. It’s the unifying factor. We all love people, we all want our loved ones to be safe, healthy, and happy. Show people who they are, without the filter of ridicule or judgement, and they might just see themselves in the mirror you place in front of them.

Julie Osborne Against this sort of socio-political backdrop, it’s easy to become mired in cynicism or hopelessness. Unscripted theatre affords us the opportunity to combat that with humanity in a very immediate and responsive way – inviting both the audience and performers to reflect, provoke, transpose and challenge our feelings in a setting that is very deliberately not constricted by fact, but that fails and feels hollow when there isn’t some sort of emotional truth present.

We go to the theatre to see exactly that: people being affected – experiencing things that resonate personally. We go to the theatre to feel something. In the company of others. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking comedy or tragedy (or a bit of both). It’s kind of the whole mandate, then, to speak personal truth and show vulnerability.

bcif-balloons

Photo © People and Chairs

Last night something huge happened, and no, it wasn’t the Jays game (boo-urns): Toronto’s Big City Improv Festival opened with the motherlode of great line-ups.

Fan faves and natty dressers Bonspiel got things rolling at 7, followed by an all-star Catch-23 featuring Office Funeral (Jason DeRosse and Stacey McGunnigle), Just For Laughs Montreal Quebec (Kirsten Rasmussen and Matt Folliott), and headliners The Boys a.k.a. Susan Messing and Rachael Mason (as if we needed to tell you).

The Boys took the stage again at 11 pm with a no-holds-barred long-form set that encompassed “womyn’s” stand-up, a testosterone-fuelled locker room rant, abandoned children, and a recovering alcoholic Santa.

Tonight features another stacked line-up of A-listers: That Moment When, Ze Jonas Brothers, Sex T-Rex, Yas Kween, 2-Man No-Show, and Mantown. Tickets are available at the door, or buy here, before they sell out.

Huge props to Mark Andrada, Brendon Halloran, Norm Sousa, Erin Conway, Mat Mailandt, Sam Roulston, Kevin Whalen, Samantha Adams, Martha Stortz, Nelu Handa, Adrianne Gagnon and all the volunteers behind the scenes who’re making this 5th anniversary the best BCIF yet. You done made this city proud.

The Boys, Photo © People and Chairs

The Boys, Photo © People and Chairs

(Oh, and ladies? If the election doesn’t go the way we’re all hoping, we’d love to have you.)

When Ted Flicker saw the Chicago Compass Players in 1955, he said, “I knew improvisation had great potential, but I saw that they were doing it wrong.”

He went on to open the St Louis Compass Theatre, ushering in a louder, faster, funnier style of improv. But when Chicago founder David Shepherd saw it, he said, “You’ve turned it into entertainment. You’ve ruined my dream.”

Now, few improvisers would say they’re against entertainment. But the debate persists. Is improvisation art? Comedy? Unscripted theatre? Is there a right or wrong way to do it?

It’s like religion. Some people worship Del Close, others revere Keith Johnstone, while others are staunch followers of iO, UCB, Annoyance, or The Groundlings. Which is cool. The problem is when you try to convince someone their religion is wrong.

And it’s not just theatres that have differences of opinion. Even tight-knit teams or instructors at the same school sometimes disagree.

My friend Alanna Cavanagh says “Creative people are brats.” When you tell them “No,” they rebel.

Image © Bansky

Image © Bansky

These days you can see fast, game-focused improv, slow comedy, musical improv, improvised Shakespeare, Chekhov and Mamet, ComedySportz, and even a mix of short and long form in the same show. Different theatres use different techniques, but the end result is the same: laughter and satisfied audiences.

But isn’t there “good” and “bad” improv? Sure. You can see a crappy improv set any night, even with seasoned performers on stage. Most likely it’s because the players weren’t committed or connected, not because they weren’t following rules.

TJ and Dave are at the pinnacle of this art form, and they’ve said that you don’t “master” improv. Great improvisers – great artists – are constantly learning. How then, can there be one right way to improvise?

We asked some people who consistently knock it out of the park to weigh in with their thoughts.

TJ Jagodowski

If I try to think of people who thrill me, I can’t think of one who I would describe as always having done something correctly. “Oh boy, were they right!” doesn’t even sound good.

But I have been thrilled by both improvisers and other types of performers who I would describe as unique, unafraid, generous, interesting, fun, truly themselves, or free. All of those states are very difficult, if not impossible to achieve, if there is a chunk of your mind in some deliberation over whether you’re doing it right. What is right is what your partner needs, your scene needs, your show needs. Do it right that way.

Jimmy Carrane

Since improv is an art form, that means it’s subjective, like music or theater or comedy. Some people love Will Ferrell and think he’s the funniest thing ever, while other people can’t stand him. It doesn’t mean Will Ferrell’s style of comedy is right or wrong, it’s simply just that: a style, a matter of taste. And in a way, the fact that there are so many differing opinions about how to do improv actually proves that it is an art form.

We said in Improvising Better that there is only one way to improvise: yours. And I still stand by that statement. Your job is to find what works for YOU. It’s a personal art form, so what works for one person may not work for another. If finding the game in the scene works for you, by all means keep using it. If it gets in your way, throw it out. There’s no right, and there’s no wrong way to improvise, unless you are not having any fun, then you have a problem.

Susan Messing

Rachael Mason and I did a four-parter for Second City called I’Mprovising RIGHT, which totally sends up those who insist that there is a right way to get there – which is so ridiculous. To me that’s like having sex right. Isn’t the job to get off?

Are there suggestions that I could offer as a teacher to support you in getting off sooner, and your partner as well? Sure, but the ultimate responsibility is to have more fun than anyone else, and if your partner’s having fun that’s even more of a turn-on in terms of this work.

And then you win and the audience was in the moment with you, so they got off, too.

The audience, guaranteed, will never look at your show and say, “Hmmm. They are doing correct improv.”

However, they will see the insecure, overlooked, overbearing, condescending, judgemental players and immediately disconnect from the scene because they are either worried about the performer, or hate them for their in-scene judgement.

The Improv Police needs a hobby: like getting off more onstage, and stop worrying about the “rightness” of it all.

I’ve heard all the rules. I play major nice with my friends. Our assumption is we are respectful to each other in terms of basic agreement, et al. That said, I’m going to get off and it is contagious, and I don’t overthink it, because ultimately it’s simply getting to play like kids but with grown-up sensibilities, and if we’re lucky, maybe a piano player. The end.

We turned this shit into rocket science/brain surgery/physics/chess because we wanted to give it so much integrity to match the joy we felt when we did it. But this does not need to be as complicated as many have made it.

As a matter of fact, I am quite sure that if I can be a fucking improviser, anyone can, because I just didn’t give up.

There are so many schools of thought and all of them I have worked for or with, and they’re all only opinions.

And they’re all great.

And it might infuriate you because one day you’ll be given a note, and the next day you will receive the equal and opposite note from someone else, and that will drive you crazy.

But you’re an improviser and are malleable, and ultimately you’ll be the kind of improviser you want to be, doing the kind of work you want to do with who you want to be doing it with. But you will be able to do everything, and hopefully evolve and not be a tiresome, closed, right-minded little shit.

Isaac Kessler

A quote from my Dad:

“If someone says their way is the only way…run the other way.”

You can’t do improv wrong.

You also can’t do improv right.

You can, however, improvise.

Doing something right or wrong denotes a failure at achieving a final goal, and there’s no final goal in improv. There’s no princess to be saved or sunset to ride off into if we get to third beats in a Harold or defeat The Hepatitis B-Boys (last week’s shortform champs).

Improv is a process. It’s about the current moment, and this moment now, and oops-ya-just-missed-it-but-don’t-worry-it-was-behind-your-ear-the-whole-time moment right here.

So my question is thus: What fuels you through each moment? What’s pushing you off the back line? What’s truly driving you into the unknown?

What would happen if you tried Joy on for size? Not the kind of joy you get when meeting a puppy, but the Joy and excitement of tapping into your true potential. To be driven by the pleasure of exposing your love and your pain. Show us your laughter and show us your tears.

Don’t be right and don’t be wrong. Just be You.

Anyways, that’s the only way to improvise.

(please don’t run away)

“Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.” ― Walt Whitman (not my Dad)

David Razowsky

Whatever works for me, works for me. Whatever works for you, works for you. I will be vocal in expressing what works for me. Please remember that my expression of what works for me has absolutely nothing to do with how much you should enjoy your approach to improv.

If asked what reaction I’d like you to have when you hear my enthusiastic rantings of what works for me, I’d tell you: “However you want to react, react that way. It’s how you feel. Knock yourself out.” If you’d like to argue how what works for you is the correct way, well, go right ahead. Please express your well-thought out opinion. The more you talk about it, the more you voice it, the more you understand what works for you and how best you can express that. Please don’t expect any reaction from me outside of, “Cool. Go knock yourself out.”

I get onto the stage, I look at my partner, I react in that moment. That works for me. Should I play with you and you don’t play the way that I play and I don’t care much about how our show went, please know that it’s very likely we’ll not play together anytime soon for I didn’t have fun, rather I had work. I’m not here to work. I’m here to play. Your play is your play and my play is my play. I’ll express my joy at having had the chance to play with you for I am grateful for that. I’m grateful for all chance to play.

Most likely I’ll walk off that stage and think, “How cool. We both have our own style. That’s what art’s all about.” I’ll then move on and knock myself out.

Joe Bill

If we’re going to use religion as a metaphor, then I guess I would be a Unitarian/Universalist. I think the consideration of right or wrong within improvisation depends on the context in which you’re doing it.

I taught Harold for the first time in a couple of years at summer intensive last year at iO, and coming back to it after not teaching Harold for probably three or four years was really interesting, because of the perception that the kids in their 20s have now. Which is more rigid, which is more rooted in this proposition of what’s right or what’s wrong.

I don’t believe in my heart, in my artistic heart, that it does the players any good while they’re doing Harold to think about what’s right or what’s wrong.

I don’t remember Del talking about a right Harold or a wrong Harold. He just spoke of Harold and not knowing what Harold was going to be until Harold’s here. He DID say things like “Play to the top of your intelligence” (for my money, the most overrated note in improvisation) and “Wear your character like a veil,” which could lead people in the direction of assessing the rightness or wrongness of a move, in that moment.

I think what’s right or what’s wrong really is rooted in an objective point of view to what you’re subjectively engaged in. And if you’re being objective to what you’re subjectively engaged in, then you can’t engage fully to experience what the magic of the piece can be, because you’re in primary conversation with yourself, and you’re in secondary conversation with your cast mates and the piece that’s unfolding.

When I see UCB Harolds, like strict Harolds, it’s like watching nine or twelve analysts on stage, analysing their way through a living writing process, as opposed to, once you advance your way through UCB, you get to what Del claimed Harold was anyway, which is, “Eventually if you give a group of people a suggestion which they theatrically brainstorm on for five minutes, and then that group of people improvises based on that exploration for 20 to 30 minutes, you come to some type of conclusion You’ve done Harold.”

I’ve been with Charna where a perfect, textbook Harold happens on stage at iO, and they hit all the things and connections were made, and you look at it and structurally, that was a Harold. But it was like a zombie Harold because there’s no soul, there’s no heart; the acting within that – that is, the theatrical proposition that we are here to affect each other, and we are going on an emotional journey, or one or more characters in this piece are going on an emotional journey as much as they’re going on an intellectual journey – if that magic doesn’t take place and we don’t see a transformation of spirit within the piece, we don’t really care.

If you’re improvising with people that have gotten to a point where you know that improvisation is just a state of being, and it’s a state of mind, and it’s a state that you’re in, that there’s nothing that can be wrong. There’s nothing that can throw you off. There’s nothing that can violate anything.

There’s the academic exploration of improv, and then there’s the practice of it. And I think in the practice of it, right or wrong are built into some contexts [like short form], that serve the audience. And in the academic pursuit of it, there’s right or wrong that can keep us drinking beer or coffee together.

There’s a fork in the road when you’re improvising that quickly comes up, and it is, ‘Are you pursuing comedy, or are you pursuing truth?’ And the pursuit of comedy, psychologically, is a masculine proposition. The pursuit of truth is a feminine proposition, if masculine equals goal and feminine equals process. And regardless of what you’ve got between your legs, we all have both in us.

But we’re wired, we have synaptic channels in our brain that tend to wire us towards one as our alpha personality and one as our secondary personality. And comedy is goal; the goal is laughter. Truth is a string of moments. And comedy doesn’t exclude truth, and truth doesn’t exclude comedy, but they may come up in different ways.

A big cornerstone of my teaching is, “What’s organic?” And it’s just, “Discoveries are instantaneous decisions we make that are unencumbered by the day-to-day self-judgemental bullshit that we walk around with in life.”

I teach the idea that “Obligation and inspiration are inversely proportional.” And I think people want to see inspiration in theatre, so the fixation on right or wrong puts you into a state of obligation, and you don’t want to be obliged…unless you’re doing short form, where obligation is a color of mindset and behavior paint on the improvisation palette to help you deliver laughter.

But the other piece is, would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?

Camp Improv Utopia is an annual three-night retreat where improvisers from around the world come to learn in a magnificent and unique setting. We spoke to actor/improviser and founder, Nick Armstrong, about improv as nature intended.

Photo © Camp Improv Utopia

Photo © Camp Improv Utopia

P&C: For readers who don’t know, what is Camp Improv Utopia?

NA: It’s an adult summer camp basically, so you have to be 18 and over to go. It’s kind of like boy scout/girl scout camp meets improv.

You’re doing workshops with great teachers from all over, but then we really also emphasize that we want you to be part of nature. So you have free time to do archery and swim in the lake and kayak, and that’s the boy scout/girl scout part of the adventure. So it’s kind of a mix of that.

P&C: Why improv and camping?

NA: I was an Eagle Scout growing up in California, and it’s very beautiful…there’s a lot of mountains, and Yosemite, and things like that. And I was really passionate about improv – I teach, I’ve performed for years – and I grew up being a boy scout and I was like, “Improvisers are so cool, I think they’d enjoy something like this.”

And so me and my friends from the Improv Olympic, I kinda threw them this idea, and they were like, “Yeah, that’s cool, let’s try it.” So we found a summer camp. We asked “Can you rent a summer camp?” And yeah, you can rent a summer camp! They’d never really kind of heard of it back then when we started, but we found the perfect place, we rented it, and we hoped people would show up.

P&C: How many years have you been doing the camp?

NA: The first one was 2011. This’ll be our sixth camp. The idea started a long time ago; we just never pulled the trigger till 2011. (laughs)

P&C: I’m gonna backtrack a little. How did you get into improv?

NA: I went and saw a show in 2000, 2001 at iO West. iO was very new out here; we had only had The Groundlings, that was the big theatre out here. My friend [said], “My friend’s doing a show in LA,” and I was just out of college so I said “Let’s go see it.”

I’d never seen a Harold before. It was a group called The Youth Group, and it was amazing. I never knew what I wanted in improv, but I saw that and it was like, “Hey, I wanna do that. I don’t know what it is, but I wanna do that.” And it just clicked.

I took classes right away and then I eventually started teaching there, and then I started [at] The Groundlings, and now I teach at The Groundlings. And then I started the camp, and National Improv Network, and started touring because all these festivals started blowing up. When I started going to festivals in 2004 maybe, there was like, maybe five in the country. Now there’s like 110 listed on our site…

P&C: Holy crap! I didn’t know it was that many.

NA: Yeah 110, but I’m sure everyone’s not listed on our site, so I’m assuming there’s probably a little bit more than that. We’re starting to get worldwide.

P&C: Some people get into improv and then say, “OK this is fun, but what am I really gonna do?” (Cameron’s laughing.)

NA: It’s a career for me. I’m able to call improv a career, in acting, so it’s very nice to do that. I still perform two or three times a week, every week since I started. I love it. It’s not like, “Oh God, I’ve gotta do my show this week.” I’m on the longest-running Harold team in LA called King Ten, and they’ve been together for 13 years. So it’s a fun experiment, because how many times does that happen?

P&C: Ooh, I’m gonna have to interview you guys. Long-running teams are not that common.

NA: They get broken up…

P&C: People move on to other things…

NA: It’s interesting because you keep trying to do things new, trying to push the envelope of a Harold. We don’t even do a traditional Harold anymore, it’s something that’s evolved into something different. The people on that team are just masters, so it’s really fun.

P&C: That’s great. Getting back to Camp Improv Utopia, it’s a non-profit. Why was that important to you?

NA: I was just talking about this yesterday. It was really important to me that it be non-profit, just like a boy scout/girl scout organization, because my philosophy is the spirit of improv should be how you run your business.

I’m not saying “Don’t be a for-profit,” but for us it was nature, improv, giving back more than we’ve been given.

So the idea was to bring all these people and do a two-part thing: we’re going to educate them in improv and give them a slice of nature. But then the money we raise there goes back out into the improv world.

When it first started, it funded the National Improv Network…endeavours like that. We help the Detroit Creativity Project, which helps kids that don’t have access to arts; that’s one of our main people we sponsor.

And then we help people build their theatres in the States. If they’re non-profits we help them a lot more; we do help for-profits that are starting out too. So [if] they’re like, “We need a stage,” we have a budget for who we help.

Now that we have even more camps – we have two in California now and one in Pennsylvania – we can allot the money. The money from the Pennsylvania camp goes to that region of the country.

We give out scholarships, and if someone has a diversity program at their theatre, we’ve donated to that, to specifically go to diverse talent coming in to their theatre. We’ll see someone’s Indiegogo or Kickstarter [saying] “We’re trying to open the doors to our theatre,” and we’ll donate to those.

Sometimes people come to us and ask for help, and we do that as well. It’s just kind of a feel-good thing, but growing up that was always kind of my thing, just the motto of, “Give back more than you’ve been given.” And improv’s given me a ton, so this is kind of the best way to do it.

P&C: That’s amazing. I don’t know if you’ve read Matt Fotis’s book about the history of the Harold. It’s fantastic. I’m reading about the struggles of Charna and Mick and the early days of Second City to find a space, and that can be such a huge obstacle to getting something off the ground, so the fact that you’re doing this is amazing.

NA: Our thing is, the ships rise with the tide; we want everybody to be successful. We know improv because we live and breathe it all the time, but not a lot of people do, you know, still.

I was telling you about the festivals, there’s 110. There’s over 100 theatres listed now too. So we’ve gone from 10 improv theatres in the United States to over 100. There’s one pretty much in every state. Maybe not Wyoming…

P&C: (laughs)

NA: But like, every state has either one or two festivals, or two or three theatres now. In big cities like LA, of course Chicago, but also smaller cities like Cedar City, Utah, which is a population of maybe 20,000 people, and they all have great theatres and festivals happening.

P&C: I honestly had no idea it had spread that much. I know there’s Austin, Detroit, Boston…

NA: It’s kind of like The Secret of improv right now. The big markets everybody knows about, but nobody knows about these successful theatres that are happening in smaller markets. I just got invited to the Omaha Improv Festival which is in Nebraska, and it’s their third year doing it.

Photo © Sam Willard

Photo © Sam Willard

P&C: Your mission statement advocates improv as an art form. Are you a strong proponent of Del’s views?

NA: I believe in Del’s philosophy; I grew up in the iO philosophy. Craig Cackowski is kinda my mentor; I’ve grown with him, he’s now my friend, and he’s helped me with these camps too. And he definitely sees it that way and that definitely rubbed off on me. It’s an art form and it can be funny, it can be both, and that’s what we try to do, but I love when there’s serious moments when you make the audience not laugh, and you make them gasp, and that’s really magical.

When I first saw a show, I want to give that feeling to someone else, because my thing was like, this is funny, but there’s something magical about it [too] that I didn’t know when I was seeing it for the first time. I wouldn’t have maybe come back to that show because, “Oh, that was really funny,” y’know? But it was that extra “sauce,” whatever that was, that got me to come back, and that was the art form that was pulling me towards it. That’s really how I love it, and that’s why I’ve done for so many years, and that’s how I teach it, too.

P&C: Is there a common thread among the teachers you’ve chosen?

NA: We’re very careful about how we choose our teachers.

We choose teachers that are great in the community. Not only are great teachers and well established – that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be a Second City teacher or an iO teacher or something like that – but it’s also someone who gives back to improv more.

We recognize someone like a Jill Bernard, who goes above and beyond the call of duty. We like to honour those folks and bring them in because they really mesh with that community well, and it really works.

So that’s kinda what we look for: Are they great teachers? Do they go above and beyond in improv? Are they helping, are they going to festivals, are they trying to build this community?

P&C: That’s awesome. I see there are three camps now…

NA: We haven’t opened the third one yet; that happens next year.

P&C: OK, two-part question: Do you have plans to expand to other parts of the country eventually? And do you have students who’ve come more than once?

NA: We’ve had people come all five years. And when we opened East they started coming to the East Camp, and some East Camp folks are now coming to the West Camp, so there’s a lot of cross-pollination. And kinda the idea behind it was, “How can we connect the East Coast improvisers with the West Coast improvisers and really get that community talking?”

That was kinda the goal, to circle the US, and do that, and that’s working! (laughs) Now these festivals over on the East Coast, there’s people from the West Coast coming to them and vice versa, and that cross-pollination is totally happening, and I’m so excited about that.

And then we came up with Yosemite I was like, wait, we have one of the most beautiful places in the world at our fingertips. Why don’t we do a summer camp by it? But we’re also doing a different curriculum with that one, so that one filled up really fast – and we only promoted that to our previous campers, we didn’t even put it out to the public.

But that mission of that camp is, you take one teacher the entire the weekend and you learn one form, like the J.T.S. Brown, the Deconstruction…

P&C: Oh, great idea!

NA: … and these are taught by people that created those forms. And then the idea is to hopefully take those back to your community, experiment with them more. Maybe do the form itself, but then maybe be inspired to make the next great form.

So…we’ll do another camp if it’s necessary, and right now we have the Yosemite one, and if we see an opportunity to do another we will, but it’s not, we don’t wanna be a burger chain.

P&C: (laughs)

NA: We wanna do it right, and it has to be associated with our mission statement, and it has to help a community.

P&C: You talked about the one-instructor, one-form curriculum at Yosemite. Can you tell us about the curriculum at the other camps?

NA: Our East and West kind of share a similar curriculum. There’s five teachers, and you can pick four, so there are more skill sets.

So if you wanna learn character, or you wanna learn slow play… I always try to tell the teacher, teach what you’re passionate about in improv. I don’t care what that workshop is, but I’m hiring you because I want you to bring what you think people should know in improv.

And for Yosemite we’ll just be teaching a form, so for instance Craig Cackowski will be teaching the J.T.S. Brown, which he was the original director of in Chicago. So that’s kind of how we separated it to be different, and that was kind of the purpose of that whole new camp.

Again, it’s not all education; we perform. We have little cabins, there’s like 10, 20 different cabins, and that becomes their troupe that weekend. So then they perform a show at the end of the weekend, too.

Photo © Camp Improv Utopia

Photo © Camp Improv Utopia

P&C: And I was reading you have axe throwing?

NA: We have axe throwing, archery…

P&C: Sounds dangerous!

NA: (laughs) They’re little axes. They’re, I would say, hatchets. We have professionals handling that, we don’t handle the axe throwing, we let the camp run those. No one’s been hurt in the six years we’ve run them!

P&C: Safety first. OK, who are some of the instructors you’ve had?

NA: Craig Cackowski, Dave Razowsky, Susan Messing, those are some of the bigger names we’ve had out.

P&C: Isaac Kessler…

NA: Isaac’s gonna be teaching. Rick Andrews out of New York. There’s so many… Paul Vaillancourt, who’s on a team called Beer Shark Mice, and he started the iO West. We have James Grace, the Artistic Director of iO teaching at our West Camp this year…

P&C: After six years, do you have any favourite memory that stands out for you?

NA: I always tell this story actually… Me and my buddy Johnny, who helped me start the camp, we rented the place, we put all our own money down on it and just said, “We’re gonna do this, so hopefully people come.”

So people signed up, and we were at the camp, and we got there Friday at like six in the morning, going, like, “We’ve gotta get there so early. What if someone comes?!” And we put out a table and we were ready to register. And my friends, now who are my board members, are all there, and we’re sitting there.

And seven o’clock comes…and eight o’clock comes…and nine o’clock comes, and ten… And we’re like, “Nobody’s coming.”

But now I think about it, it’s ludicrous, because no one’s gonna be there Friday morning at six! But we didn’t know, because we’d never done it before. And so at like, one o’clock a car rolls in, and it was a camp cook.

I remember 1:30, our first camper ever rolled in. He pops out his car, his name is Bob, he’s from Chicago and Arizona, and he goes, “Is, uh, this an improv camp?”

We just all started cheering and he probably thought we were crazy. And we’ve now made that a tradition that we always cheer when someone comes to camp.

There’s been so many memories after that, but that’s the one that sticks in my head just because it was so cool.

P&C: Last question: what do you hope people take away from their experience?

NA: That they have an experience. That it’s different than being at an improv theatre. It’s not all about improv out there. It’s about looking in yourself, it’s about being out in nature.

When I started the camp, I said I don’t want it to be like a festival. I want it to be an experience where people do get quality instruction that they can’t get in their communities, and that they really immerse themselves in nature. And just being out there without technology – because cell phones don’t work at our West Camp really, so that’s a good thing.

But also just meeting people. The fun thing after camp is you get a hundred new Facebook requests. We have our own private group pages; I see afterwards, “Hey, I’m going to Baltimore. Can I crash on someone’s couch?” And it’s like, “Yeah, come crash on my couch!” “Hey, also I just got us a show. We’re doing a show!”

And at festivals there’s enough campers that go to festivals that sometimes festivals have allotted us a Camp Show, a Camp Jam. And we’re doing it in Ireland, we’re doing a Camp Jam. So that stuff to me is the coolest part. It’s not just at camp, it’s what happens after camp, and that’s what you want, you want them to be, “Hey, you’re coming to California? Crash at my place.” “Hey, I got a show at iO, let’s do it.” And that’s how the National Improv Network grew out of it.

P&C: That’s fantastic, just spreading the joy of improv on a global scale. Thank you so much for talking to us.

Enrolment for Camp Improv Utopia East is now open. Click here to register.

Photo © Camp Improv Utopia

Photo © Camp Improv Utopia

Camp Improv Utopia: Community, Camaraderie in Nature

Featured Instructors for 2016 include:

West – Celeste Pechous, James Grace, Bill Binder, Eric Hunicutt, plus more to come!

East – Jaime Moyer, Elana Fishbein, Isaac Kessler, plus more to come!

Yosemite – Paul Vaillancourt, Craig Cackowski, Brian O’Connell, Karen Graci

Susan Messing is fucking awesome. When we asked for a bio, she wrote: “Susan Messing has been an improviser and comedian for almost 30 years. So far so good, as no one has kicked her offstage. Yet.”

Photo © Brian McConkey

Photo © Brian McConkey

When did you first know you wanted to do improv/comedy/acting for a living?

I have always wanted to be an actor, a swimming coach, or a hockey goalie. After college, discovered improv and was hooked, especially because I wouldn’t have to memorize anything.

Who has had the greatest influence on your career, and why?

I would say that Mick Napier had the greatest influence on the kind of comedy that pleases me as he was someone who was doing it. That said, there have been a myriad of people whose work I have admired: Lucy, Gilda, Dick Gregory…

What was your first paid improv-related job?

My first paid job was kind of improvised. I was hired for a murder mystery at the Clock Tower Inn in Rockford, Illinois. I was the ‘killer’ but had to pretend all weekend that I was someone who would actually pay money to spend a weekend at The Clock Tower Inn in Rockford, Illinois to do a murder mystery. Mostly lying as myself.

How much have former instructors, coaches, and team members played a part in your career?

Everyone I have ever met has seeped into the core of my consciousness and shaped who I am.

Do you see improv as a means to doing other work, or an end in itself?

Improv is both for me.

What comes to mind when you hear the words “working improviser”?

When I hear the words ‘working improviser,’ that sounds like it is describing my life, teaching and performing here in the States and abroad. That said, improvisers can become copywriters, astronauts, and corporate trainers. This question makes me want to slap someone.

Describe a typical day in your life.

A typical day in my life involves keeping my child alive. I teach either at iO, The Annoyance, or The Second City, and three nights a week perform in one of those theaters. I manage to see my husband and tell him he’s brilliant, because he is. We have dumb animals that I keep alive too. Usually one weekend a month I am booked to go out of town to teach and perform.

What’s the salary range for a working improviser in your city?

No idea. I primarily make my living teaching and performing improv comedy, but I don’t think that most people do here in Chicago. Nobody does improv for the hope of a great salary. Ever.

Improv has been steadily infiltrating corporate and popular culture. With all of the interest in improvisation, why is it still so hard to get bums on seats at shows? (Or is it, in your experience?)

Here in Chicago and on the road, I am very spoiled and grateful in terms of having the best audiences, ever. That said, there are so many improv venues and opportunities to play that I think that people might occasionally get overwhelmed at their options. Also, they might just want to sit in front of the couch and smoke weed and watch The Bachelor.

What’s the best, worst, or weirdest gig you’ve done as an improviser?

See first job. The other ones I have probably blocked out of my memory for damn good reasons.

Do you see any advantages or disadvantages to being a woman in improv?

No.

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

Ten years from now I hope to have the laughter and joy of a healthy and happy daughter and the continued love of my husband, family, and friends. I will be doing exactly what I am doing with exactly who I want to be doing it with just like the present moment. I will be spending a lot of time in the Redwood Forest in a tiny house or home in Chicago with our several golden retrievers and little to no cats. I will be super cute which will translate into very sexy. I will be in support of a far more humane world with improv as a fine template. Happy and grateful and hopefully helpful.

“Everybody’s talkin’ at me, I don’t hear a word they’re sayin'” – Nilsson

If the thought of doing a silent scene fills you with nightmare visions of Marcel Marceau, relax. You don’t need to chew the scenery, and not everyone has to be mute.

Even one silent character can steal the show.

Second City actor Jason DeRosse played a baby in a five-person scene. The other performers were hilarious, but the audience was riveted on Jason. He didn’t make a sound; just lay on his back looking wide-eyed and innocent, occasionally grasping a mobile overhead.

When I asked him about it afterwards, he told me “Strength in silence!”

If you want to strengthen your non-verbal muscles, the following exercises can help.

Photo © Kevin Thom

Photo © Kevin Thom

 

Music is a powerful emotional cue. Some of the most memorable scenes in movie history use music in place of dialogue:

• The shower scene in Psycho

• The opening montage from Up    

• The iconic slow-mo walk from Reservoir Dogs  

Rob Norman and Becky Johnson did a silent scene with music at Comedy Bar. The audience shouted out “colonscopy” and “Titanic.”

Mark Andrada cued the title song, and Rob and Becky played out a love story between doctor and patient that could only happen in improv.

Now it’s your turn…

Emotional Soundtrack

For this exercise, select two performers.

The Coach/Director plays a piece of music. It can be anything from Carly Rae Jepson to Jay-Z, from jazz to blues to hillbilly music.

The music sets the mood for the scene, which the players perform without words.

They can be sitting, standing, miming an action; it doesn’t matter, as long as there’s eye contact and a connection between the characters. Let the musical changes inform the action and reactions.

Try it with different kinds of music, with or without chairs.

You can also try adding sound effects.

Watch how sound effects heighten the tension (and hilarity) in this scene from Boogie Nights. (Yes, there is dialogue, but the tension is in the spaces between the words and sounds.)

Inside Voices

This is similar to the Gibberish Translation exercise, except the people on stage are silent.

To begin, choose four people. Two will be in the scene, and two will be Narrators. The Narrators stand on either side of the stage or rehearsal space. The other two ask for a location, then start the scene without speaking.

They can be sitting, standing, miming an action; it doesn’t really matter. The only rule is, no talking.

Allow the performers to settle in for 20 to 30 seconds, giving them time to get comfortable with their character and make eye contact with their scene partner.

One Narrator then voices a thought inside the head of the character closest to him.

The second Narrator then voices the other character’s thoughts.

Since all the dialogue is internal, the characters can’t hear what each other is thinking. For example:

Narrator 1: Look at Brad, sitting there all smug. What a d-bag.

Narrator 2: Cathy sure is pretty. I wonder if she likes me?

So we’ve established that Player 1, voiced by Narrator 1, is repulsed by Player 2. Meanwhile Player 2, voiced by Narrator 2, has a crush on Player 1.

From here, both the Players and Narrators can have fun ratcheting up the tension between them, since all of the thoughts – however outrageous they might become – are in the characters’ heads, while their outward appearance might suggest something else.

1 to 50

This exercise demonstrates the importance of tone and body language, and the unimportance of words when we communicate.

Two people start a scene, with or without a suggestion. Instead of words, they can only say numbers. The players take turns until they reach 50. For instance:

Player 1: One.

Player 2: Two.

Player 1: (quizzical) Three, four?

Player 2: (excited) Five-six-seven!

Notice how quickly we become emotional when we don’t have words to hide behind. In order to communicate your point of view, tone and physicality become much more important.

Good Morning Fucko

This exercise is great fun to watch and play. The Coach/Director may side coach, in order to keep players focused on responding to each other, while maintaining their own point of view.

To begin, place two chairs close to each other, facing the audience. This will be the bed.

Two players lie back in the chairs with their eyes closed. They silently choose a deal, or point of view, for themselves as they “sleep.”

After 10 or 15 seconds, the Coach/Director says, “Good morning, Fucko.”

Both people wake up, in character.

The scene plays out silently, as the performers discover where they are, and who these characters are to each other.

Are they married? Roommates? Was it a one-night stand?

Remind players to check in with each other as they go about their day.

Don’t race through activities. If your character makes the bed, don’t just flip the covers and walk away – unless that’s how that character makes a bed.

If you step in the shower, turn on the taps. Then grab the soap. Does it have a hair in it? Ewww. Find the shampoo, and so on.

Or maybe you skip the shower and find yourselves sitting across the table having cereal.

What is the vibe between you? That’s the scene.

(Thanks to Todd Stashwick, Adam Cawley, Rob Norman, Jason DeRosse, Susan Messing, Tom Vest, Greg Hess, and David Razowsky for their help with this post. Stay tuned for more exercises in Part Two.)

“Symmetry looks good to us; we want more of it.” – Susan Messing

Mirroring is a fast and powerful way to connect with your scene partners and, oh yeah, impress your audience.

Photo © Kevin Thom

Photo © Kevin Thom

When Mansical performed at Comedy Bar recently, I couldn’t attend, but Cameron described it for me after the show.

In one scene, a player stepped forward and did a simple dance move. He was joined by another player, who did the same thing.

A third player stepped out and did a different move. He was joined by someone who mirrored him.

The two “pairs” continued to move to the accompanist’s music, timing their actions with both their own scene partner, as well as the other pair.

As Cameron acted out both duos’ movements, I pictured the great “routine” they created.

The next day, a friend who saw the same show described the “choreographed dance number.” When I told her it was improvised, she was amazed.

Cameron and I are your typical white-bread-and-mayo kind of dancers. But when we get on a dance floor, we mirror each other, and suddenly even the weird, angular, and bizarre moves look, well, better.

Two of just about anything looks better, as Jimmy Fallon and Michelle Obama’s Evolution of Mom Dancing video clearly illustrates. (If you haven’t seen it yet, click on the link to watch.)

And more than two people is even better, if you work together and give and take focus.

You can use symmetry to establish group mind, create a dynamic stage picture, or just get out of your head. Try it in your next opening, group game, or two-person scene.

Photo © Kevin Thom

Photo © Kevin Thom

Photo © Adrianne Gagnon

Erik Voss wrote an interesting piece for Splitsider about game of the scene. (You can read the full article here.) Some of the improv community’s most respected performers weighed in, and I agree with their (sometimes differing) viewpoints.

The thing is, I don’t give a fuck anymore.

You see, early in my improv training, “finding the game” was the holy grail. The big cahuna. The mack daddy of all improv wisdom. Or so I thought.

When TJ and Dave taught a workshop in Toronto, I couldn’t wait to ask them about it. David looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “I don’t really think about game when I’m performing.” TJ nodded.

This should have slapped some sense into my feckless, fearmongering brain, but no. I continued to search for The Game and how to recognize it in all its myriad forms.

One of my coaches routinely drilled us on “beating the shit out of the game.” Rehearsal after rehearsal, two people would start a scene, then others would tag in when they found the game. Afterwards, we were critiqued.

Let’s say Player A had a stutter, then someone tagged in and made a game out of forcing him to stutter. If Player A was also an alcoholic, then beating the shit out of stuttering, versus putting him in situations where he’d be tempted to drink, was deemed “less smart.”

While I understood the value in seeing patterns, few things put me in my head like trying to find the game, never mind finding the “right” game.

When I asked Susan Messing about it, she said that there can be many games within a scene; that each player might have their own game, as well as games that they play together.

The more I watched and performed improv, the more I found myself gravitating towards the kind of scenes where game just wasn’t as important as discovery.

Discovery of who the characters are. Discovery of the world they inhabit. The kind of discovery that happens when things are out of the players’ control and in the hands of the comedy gods.

What I learned, eventually, was that game can happen without effort. And that “finding the game” doesn’t always guarantee a great scene.

How many times have you seen improvisers find a game on stage, only to beat it so relentlessly that the scene loses any point, or dissolves into endless repetition?

Playing the game can be fun. It’s a bit like a ping pong match: I do this, then you respond that way. Repeat. But we don’t have to try so hard to find the paddle.

If we just allow scenes to unfold naturally, games will reveal themselves.

If you can, do yourself a favour and go see TJ and Dave, or Messing with a Friend, or Jet Eveleth and Paul Brittain, or Razowsky and Clifford, or Joe Bill and Mark Sutton’s Bassprov.

There is game inherent in their shows, but it’s not overt. That’s not to say game-centric shows like Asssscat aren’t awesome. They are. But if you’re struggling to find the game each and every time and it’s affecting your ability to have fun in scenes, give yourself a break. Take a breath and just respond to what’s happening right now.

If you do that, if you focus 100% on your scene partner and just react to what he or she says and does, you won’t have to find the game. The game will find you. Or maybe it won’t, and that’s fine. Because it will still be a way better scene than one where you’re not present because you’re too busy searching for something.

In seven years of doing improv, I can recall my best, or at least my favourite, sets in detail. And I can tell you that none of them involved me methodically thinking about The Game Of The Scene. In fact, what they all had in common was that I wasn’t thinking. I was just having fun.

Those are the kind of sets I want to do now. And that’s why I don’t give a fuck about game of the scene anymore.

One last thing. Someone asked TJ what he thinks about before he goes on stage. He answered:

• Don’t panic.

• Make an emotional choice, a point of view, so you’re safe no matter what.

• Remember how fortunate you are.

It’s really that simple.

There’s a ton of comedy-related podcasts out there, with more being added every day (or so it seems). So it takes something pretty special to break through the clutter and grab our attention.

Well, get ready to add A.D.D. with Dave Razowsky and Ian Foley to your must-hear playlist.

Few people have as much depth and breadth of experience in improv as David Razowsky. His joyful outlook on life, sense of humour, and famous friends-slash-guests make this podcast a true standout.

The conversations are funny, interesting, and wonderfully honest. Whether you’re an improv student, a seasoned actor, or just a fan of comedy, you’ll find inspiration as well as entertainment.

Guests include Phil LaMarr, Susan Messing, Rick Shapiro, Joel Murray, George Wendt, and most recently, someone by the name of Stephen Colbert.

Stay tuned for the Colbert episode, November 21st on iTunes.

Photo © David Razowsky

“We think in shapes and pictures. The shape your character takes informs who that character is, and lets your fellow players recognize him/her/it when they see that shape again.” – Todd Stashwick

Photo © New York Musical Improv Festival

Physicality is a gift, not just to your scene partners, but to you as well. The second your foot hits the stage to enter a scene, notice what your body is doing.

Is it hunched over, taking small, shuffling steps? Or upright and striding confidently?

Are you snapping your fingers as you walk? Did you prop one leg on your knee as you sat down, or cross your legs demurely at the ankles?

All of these things tell our scene partner, the audience, and – if we’re paying attention – us, who this person is, before we open our mouth.

When we see a shape or image of any kind, our brain immediately goes to work, trying to find a “match” for that image. Todd Stashwick teaches an exercise that demonstrates this.

To begin, one person goes up and strikes a pose, any pose, and holds it.

The rest of the team then joins that person, one at a time.

For instance, let’s say the first person is standing with feet apart, hands on hips. The second person could go behind and stand with their hands encircling the first person’s waist. The third person could stand with one hand on the first person’s left shoulder. And so on.

If someone looks tired holding their pose, you can help by supporting them with the pose you take.

When everyone has joined in, the Coach/Director removes one person at a time, randomly. After each person is removed, pause to observe the new stage picture. It’s amazing how much it changes.

When only two or three people remain, see what the remaining pose suggests – what scene is revealed – then have those players perform it.

The last two people might look like a cop arresting a perpetrator. Or a woman proposing to her boyfriend. Or someone choking a co-worker. Or Kali, the goddess of death.

Even if there’s just one person on stage, their physicality can suggest things too. Stashwick teaches students to look at the negative space on stage, not just the positive.

But besides helping players recognize characters, shape can help your stage picture too.

Stage picture is something that’s often ignored in improv, especially after the opening (if there was one). We’re usually too busy talking to think about what the audience is seeing, and what they’re seeing is probably two people standing around yakking.

The next time you find yourself rooted to the floor, change your physicality and see how it changes the scene. Not only will you feel different, but it will immediately look different than 99% of improv scenes.

An easy way to create a great stage picture is through symmetry. Susan Messing teaches that doing stuff together makes it look important. If one person goes in as a guard, go in as a guard as well.

Observe what’s happening on stage, then mirror it. If your team is large, and more people mirror a move or a pose, it looks even more impressive. It’s the kind of thing that makes the audience think you rehearsed it.

Try it at your next rehearsal or show. Use physicality to shape your characters, build your environment, and support your team. It’s simple, it’s fun, and it works!

Photo © Adrianne Gagnon