If you've been around this improv thing for a while you've heard it said by someone or read it somewhere, in a book or a blog, or an article by an improv genious that a joke stops a scene. And then you've seen a brilliant set and in the middle of it there was a joke - or what would stand on its own in stand up as a decent joke. And you're like screw those people - rules are to be broken I'm going to tell a joke.
And your moment comes to edit a scene.
And your moment of briliant, rule-breaking, authority shunning, improv-on-your-own wisdom comes.
BOOM.
And things don't go so well.
There is a huge difference in telling a joke and finding a joke.
I'm a HUGE fan of discovery. I love seeing improvisers discover things in scenes - from physical stuff in their imaginary space to complicated character-based moments full of motivation and deep introspection. I love it. I devour it. Usually these moments show that the improviser is fully engaged with the character, the space, the moment, and as far away from "playwriting" as they can get. This is when amazing things happen in our work. And improvisers... you may be surprised to learn that this same thing happens for our collegaues working with written material. When we are fully engaged with the material and the moment we lose ourselves to the brilliance of the moment.
And there is no reason that in those moments, our natural sense of humor, our own character or the character we're playing will find something we'd consider a joke in the depth of the scene. And it works.
Because it is discovered. It is not planned. It is not expected. The actor does not have an agenda or an expectation.
No agenda
No plan
No expectation
Only discovery.
The problem with jokes is that when we have them in our heads, we are planning to use them, we are playwriting.
If we are playwriting, we are not in the moment, we are not in the scene.
It is your joke, your agenda, your plan. And in that moment you are placing all of those things on top of whatever has been created by your scenemates. It steals the focus from the scene to you. It is selfish, it is a control mechanism, and it is the opposite of good improvisation.
And if it's a dirty joke... you have now cast yourself as a character who would posess all of the characteristics of that turd you just put out there. If you aren't ready to dive head-first, all-in to that character, you can't carry the weight of that joke and you - the improviser - are now the one who has to hold the weight of that dirty joke. And the scene has now stopped on you. You don't want that - your scenemates don't want that, the scene does not want that.
Don't do that.
Saturday, February 24, 2018
Saturday, August 05, 2017
Point Of View - the power of knowing yourself
We recently finished a term of classes at Go U! which meant that I finished up my first time teaching Advance 1 - helping a group of students with their first foray into the world of long form, at least in a class situation.
Teaching long form in class feels a little more like coaching sometimes than it does teaching. In short form, you teach the game, you play the game, you discuss, and you move on to the next game. There is work both on the mastery of the game and mastery of skill - but learning how to play the game shares the stage with learning how to be a better improviser. And let's face it, sometimes knowing how to play a game well doesn't necessarily mean you have strengthened your improv skills.
For example... last night I played the game "The Difference" for the fist time. On Stage. In front of a nearly sold out house at Go Comedy!. OH BOY was I in my head. SUPER in my head. This happened after I had what I felt was an awesome scene with Cari Sue Murphy in the game "Confessional." It wasn't until after the show that I got a really great note from Doug Kolbicz on HOW to play The Difference. Good to know for the next time. .
Knowing how a particular game works, or can be played, may not make you a better improviser, BUT, I will definitely argue that being a strong improviser helps you play virtually any game. Just as being a good improviser can make you a stronger actor, a stronger listener, a stronger leader, etc. It is a valuable skill set.
So teaching long form enables us to spend more time focusing on the skills of improvising. By the time a class has made it to the Advance program at Go, they've got the basics under their belts. Yes, And, do not deny, don't ask leading questions, listen, share focus, etc. Short form teachers help you understand things like... this is why that short form moment worked for you, you do this really well. And this is why you're in your head, you weren't doing this. In Long Form, we can take a little more time to expound on that, to do excersises that help us develope those specific skills - beyond learning a game.
One of the things that was a constant in nearly all of my notes to my students this term was the idea of a character's point of view. I'm big on stopping a scene to ask an improviser why their character feels anything at that moment. Why are they there, Why is this important to them, Why do they care about the other people or person - or why don't they care. Why Why Why. Once we discover that, I always find that the work grows. To answer the question of WHY we have to determine the character's point of view.
Point of view is how a character sees the world. One time I was talking to a student about point of view and I asked him about his own point of view, how did he see the world? He was stumped, and as a teacher I was both struck and a little inspired at the same time. It made sense.
Ask virtually any professional acting coach, director, artist, etc and they will tell you that it takes a good level of vulnerability to make a strong actor. To truly touch the heart of a character, to know what makes them tick, to answer the whys about them, we have to have at least a base understanding of our own character, of our own point of view. We have to take a moment to understand ourselves. What drives us, what makes us curious, what makes us frustrated, and why is it that way.
You are your best resource. A script actor can dive into the words that have been penned by the playwright to guage his character's point of view. An improviser must rely on her own experience to levy onto a character in a scene in a second. Knowing your own strengths, yoru own weaknesses, your own vulnerabilities and why they exist will ALWAYS make you a stronger improviser. And, I truly believe this - it will make you a better human being.
Teaching long form in class feels a little more like coaching sometimes than it does teaching. In short form, you teach the game, you play the game, you discuss, and you move on to the next game. There is work both on the mastery of the game and mastery of skill - but learning how to play the game shares the stage with learning how to be a better improviser. And let's face it, sometimes knowing how to play a game well doesn't necessarily mean you have strengthened your improv skills.
For example... last night I played the game "The Difference" for the fist time. On Stage. In front of a nearly sold out house at Go Comedy!. OH BOY was I in my head. SUPER in my head. This happened after I had what I felt was an awesome scene with Cari Sue Murphy in the game "Confessional." It wasn't until after the show that I got a really great note from Doug Kolbicz on HOW to play The Difference. Good to know for the next time. .
Knowing how a particular game works, or can be played, may not make you a better improviser, BUT, I will definitely argue that being a strong improviser helps you play virtually any game. Just as being a good improviser can make you a stronger actor, a stronger listener, a stronger leader, etc. It is a valuable skill set.
So teaching long form enables us to spend more time focusing on the skills of improvising. By the time a class has made it to the Advance program at Go, they've got the basics under their belts. Yes, And, do not deny, don't ask leading questions, listen, share focus, etc. Short form teachers help you understand things like... this is why that short form moment worked for you, you do this really well. And this is why you're in your head, you weren't doing this. In Long Form, we can take a little more time to expound on that, to do excersises that help us develope those specific skills - beyond learning a game.
One of the things that was a constant in nearly all of my notes to my students this term was the idea of a character's point of view. I'm big on stopping a scene to ask an improviser why their character feels anything at that moment. Why are they there, Why is this important to them, Why do they care about the other people or person - or why don't they care. Why Why Why. Once we discover that, I always find that the work grows. To answer the question of WHY we have to determine the character's point of view.
Point of view is how a character sees the world. One time I was talking to a student about point of view and I asked him about his own point of view, how did he see the world? He was stumped, and as a teacher I was both struck and a little inspired at the same time. It made sense.
Ask virtually any professional acting coach, director, artist, etc and they will tell you that it takes a good level of vulnerability to make a strong actor. To truly touch the heart of a character, to know what makes them tick, to answer the whys about them, we have to have at least a base understanding of our own character, of our own point of view. We have to take a moment to understand ourselves. What drives us, what makes us curious, what makes us frustrated, and why is it that way.
You are your best resource. A script actor can dive into the words that have been penned by the playwright to guage his character's point of view. An improviser must rely on her own experience to levy onto a character in a scene in a second. Knowing your own strengths, yoru own weaknesses, your own vulnerabilities and why they exist will ALWAYS make you a stronger improviser. And, I truly believe this - it will make you a better human being.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
Scotty's take on Directing NEWSish
While the world was going through the 18-month long version of Dante's Inferno, otherwise known as the 2016 Presidential Election, Tim Kay and Jess Loria asked me to take on the task of directing them in Go Comedy!'s most politically charged production (to date), NEWSish. The monthly (well, almost monthly) 45-minute scripted show melded together the formats of The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight, and Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update. It was one of the most stressful, mind-wrenching, challenging things I've ever done and I couldn't be more excited to be returning with a condensed version of it this summer as part of a political sketch show coming soon.
When we started working on NEWSish, we knew it was going to be a challenge. The first show took us three months to pull together. We put out a call for special guests, story ideas and video segments. We got a handful of responses and polled people we believed could do a good job, giving out assignments and working on segments. And we started writing. Lots and lots of writing. We learned quickly that having too many stories to fit into a show was far better than having to scramble to write at the last minute.
A typical 45-minute NEWSish program will have between 30 and 50 segments or stories. This makes the show much more similar to a broadcast news program, rather than a sketch show. At the start of each cycle, I would lay out a schedule of deadlines, casting and stories. We quickly learned that putting it all together was too much for one person, so we brought on another spreadsheet loving improviser, Chris Fortin as Assistant Director. About a week before our show, he and I would sit down with all of the stories and put them together into a running order.
Working on a show that's dependent on current events means that you are subject to changes in those current events. With last year's election chaos, every month several of our stories would change or be out-of-date by our last rehearsal. So a NEWSish show would have about 20-30% of its material written within 36 hours of show time. Thank God for the most patient and wonderful stage manager in the world, Pete Jacokes, for being able to roll with us through it all - including the 30-40 slides and videos that made the show work.
Finally, at the end of all of that organization, comes content. As satirists, I believe our job is both to entertain and enlighten. Our culture's current state of information overload has left us fairly numb to the facts (or lack of them) in the news. It takes the power of laughter, irony and satire to break through the hazy day-to-day barrage of things flooding our screens and ears. And that's how I felt we had to approach NEWSish. We had to push a story to its "did we go too far?" limits. And we had to find ways to make the audience laugh in uncomfortable moments to bring light to stories, situations and realities we miss every day. I think we did that, often enough. Sometimes we struggled to maintain our voice and our humor. At other times we got caught up in our point of view and missed the mark. But in the end, the work we put up was something everyone at Go can be proud of. It pushed our political boundaries and definitely made our audience, and us, think differently about our world. And that is always a good thing.
When we started working on NEWSish, we knew it was going to be a challenge. The first show took us three months to pull together. We put out a call for special guests, story ideas and video segments. We got a handful of responses and polled people we believed could do a good job, giving out assignments and working on segments. And we started writing. Lots and lots of writing. We learned quickly that having too many stories to fit into a show was far better than having to scramble to write at the last minute.
A typical 45-minute NEWSish program will have between 30 and 50 segments or stories. This makes the show much more similar to a broadcast news program, rather than a sketch show. At the start of each cycle, I would lay out a schedule of deadlines, casting and stories. We quickly learned that putting it all together was too much for one person, so we brought on another spreadsheet loving improviser, Chris Fortin as Assistant Director. About a week before our show, he and I would sit down with all of the stories and put them together into a running order.
Working on a show that's dependent on current events means that you are subject to changes in those current events. With last year's election chaos, every month several of our stories would change or be out-of-date by our last rehearsal. So a NEWSish show would have about 20-30% of its material written within 36 hours of show time. Thank God for the most patient and wonderful stage manager in the world, Pete Jacokes, for being able to roll with us through it all - including the 30-40 slides and videos that made the show work.
Finally, at the end of all of that organization, comes content. As satirists, I believe our job is both to entertain and enlighten. Our culture's current state of information overload has left us fairly numb to the facts (or lack of them) in the news. It takes the power of laughter, irony and satire to break through the hazy day-to-day barrage of things flooding our screens and ears. And that's how I felt we had to approach NEWSish. We had to push a story to its "did we go too far?" limits. And we had to find ways to make the audience laugh in uncomfortable moments to bring light to stories, situations and realities we miss every day. I think we did that, often enough. Sometimes we struggled to maintain our voice and our humor. At other times we got caught up in our point of view and missed the mark. But in the end, the work we put up was something everyone at Go can be proud of. It pushed our political boundaries and definitely made our audience, and us, think differently about our world. And that is always a good thing.
Friday, January 27, 2017
The Importance of NOW
I posted this to my other "Little Man" blog today and because it is 100% relevant, wanted to post it here too... and it seems like I was on this same idea a couple of years ago (see last published post) haha.
This morning I'm really thinking about the importance of what lies before us... of the now.
This idea has really been impressed on me lately as I've been teaching my improv classes. In any acting situation, the actor always strives to be "In the moment" with his scene partners and with herself. When an improviser is focused in the moment, nothing goes by in a scene without it being picked up, examined and devoured.
The best improvisers do this by habit. On stage they LIVE in the now. Your character is tying his/her shoes and misses tying the shoelace - "watch out, you're going to trip over that." A character sneezes - "You have a cold, Damn - I knew it stay away from me!" Not only are they in the moment, they are there with the strongest of emotional choices and imperatives.
This moment that has just happened is the most important thing in the world RIGHT NOW and we need to take action on it before we DIE.
A little dramatic, but the point is there. Don't miss those moments.
And so it is with life. We live our best lives when we are present in the moment - when we don't gloss over someone's emotionally tinted comment, when we listen with our ears, our mind, and our heart, and when we react to the thing that just happened and deal with it before we move on. Sometimes that means making tough decisions, or halting something else, or waiting for another opportunity. But we have to live in this moment because that is where our lives, our memories, our world is built.
This morning I'm really thinking about the importance of what lies before us... of the now.
This idea has really been impressed on me lately as I've been teaching my improv classes. In any acting situation, the actor always strives to be "In the moment" with his scene partners and with herself. When an improviser is focused in the moment, nothing goes by in a scene without it being picked up, examined and devoured.
The best improvisers do this by habit. On stage they LIVE in the now. Your character is tying his/her shoes and misses tying the shoelace - "watch out, you're going to trip over that." A character sneezes - "You have a cold, Damn - I knew it stay away from me!" Not only are they in the moment, they are there with the strongest of emotional choices and imperatives.
This moment that has just happened is the most important thing in the world RIGHT NOW and we need to take action on it before we DIE.
A little dramatic, but the point is there. Don't miss those moments.
And so it is with life. We live our best lives when we are present in the moment - when we don't gloss over someone's emotionally tinted comment, when we listen with our ears, our mind, and our heart, and when we react to the thing that just happened and deal with it before we move on. Sometimes that means making tough decisions, or halting something else, or waiting for another opportunity. But we have to live in this moment because that is where our lives, our memories, our world is built.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Don't miss the moment
What would you do if you were having a conversation with a friend and suddenly they cut off their finger? Or, if you were talking with the person you had been dating for a while and you told them that you loved them and they went back to what you were talking about two sentences earlier? Or what would you do if someone stole your grandmother's heirloom ring from your night stand in front of you?
You would have a gutteral, instinctive emotional reaction, right?
So why do we see so many improv scenes where the equivalent of these things take place and it seems like it's a rainstorm on a Tuesday moment. We don't react... we're business as usual, we're stuck in five seconds ago and miss a critical moment.
These are the moments we simply cannot miss... They are the moments that define why TODAY is different than any other day. These are the moments improv was made for - the ripe and juice fountain of emotional raw discharge waiting to gush onto the stage.
DON'T MISS THEM.
Latch onto them with all of your might and ride the emotional wave into a meaningful, memorable scene. Get Angry, Get Happy, Get Sad... Punch Someone, Chase Someone, Fly off the handle - Give your character a come to Jesus moment and watch the rules and the instincts you've been building as an improviser pour out of you.
We go through our classes and workshops learning the basic skills of an improviser, the yes and's the heightening, the character and emotion work, etc etc. etc. AND THEN - we spend the rest of our time honing in on our ability to listen and react to each other.
In your next scene listen and pay attention to each and every moment and when one of them screams "I'M DIFFERENT!" jump on it. Your scene and your work will be so much better for it.
You would have a gutteral, instinctive emotional reaction, right?
So why do we see so many improv scenes where the equivalent of these things take place and it seems like it's a rainstorm on a Tuesday moment. We don't react... we're business as usual, we're stuck in five seconds ago and miss a critical moment.
These are the moments we simply cannot miss... They are the moments that define why TODAY is different than any other day. These are the moments improv was made for - the ripe and juice fountain of emotional raw discharge waiting to gush onto the stage.
DON'T MISS THEM.
Latch onto them with all of your might and ride the emotional wave into a meaningful, memorable scene. Get Angry, Get Happy, Get Sad... Punch Someone, Chase Someone, Fly off the handle - Give your character a come to Jesus moment and watch the rules and the instincts you've been building as an improviser pour out of you.
We go through our classes and workshops learning the basic skills of an improviser, the yes and's the heightening, the character and emotion work, etc etc. etc. AND THEN - we spend the rest of our time honing in on our ability to listen and react to each other.
In your next scene listen and pay attention to each and every moment and when one of them screams "I'M DIFFERENT!" jump on it. Your scene and your work will be so much better for it.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Less Is More
It feels good to be back in a class. While I'm teaching now, it's been a long time since I've been in a full term of classes. I've taken seminars and workshops, but not a full class. It feels good.
Way back in the day when I started improvising one of the things I really took hold of was giving your scene partner gifts to work with. The idea that we are the masters of our universe on stage is not lost on me. We can imbibe each other with gifts, bring things into the scene for your partner to react to, for you to build on and to create something together.
Over the years it's become really clear that this good quality to have has actually become my crutch. When I get stuck in a scene, when I don't know what to do, I begin to fill the scene with facts... who we are to each other, our history, things we like, why we're there, etc. While that can be a good thing, too much of it is like putting more and more ingredients in a cake... it's just too much. Instead of adding and adding, we can make another choice to build on something that's already on the table, especially emotion, motivation or needs.
Already in this Boot Camp class I've realized how valuable this lesson is. Today I got into a scene and felt a moment where I wasn't sure what to do next. I felt the exposition rising up and I stopped, held it and just let the scene be quiet for a moment. We reconnected to a previous thought and the scene continued, exploring the reality we had already created on stage.
There was no need to add more, there was only the need to focus on what already was.
For this old-timer, this realization is so welcome.
Way back in the day when I started improvising one of the things I really took hold of was giving your scene partner gifts to work with. The idea that we are the masters of our universe on stage is not lost on me. We can imbibe each other with gifts, bring things into the scene for your partner to react to, for you to build on and to create something together.
Over the years it's become really clear that this good quality to have has actually become my crutch. When I get stuck in a scene, when I don't know what to do, I begin to fill the scene with facts... who we are to each other, our history, things we like, why we're there, etc. While that can be a good thing, too much of it is like putting more and more ingredients in a cake... it's just too much. Instead of adding and adding, we can make another choice to build on something that's already on the table, especially emotion, motivation or needs.
Already in this Boot Camp class I've realized how valuable this lesson is. Today I got into a scene and felt a moment where I wasn't sure what to do next. I felt the exposition rising up and I stopped, held it and just let the scene be quiet for a moment. We reconnected to a previous thought and the scene continued, exploring the reality we had already created on stage.
There was no need to add more, there was only the need to focus on what already was.
For this old-timer, this realization is so welcome.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
We can do anything
Any improviser has been there. I'd say that as you're reading this there are probably 227.2 improvisers somewhere in the world standing on a stage, in a class, on a street corner trying to come up with something to say in a scene. They are frozen, stuck, unsure of what to do next. What do you do?
It's a question I got asked a lot this term in class evaluations and one that lead me to a similar answer over and over.
Trust your scene partner and say anything. ANYTHING.
One of my favorite short form games is sentences. I love it for a number of reasons: in shows where audience members have written sentences it always "hits" because the selfish idiot in all of us loves when our shit gets used in a scene; because we get to use our justification muscle; and because it proves that it doesn't matter as much about what is said as it does about how we react.
Of course there are a million things that happen in good improv, bold choices, strong point of views, listening, heightening, etc etc. But when you're stuck, when you don't know what to do or what to say, the very simple concept that we can SAY ANYTHING carries a lot of weight.
Let's face it, one of the enchanting things about learning to improvise is the freedom we find shaking off the rules our internal and external editors have layered on us since we were first told not to fart in Sunday school. We can relax and play. We can say what comes to our mind. We can "be ourselves" to learn to play silly.
And then so many of us (myself included) find ourselves stuck in our heads trying to think of the "right" thing to say In a scene.
Are we worried about looking stupid?
- because walking around the room through imaginary three foot deep hot sand looked so "normal" in warm up exercises.
Are we worried about saying the right thing?
- because our scene partner is going to hold it against us for hours like our spouse in a tiff.
Are we worried that our scene partner is not going to know what to say?
-- hmmm
So what just happened?
The scene happened and we were worried about something other than the scene.
The second reason I love sentences is that it works our justification muscle. We are forced to listen and react to the non sequitur sentence just thrown into the scene.
We are forced to LISTEN and REACT to the SENTENCE just thrown into the scene. A sentence that had nothing to do with whatever was said before it.
Proof that you can say ANYTHING because your scene partner is listening to you and will react to what you just said.
Now. This post raises a couple of other things that I'll save for another post.
- are you listening to be able to react?
- do you trust your scene partner?
- do you trust yourself?
Whatever your answer is.. Say anything and Go!
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