So You Want To Do Spokane

Spokane is hot these days! Its balance of structure and freedom make it a solid form to perform and its balance of familiarity and novelty make it a solid form to watch. Its flexibility means structural variety, and its emphasis on discovery and immediately acting on inspiration keeps it exciting end to end. Let’s take a look at the components of Spokane and some approaches that I’ve found effective in coaching and performing it. After that I’ll unpack a real life example by my own team, Neighbors, and we can see how it compares.

First of all, what does a Spokane look like? Here’s a diagram of a hypothetical show I completely made up:

Each straight line represents one scene (this example consists of 11 total). The first and most prominent scene of the show is the Source Scene. From this emerge Spokes which can consist of any number of scenes from which we then return to the Source Scene where we left off. Spokes can extend away from the Source Scene (like Spokes 1 and 2) as well as backtrack to a previously established scene in order to extend in a different direction (Spoke 3). Not all Spokanes will look like this; many will have shorter or longer Spokes, or more or less than three. Some shows will leave the Source Scene and never come back. Structurally speaking, no two shows are alike.

Mechanics

Spokane is not a linear form. The Source Scene moves only forward in time, but the Spokes can be all over the place. We can leave and come back to any scene multiple times. We can follow threads far away from the Source Scene and then work all the way back scene by scene. Because of this immense variability, it’s helpful to define some consistent show mechanics that clarify which part of the show we’re in. Here are mine:

1. Tags only in Spokes
   The majority of edits in Spokane will be Tags. Tags initiate the Spoke itself by pulling a character (Tagging everyone but that character out) or idea (Tagging everyone out) from the Source Scene. Tags expand the Spoke by repeating this process in Spoke scenes. Additional in-Spoke editing can be done with eye contact and gesturing (e.g. looking at teammate and pointing at a chair to indicate you want them to sit). Because Tags are quick and can be done at a distance with a small wave, they allow us to edit without losing momentum which helps us maintain energy.

2. Sweep back to the Source Scene
   Sweeps are big slow edits that completely reset the stage, so for this reason I prefer to limit their use in Spokane to bringing us back to the Source Scene. The momentum-ending effects of Sweeps make them a good way to cap off a high energy Spoke.

3. Show the threads
   Due to the free and often fast-paced nature of the form, Spokanes risk becoming chaotic and confusing if we lose track of what ties the scenes together. For this reason it’s helpful to maintain some clarity regarding how the scenes relate to each other; it should be obvious what part of the previous scene inspired the next. The audience shouldn’t know exactly where we’re headed and might be impressed by where we take characters and ideas from previous scenes, but they should be able to follow along and see what inspired the tag. Spokane is not a form where A-C moves pay off; show them B. Besides part of the fun of the form is starting from somewhere relatively grounded and working toward something completely crazy in a very logical way.

Source Scene

Perhaps the most important element of the Spokane, the Source Scene is basically a Monoscene with breaks. The Source Scene is important because it has three major functions: A) It’s the launchpad for the Spokes which exist as a direct result of Source Scene content; B) it’s a contextual through line which ties cross-Spoke content together (i.e. it connects the world of the show together), and C) it’s an energy baseline for the entire show (ideally energy heightens in the Spokes and then drops again upon returning to the Source Scene). The biggest risk of Spokane is that a thin, chaotic, and/or confusing Source Scene can more or less tank the whole show.

So what makes for an effective Source Scene? Here are some goals I aim for at the beginning of the show that I’ve found to be helpful in creating stability:

1. 3-4 People
   Source Scenes are long. Assuming a 20-25 minute show, they’ll generally make up around 30-40% (6-10 min). Yes they’re broken up, but since they largely don’t evolve much for some of the reasons below, it can be difficult to sustain them for that length with only two characters and one dynamic between them (A-B). Having 3-4 people in the Source Scene allows us to explore up to six unique dynamics (A-B, A-C, A-D, B-C, B-D, C-D) which gives us much more to work with and allows us to change focus if the dynamic currently being explored feels played out or stale.

2. Pick a station
   Because we’ll likely be leaving and coming back to the Source Scene several times over the course of the show, it’s helpful to have easy ways for those initiating the return to indicate that we’re back. As mentioned above, one way to do this is a full Sweep. However, if I want to initiate return but I’m in the Source Scene, a Sweep often isn’t particularly efficient because I have to cross the full length of the current scene before I can initiate. If instead I have a particular spot onstage where I “live” in the Source Scene, I can simply cut through the current scene and head straight for that spot. This is particularly effective if I have some sort of recognizable stance or am doing a clear activity, as it quickly indicates to both my teammates and the audience who and where I am. By picking a station at the beginning of the Source Scene and limiting movement throughout, we can minimize confusion and shorten transition time.

3. Limited children
   For reasons I’ll get into further below, most tags that take us away from the Source Scene will jump back in time. Children, having experienced less of it, have shorter timelines to work with, and their minimal societal agency means we have fewer options for the types of scenes they can be in. It’s not that kids don’t work in Source Scenes, it’s just that having them means our choices are narrow. This suggestion would also apply to any short-lived being like a fresh clone or a brand new Frankenstein.

4. Limited Strangers
   Source Scenes with strangers can be tough because it limits our ability to endow to surface level things like appearance and immediate behavior. Again, since we’ll mostly be Tagging back in time, it puts all the responsibility of setting up character history for that character on themselves, whereas characters who know each other well can spread that responsibility around. Additionally, interactions between strangers can often be transactional and/or brief, which means we might have to work harder to find reasons for them to stick around. Since the Source Scene will likely be the longest scene in the show, often by a lot, having a lot of strangers might make it difficult to sustain.

5. Get everyone established (and named) before the first Tag
   One of the major culprits of a flimsy Spokane is not creating a sturdy enough foundation before heading out into the Spokes. The Source Scene functions as the the show’s home base, which means it should feel like the most familiar and comfortable part. The first step toward creating that familiarity is all the Base Reality building we should be doing in any scene (where we are and who everyone is to each other), and since we’ll be coming back to this scene several times I find it helpful to make sure everyone has a name and gets a chance to get some information out about their character. If the first tag happens before everyone gets established, it leaves some questions unanswered and some blanks that we still have to fill when we come back to the Source Scene, which can hurt momentum. This also helps individual performers give themselves something to build on for their character when they return. A related suggestion…

6. Pass on early Tag opportunities
   It can be tempting to jump on any interesting ideas that come up in the first couple minutes of the show, but generally that comes at the expense of some of the foundational stuff mentioned above. Let any early ideas inform the source scene internally rather than expanding on them externally in the Spokes. There will be plenty of stuff to work with later, I promise. Plus, if something that comes up early is really really compelling, Source Scene characters can always bring it up again. Patience early in the set ends up paying off down the line. I tend to like a Source Scene that runs 3-4 minutes before the first tag.

7. Set a recurring theme
   This one isn’t technically necessary, but I like it for a few reasons. One, it’s a way to focus what could be (with 3-4 people) a more complex scene. Two, it functions as a nice recurring springboard from the Source Scene to the Spokes that makes the show feel more cohesive as a whole. Lastly, it gives characters an easy thing to return to when coming back to the Source Scene. This is particularly helpful after longer and busier Spokes where we may have forgotten exactly what was happening in the Source Scene the last time we were there. The theme could be pretty much anything that every character in it can latch onto - a topic of discussion that everyone has an opinion on, a shared experience, etc. I introduce this concept to new Spokane teams by having someone name it outright by saying “Let’s all talk about [theme].” For example, “Let’s all talk about our favorite family vacations” or “Let’s all talk about our most embarrassing moments.” The important thing is the theme should be broad enough that it can be both applied to every character in the Source Scene and repeated by any of them if necessary. For example “Let’s all talk about that time I tried to run a 5k” is too narrow because it’s specific to one character and one moment in time. A more effective theme is something like “Let’s all talk about times we tried to be athletic” in which the 5k example could then initiate the first Spoke. The “let’s all talk about” tool can be clunky and obvious, but I find it to be a useful technique to practice getting everyone in the Source Scene on the same page. With practice, you can accomplish the same goal with more natural and subtle language.

8. Return to where we left off
   The Source Scene should operate as functionally close to a Monoscene as possible, meaning it moves mostly in real time with minimal gaps. Short time gaps may or may not be useful on the return depending on how we left the Source Scene at the beginning of the Spoke. The general rule is that we don’t want to repeat something we’ve already seen, so if a Spoke is initiated with a Character-based Tag that showcases a story that a Source Scene character is telling, when we return to the Source Scene we’ll want to skip to the end of the story; the time gap being only as long as it took to tell it. A Spoke initiated with a Premise-based Tag based on a reference or off-hand comment will likely be able to return without a gap, since these sorts of Spokes operate more independently; i.e. there isn’t the assumption that Source Scene characters are ‘witnessing’ all or some of the Spoke along with the audience (more on Tag types below). In my experience the most common cause of Source Scene time gaps is performer inattentiveness, usually that they either don’t recognize the return to the Source Scene or forget they were in it, which means they then have to enter as a walk-on. This requires a justification (“sorry I was in the bathroom”, etc) that naturally creates a time gap that was necessary only to cover performer error. For maximum Source Scene stability, Source Scene performers should be particularly vigilant about edits. It’s perfectly fine for Source Scene characters to enter and exit as they please (as they could in any Monoscene), as long as we see it happen.

9. Acknowledge and incorporate what we learn in Spokes
   Depending on the types of Tags that occur in a Spoke, the content in the scenes leading up to a return to the Source Scene might be wildly unrelated to what’s happening there. However, we’ll still want to maintain what I believe is one of the more satisfying elements of the Spokane which is that the content of every scene is clearly and directly inspired by the previous. Source Scenes, being a return to home base, won’t be inspired by Spokes in the same way, but can reference them in a way that creates a satisfying bookend that closes the loop on the Spoke and acts as a tension release that smooths the transition from a high energy Spoke scene to the more relaxed Source Scene. For example, a Spoke that was initiated with a character telling a story (“Summer camp that year was crazy”…TAG) can summarize what we saw in the Spoke when we come back (SWEEP…”so that’s how I got this scar”). Spokes that are initiated with Premise-based Tags (“you’re more awkward than a spider on a unicycle”…TAG) will be a little trickier to bookend since they aren’t directly connected to a Source Scene character, but can be done by referencing a Spoke specific (SWEEP…”not as awkward as a worm on a trampoline though”). These sorts of acknowledgements are a nice way to wrap up Spokes and connect them to the Source Scene on both ends. Beyond transition moments, it’s important to let Spokes inform the Source Scene wherever is applicable. Mainly this will come from Spoke scenes revealing new information about Source Scene characters and their world that changes them in some way (e.g. behaviors, rules of the world). Source Scene performers should recognize and embrace these changes and apply them as the Source Scene continues. For example a Spoke scene that reveals that there had recently been a zombie outbreak retroactively places the Source Scene in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. This changes the circumstances of the Source Scene, and thus should be at least acknowledged by Source Scene characters if not actively explored moving forward. The same thing goes for character traits, beliefs, and behaviors. If we learn in a Spoke that a Source Scene character is obsessed with kites, they should apply that obsession in future Source Scene segments. In other words, Spoke scenes can and often will affect elements within and even the entire trajectory of the Source Scene.

Spokes

1. Your window to Tag is very small

   Since we want to show the threads of the form and how each scene leads to the next, any Tags should happen as soon as inspiration strikes. Scenes can move and change focus quickly, meaning we really only have a few seconds to pounce on ideas before the scene moves on. At best, a Tag that comes too late feels stale and out of place, hurting momentum. At worst, it creates the potential for paradox, particularly if we learn something in the Spoke that changes something in the Source Scene that would have been applied on the return, but wasn’t because the scene had moved on (e.g. character finishes a can of beer and puts it in recycling…late unrelated TAG…we learn that character always smashes their beer cans on their forehead once they’re empty). Spokane rewards acting quickly; it is not the form to be pocketing ideas for later.

2. Source Scene characters can only go to the past
   This is another paradox avoidance tactic and a way to ensure that the Source Scene doesn’t become locked to a specific trajectory. An extreme example of this is that if I Tag a Source Scene character to the future, I know they’re still living, which means they can’t die in the Source Scene. Less extreme examples include still having certain objects, attitudes, or life circumstances like a specific job or a relationship. Avoiding Tags to the future is a way to make sure we don’t limit Source Scene choices. Additionally, Tags to the future negate those scenes’ ability to inform the present Source Scene (characters can’t know about what hasn’t happened yet), which means that content tends to feel disconnected and out of place. This is why Source Scenes should generally have limited children; they don’t have as much past to work with. The one exception to only taking Source Scene characters to the past is if we Tag them forward and never come back. I’ve seen this work effectively at the very end of shows where a forward time jump allows for some sort of conclusion to a character or story arc and we never return to the Source Scene.

3. Tag Options
   There are a few different types of Tags that can be used both to move from the Source Scene to a Spoke and to extend Spokes. Some are more common than others, but all are valid at any time and most shows will and should have a mix of each.

   • Character Tags
     Character Tags are your classic improv Tags: one or more characters in the current scene are tagged out, and the remaining character(s) remain for the next scene. Character Tags of Source Scene characters are commonly the first Tag that initiates a Spoke, although this is not a requirement. As we know, any Character Tags from the Source Scene should be to the past, however once in the Spoke we can follow Source Scene characters forward in time as long as everything we see takes place prior to the Source Scene. Character Tags can also allow us to follow characters that appear in Spokes, and since Spoke characters generally won’t be appearing in the Source Scene at any point, their timelines are more flexible. Character Tags can be used to explore both character behavior/game and follow character narratives.

   • World Tags
     World Tags allow us to explore the world of the current scene without taking any of the characters in it with us. Usually the opportunities for World Tags will appear when someone mentions an event or location that we can showcase without bringing any of the current characters along, or an offstage character. A less common more indirect type of World Tag can be made when something happens in the scene that affects the world outside of the scene. For example if kids playing baseball hit a ball over the fence, we might Tag to see that the ball has gone through a neighbor’s window and broken their TV. These effects could be long term as well, such as if the mayor of a town passes a law banning all ice cream, we might Tag to see that later on an elaborate black market for ice cream has developed. The benefit of these types of World Tags is they don’t have to be prompted through dialogue, meaning performers offstage can look for them without needing to be explicitly set up by those in the scene. World Tags follow the same timeline rules as Source Scene characters - if it’s the same world of the Source Scene everything we see should occur prior to the Source Scene in time. The Tag itself is executed by Tagging everyone in the current scene out and initiating the new scene on a cleared stage.

   • Premise Tags
     Premise Tags allow us to explore ideas that appear in scenes that aren’t directly connected to the characters or their world. This often includes concepts that are worth exploring aren’t necessarily “real” in the world of the show such as a fantasy, fictional story, or dream, although it’s entirely possible depending on the circumstances to wrap Premise Tag content into the existing world if it makes sense. Premise Tags can also initiate alternate realities that can be explored through Character and World Tags in their own right but don’t overlap with the reality of the Source Scene. The “spider on a unicycle” example from above might lead us to explore a bug circus which could be made real in the world of the Source Scene, or could simply be something those characters were imagining. In that sense, ideas explored in Premise Tags are not automatically assumed to exist in the Source Scene reality. A Source Scene character saying “life would be so much cooler if we had flying cars” could prompt a Premise Tag where we explored how the world would be different if that were true, but none of the content of those scenes would effect the world of the Source Scene. In this way, it is entirely possible for a Spokane to explore multiple disconnected realities over the course of a show. Premise Tags are generally executed in the same way as World Tags (Tag everyone out, initiate on a cleared stage), unless the Premise is something like a fantasy (“if I won the lottery…”) that includes an alternate reality version of an existing character. The risk with things like that, however, is accidentally letting the alternate reality version of that character inform the “real” one. As long as we’re consistently clear that it’s a fantasy, these sorts of scenes can be a fun way to explore more unusual worlds and play with the way a character might see themselves and others in their mind without changing anything in the “real world”.

4. Don’t forget Base Reality
   A common issue I see with greener Spokane teams is their Spoke scenes tend to stall quickly (20-30 seconds in). Usually this happens because so much of the focus is on the idea that prompted the Tag that they don’t establish the Base Reality elements that are necessary to sustain longer scenes. I’ve seen a ton of Spoke scenes initiated with a Character Tag where we never learn anything about the new character in the scene (the one played by the performer who initiated the Tag). Make sure to take the time to clarify how the characters relate to each other and where they are. Spoke scenes are constructed in the same way as those in Armandos and second and third-beats of Harolds: we initiate with the premise/unusual thing and then back-fill Base Reality. Having this sturdy scene foundation allows us to rest patterns/games by living in the reality and opens up other ways to apply them (it’s easier to look for game moves if we know where we are).

5. You’re not beholden to the initiation
   Just because the Tag that brought us into the scene was inspired by a specific idea doesn’t mean that has to be the focus of the entire scene. Spokes can and should pivot at any point in order follow the most compelling ideas that arise. This is another reason why it’s important to establish Base Reality as soon as possible; it opens up opportunities to head in a different direction. A scene that starts with a Character Tag might spend its first few moments continuing to explore that character, but if another character in that scene says or does something worth exploring, we should feel free to shift the scene’s focus to them. I find endowments to be especially useful in Spoke scenes when we’re introduced to new characters because it creates these opportunities to pivot. Actively looking to change direction is also a way we can continue to expand Spokes beyond energy peaks where we might feel inclined to return to the Source Scene, such as after a quick run of similar Tag types with a narrow focus. Tags are a doorway to a new room; don’t get so focused on the doorway that you forget there’s a whole space to explore.

6. We can move back and forth between Spoke scenes

   Spokes don’t have to expand linearly - we can Tag back to previous scenes if we’d like (such as in Spoke 3 in the diagram above). This is a way to return to ideas in Spokes that we’ve already moved away from but want to continue to explore. It’s also another way for us to return to the Source Scene: if we are in the 3rd scene in a Spoke, instead of Sweeping to bring us all the way back, we can Tag back to revisit the 2nd and 1st scenes before Sweeping there. In this way, any Spoke scene could functionally be treated as a Source Scene as long as it followed the same Source Scene rules. For example, a Spoke might expand three scenes out and end up in a family reunion where we set a recurring theme of favorite family trips and we begin Tagging out and back to explore each character’s favorite trips. Suddenly we have a Spokane within a Spokane, and depending on when in the show it appears and how compelling it is, we might not feel the need to return to the original Source Scene at all.
   
   
   
   

Show Structure

While the freedom and expansiveness of Spokane is what makes it fun, it also can make it tough to make the show feel cohesive on the whole. Here are a few structural goals I like to shoot for in order to make the show feel more connected, especially between Spokes:

1. Start long, get shorter
   One of my basic ideals for any improv form is that the rhythm of the show accelerates over time, and it does so as smoothly as possible. What this means for Spokane is that the first Source Scene segment is the longest of the show, and each successive segment is shorter than the last. This tends to happen naturally, as we’ll need more time in that first segment to get everything established anyway, but it can be useful to lean into this pattern intentionally. Spokes can mirror this rhythm as well, with the first Spoke scene being the longest and each consecutive scene getting shorter. At the same time, if the energy within the scenes heightens to match the acceleration of the pace, the show feels like it’s building to a peak, which we can hopefully hit right at the end. The exploratory nature of Spokes should allow us to continually push the energy ceiling, and while we are taking things a step back every time we return to the Source Scene, it’s not a full reset; the floor continually rises. A map of the peak energy levels on a 1-10 scale in each segment (alternating Source Scene and Spokes) might look like 1↑3↓2↑5↓3↑7↓5↑9↓8↑10. However, these sorts of structural models are mostly theoretical and absolutely secondary to content. Don’t commit to rhythm over inspiration.

2. Establish Show Rules
   Show Rules are a specific reactions to specific sets of circumstances that are disconnected from context and character. For example, if someone in a scene orders a drink and they order peach iced tea, we could establish that anytime anyone in the show orders a drink they order peach iced tea. These are little moments of satisfying familiarity that can easily connect massively disparate scenes. Establishing Show Rules in early Spokes and applying them in later ones is a nice way to tie different parts of the show together. For more on Show Rules, check out my post on Show Rules, Memes, and Callbacks.

3. Make Mirrors
   I’ve previously written about how Limits are useful for keeping scenes manageably contained, and they just as useful at the show level as they are at the scene level. One way to limit content in a Spokane is looking for ways to create mirrored segments that basically repeat elements of the show we’ve already seen through a different lens. Personally I enjoy any opportunity to create a Similar Squad that more or less copies a previously established group of characters with some minor variations, at which point we can either repeat the scene(s) with those characters we saw before or choose to take them in a different direction. For example if in an early Spoke we see four children at a birthday party and they all have a meltdown when someone drops the cake, in a later Spoke maybe we find ourselves as four adults at a wedding and recognize this as an opportunity to mirror the birthday scene. At that point each adult would incorporate the characteristics of a specific child from the prior scene and they’d all have a similar meltdown when someone drops the wedding cake. A similar technique is mirroring worlds or zones, which is especially compelling in any narrative-leaning parts of the show where characters travel to multiple locations (e.g. room where all the furniture is made of chocolate, room where all the furniture is made of paper, room where all the furniture is made of glass, etc). If we change one major element of the space and keep everything else exactly the same (i.e. layout, types of characters there), we can then explore how that one change affects how things play out. We can also use repetition to show the same events from multiple angles. Let’s say the Source Scene establishes a theme of friends recollecting a notable camping trip they all went on, specifically the night Charlie set the tent on fire. We could repeat that scene for every character, showing how each of them saw things play out from their perspective. Despite showcasing the same event, these scenes shouldn’t feel redundant as long as each rendition is different enough.
   
   
   
   

Let’s Watch

Now that we’ve spent some time on theory, let’s take a look at a real live Spokane by my team Neighbors and see what worked and what didn’t.

Some context: Neighbors was originally established in January 2017 as a Harold team, but transitioned to Spokane in June 2019. Any new form has its learning curves, but luckily we had 2+ years of chemistry to lean on. At the individual level we are also a relatively experienced team for Boston - I believe everyone on the team has been performing regularly for at least six years. This show is from December 4, 2019 at which point we had been doing Spokane for around six months.

This is fine show with plenty of great moments. It succeeds because of our commitment to weird ideas and willingness to make big, often physical choices. However, as a Spokane it does have some inconsistencies and a few technical issues that ended up being big lessons for us.

First of all, here’s what this show looks like diagrammed out - I’ve done my best to keep scene lengths to scale. The angle of each Spoke scene doesn’t mean anything in particular; a change in direction is used only to indicate a Tag. Total show length is right around 27 minutes.

At first glance, the structure of this show indicates a pace that is more or less the reverse of what we’d prefer - the longest Source Scene segment is last, late Spokes are short and not very exploratory, and half of our Spokes happen in the first 10 minutes. The result is a show that, on rate of change alone, starts high energy and gradually fades, which is clearly not ideal. We can see a kind of microcosm of this this play out in the final 4 minutes, where there’s a ton of emotional energy packed into the first minute, but it never quite manages to get back to that peak over the next three. At this point in the show we’re also aware that it’s time to wrap it up, and you can see us trying to create that big moment to end on in the last minute. Overall, the show just doesn’t accelerate in a steady and satisfying way, and doesn’t climax at the ideal moment.

Technically, our issues start with some early missteps that put us in some difficult positions. First, all three characters in the Source Scene are children. This puts a lot of content limits on their characters, which made it difficult to put them in scenarios other than school and home. As a result, we occasionally end up treating them older than they are, such as in the scene with the driving instructor. Additionally, there’s some particularly out of place sexual stuff that doesn’t quite fit the established reality (which I’ll explain below). But we really see the problems with an all-children Source Scene in the second half of the show when the focus of the scene becomes about the future - what high school will be like, if people will think they’re cool, etc. This is probably the biggest reason for the slower pace in the later part of the show. Because the characters in the Source Scene are so forward-focused, there are fewer opportunities for Character-based Tags. This is a place where the more indirect World and Premise Tags could have been particularly useful.

Speaking of Tags, the first one comes before the 2-minute mark, jumping on the first reference to an outside character. This Tag also happens before any of the three Source Scene characters are named, and while they do all get named eventually, it means we’re still not quite on completely solid footing until Terence is named in the 3rd Source Scene segment around minute 8. We never really define a clear theme for our Spoke-initiating Tags, although they are nicely balanced in that each Source Scene character gets two (although Spoke 4’s is retroactive - more on that in a moment). We do tie a few Spokes together when Spoke 6 initiates with a Tag that completes a pattern of weird puberty-induced actions that started in Spoke 1 with Jermy climbing the sexy tree and continued in Spoke 3 with Terence humping side-to-side, but it probably would have been more useful to clearly establish it earlier so we could attack it with more intention. If it had been defined after Spoke 1 (Jermy), maybe Spokes 3 (Terence) and 6 (Sue) happen next, and then we can repeat the pattern of initiating a Spoke by exploring how each of these kids are struggling with puberty by starting again with Jermy followed by Terence and Sue. This is now a pattern we can repeat as much as necessary to get out of the Source Scene into a Spoke, which would expand from there.

Limited Spoke exploration is definitely a problem in this show. Of 20 total scenes, 13 contain Source Scene characters. Of the 7 that don’t, 5 are in Spoke 4. Spoke 3 is entirely Terence and Spokes 2 and 6 are entirely Sue. It’s interesting that Spoke 4 is the most exploratory of the show because it starts with an editing error. I initiate the Spoke after Terence says Jermy weighs nine pounds as Jermy climbs on his back (13:40 in the video). At 13:52 I run on (kind of late, but there hasn’t been any additional dialogue) to Tag out Sue and Terence. My intention is to initiate a scene as Jermy’s doctor, concerned that he only weighs nine pounds. However Matt Pina (Terence), thinking it’s Matt McMahan (Jermy) that’s tapping him and doesn’t realize I’m trying to Tag him out. Now I have to re-calibrate, which apparently required touching all the chairs, at which point Pina initiates with a kama sutra accident, making it a Premise Tag based on their physicality. Normally because it’s a Tag we’d assume these are the same characters, but because the content of the scene (a couple doing advanced sexual stuff) seems to conflict with what we know of these two characters (children just hitting puberty), my assumption in the moment wass that these were new characters. Eventually we learn that these are in fact Terence and Jermy, making it a retroactive Character Tag, but it definitely still feels out of place. In any case, this miscommunication prompts a Spoke that gets us further away from the Source Scene than we ever get and we do some solid exploration (Churro man, affair hat) in the longest Spoke of the show. Spokes 1 and 5 are the only other Spokes that take us away from Source Scene characters, but only for one scene each.

There are definitely opportunities to do a bit more exploration; in Spoke 1 Jermy’s dad is an interestingly awful character whose life might be fun to see, and in Spoke 5 the chair room character has some potential depth as well (artist? serial killer?). Another big reason for lack of exploration is that all the Tags in this show are Character-based except for the Top Chef Sleepover scene in Spoke 2 which is kind of a Character/Premise hybrid. World Tag opportunities I see are in the rope climbing scene in Spoke 3 (what other things can you do to earn the Presidential Medal? why does the President want kids climbing ropes?) and the Unicorn scene in Spoke 6 (what do other stuffed animals think of Sue grinding on her unicorn?). I also see some Premise Tag opportunities in Top Chef Sleepover from Spoke 2 (what other shows might kids have a sleepover for? what if Top Chef had an episode where the secret ingredient was someone’s period?). The options to expand these short Spokes are there; the hard part is seeing them in the moment and jumping on them instead of Sweeping back to the Source Scene.

Overall, the result is a show that stays too close to Source Scene characters with limiting circumstances and suffers pacing issues because of it. Our takeaways were to avoid children in the Source Scene, be more patient at the beginning of the show, and prioritizing expanding Spokes, all things that have helped our shows improve since then. In practice this meant running Monoscenes to get more comfortable with longer, slower scenes, and focusing on adding new information in Spoke scenes to create opportunities for exploration. I also like La Rondes to practice Spoke expansion as it forces us to follow the new character in a scene, although this is explicitly a tool to work on Character Tags. For World and Premise Tags, I find it useful to simply pick one and run a series of scenes where those are the only types of edits we can use.

A Little Bit of Everything

“We can hardly begin to consider this problem unless it is clear that the craving for security is itself a pain and a contradiction, and that the more we pursue it, the more painful it becomes. This is true in whatever form security may be conceived. You want to be happy, to forget yourself, and yet the more you try to forget yourself, the more you remember the self you want to forget. You want to escape from pain, but the more you struggle to escape, the more you inflame the agony. You are afraid and want to be brave, but the effort to be brave is fear trying to run away from itself. You want peace of mind, but the attempt to pacify it is like trying to calm the waves with a flat-iron.”

- Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

This is a story of fear and faith.

Following your dreams is terrible. It’s a gift and a privilege to be able to do it (as everyone you talk to about it will remind you), but the process is truly unpleasant. My dream is an improv theater I’m starting with a few of my friends called Union Comedy - a project nearly three years in the making that is still waiting to be built.

Any physical creation comes into being in more or less the same way: first its essence exists in the mind, then its composite parts and the tools required to assemble them are defined in language and symbols, then the language and symbols are exchanged for material parts and tools, and finally that material is assembled. The more complex the creation the longer each of those steps takes. For months my dream has been stuck in the realm of language and symbols. It exists in essence. It exists in legal documents. It exists in architectural drawings. But despite our best efforts it’s been heavily resisting tangibility.

One of the reasons following your dreams is terrible is since they’re your dreams they’re your responsibility. They may, as mine are, be shared with others, but the pursuit is ultimately very personal. This is great when things are going well; when the project is succeeding you feel like a successful person. This is not so great when things are going badly. In many ways your ego clings to your dream and it becomes difficult to disassociate your progress from your self-esteem. This is what makes waiting so frustrating. When the project is stuck you feel personally stuck.

It’s interesting that the first step toward creating something is completely dissecting it; there’s something about a state change that requires a thorough audit. It’s like if I wanted to move a bed frame from one room to another, I’d have to disassemble it and bring it through the doorway in pieces which I’d then reassemble on the other side. It ends up being the same bed frame, but in order to get somewhere new it has to stop being a bed frame for a little while. Similarly, I’ve found myself spending much of the last three years doing an immense amount of self-dissection as I undergo a major life transition. After spending the large part of a decade in the world of improv it’s starting to look like I might actually have a shot at making a career out of it.

Uncertainty is kind of the point, I’m learning. We play games because we might win, not because we definitely will. We enjoy stories because we don’t know how they’ll play out. The entire thrill of improv is that none of us know what’s going to happen. The excitement of “what’s next?” is what keeps us engaged. But the dark side of uncertainty is doubt. It’s “what if what’s next is bad?” Doubt creeps in when we’re invested in a certain outcome. It thrives in stretches of stagnation. It quickly matures into fear. Following my dreams required an increasing commitment to uncertainty, and in those long periods of setbacks and little progress, doubt ran wild.

The more invested I became in my dream the more it started to scare me. What if it never panned out? What if we put all this work into this just for it to fall apart? What if I wasn’t good enough? What if I did something that screwed the whole thing up? Could I do anything else if I failed? Why was I committing myself to the pursuit of this thing that constantly refused to be real and often seemed impossible? Why didn’t I have a backup plan? Scariest of all this was a project that attracted a lot of attention. I knew a lot of people were invested in this. I knew there was a lot of anticipation about it. What if we couldn’t get it done, if this was a promise we couldn’t keep? What if we could but it wasn’t successful? What if I let everyone down?

The thing about moving the bed frame is you don’t get to pick and choose which parts you want to take into the next room and which ones you want to leave behind. If you want to finish the job you have to eventually carry every individual piece, even the ones that are heavy, dirty, ugly, and broken. These also tend to be the pieces we save for last, knowing they’ll be unpleasant to handle. The main problem with getting disassembled is you temporarily stop existing as a whole. During the time it takes you to transfer each individual piece from one room to the next it seems like that piece is all there is. I had spent a long time carrying each of my pieces from one room to the next, taking a close look at them along the way. Fear was the final, most daunting one.

This is where the Alan Watts quote comes in. I’ve written before about how a lot of the things I was afraid of ended up coming true. There seems to be a certain inevitability to where we focus our imagination. I think we can run from the things we endow with power over us but we can’t hide from them forever. I think we hope that if we put enough effort into staying busy or distracted we can avoid looking at the things that might be difficult to look at and unpleasant to deal with. I certainly used improv as a distraction for a long time. I’m sure a lot of us do. I tried to use it to feel like I was moving toward something. I tried to use it to fill the gaps in myself that I didn’t think I could fill on my own. But I think Ram Dass (who died during the writing of this piece) is right when he says all methods are traps. I think improv, like any method, is excellent at showing us who we are and where we’re stuck. But improv, like any method, won’t do the work required to get unstuck for us.

I think the ultimate lesson of improv is acceptance. It’s non-judgment. It’s the immediate embrace of everything we’re given to work with, and that includes our own choices just as much as others’. What improv eventually showed me was that most of my problems were self-endowed based on my reaction to certain things. This is something that intellectually has made sense for a while, but practically is difficult to embody. As an introvert predisposed to anxiety I have a complicated relationship with perfectionism. On the positive end I think my compulsion to attend to details and my willingness to put a lot of time into the things I care about is what makes a lot of my creative work (e.g. this blog) very good. On the negative end it means miring in unnecessary bouts of analysis paralysis and that mistakes, especially irreversible ones, can be devastating.

I’ve been carrying fear for a while; so long I have to remember that most of me and all of the easy-to-carry parts are already in the other room. But fear is heavy and tends to spotlight mistakes on the way out. It’s forced me to really look at a lot of them in order to get by. For a long time, because of my perfectionism, this was a painful process. But eventually my improv training finally kicked in and I started seeing my mistakes through the lens of acceptance. I realized that what I had been doing was using my mistakes as reasons I didn’t deserve to be happy. Eventually I realized that what I should be doing is treating how I felt about my mistakes as signs that I know I’m capable of being better, that I am continuing to mature. I realized that in my pursuit of perfection I spent more time and energy beating myself up for the few things that didn’t align with my values or fell short of how I knew I could be rather than recognizing that 99.9% of the time I was meeting them completely.

Life is kind of like walking down a dark path where no one can see what’s around or up ahead but everyone thinks we’re heading someplace either really good or really bad. Some people who think it’ll be really bad want us to stay put because they believe at least where we’re at isn’t as bad as what’s coming up. Some people who think it’ll be really good want to give us wrong directions so they can get there first and feel good about themselves for beating everyone there. Some people who think it’ll be really bad hold themselves in place because they feel safe with what they know. Some people who think it’ll be really good will rush full speed ahead only to run headlong into painful obstacles they couldn’t see. These obstacles are mistakes. These obstacles are failure. These obstacles are bad habits, neuroses, attachments. We don’t see them coming because we’re distracted or think we can clear them or the environment won’t allow it. We get stuck because we often don’t know which direction to go. But just because the path has obstacles doesn’t mean that’s where it ends or even that we’re going in the wrong direction. They’re simply markers of where the path isn’t. They’re just inefficiencies in the journey. Working through these snags in the path can make you feel like a Roomba. Sometimes you hit a wall once, turn completely around, and you’re back on track. Sometimes you keep banging into that wall a million times making teeny incremental progress each time before you can finally get yourself turned around. Sometimes no matter how hard you try you can’t get free and you need someone who cares about you to come bail you out.

Moving the final piece of the frame has an extra challenge too; eventually you have to let go of the old room and leave it for the last time. Letting go of old circumstances is just as hard as getting disassembled. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the new room. What if it’s not actually an upgrade? What if it’s not a good fit for the frame? This resistance to the new state is the ego desperately trying to grab onto anything it can to prevent the heart from taking it somewhere unknown. My friend Kate Hopkins calls the ego “the story we tell ourselves about ourselves”. It has a plan and likes to think it knows exactly what our role is in the world and exactly what’s going to happen in the future. That’s why change can be so painful, especially when it occurs unexpectedly or when the outcome is unclear. The ego likes the old room because even if it’s not particularly fulfilled, at least it’s familiar with things. It knows where it stands with everyone else’s egos. It knows the rules. It knows what it can and can’t do in its current space. It doesn’t easily let go of this comfort zone. It wants to keep its story on track.

This is where faith comes in. In its quest for fulfillment the heart asks the ego to trust it. It argues that the pain of change will be worth it. It asks it to let go of knowing for a chance to know better. It asks us to jump. Because deep down the heart knows the ego is well-meaning but shortsighted. Its goal is survival, but the heart wants to thrive. The heart knows the ego can learn to tell a different story once it adjusts to its new situation. But the ego doesn’t particularly enjoy leaps of faith. I know because for I’ve been in mid-air for what feels like eternity. Time will tell if I can stick the landing.

Once we’ve closed the door on the old room there’s still work to be done in the new one. The frame still needs to be reassembled. You’re finally in a new place but you’re still in pieces. But at least now you know all the parts that make up the frame. You’re familiar with the heavy, dirty, ugly, and broken pieces from carrying them one at a time from one room to the next. When it comes time to start putting them all back together again, we have some choices to make. One option is to leave everything the same. Maybe carrying the heavy ones made us stronger and they won’t be as hard to carry next time. Maybe some stains are permanent and serve as a reminder to try not to make anymore big messes. Maybe we accept that the frame will never be perfect, and the parts that aren’t so attractive are what makes the frame unique. Maybe the broken parts aren’t a real danger to the integrity of frame, they’re just another reminder that it’s been through some rough times. Maybe all we really needed to do was to understand how the frame fits together, acknowledge its flaws and weak spots, and hope we treat it better in the new room.

Another option is taking the time to put in the extra work to clean things up and repair some damage. Maybe we get some help with the heavy ones. Maybe we take a close hard look at the dirty and broken ones and figure out what it takes to clean and fix them up. Maybe we give the ugly ones a paint or a polish or some sort of decoration. The choice depends on how much we’re capable and willing to put the extra work in. If we think the frame is sturdy enough as it is, we might let flaws and damage slide. If we think things will compound over time and we’ll have to deal with them at some point, we might decide it’s time to do the work.

I’ve been doing a mix of both options as my life changes. Being forced to carry every piece of myself made me recognize which parts I had to learn to accept and which parts I had to work on if I wanted to enter a new chapter feeling as sturdy as possible. Uncertainty, doubt, fear, guilt - these are some of the bigger parts I need to simply accept. For a long time I hoped ignoring them would make them go away and all that would be left were the bits I was proud of. Creativity, vision, drive, endurance - if I could just manage to make things like this be all of me I’d be perfect and I’d be happy. But assemble the frame without all the parts and it can’t do its job. I’m still working on accepting that all my parts are there to serve a purpose, that they wouldn’t be there if I didn’t need them for one reason or another. As much as I resisted this truth, the parts of myself I’m not proud of are what make me fight harder for the ones I am. The light needs the dark in order to shine.

Here’s another one from Alan Watts: “Waking up to who you are requires letting go of what you imagine yourself to be.” My ego has thrown everything it can at me to keep telling me the story it was prepared to tell. It wants so badly to keep me contained in the realm it knows. But in all those moments when it seemed like fear would win, when I’ve thought that the easiest thing to do would be to give up, a voice in the darkness was there with one message - “you are so much more powerful than you think you are, and that is always true.” Well I believe it’s true of all of us. But it takes faith to make the leap required to find out.

I’m tired of running from the parts of myself I know now I can’t escape. I’m tired of trying to be perfect. I’m tired of pretending this path is leading anywhere completely good or bad. It may be more of both, but it won’t be all of either. There is no escape, there is only acceptance, and I continue to work on accepting all of myself.

I’m passionate, I’m indifferent.
I’m industrious, I’m lazy.
I’m perceptive, I’m oblivious.
I’m all in, I’m flaky.

I’m confident, I’m shy.
I’m ready, I’m unprepared.
I’m open, I’m aloof.
I’m bold, I’m scared.

I’m chill, I’m stressed.
I’m honest, I’m a liar.
I’m smart, I’m dumb.
I’m energized, I’m tired.

I’m generous, I’m selfish.
I’m ecstatic, I’m miserable.
I’m a little bit of everything.
And that’s what makes me whole.

Show Rules, Memes, and Callbacks

With some exceptions, a longform improv set generally ranges between 15-90 minutes. Quality considerations aside, a team has two major challenges going in: 1) create enough content to fill the allotted time, and 2) make the show on the whole feel like a cohesive and consumable entity. Satisfactorily accomplishing both of these goals can be tricky though because they are frequently at odds, especially toward longer end of that range - accomplishing Challenge #1 relies on adding new information; accomplishing Challenge #2 relies on keeping information limited. The basic problem is that complexity increases with time, so how do we allow for this without letting it get out of control?

We’ve previously explored how various scenic Limits can keep scenes simple as they lengthen, and all of those Limits can be extended throughout the show as long as they remain relevant. In particular, maintaining established Character Patterns and Fixed Dynamics as Characters return is definitely useful for show stability. But structures like Spokane that don’t intentionally recycle material in the way that a Harold does tend to lean more heavily on novelty and expansion, which means they’re more likely to introduce new Characters more often, therefore making it more difficult to apply Character-based Limits. For this reason we need to find ways to limit complexity that are disconnected from Character.

Luckily we have a few tools to do this - Show Rules, Memes, and Callbacks.

Show Rules

There are two important components to what I call a Show Rule and to be one it must meet both requirements:

1. A specific set of circumstances always prompts a specific reaction

2. That specific reaction does not change

Imagine a scene where a Character enters the room by kicking down the door. This is a specific set of circumstances (Character needs to get through door) followed by a specific reaction (they kick it down). At this point this move has only happened once and there are a few options: it never happens again, it becomes a Character Pattern, or it becomes a Show Rule. It’s the second move that establishes this delineation. If that specific Character comes across a door later in the show and kicks it down, it’s a Character Pattern; this specific Character’s specific reaction to a specific set of circumstances. But if a completely different Character in a later scene comes across a door and kicks it down, now it’s a Show Rule: At any point if anyone needs to go through a door, they have to kick it down.

The equation is essentially “If there is X then everyone must Y”; “If there is a door to get through then everyone must kick it down.” These variables also never change - it’s always a door that gets kicked, never a window or a wall; the door always gets kicked down, not rammed or dismantled. It’s a fairly straightforward static pattern, but I find them to be much less common than Character Patterns despite starting from the same point. I believe this is because we naturally link actions with actor and forget that actions exist of themselves. All it takes is anyone recognizing this, isolating the action, and applying it to a different actor. Once established, a Show Rule is universally applied to the entire rest of the show.

Here’s a few more examples to solidify the concept:
- Every time time someone says the word “Friday”, their scene partner says “TGIF”.
- If anyone orders food, they order fish tacos.
- If someone washes their hands, the water is too hot.

The final important aspect of Show Rules is that they’re most effective when they don’t become too much of the focus in the scene that prompted the circumstances. Because they create a satisfying moment of surprising recollection for the audience, they frequently get laughs, which can often lead performers to lean too hard on them or repeat them too frequently. But Show Rules truly shine when the circumstances come up organically. They work best when they’re almost an afterthought for the performers as they do their scene. It’s only when, as they turn to exit the room and see the door, that they remember “oh yeah, I’m supposed to kick this down.”

Memes

“Meme” is kind of a loaded term because of the internet but I like it as a concept because it’s exactly what I mean. The originator of the term is Richard Dawkins who in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene felt the need to create “a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission”, some examples being tunes, catch-phrases, and fashion. Terence McKenna later defined a meme as “the smallest unit of an idea that still has coherency”. Applying these definitions to improv, the concept is that each individual show establishes its own unique culture in which unique ideas are developed, shared, and explored. In other words, a Meme is recurring motif in a show that resonates only because of the associations it generates within that particular show.

I realize this is vague so I’ll do my best to explain. If a performer mentions a local landmark during a show, that conjures certain associations for the audience based on what they know of that landmark. A scene for New York audience where a character mentions wanting to experience the “real” New York and another suggests going to Times Square might get a laugh because the audience knows that Times Square is constantly packed with tourists and most locals avoid it when they can. A Meme leverages the audience’s shared associations in the same way, except these associations are exclusive to this particular audience watching this particular show.

Perhaps the most important aspect of Memes and what differentiates them from Show Rules is that Memes evolve as they reappear. Dawkins theorized that Memes operated in a culture much like genes operated in biology; with each replication there is a chance of mutation. Improv Memes operate similarly in that they maintain the smallest unit of the coherent idea with each replication, but each iteration tends to be a little different.

Forgive me for using my own team as an example but here are 3 clips from a recent Neighbors show that demonstrate the use of a Meme:

In this Spokane, Sarah Meléndez and Ben Gibb are doing a two-person source scene playing a couple in their home when at one point Sarah’s character does a wildly inaccurate impression of Ben’s character Mark. Later, Kate Hopkins and I, playing Mark’s parents, imitate Mark in a similar way. Finally, Sara Teague later tags in as Sarah’s friend and does her own version of a Mark impression.

The main elements of the impression (the smallest unit of the idea that still has coherency) is that Mark does weird stuff with his arms, smokes, and wears a hat. But each time the impression is repeated, it morphs. Sarah’s original impression in in the style of an old man. The version Kate and I do is more wiggly and cartoonish, “like an octopus”. Finally, Sara’s interpretation is more laid back and has cool dude vibes. Each time it reappears, the Mark Impression Meme maintains its consistent elements, but evolves stylistically.

This is particular example is kind of a Show Rule-Meme hybrid because it’s prompted by a specific set of circumstances (someone does an impression of Mark) but changes each time. Like every pattern, the second move defines the parameters. The second move for this pattern defined that the impression was specific to Mark, but an alternate version of this show could very well have broadened the scope of the Meme by doing an impression of a completely different character. If that were the case, it would mean any impression of anyone would include doing weird stuff with your arms, smoking, and wearing a hat. On the other hand, the second move could have just as easily put this pattern firmly in Show Rule category if it had maintained the old man style of the original impression; if the reaction to the specific set of circumstances hadn’t changed at all.

Double forgive me for not using the most intellectual content for the next example but it shows a different use of a Meme that’s unprompted by a specific scenario:

In this clip I’m playing a character named Mikey who has been cursed with a talking dick, played by Matt McMahan. At first Mikey is embarrassed, until Mina Bond tags in and asks Mikey’s dick to prom, leading to a sequence of events that end with Mikey’s dick becoming prom king. Later in the show, Mina is playing “a new up-and-coming rapper” Lil Squeeze who is trying to recruit Matt Pina and Kate Hopkins (whose characters had previously been established as bullies) to help her get pumped up for shows. Instead, they maintain their character pattern by bullying her, which includes making fun of Lil Squeeze for not having a talking dick, at which point Matt McMahan enters as a sad silent dick.

Talking Dick as an idea doesn’t become a Meme until it reappears, and despite reappearing in a completely unrelated context with completely new characters in a completely different way, it works because it leverages the audience’s familiarity with the idea: people in this show can have anthropomorphic dicks and if they can talk it’s really cool. The second iteration of the Meme relies on these previously-established associations in order to make sense, and it’s by leaning on these associations while exploring the idea from a different angle that allow for it to take further shape.

Memes are special types of patterns because they don’t belong to a particular individual, they belong to the show as a whole. In both of the above examples, the reappearance of the Meme only gets the reaction it does because the audience has witnessed the origins and entire evolution of the idea. Memes reward the audience for paying attention and make them feel special for being part of an inside joke that’s unique to them. Because they evolve, they’re also a nice balance of familiarity and novelty.

Callbacks

The most straightforward of these three concepts, Callbacks are a way to limit complexity by reusing existing information instead of adding something new. One of my general theories for any show is that the first half is about expansion and exploration while the back half is about merging and closure. Callbacks are a relatively easy way to serve the back half goal, so that’s where they’re most effective. In a Harold, for example, the most effective 3rd beats are almost exclusively Callbacks.

A basic Callback is as simple as repeating a specific from earlier in the show when the opportunity arises. For example, if a scene in the first half of the show was about a family on vacation in Portland, a character in the back half of the show who is naming a place they want to visit before they die could say Portland. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

Because the repetition of the specific information will often get a laugh of recognition, it’s easy to focus on that move as the most important element, but the key part of the Callback is actually the setup, without which there would be nothing to recall. One of the reasons specifics are so important in scenework is not just because they paint a clearer picture, but because the more specific something is the easier it is to remember and the more obvious it is when it comes back. For example the phrase “grab me a seltzer” might get recognized upon recall but could just as easily fly under the radar. On the other hand, “grab me a Pamplemousse La Croix” is much more likely to be recognized because its specificity helps it stand out (also because “pamplemousse” is an especially weird word).

Once specific information has entered the show, it’s on the performer to recognize and pocket it for later. This can be difficult in longer shows with a lot going on, but it’s very much an intentional process. I find it most effective to lean on my own taste, meaning I’ll take note of things that I personally enjoy and what naturally stands out to me vs trying to remember every single little detail. I recognize that I’ll miss some things with this method, but this is fine because I trust that my teammates can fill in the gaps. My job in the first half of the show is creating and pocketing as many standout specifics as I can, and my job the second half is about creating and looking for recall opportunities. This is a deliberate mode shift that changes how I approach specificity in each half of the show; in the first half I’m intentionally adding new information, while in the back half I’m first flipping through my pocketed specifics to see if anything fits the present circumstances before adding anything new.

This intentionality is just as much a part of why Callbacks get positive reactions - the move itself is technically impressive. The audience enjoys both the surprise recall of a familiar element and the fact that the performer doing the recall remembered it at all. This is especially true if they had forgotten themselves; part of the reaction is “wow, I can’t believe they remembered that.”

I feel like I end a ton of posts with this disclaimer but here it is anyway - Show Rules, Memes, and Callbacks are simply labels I’ve assigned to different types of non-character-based patterns. I’ve done my best to define the boundaries of these definitions in theory which makes it helpful to isolate and practice them, but onstage I’ve found that labels like these mostly get in the way. Practically, these types of patterns exist on a spectrum and plenty of very effective patterns will straddle categorical lines or be difficult to define. As always, when it’s show time toss theory out the window in favor of your instincts and inspiration.

My Unwritten Rules and Top Secret Tricks

You might be surprised to know that I have some improv opinions.

Lots of them inspire massively long posts, but lots of them are also miscellaneous little things that don’t really warrant their own. UNTIL NOW.

My Unwritten Rules and Top Secret Tricks

In some particular order

1. If there’s a hug in the scene, the scene is over.

   Hugs are peak improv intimacy. They’re the climactic physical consummation of characters saying that they love each other in different ways for two and half minutes. There’s nowhere to heighten from there (unless they start feeling frisky). So if you see your teammates lining up for a hug, get that edit ready or you’re in for an awkward post-hug silence while your teammates wonder why they’re still onstage. The one exception to this rule is if the hug comes as part of a greeting. Otherwise, there’s no clearer finale in improv.
   

2. Don’t tell the audience what you’re going to do.

   Nothing can dig a hole for an improvised show faster than expectations. Any time you tell the audience what’s going to happen, you set up a target that you then have to hit or the show is a failure (this is the reason narrative improv is so difficult). It’s great to have goals and it’s great to have a plan, but all that stuff is for the team to be on the same page. That way if you mess up or fail to hit your goals, you’re the only one who knows. It’s like if I say “I’m not going to eat this entire pizza by myself” and then I do, I failed. But if I never say whether I’m going to eat the whole pizza, and then I do, I can act like that was the plan the whole time. In the same way, the audience doesn’t need to know what form you’re doing in order to enjoy the show, so don’t tell them what form you’re doing and definitely don’t tell them what form you’re doing and then try to describe it. People who know the form already will recognize it and follow along, and people who don’t know the form won’t understand it enough from your 10-second description to get what it is even if you nail it. I don’t even like it when hosts say “we have a great show for you tonight.” They don’t know what the show will be like! (Only kind of kidding.)
   

3. The best improv names = First Name/Title + Noun

   Try it out - Doctor Skateboard, Florence Leaf, Professor Fizz, Sandra Lamp. Silly, memorable, flawless. Even better if they alliterate - Captain Crowbar, Justin Jazz, Diane Diamond. Just watch out for ones that already exist - Kate Moss, Tom Cruise, Mr. Bucket…
   

4. Make sure everyone onstage gets established before walking-on/tagging.

   My absolute biggest improv pet peeve is the second line walk-on: two performers go onstage to start a scene; one performer says or does something; a third performer enters and takes focus before the other onstage performer can respond. Not only is it pretty rude (indicates a lack of trust in those onstage) and selfish (performer entering wants the first response despite not being onstage), but it creates a distracting gap in understanding. Until that third character is labeled, people on both sides of the stage will lose some of their attention to wondering who they are and why they’re in the scene, an issue that compounds with time. No walk-on is so important that it can’t wait a few lines for everyone to be established. The same goes for tags in forms like the Spokane - if the first tag comes before we know who everyone in the Source Scene is, that’s work that we still have to accomplish when we come back. The show has now started expanding without a sturdy foundation, which will generally lead to either a narrower show that leans too heavily on certain characters or erratic momentum as we have to back-fill contextual elements that would have been more helpful if they had been established in the first chapter of the source scene. Patience pays off.
   

5. The less you know each other the more you have to share.

   Playing strangers is Against The Rules™ because it limits everyone’s ability to endow. If I’ve never met a character before I don’t know anything about them other than their appearance and current behavior - surface level stuff. Knowing this, if I’m meeting someone for the first time I’ll make my character an aggressive over-sharer. They won’t be shy about revealing personal details, telling secrets, and generally being as much of an open book as possible. So even though it makes things a bit more challenging, I like playing strangers because it’s an opportunity to pretend I’m an extrovert.
   

6. Don’t pick a fight you aren’t prepared to win.

   Every scene has conflict at some level, although the vast majority of improv conflicts are inter-character. This is fine as long as these conflicts have some sort of motion or flow, meaning they aren’t constant (we take moments to release the tension) and they’re either active on their own or don’t hinder action (they’re not entirely verbal/logical arguments aka they’re not about “being right”). Unfortunately a lot of improvisers get so caught up in the conflict itself they lose sight of the bigger picture. Most often this results in forgetting to rest the battle, so tension basically calcifies and locks the scene’s momentum. Less frequently but common enough to make this list is when a character gets what they want and then the performer doesn’t know what to do with it so they either try to re-litigate the conflict or decide they didn’t actually want what they were fighting for after all.
   It goes something like:
   A: I want to go to the beach.
   B: Well I don’t.
   A: We should go to the beach because abc.
   B: We shouldn’t go because xyz.
   A: Come on, you always etc etc
   B: Okay fine, let’s go.
   A(v1): I can’t believe you said you didn’t want to go. The beach is great because etc etc (relitigation)
   A(v2): Wait, I changed my mind. I don’t want to go after all. (reversal)

   In both cases character A gets stuck on the conflict because it feels like solid ground. They know where they stand and they know where the other person stands. The conflict is comfortable. However, when character B makes the actually helpful move of conceding (because action always wins), they end the conflict and remove the comfort. Performer A might not know what to do next or feel that they can’t or don’t know how to change location, so they try to get back in the comfort zone either by re-instigating a conflict that’s already over or by swapping sides so it can continue. The answer lies in either pivoting from setting the goal to the pursuit of it (start getting ready to go to the beach) which is a good option if we don’t want to move in time and space, or in jumping to the moment of achievement (“here we are at the beach”) and seeing how the characters react based on the justifications of their initial opinions and the reality of their new circumstances. If you’re going to fight for something, make sure you actually want it.
   

7. If you feel the scene start to stall, make a big emotional choice.

   A scene is just a soup of information and energy. Information is the specifics, details, labels - all the “stuff” that makes up the characters and their world. Energy is action and emotion - how all the “stuff” interacts. Ideally we’re creating a balanced soup - a scene with a lot of energy but little information is incomprehensible and/or meaningless; a scene with a lot of information but little energy is overly complex and/or uninteresting. If a scene starts to feel kind of listless or like it’s losing steam, the likely culprit is that it falls into the latter category. Injecting energy into the scene is as simple as picking something to react to and making it big. The trick here is to do this without transforming dynamics. Students tend to be pretty good at noticing when a scene is losing steam, but commonly respond by picking something random to fight with their scene partner about (notice how often a scene that starts with peas-in-a-pod pivots to an argument 45-60 seconds in). This is a move motivated by discomfort (see #6) and can work as the conflict naturally carries some emotional energy, but often negates the established dynamic in the process. Ideally we can inject this emotional energy without fundamentally changing the structure of the scene. My pocket move is abruptly bursting into tears. I try not to use it too much because I’m aware it’s my pocket move, but its high hit rate makes it good in a pinch.
   

8. Make everything intentional.

   Starting from zero, our goal is to understand our characters as quickly as possible so we can continue to showcase their behavior. The best way to do this is to make them fully responsible for their actions and the situations they find themselves in. If they chose to do something on purpose it’s easier to use that as the foundation for behavioral patterns than if they did something unintentionally or if they defer responsibility (e.g. “so-and-so made me do it” or “I was born this way/have a condition/am under the influence of something”). This sounds easy enough in theory, but actually requires overriding a lot of our social training. Artists drawn to improv tend to be masters of conflict avoidance which is great for playing with a team and getting along in large communities but not so helpful for scenework which really rewards directness and honesty. Even performance “errors” like misspeaking or misunderstanding can become effective windows to character if made deliberate. The best example of this is the ego currently inhabiting the office of President of the United States, whose strategy for all mistakes is making them retroactively intentional. This technique is obviously insane if you’re running the third most populous nation on the planet but if the goal is comedy it’s an effective tool for character-building and often creates some fun and surprising situations. Mistakes are gifts, so don’t shy away from them if they happen and practice overriding your natural instincts to correct any verbal flubs. Similarly, if scene partners endow you with behavior, try to avoid deflecting responsibility. Decide that you did it on purpose and then start figuring out why.
   

9. If you start a sentence with “look” you’re trying to grab status.

   I started noticing this fairly recently and now I see it everywhere. Usually it’s used metaphorically like “Look, the cat will be fine alone for a couple days” or “Look, I was trying to xyz” but even the literal “look over there” or “look at this” serves the same function. “Look” is a directive and any directive is an attempt to assert status. Unfortunately I don’t believe that most performers who do this are doing it intentionally. I think a lot of especially greener performers claim status/power as a comfort move; if it feels like the scene is out of their control at least they can reclaim some of that control by having some sort of dominance over the other characters. In fact I think most improv bad habits come from an unconscious desire to create comfort by any means necessary (#6 again). This is normal, comes and goes, and gets better with reps and by working with people you trust. But try to notice when you’re grabbing status as a comfort move vs doing what’s in the best interest of the scene. An overwhelming number of scenes end up being status battles which can get pretty tedious for an audience over the course of a show. By recognizing how we fall into them we can learn how to avoid them which should lead to more scenic variety.
   

10. Clichés (and some alternatives)

    I see these choices constantly. It’s not that they’re necessarily ineffective, it’s just that they’re overused to death. If you catch yourself using any of these, I’ve provided some alternative options which you can feel free to steal.

    
    “Ever since Mom died/left…”
    Why it’s used: Stakes! Wow this family is in trouble. They are in a bad/sad situation.
    Alternative option: At the very least we can give Mom a more interesting story by being a little more specific (“Ever since Mom died from eating too many Pop Rocks”, “Ever since Mom left us to go to live on Mars”). There’s also plenty of ways to create stakes for a family without killing off Mom - termites eating the house, scammed out of all their money, caught in time loop and have to relive the same day over and over forever, etc.

    “It’s my first day.”
    Why it’s used: Justifies not being good at something/not knowing something.
    Alternative option: We can tie this back to #8 as it’s basically a deflection. Try choosing to be bad on purpose (“I’m trying to destroy this company from the inside”) or acknowledging your incompetence (“I know I’m not good at this, I was a nepotism hire”), both of which inform character and world more than lack of experience.

    
    (when something hasn’t yet been labeled) “This is the best [thing] ever!”
    Why it’s used: Labels the thing while making an emotional choice about it.
    Alternative option: The problem I see the most with this one is the emotional attachment to the thing doesn’t match the language - the act of labeling overshadows the idea that the character believes it’s the best ever. If it’s really the best camping trip ever, they should treat it like that by acting really excited about it the whole time. Another option is to repackage the label to avoid superlatives (e.g. “this is my first camping trip since the Scouts”).

    (after grabbing a steering wheel on the right side of a vehicle) “This is a British car/we’re in England.”
    Why it’s used: Justifies the driver’s side being opposite from North American standard.
    Alternative option: Plenty of non-British vehicles use Right Hand Drive - boats, postal trucks, garbage trucks, the Tymco Model 600 Street Sweeper. All fun options. There are also plenty of other countries that use Right Hand Drive if you want to stick with the geographical justification but want to mix it up a bit.

    
    (after being called a different name than previously established) “That’s my middle name.”
    Why it’s used: Justifies conflicting information
    Alternative option: This one is tough because I think a lot of the time this happens the justification calls more attention to the error than if we had just embraced the new name and pretended it didn’t happen. If we’re supposed to be listening really closely and we missed it/forgot then hopefully the audience did too. On the other hand if it’s really obvious it might be more effective to honor the original name and justify why the person using the second name is wrong. This will vary based on how well the characters know each other; a coworker might not have bothered to learn people’s names because they didn’t plan on being in the job very long, or a family member might not have seen someone since they were a kid and they look a lot like another relative. This might also be another good opportunity to apply rule #8 and see what happens.

    
    “We matched on Tinder.”
    Why it’s used: Provides some context for the relationship
    Alternative option: In improv, Tinder is to dating sites what Arby’s is to restaurants; it gets referenced way more than it should based on the immense number of other options. There are over 8000 dating sites worldwide. Here’s a big list of them. Some highlights: Zoosk (funny name), Sea Captain Date (for dates with sea captains), TallFriends (all members are over 5’10”), Vampire Passions (self-explanatory).

That’s it for now! I don’t usually edit these after publishing but I expect this one to expand over time as I come up with more, so I guess make it your homepage and check it every day.

Doing & Duality: A Character Guide

The more improv I do the more I realize how simple it all is.

Pay attention.
Pick something to care about.
Act on it.

That’s pretty much it. Do this consistently and we’re in decent shape. But just because something is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy.

One of the reasons improv is so difficult to master is that it’s always in flux. New information flows into the scene constantly and not all of it fits neatly into the pile of information that’s already there. The longer the scene, the more complex it becomes. Luckily, because we have scene partners, we’re not responsible for managing that complexity all on our own.

We’ve previously explored how to manage scenic complexity through assorted Limits, but whereas in that post we examined broad scene-wide Limits, in this post I’d like to take a more individualistic focus. Knowing that I have scene partners and thus am not responsible for taking care of everything, what can I do for myself to increase the likelihood of a successfully coherent and entertaining scene? What makes an effective Character?

There are plenty of techniques for beginning to create a Character - “lead with a body part”, “mirror your scene partner”, “emulate someone from your life”, “play an archetype”,  etc - and while this is all good advice for making initial choices, rather than start at the beginning, let’s start from where we’re ideally ending up and work backwards from there. Let’s start from presence.

Being “present” is a concept we throw around a lot in improv, but what does that mean in practical terms? It’s certainly more than physically inhabiting space onstage; it’s a mode of awareness in which we’re completely receptive to everything that’s happening. It’s both noticing and immediately embracing all new information and the circumstances this information creates. It’s not having a plan, not having expectations, and not dwelling on how things that already happened could have gone differently. It’s the nonstop consumption of Now.

Presence isn’t limited to the Performer level; it’s just as important for our Characters to be present as it is for us. Just as we want to be focused on the Now in a scene instead of getting stuck on moments past or potential, we want our Characters in the same mode. The reason this is important is because the nature of the art form is entirely non-material. By this I mean because we have no props, sets, or costumes, we’re asking the audience to mentally inject them on their own. As a result, they’re doing a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to creating the immersion required to have an enjoyable experience. When our Characters focus on the past or the future, we’re adding an additional layer of conceptualization in addition to what’s happening in front of them. The audience can manage this in short bursts, but generally prioritizes and is much more responsive to what’s immediately available to them. Basically, they prefer to be a witness to the action rather than a step removed.

So how do we keep our Characters present? First we need to recognize when they’re not.

All information enters the scene via Action, Emotion, Dialogue, or some combination thereof, but only Dialogue can transcend time. Whereas Action and Emotion are inherently and exclusively present, it’s through Dialogue that our Characters conjure the past and predict the future. This makes language our temporal gauge. The specific indicators of where in time we are at any given moment are verbs, as they place action in the past, present, or future. Any past or future verb tenses signal a lack of presence, but I’ve found the most common keywords are “That time...” and “Gonna”.

“That time…” usually appears when we’ve centered on a Character’s pattern of behavior and want to cement it with additional examples (“You’re always getting into trouble with authority! Like that time you stole that cop car, or that time you poisoned the mayor’s dog.”) This is effective only as far as it defines Character behavior, at which point we should pivot to actively applying that behavior in the present circumstances however possible (find an authority figure right now for that Character to get into trouble with). “That time…” starts to backfire when the whole scene becomes a list of examples of past behavior that we never actually get to see in action.

“Gonna” (i.e. “going to”) usually appears when we’ve centered on a Character desire or fear that they expect to play out (“We’re gonna be the coolest kids in sixth grade. Everyone’s gonna want to hang out with us at lunch and the bullies aren’t gonna bother us at all.”) Again, this is effective only as far as it defines Character expectations, which we then either need to actively meet or actively subvert (find a classmate to try to be cool to and see what happens). “Gonna” lists are even less stable than “That time…” lists because having not yet happened they aren’t even necessarily true. So not only are we talking about events we don’t get to see play out, those events might not actually happen anyway. The potential for our Character to be wrong is what makes them extra flimsy and particularly ineffective.

These list-of-example patterns have diminishing returns both for reasons explained above and because they rely heavily on our ability to come up with increasingly creative examples. An example of behavior that is technically less funny but actively applied will almost always be more effective and impactful than an example of behavior that is technically funnier but verbalized as a past event or potential future outcome. Additionally, it usually takes more time to showcase behavior than it does to state it, so making behavior active simultaneously increases scenic longevity and either doesn’t require as many examples of behavior or gives us more time to come up with them. Overall, it’s much more effective to see Characters do the things they do than hear about them.

While “That time…” and “Gonna” are a couple of the more common traps, any past or present verb packaging has the same basic effect:

Past: I/you [Action]-d, have [Action]-d, or did [Action]
Future: I/you will [Action], are about to [Action], or should [Action]

By recognizing when our language is placing us in the past or future, we can take steps to bringing us back to the present.

While staying present gives us the best chance of maintaining a sufficiently engaging scene, it doesn’t mean that exploring the past or future is useless. One of our immersion-creating goals is to make it seem like our Characters could be real people, and just as real people do, our Characters have histories and desires. A Character’s past and potential future can be very useful in informing their present, so it’s perfectly okay and often helpful to bring up their backstories and wants/life direction as long as we don’t get stuck there.

At the very beginning of a scene I have two immediate Character goals: A) locate myself in Context, and B) figure out what I care about. Ideally, goal A is accomplished within the first 10 seconds, the faster the better, and as soon as I know where I am and how I relate to the other people onstage, I start on goal B. At this point I’m not at all picky about the source of information or where it's oriented in time. If a scene partner endows me with past behavior, great. If I start a scene in the middle of an activity, great. If I say I want something to happen in the future, great. Presence isn’t specifically essential this early because I’m still trying to define my character; I’m still centering myself. What is essential is that I use this information to start establishing a way to create presence - I’m looking for something I can do right now. I’m looking for a focus. This is where it’s important for me to recognize where I am in time.

If a scene partner endows me with past behavior, I immediately figure out a way to repeat that behavior again in the present circumstances. I make the endowed behavior the first instance in a pattern.

Make something you did something you do.

The tricky part is if that behavior is specifically unrepeatable, like it involved something or someone who isn’t currently in the scene. The solution here is to broaden the behavior enough that can apply to the current situation while still honoring as much of the initial behavior as possible. For example, let’s say I begin a scene on a sailboat with my friend who reminds me of the time I set their oven on fire. My immediate instinct is to do the exact same thing again, except I quickly realize that the boat is too small to have an oven. I recognize that I can probably keep fire, and in fact the circumstances make for conveniently heightened stakes, but I need an oven replacement. I decide the boat probably has a trolling motor, come up with a reason to need to use it (“Ah, no wind today! Lemme fire up the motor.”), and now we’re present. At this point I might still not know why or how, but I know that motor shortly needs to be on fire and I’m well on my way toward making it happen.

If I start a scene in the middle of an activity, I’m in a good spot because my behavior is already happening right now. This is now my first option for a pattern, although I may be on the lookout for something more compelling depending on how interesting or sustainable I find the activity. I have time to do this because I’m definitely not doing anything else until my scene partners and I define Context. But one thing I definitely am doing is deciding that the activity is very important to my Character.

Make what you’re doing now matter.

The reason I’m doing this is because if I do want to make this the first instance in a pattern of behavior, my Character needs to be invested in it enough to do it again. The key is to both make it important and not stop, or at least make the current action a part of a larger activity (e.g. chopping carrots is part of making a stew). A super common trap I see young performers fall into is not wanting to do the activity anymore and/or not caring about its outcome, which only means they have to find something else to do. They’ve basically wasted an active initiation. But if chopping carrots really matters to my Character in this moment, I can start developing my pattern once I figure out why. Maybe I’m making my child’s favorite stew for their first visit home from college. Now all I have to do is decide how narrow I want the pattern to be (I’m giving them all their favorite stews vs I’m giving them all their favorite meals vs I’m giving them all their favorite childhood things) and start following whichever one I prefer.

If I start a scene by saying I want something to happen in the future, I’ve given myself a target to aim for and all I have to do is move toward it. I may not immediately know how this future event will happen or even why I want it, but I know I can figure that out on the way.

Start pursuing goals immediately.

In this scenario there are a couple variables to consider. Depending on the distance and complexity of the goal, I may have to either construct obstacles to delay its accomplishment or expand the goal itself. A close and simple goal of “I want to eat this sandwich” I can delay by continually finding reasons not to do it (“oh but first it needs some mayo”) or by getting distracted by the process (“here’s the mayo, but yuck the fridge is filthy, better clean it while I’m here”) or whatever my scene partners are up to. I can also choose to immediately accomplish the goal and look for a new one that’s either directly related to accomplishing the previous one (“that sandwich made me thirsty, now I want a drink”) or expand the goal to retroactively make the original goal part of a larger one (“okay, that was the last sandwich left over from the graduation party, now to finish the desserts. I hate wasting food!”) The key here is I’m still actively pursuing the goal, there just happen to be a lot more steps involved than we would have initially expected. I’m still moving, I’m just moving slowly or going farther than originally planned.

For a more long-term and complex goal like “I’m gonna be a famous drummer one day", I simply start taking small steps toward it by doing the things that might eventually get me there (e.g. practicing drums, designing my celebrity look). Depending on how distant or realistic that goal is, I might not get anywhere close to accomplishing it, but hopefully I’ve been able to make chasing it fun. The two most common pitfalls with future goals are over-planning and analysis paralysis (or some combination of both), both of which prevent action by verbalizing it. Over-planning happens when we start listing the steps it would take to get to that goal (“first we’ll need do X, then Y, then Z”) but never actually get around to doing any of them. This we can avoid by doing the first step we list right away and worry about the rest once it’s done (“first we’ll need to do X, then Y, then Z.” “Okay, let’s get started on X.”) Analysis-paralysis is somewhat similar, although it involves laying out multiple first step options (“well we could start by doing X1, but it might be better to do X2, oh but what about if we X3”). The solution is to just pick one and start doing it and see where it takes us (“X3 sounds like the best option, let’s do that”). An additional trap in these moments is when Characters disagree on where to start and try to convince the others to take their side. Now we’re just spinning our wheels, and if I find myself caught in one of these situations I find it easier to just give in right away because imperfect action is better than no action at all. My Character can be reluctant to do something, but they should never completely hinder action because they don’t want to do something. (An exemption to this is if it’s something off-putting or that crosses personal boundaries, I can reject action as long as I propose an alternative.) Conceding on disagreements is additionally beneficial because it opens up the potential to showcase our Characters’ Dynamic when one of them is wrong (“I told you X3 was a bad idea! You never listen to me!”) Overall, it’s making sure I’m staying active that keeps things engaging, and it’s during the active pursuit of these goals that I discover more about my Character - Why they have this desire and How they go about attempting to achieve it.

It’s in digging into my Character’s Why and How where I do start to get a little picky. Once I know what my Character wants and start actively moving toward it, I need to define their motivations. This will be the foundation from which all their actions stem; the filter through which they operate in both this scene and any potential others. Ideally I’m looking for something that is Personal, Actionable, Perpetual, and that I think has the most capacity to be funny either on its own or in Context. I’m trying to take ownership of something I can do and repeat indefinitely, and I’m trying to make the process entertaining. The Personal aspect of Why is one people tend to have some trouble with - lots of Characters will deflect to history (“I do X because Y happened to me as a kid”), tradition (“I do X because my parents did” or “I do X because that’s the way we’ve always done things around here”), or make it unintentional (“Oh that was an accident”), especially if their Behavior is labeled as weird by other Characters. In general though, Whys are much stronger when Characters take full responsibility for them and are based in a strongly-held belief or worldview (“I do X because I believe Y"). “I believe” is a helpful device to make motivations Personal. Having our Characters do things on purpose and for their own individual reasons forces us to more clearly define how they operate. If we catch ourselves doing it, deflective justifications can often be made Personal by simply going one step further - “I do X because Y happened to me as a kid and I want to prevent Y from happening to anyone ever again” or “I do X because my parents did and my parents’ approval is important to me” or “I do X because that’s the way we’ve always done things around here and change makes me uncomfortable” - all of which are Personal motivators that are broad enough to be Perpetual pursuits, and hopefully we can find some Actionable ways to do so.

So once I know that my Character set the oven on fire and I start moving toward repeating that Behavior, I’m quickly trying to figure out my motivations. Maybe I’m impatient and push things to their limits. Maybe I’m trying to be helpful but am overconfident in my abilities. Maybe I’m a lighter enthusiast so eager to show off my latest find that I forget I’m near something combustible. I’m looking for something broad enough that I can find a way to apply it in almost any scenario but narrow enough to still be unique. This ends up being much easier in theory than in practice, and depending on how central my Character is to the scene or how much time I have, might never happen at all. But I’m still always trying to work my way there because the longer the scene continues the more likely it is I’ll need it. The longer I need to sustain my Character, the broader their motivations may get based on my level of confidence in my ability to do so. As long as it feels like enough, it probably is, but as soon as I feel something is missing or doesn’t fit the current circumstances, I know that’s a good sign that I need to expand. My Character’s current behavior is always a symptom of a larger worldview, and if necessary I can always add another level of breadth. For example, if I’ve been operating from “my parents’ approval is important to me” but suddenly find myself in a scenario where that mindset isn’t particularly applicable, I can expand the mindset, turning it into something like “the approval of authority is important to me.” My desire hasn’t changed at all, I still want approval, but the source of this approval has expanded from two specific people (my parents) to a wide range of people (anyone of higher status), which should be easier to pursue in a variety of circumstances.

Once my Why is defined, I’m on pretty solid ground. All I have to do for the rest of the scene is pursue my goals while maintaining my worldview. I’m still receiving all new information as it’s added, but it’s being immediately filtered through my priorities. I’m not ignoring things that are unrelated to my goals and my perspective, but I’m having much larger emotional reactions to things that are related and I’m constantly trying to steer things back to whatever I care about. Operating through a Character’s worldview is like putting on a pair of colored glasses - if the lenses are red the whole world appears as some shade of red. Similarly, if my Character is anxious about their finances, they see everything in terms of how expensive it is. I view the world solely through the lens of this financial anxiety, so all my actions stem from the desire to save money and my challenge as a performer is to make as much of the scene as possible relate back to expenses. Hopefully I have solid enough association skills that this isn’t too difficult and the combination of logic and specifics I use in the process is entertaining for the audience.

It’s in this active application of my Character’s worldview and the pursuit of their wants where Duality becomes a key concept, that being

Everything inherently implies its opposite.

What this means is that in seeking any specific outcome I’m looking for where it isn’t just as much as where it is. Using “I want my parents’ approval” as an example, I’m not only looking to do things they would approve of (“If I win the science fair they’ll be so proud”), I’m also looking to avoid things they wouldn’t (“I can’t smoke cigarettes my parents would kill me”). As such, every goal is basically two goals - both “Accomplish X” and “Don’t Not Accomplish X”. While they lead to the same outcome, they do it through a contrasting approach. So while I have a singular goal, I have a dual focus; I’m looking for both what will get me closer to my goal (to pursue) and what won’t (to avoid).

Duality can be applied to any broad enough desire - if my Character wants everyone to like them, I’m essentially operating in two modes: create success (get people who don’t like me to do so) and maintain success (make sure the people who like me already don’t stop). Creating success starts from absence - I first recognize that another Character doesn’t like me and then I try to figure out what I can do to change that. Maintaining success is about cautious consistency - I continue to do the things I know other Characters like about me while keeping an eye out for any changes in their attitude toward the negative. In both cases I’m looking for where my goal isn’t just as much as where it is. If I’m a helper I look for people who need help. If I make messes I look for things that are clean. If I enforce the rules I look for where they’re being broken. If I set things on fire I look for things that aren’t in flames. I look for where my need is unfulfilled and then I figure out how to fulfill it. Duality applies to any goal that is sufficiently Perpetual, as the lack of permanent accomplishment means there is always something unaccomplished.

3,772 words ago I argued improv was simple, and it’s hard not to feel silly after using 3,772 words to explain why. But I stand by that thesis. With lots of practice the mystery begins to slowly fall away and what started as a million things to remember eventually becomes a few important necessities.

Pay attention.
Notice all the information that enters the scene. Recognize where language places you in the past or future. See the duality in everything.

Pick something to care about.
Set an impossible goal. Make the things you do matter.

Act on it.
Pursue your goals without knowing exactly how they’ll be accomplished. Repeat behavior to make it consistent.

At the time time, remember that you are not your Character. As Character pursues their goals with solid reasoning and full commitment, Performer knows their place in the bigger picture. Character priorities aren’t always scenic priorities, and part of paying attention is recognizing when that’s the case. On the other hand, sometimes they are, so it’s helpful to know how to make and sustain solid Character choices when necessary.

The Harold: Second Beat Pulls

The Harold is tough.

Its very specific structure can feel restrictive. Its required delayed connections can make us overthink. Its built-in scenic Time Limits don’t make it easy to sustain momentum or heighten linearly. For these reasons I try to find ways to create a little more freedom in my approach while still honoring the basic goals of the form (Here’s a simple structural diagram if you’re unfamiliar/need a refresher).

One way I do this is by expanding the ways First Beats Scenes can inspire Second Beat Scenes. The basic goal of the form is that 1A and 2A are connected, but in my opinion there aren’t any inherent requirements about what those connections have to be. Overall there’s a wide spectrum of options for Second Beat Pulls, ranging from very specific and ultra-clear to abstract and almost imperceptible.

A disclaimer about this graphic, first of all, is that it paints an incomplete picture. These categories aren’t strict; it’s a spectrum that’s much more fluid and multi-dimensional than it appears. They often overlap and blend into one another based on different levels of specificity (e.g. Character-Game, Genre-Narrative) and the more specific ones tend to naturally include elements of the more abstract ones (e.g. Genre ← Tone, Character ← Attitude). Realistically, many effective pulls will be more nuanced, often combining multiple categorizations. The purpose of this graphic is not to accurately define the infinite potential Second Beat Pulls, but rather represent the wide range of options while highlighting the simplest and/or most common.

That being said, let’s take a closer look at each of these categorizations and some examples of each.

Narrative
Continuing established events and/or progressing a story

Narrative Pulls are useful when characters in First Beat Scenes create goals or set up meaningful future events that remain incomplete by the end of that scene. The goal with the Second Beat Scene is to either conclude the story or move it along with the intention of concluding it in the Third Beat. Narrative Pulls require clear protagonists with clear goals and the main focus of the scene should be them and their pursuit of those goals. Other characters might be those introduced in the First Beat Scene, brand new characters, or a combination of both as long as they function only in service of the protagonist’s pursuit, either as conduits or obstacles. Time almost exclusively moves forward, although it may make big jumps.

Examples:

1. No Time Jump
   First Beat Scene: Chefs prepare for a cooking competition that starts in 5 minutes. Their goal is to win.
   Second Beat Pull: The competition begins.

2. Small Time Jump
   First Beat Scene: A high school student practices soccer with their friends. Their goal is to make the varsity team.
   Second Beat Pull: The student at tryouts a few weeks later.

3. Large Time Jump
   First Beat Scene: A child studying stars with their parent. Their goal is to be an astronaut.
   Second Beat Pull: The child, now an adult, on their first launch.

Character
Placing one or more established individuals in a new scenario

Character Pulls are useful when there are interesting and memorable characters in First Beat Scenes with clear points of view and a pattern of behavior that can be applicable to another set of circumstances. Character Pulls are less about the character’s life story and more about placing them in another scenario in which they can apply their point of view and pattern of behavior. The key to an effective Character Pull is that their behavior is consistent scene-to-scene despite the changing circumstances. How they fit into the world may or may not change with the circumstances (i.e. their behavior may be frowned upon in one scenario and celebrated in another).

Examples:

1. Static Fit
   First Beat Scene: Character tries to win back their ex by getting tattoos about them, but it backfires.
   Second Beat Pull: Same Character tries to get their job back by getting tattoos about the company, but it backfires.

2. Variable Fit
   First Beat Scene: Character tries to win back their ex by getting tattoos about them, but it backfires.
   Second Beat Pull: Same Character tries to get their job back by getting tattoos about the company, and the company makes them the spokesperson.

Universe
Exploring the tangential effects of established events

Universe Pulls are useful when something happens in First Beat Scenes that have larger repercussions for the world in which the scene takes place. This is usually prompted by character decisions and actions that somehow change their ecosystem, thus affecting other characters in that world. In Universe Pulls, characters from the First Beat Scene may or may not be directly referenced but generally don’t appear.

Examples:

1. Direct Reference
   First Beat Scene: A crossing guard finds a winning lottery ticket and retires.
   Second Beat Pull: Children trying to get to school navigate crossing the street without help now that the crossing guard has retired.

2. Indirect Reference
   First Beat Scene: A genie grants a child’s wish for it to snow in summer so they can go sledding.
   Second Beat Pull: Beach-goers attempt to enjoy their summer day despite the fact that it’s oddly snowing.

Game
Exploring an established comedic concept using different circumstances

Game Pulls are useful when the unusual situation in the First Beat Scene has a main comedic idea that warrants further exploration. What’s tricky about these is that when people refer to “Game” they often mean two different things: the Game of the Scene (the specific comedic scenario being explored in that particular scene) and the Broader Game (the summary of the scenario stripped of all specifics). Game Pulls, as I’m using it here, covers both.

The essentials of Game, in my opinion, are the following: CHARACTER does BEHAVIOR because REASON and it’s unusual in CONTEXT. For all Game Pulls, our main focus should be the Reason for the Character’s behavior. In a Game of the Scene Pull, that specific Reason remains entirely or mostly the same while the Character, Behavior, and Context all change. In a Broader Game Pull, even the specificity of the Reason is removed; the idea is distilled down to its most basic essence, and then entirely new specifics are placed back onto it. When anyone refers to “analgous” scenes (e.g. the UCB Manual), this is what they mean - a Broader Game Pull.

Examples:

1. Game of the Scene Pull (Same Reason)
   First Beat Scene: A doctor (Character) is being childish (Behavior) in surgery (Context) because they’re actually two kids standing on top of each other (Reason).
   Second Beat Pull: A guide is giving obviously made up facts on a museum tour because they’re actually two kids standing on top of each other.

2. Game of the Scene Pull (Similar Reason)
   First Beat Scene: A doctor is being childish in surgery because they’re actually two kids standing on top of each other.
   Second Beat Pull: A horse is struggling to pull a wagon because it’s actually two people in a horse costume.

3. Broader Game Pull (Someone is doing a bad job because they’re not what they appear to be)
   First Beat Scene: A doctor is being childish in surgery because they’re actually two kids standing on top of each other.
   Second Beat Pull: A bouncer is letting anyone into the bar because they’re actually a scarecrow.

4. Broader Game Pull 2
   First Beat Scene: A doctor is being childish in surgery because they’re actually two kids standing on top of each other.
   Second Beat Pull: A professional basketball player is having an awful game because they’re actually a fan wearing the player’s jersey.

Genre
Exploring additional conventions and tropes of an established style

Genre Pulls are useful when the First Beat Scene has elements of a specific artistic category such as mystery, science fiction, western, fantasy, etc. Even if that first scene isn’t obviously in a specific genre, a Second Beat Genre Pull can turn up the intensity (i.e. heighten) by leaning harder into the conventions of the style to make it more clear. In practice, Genre Pulls will often include specific elements from the First Beat Scene like Character or Location, thus becoming a hybrid pull, although this is not necessary.

Examples:

1. Genre Only
   First Beat Scene: A student invents a robot for a science fair. (Elements of Science Fiction)
   Second Beat Pull: A team of space colonists land on a new planet.

2. Genre-Character
   First Beat Scene: A student invents a robot for a science fair.
   Second Beat Pull: The same student tries to keep the robot out of the hands of the government, who want access to the technology for evil reasons.

3. Genre-Location
   First Beat Scene: A student invents a robot for a science fair.
   Second Beat Pull: Another student at the same science fair exhibits their cloning device.

Theme
Continuing the exploration of an established subject matter or topic

Theme Pulls are useful when the First Beat Scene spends a lot of time focused on a specific subject. They are most effective when this subject is broad, nuanced, and/or particularly culturally relevant (e.g. growing up/technology/climate change) as opposed to a simple specific from the scene (e.g. red cars), although there’s nothing inherently wrong with narrower pulls. Theme Pulls are strongest when there is an explicit or implicit message or opinion about the topic (e.g. growing up is difficult/technology is advancing quickly/climate change is dangerous).

Examples:

1. Explicit Message
   First Beat Scene: A first year college student buys books at a the school store and learns how expensive they are.
   Second Beat Pull: The board of a textbook publishing company discusses how to make more money off students. (Message = the textbook industry is greedy)

2. Implicit Message
   First Beat Scene: A first year college student buys books at a the school store and learns how expensive they are.
   Second Beat Pull: A different college student struggles to study while working simultaneously as a cashier and a telemarketer. (Message = the cost of college puts an unfair financial burden on students who must overwork themselves to compensate)

Dynamic
Placing an established manner of interaction in a new context

Dynamic Pulls are useful when characters in the First Beat Scene interact with each other and/or their world in a way that stands out. Dynamic is a combination of attitude, behavior, and emotion - it’s the way characters are when they’re together, how they react to things happening around them, and how they interact with their environment.

Examples:

1. Character-Character Dynamic
   First Beat Scene: Two socially anxious people pump each other up with compliments while ordering takeout.
   Second Beat Pull: Two anxious parents pump each other up with compliments while reading their child a bedtime story.

2. Character-World Dynamic
   First Beat Scene: A soccer fan reacts to their team losing by angrily smashing their own furniture.
   Second Beat Pull: A driver reacts to heavy traffic by angrily driving their car into a lake.

Location
Placing new characters in the same/similar established place or area

Location Pulls are useful when the setting of the First Beat Scene is distinct, public, and/or complex enough that it would make sense for brand new characters to be there (i.e. not a room in a private home). Location Pulls can be the exact same location, a twin location, or an adjacent location. Same Location Pulls are useful if we want to bring back some First Beat Scene characters like business staff, Twin Location Pulls are useful if it makes sense for there to be multiple locations of the same type (e.g. chain restaurants) and we don’t want to carry over any details or characters from the First Beat Scene, and Adjacent Location Pulls are useful for complex locations like malls where another unseen area is either explicitly established or implied.

Examples:

1. Same Location
   First Beat Scene: A car accident at the intersection of Main & Elm Streets.
   Second Beat Pull: A flash mob at the intersection of Main & Elm Streets.

2. Twin Location
   First Beat Scene: A family has brunch at Waffle House.
   Second Beat Pull: A couple gets engaged at a different Waffle House.

3. Adjacent Location
   First Beat Scene: A group of kids get snacks at a Six Flags concession stand.
   Second Beat Pull: A group of teenagers sneak under the perimeter fence to get into Six Flags.

Relationship
Creating new characters with the same/similar established association

Relationship Pulls are useful when characters in the First Beat Scene have a clear relationship that is common enough that it would make sense for it to be shared by new unrelated characters. The pull can be as simple as taking the relationship alone, or it can be more narrow and include all or some of the scenario from the First Beat Scene.

Examples:

1. Relationship Only
   First Beat Scene: A parent and child shop for back-to-school supplies.
   Second Beat Pull: A different parent and child have a drinking contest.

2. Relationship & Some Scenario
   First Beat Scene: A parent and child shop for back-to-school supplies.
   Second Beat Pull: A different parent and child shop for cars.

3. Relationship & Entire Scenario
   First Beat Scene: A parent and child shop for back-to-school supplies.
   Second Beat Pull: A different parent and child shop for back-to-school supplies.

Wild Card
Exploring a miscellaneous established element or detail

Wild Card Pulls are useful when a detail from the First Beat Scene stands out that both isn’t particularly important in that scene and has room to be explored (i.e. mentioned but quickly glossed over). This could be a premise from a line of dialogue, an action, a noise - basically anything. The Wild Card Pull is the “everything else” category on this list.

Examples:

1. Premise
   First Beat Scene: A character uses the metaphor “working like a dog”.
   Second Beat Pull: A dog with an office job.

2. Action
   First Beat Scene: A character karate chops someone during a fight.
   Second Beat Pull: A karate class at a dojo.

3. Noise
   First Beat Scene: A taxi outside a character’s house honks to let them know it has arrived.
   Second Beat Pull: Someone stuck in traffic honks their horn out of frustration.

Attitude
Creating new characters with an established emotion or point of view

Attitude Pulls are useful when characters in First Beat Scenes have strong feelings about themselves, other characters, or their world. These feelings could be either permanent or temporary in both scenes depending on the circumstances.

Examples:

1. Attitude Toward Self
   First Beat Scene: A character thinks they look great in their new outfit.
   Second Beat Pull: A different character thinks they look great while dancing.

2. Attitude Toward Other
   First Beat Scene: A parent is amazed by their child’s ability to play piano.
   Second Beat Pull: An art critic is amazed by a young artist.

3. Attitude Toward World
   First Beat Scene: A camper is frustrated by bad weather.
   Second Beat Pull: A child building a sandcastle on the beach is frustrated by the incoming tide.

Tone
Placing an established scenic mood or atmosphere in a new context

Tone Pulls are useful when the First Beat Scene has a specific and consistent vibe. Tone Pulls are generally simple descriptors of how the scene feels overall like “creepy”, “depressing”, “celebratory”, etc.

Example:

1. Tone Pull
   First Beat Scene: Strangers going out for the same job awkwardly interact before their interview.
   Second Beat Pull: Two people with no dating experience awkwardly go on a first date.

Energy
Placing an established scenic rhythm or pace in a new context

Energy Pulls are useful when the First Beat Scene moves at a specific and consistent speed or flows in a certain way. Dialogue, action, and emotion all contribute to a scene’s Energy. Generally, Energy Pulls will be most effective and clear when the Energy of the First Beat Scene is at the more extreme ends of the spectrum (i.e. very slow/very fast).

Example:

1. Energy Pull
   First Beat Scene: Wall Street stockbrokers frantically work to finish deals before the closing bell.
   Second Beat Pull: A pit crew frantically tries to repair a car so it can reenter the race.

Great. Now how do I use these?

Some improv schools have specific categories of Second Beat Pull that they prefer over the others. UCB, for example. heavily prioritizes Game, which tends to result in a lot of Character Pulls as well. iO also tends to fall toward the Premise half of the spectrum, although their approach has a bit more freedom with Narrative, Character, Universe, and Theme all on the table. Similarly, some Harold teams will focus on one specific type of Pull depending on what type of show they want to do. The average Harold team, though, might not necessarily have a defined preference. Personally I prefer this option because it allows for more flexibility and prioritizes performer inspiration over hitting targets. As a Harold performer I would much rather develop whatever aspect of a First Beat Scene excites me the most. What stands out?

Another consideration I have with Second Beat Pulls is the overall balance of the show. A common issue I see especially in younger Harold teams is that the content of the show never really expands after the First Beat. For example, Characters are created in First Beat Scenes and then all immediately return via three Character Pulls. In effect this creates a narrower set of options for Third Beats, as there are fewer pieces to connect. Content narrowing is one of the risks of leaning so heavily on the Premise end of the spectrum, so if I’m initiating 2B or 2C I’ll try to notice how much the previous scene(s) relied on First Beat content. If early Second Beat Pulls were more Premise-leaning I’ll probably respond by leaning more Organic, and vice versa. Basically I’m looking for variety and I’m looking for balance. What does the show need?

As a result of these two considerations, my personal favorite types of Second Beat Pulls are those that strike a balance between novelty and repetition and aren’t so specific that I might screw something up or create confusion by forgetting or overwriting an important detail. Specifically I have an affinity for Universe, Theme, and Wild Card Pulls, all of which allow me to create new content while being less reliant on information from First Beat Scenes. For the same reason I usually try not to bring back one of my own First Beat Characters until the Third Beat unless prompted by a teammate. That being said, if I feel the show is sufficiently balanced and I am inspired by something more specific, I try to follow those instincts.

Finally…

Remember that Second Beat Pulls are simply starting points, especially the more abstract ones. It’s the bridge between the First Beat Scene and Second Beat Scene, but it’s not the whole Second Beat Scene. Even the most Premise-heavy Narrative Pulls should still lead to discovery and have some novelty. That being said, the more Premise-leaning a Pull is, the more information it brings with it, and thus the more setup it requires. Premise-leaning Pulls usually necessitate more up-front endowments and labeling from the initiator and more patience and restraint from receivers. Organic-leaning Pulls, carrying less information, require receivers to have the awareness that the initiator is starting with very little and the assertiveness to start making their own strong choices as quickly as possible.

Despite all this, I try not to think about this stuff too much in-show. Like I said above, these categories aren’t meant to be comprehensive or strict, and aiming specifically for them can often be more restrictive and unhelpful than not. For the most part, I categorize Pulls only retroactively when breaking down the show after it’s over. When I’m initiating a Second Beat Scene I’m usually not aiming for any specific type - I’m being inspired first and then deciding how much I want to lean Premise/Organic based on show needs. Then I’m carrying over or leaving behind information based on what I recall and where on the spectrum I’m trying to land.

Prioritizing inspiration and letting my Pulls be as simple or as complex as I want helps The Harold feel less restrictive and allows me to make choices I’m excited about. The freedom keeps the form fun and the variety makes every show unique.

Unfulfilled

A couple weeks ago I passed the seventh anniversary of my very first improv class.

On Sunday March 25, 2012 I was 22 and nine months out of college determined to make it in an industry I knew absolutely nothing about. I wanted to write for television - a goal I’d had for years - and in hundreds of hours of podcast interviews my comedy heroes all pointed to the same two doors: standup or improv. I had attempted the more familiar route first; I consumed a ton of standup and assumed as a writer I’d be much more comfortable with pre-written material. Several miserable open mics later I closed the standup door and signed up for improv classes.

I sold it to myself as a career choice. I would learn some skills, make some connections, and in a year or two I’d move to New York or LA. I didn’t realize that the universe had other plans.

I had lots of work to do in Boston.

One of the things I’ve come to value the most about improv are the personal growth aspects. Improv lessons are life lessons. But it’s not just that what helps a scene be successful can be beneficial if applied offstage, it’s that improv somehow finds ways to make us confront things about ourselves that we need to acknowledge and work on in order to improve.

There’s a phase I like to call “The Terrible Twos” that happens about 1.5-2.5 years into the improv journey. It’s the first real big wall and it happens right around the time students complete a training program. Graduation is a major fork in the road because it’s the first time the path isn’t prescribed for us. Unless we’re provided the rare opportunity to be cast on a theater’s house team straight out of classes, if we want to continue with improv we suddenly have to become a lot more self-sufficient. This is where a lot us decide to move on. Either we don’t know how to continue independently or we don’t want to, and we decide to drop improv to focus on other interests. Those of us that choose to continue, however, are in for some real hurdles.

The indie scene is a hustle. Getting regular stage time requires a lot of active seeking and a lot more awareness of the available opportunities. Getting better requires committing to regular rehearsal and holding ourselves accountable to the commitment and/or hiring a coach who will. It’s in this potentially long hustle where the Terrible Twos do their damage. By now a lot of the novelty of improv has worn off. We’ve learned all the rules and tools and now it’s just about reps. This is when creative growth can start to slow and we can feel like we’re not progressing as fast as we’d like, or that we’re stagnating, or even getting worse. By now we’ve also likely spent a lot of our time outside of classes and rehearsal consuming a lot of improv. Maybe we’ve explored the full extent of our local scene and the limits of what’s available to us. Maybe we’re disappointed with the options and/or the scene is so crowded we can’t get as much stage time as we’d prefer. Maybe all the work it takes to continue doing improv independently isn’t worth it. Partnered with an unsuccessful audition or two (or six), it’s a perfect recipe for despair.

This is a phase where frustration sets in and we start assigning blame. We blame the system for not making room for us and rewarding the wrong people. We blame veteran performers for hogging all the good opportunities and being cliquey. We blame our teammates for not being as dedicated as we are and holding us back. We blame ourselves for not working as hard as we should and just plain not being good enough.

This is a phase where a lot of people burn out. This is a phase where a lot of people quit.

And that’s okay.

As an optional practice, improv is meant to be a life enhancement. Yes there can be ups and downs but on average it should be a net positive. If we find ourselves in a place where most of our improv-related experiences make us angry or frustrated or stressed or upset, it makes complete sense not to continue. It’s a perfectly healthy choice.

On the other hand, plenty of us are compelled to continue despite long stretches of adversity. Plenty of us have experiences with improv that make us angry or frustrated or stressed or upset and yet we still keep going. Plenty of us keep working even when we aren’t seeing the results we want.

Are we crazy for sticking with it?

I was initially attracted to improv because I thought it was a means to an end. I wasn’t self-aware enough at the time to recognize what I was actually seeking.

The truth is on Sunday March 25, 2012 I entered my very first improv class already playing a character. I wore a mask of coolness and confidence to hide from the world the fact that I was frequently unhappy and afraid. I hated my day job but was too scared to leave because previous failures and a recovering economy had me convinced I wouldn’t be able to get another one. I clung to an already-dead relationship, convinced I had blown it with my soulmate and alternating between trying to force it back to life and dating people I refused to let myself care about. The mask came prescribed with a set of false goals and inauthentic values - things to achieve and obtain and worship that I thought would make me happy. Things that if I could just collect enough of would finally fix me.

I walked into class that day determined to never be vulnerable. Determined to never appear weak. Feeling worthless and lying about it. Feeling afraid and lying about it. Not loving myself and lying about it.

And then improv tricked me.

It tricked me by giving me all the things I thought I wanted - the validation of being funny, the social status of being cast, career advancement opportunities - all the things that were supposed to make me permanently happy. But none of them did. Each time I got something I thought I wanted, the novelty quickly wore off. The high of each achievement was temporary. I always came back down. Improv let me feed the mask to show me how pointless the mask really was.

At the same time, improv tricked me into doing the work I actually needing to be doing to get what I actually wanted. Because what I was actually seeking was self-love. I wanted to trust myself, to believe in myself, and let myself make mistakes without beating myself up. I wanted to feel like I deserved to like my life. It did this by putting me in positions on and off stage that forced me to confront the things about myself I struggled with in order to learn how to overcome or manage them. Specifically that meant frequently confronting fear, judgement, and impatience.

Early in my training my big fear was the unknown. Despite knowing improv was an option, I delayed getting started for years because the idea of not knowing exactly what would happen was too scary for me. Related was fear of failure. In early class levels I did as few scenes as possible because I didn’t want them to be bad. I went even longer avoiding initiating unless I absolutely had to. I stuck around because I made some friends and I enjoyed watching improv, but fear was getting in the way of my growth. Ultimately it was a desire to be better and a recognition that fear was holding me back that led to accelerated improvement. I started noticing when fear was stopping me and intentionally pushing through it. I was afraid of being bad in front of my peers and performers I admired so I went to the jam every week. I was afraid of having nowhere to hide in shows so I started performing in a duo. I was afraid to sing so I did a musical show. I was afraid to have no one to lean on so I did solo stuff. I was afraid of rejection so I auditioned for nearly everything.

Get out of your own way.

So many times in my life I’ve let the potential for failure predetermine it. I’ve decided not to pursue something because I thought I might not get it or decided not to do something because I thought I might not be good at it. I had to learn to let myself try even if failure was an option. What I learned is sometimes I actually got what I wanted and I was almost always never as bad at it as I expected. I also learned that even if failure does happen, the lessons are innumerable. Each failure can and will be painful, but the volume eventually becomes valuable in itself because it puts each individual failure in perspective. Each additional failure stings less than the one before and in time it gets easier to learn from each one and let it go. Try to notice where fear is getting in the way and push right through it. The scarier and more stressful an outlier experience is, the more comfortable and confident we’ll be in our regular ones. By forcing ourselves to step beyond the limits of our comfort zone, we compel our comfort zone to expand.

Judgement was much harder to work on directly because it was entirely internal and for a long time I wasn’t even aware I was doing it. Initially it was tied to fear and presented itself as self-judgement - I didn’t think my ideas were very good so I wouldn’t act on them, or I didn’t like the choices I was making so I wouldn’t commit to them. As I gained more experience and my confidence and taste developed, I was applying judgement much more frequently to other people. Offstage I would roll my eyes at moves I thought were bad or in scenes where someone made a “bad move” I would either ignore it or try to force it to fit my “better” idea. I would leave shows frustrated with my teammates for ruining scenes. It was a bad attitude, and it wasn’t until I was placed on a team with someone I absolutely did not vibe with that I was forced to confront it.

I thought this person was not funny at all. I found almost all of their moves to be annoying and unhelpful. I felt that their presence was hurting the team. Eventually there was a show where we did a scene together and they made an initiation that I hated. My response was thinly veiled legitimate frustration. I immediately felt like garbage and tried to change direction to fix my own error but it was already too late. The scene never recovered. That was the moment I realized what I had always justified as good taste was actually just plain old judgement. My teammate didn’t ruin the scene by making a bad choice, I ruined the scene because I had a grudge and refused to figure out how to make it work.

That moment forced me to recognize that I had a tendency to assign value to choices before they even played out. Just like with fear, in deciding that certain things wouldn’t work before I even tried, I never gave them a chance to succeed in the first place. Judging any choices – my teammates’ or my own - was all ego. It was thinking I deserved better than what I actually had. Improv put me in a position to confront this aspect of myself and actively work on it in order to become a better performer. I started working on my judgement by first just trying to notice it – noticing when judging my own ideas prevented me from making them and noticing when judging my teammates’ choices prevented me from trusting them. I started going out of my way to do scenes with people I had a hard time doing scenes with, a practice I still do whenever I find myself regularly struggling to vibe with someone onstage. Learning how to play with different performers’ approaches to scenes is constantly making me a more rounded performer. As a more experienced player this is also why I like jams. Rookies often make unexpected and sometimes difficult-to-handle choices that force me to be flexible and work my justification muscles. Where I previously would have been annoyed because of judgement I now value the challenge.

We’re all just figuring things out.

Very rarely is someone intentionally trying to hurt our chances of success, especially if that person is our teammate. Notice when judgment is pre-determining failure and override it. Appreciate the lessons that come from challenges. Stop being so precious about everything. There can always be another scene. There can always be another show.

Of my three personal obstacles, impatience was hardest to overcome because there was literally nothing I could do about it. Fear I could attack. Judgement I could override. Impatience I could only acknowledge and then do my best to ignore.

By definition, impatience and improv are incompatible. Improv is about savoring the present. Impatience is the desire to be done with it. Over the course of my improv career I’ve almost always been looking ahead. I wanted to take the next class. I wanted to get better. I wanted to get cast. I wanted to move up the hierarchy. I wanted to perform with people who were better than me. Eventually I got them all, and almost immediately after I got them they stopped being what I wanted. I created new things to want. I invented other goals to chase. As I write this I’m still chasing something I’ve been chasing for two years. There have been stretches I’ve been certain I was close only to find out I’ve been much further than I thought. Failures have been both in and out of my control. Progress has been frustratingly irregular. The chase continues. I know I’ll eventually get it, but even then there will only be more to accomplish.

There’s a scene from the first season of Westworld that really sticks with me when thinking of things like this. I’ve previously used it in relation to building immersive characters, but I think it’s relevant here too:

Initially I found the message of the story depressing - the moment of achievement is gruesome and its joys are impermanent. But whenever I go back to it I always I find myself focusing more on the middle part of the story: “I never saw a thing as beautiful as that old dog running.” In that I found another message.

The chase is the whole thing.

Want is the whole thing. Desire is the whole thing. To have more. Do more. Be better.

Novelty. Uncertainty. Growth.

It doesn’t matter what it is we’re trying to get; there will always be the act of getting. It doesn’t matter where we’re trying to go; there will always be the act of going. It doesn’t matter what we want; there will always be the act of wanting. Every single time I’ve achieved the thing I set out to achieve it only created more things to achieve. Taking the next class only meant more skills to hone. Getting better only meant feeling like I still wasn’t as good as I could be. Getting cast only meant keeping my spot. Moving up the hierarchy only meant looking for new levels to ascend. Performing with people who were better than me only meant looking for more people to compare myself to.

I recognize now that I’ll probably never be satisfied. It took me a long time to realize that no one moment or accomplishment will ever be “the thing” that fixes me or makes me permanently happy. I’ll always have my strengths that I can continue to sharpen. I’ll always have my weaknesses that I can continue to manage. I’ll always be unique in some ways and conventional in others. I’ll never be perfect. What I can do is surround myself with people whose strengths compensate for my weaknesses. What I can do is combine my uniqueness with others to create something special.

This thing we do can be so hard.

It can be ridiculous. It can be confusing.

It can be meaningless. It can be boring.

It can be alienating. It can be painful.

But despite the hurdles and the lows and the harsh realities, I love it.

Because at the same time it can be so good.

It can be delightful. It can be simple.

It can be thoughtful. It can be exciting.

It can be welcoming. It can be joyful.

I love it because it’s become more than a hobby. I love it because it’s become more than a career. I love it because it’s become a teacher. It’s become an accelerated education in myself. Everything improv has made me face is something I needed to learn from. Every experience, good and bad, has revealed something about who and where I am. It’s not a special craft in this regard - in an alternate universe I’m learning these same lessons from scuba diving or competitive cup stacking - but for whatever reason, on Sunday March 25, 2012 it was the one I found.

The latest lesson is that I’ll never actually get where I’m going; I’ll only ever be where I’m at.

And that’s okay, because that’s presence.

That’s improv.

No Matter What Happens

One of the early improv notes I got that really helped things click into place was from Rachel Klein who at a Gorge rehearsal one night said something like “no matter what happens onstage, you’re always in charge.”

I didn’t realize at the time but that point in my development I had been putting a lot of limits on my own instincts in order to play “the right way”. I had been putting the ownership of the scene onto whatever “rules” I had learned at that point. I was trying to fulfill things like “The scene is supposed to be about the relationship” or “Game is supposed to be XYZ” - rules that often felt contradictory or irrelevant or impractical.

What I’ve learned since is that these rules felt contradictory or irrelevant or impractical because they often are. For every concept I teach and write about there is an example of the exact opposite working really well. Tons of scenes fail because they’re missing certain base reality/contextual elements, but lots of successful scenes never needed to establish any. Plenty of scenes with a clear game or character pattern have fallen totally flat while plenty of scenes that are complete chaos have been hilarious. What I’ve learned in years of studying improv is that there are no rules, there are only practices that generally tend to be more effective than others. What I’ve learned is that the one true difference-maker is the attitude of the performer.

Confidence fuels competence.

It’s what turns a good move into a great move. It’s an unflappability when things get weird. It’s a total commitment to our choices. It’s an unspoken indication to the audience that we know what we’re doing and everything’s going to be okay. But obviously “be confident” is a much easier thing to say than legitimately embody. Confidence is a tricky feeling that can seem frustratingly self-fulfilling. We need to feel confident in order to be good but we need to feel like we’re good in order to be confident. Knowing that it’s such a difference-maker, what can we do to help build our confidence?

What’s interesting about confidence is it’s a relationship with the self, specifically our belief in our own ability to handle risk-associated behavior. It’s Me feeling like I can do something safely. In improv, like any form of live entertainment, the associated risks are largely social. Success means the acceptance and approval of our teammates and the audience. Failure can mean anything from polite disinterest to outright hostility. So although confidence is a relationship with the self, the social aspects of improv mean improv confidence is intrinsically tied to feedback from others. That’s not to say we absolutely need positive feedback to be confident; we can choose to ignore how others react and still believe we’re handling the interaction well, we just might not get many other chances at it. Being significantly socially alienating is a good way to limit our performance opportunities - either we stop getting invited to do shows or audiences stop showing up to watch. Assuming we’d like to keep performing, ignoring social feedback isn’t really an option.

Positive external feedback is clearly important in building improv confidence, but this is especially tricky for socially risky behavior because the entity providing the feedback is so variable. Fluctuating energy, changing attitudes, and inconsistent tastes mean we don’t always know how other people are going to react to things we do and say, especially when none of us know what those things will be ahead of time. In order to improve our chances of success we need to find a way to create some consistency.

Limit risk by limiting variables.

Onstage this is rather difficult because the content is always different, but we can give ourselves a solid baseline for success by maintaining immersion and avoiding sensitive subjects. However, the dynamic nature of the craft means the majority of our variable-limiting will take place offstage. At the team level it means creating as much consistency as possible. It means performing with the same people as frequently as we can in order to build team comfort and rapport. It means following a predetermined form or structure in order to keep everyone on the same page (and sticking with that form long enough to get really comfortable with it). Consistency at the audience level is much harder to control because it involves (hopefully) a lot more people, but luckily their input is limited (hopefully) to showing up, giving suggestions when prompted, and reacting to the show. The latter they’ll tend to do naturally; the hardest part about audiences is getting them in the door in the first place. We can’t exactly force people to attend shows, but we can make it easier for them by making the show a reliable level of quality (through cast and show consistency) and by performing regularly at the same time and place. Audiences are just like teammates in that repeated exposure builds comfort and trust, allowing us to play more assuredly and boldly. If we make it as easy as possible for them to find us, they’re much more likely to keep coming back.

Unfortunately, limiting all these variables is another example of something easier said than done. Depending on what opportunities are available to us, it might be difficult to perform regularly enough at the same time and place to build a familiar audience following. We might find that the models of existing improv institutions don’t allow for it, or a crowded scene with a lot of competition makes these types of opportunities tough to obtain. Often the best way to get regular stage time is to work outside the institutional system and self-produce, although independent production has its own set of challenges and can be a lot of extra work [more on independent show production in a future post]. Those of us who don’t want to self-produce may have to settle for irregular stage time that makes building a familiar audience much harder.

Unfamiliar audiences are less trusting and more fickle than audiences who already know and like us, which means the range of choices we can make in front of them will be narrower and more risk-averse. For this reason, the less audience consistency we have the more important it is for us to have consistency at the team level. I think one of the biggest things that hinders confidence development in young performers is too many variables at both audience and team level - irregular stage time with different people on different teams or teams with inconsistent attendance doing a variety of different forms. While it’s definitely important to get a lot of stage experience with different types of players in different styles of performance, too much variety too closely concentrated can hurt more than it helps.

Stay focused. Be patient.

The first few years in improv are especially exciting and overwhelming. Everything is new and thrilling and everyone is so hilarious and talented. It can be easy to want to consume and do as much of everything as we can. We have people we look up to and we want to be as good as they are and have what they have and we want it as fast as possible. But competence takes time to develop and we can slow our development by spreading ourselves too thin. Confidence won’t come without some sort of consistency. For this reason it’s often in our best interest to do fewer, more active projects with a smaller, tighter-knit group of peers. At a certain point, finding like-minded people who share similar tastes, goals, and commitment levels becomes just as important as getting a lot of stage time.

The reason creating consistency and building confidence is so important in improv is because it involves so many unknowns. The fact that the whole show is a surprise to both the audience and the performers means it only works if there is an immense amount of faith on both sides of the stage. The audience needs to trust that the performers know what they’re doing and that the show will be worth their attention and the performers need to trust that their choices will be supported by the rest of their team. Most important though, as performers we need to have trust in ourselves. Confidence is a relationship with the self, after all, and we need to feel like we’ll make it work no matter how crazy things get. We need to feel like no matter what happens onstage, we’re always in charge.

Once we understand this, we begin to play with a lot more freedom. Even the “rules” that were once restricting become empowering. In Game, for example, the First Unusual Thing is whatever we decide it is. Our reaction defines where Base Reality ends and Unusual begins. A cow that makes chocolate milk might be astonishing to someone in a universe similar to ours, but put it in the CandyLand universe and it’s totally normal. It’s entirely up to us to decide which universe we’re inhabiting in the scene. Similarly, in Pattern creation, our destiny is completely in our hands. The roles of Freedom, Power, and Responsibility (Rachel Klein again) overtly assign us authority in determining the direction of the pattern. The chocolate milk cow could lead us to discovering that the CandyLand universe also has chocolate beef and chocolate leather just as easily as it could lead to us to discovering its chickens lay Cadbury eggs and its sheep have cotton candy wool. We’re especially in control when it comes to building Characters. We decide what they want, what they care about, and what they do, and whatever we choose is correct as long as it’s consistent with what we’ve already established and properly justified.

The audience does have some input in the direction of the scene, as their laughter (or lack thereof) is a cue that what we’re doing is working (or not). But while the audience’s enjoyment should be our goal, their feedback can be unreliable. They may know what’s funny moment-to-moment but they don’t know what makes a scene sustainable. They’ll laugh at all sorts of negs, undercuts, confusion, and untethered wackiness, but chasing these types of laughs are dead ends that slow or halt scene momentum. Ideally we’re using audience feedback to identify the type of humor they enjoy while using our professional judgment to recognize which of their feedback to utilize and which to ignore. An audience that responds positively to negs, for example, might simply enjoy playful antagonism and would respond just as positively to a sustainable inter-character conflict.

What the audience wants most of all, however, is for us to be comfortable onstage. Discomfort is contagious and hard to reverse. It presumes failure and therefore tends to actualize it. We can build our confidence through a volume of experience, we can build our confidence by limiting as many variables as possible, but most importantly we can build our confidence by trusting our instincts rather than trying to meet the expectations of a formula. By going with our gut instead of overthinking everything, and then committing wholeheartedly to our choices. By not trying to do what we think we have to do, but doing what feels right for us. By not trying to be what we think we have to be, but by being our true selves.

Authenticity defies expectations.

It challenges. It reveals. It surprises. It delights. It builds trust. It persists under pressure. It turns our vulnerabilities into strengths. It gives us a voice. It’s what improv is all about.

So whenever things get difficult or confusing or frustrating or uncertain, remember that no matter what happens onstage, you’re always in charge.

Not the form. Not the rules. Not the audience.

You.

In Service of the Scene

What do I do?

This is the only question students ever ask about scenework.

Of course it comes encased in particulars like “how do I handle being named two different names” or “how much backstory does my character need” but the essential desire of all improv students is to be comfortable in the unfurling unknown. Ultimately we all want to be confident in our choices no matter the circumstances. Whatever happens in a scene, we want to know exactly how to respond at all times (and be right).

Ability in any craft is honed through trial and error. Improv, however, gives itself an extra level of difficulty in its immense variability. No two scenes are ever the same. It’s learning how to play an instrument except you can’t play anyone else’s perfectly good songs and you can’t play your own songs more than once. What this means is the only way to get better is a hell of a lot of trial and a hell of lot of error with material that is constantly unfamiliar. This is what makes improv so simultaneously exciting and frustrating to practice. Its excessive novelty keeps us engaged but can lead to chaos if insufficiently tamed.

So how do we answer the question when the material we’re working with is so variable? How do we successfully tame novelty on a regular basis if it is constantly changing? I think a distilled question deserves a distilled answer, and mine starts with the approach. What do I do? I do whatever the scene needs at that particular moment.

Truthfully this covers a vast spectrum of activity. One one end it could mean initiating with a robust premise, heavily endowing all our scene partners, driving a lot of the action, and doing most of the speaking. On the other end it could mean staying completely uninvolved just to edit when the scene’s over. Realistically we’re aiming for the middle of that spectrum as much as possible. After all, this is a collaborative endeavor and spending too much time playing near either extreme is a good way to annoy our teammates.

Still, being comfortable with playing at any point in the spectrum is important as long as we’re doing it for the right reasons. Are we making choices because they’re good for the scene or are we making them because they’re good for the individual? In a craft as personal and vulnerable as improv it can be easy to lose sight of the greater picture. Discomfort at any level can stimulate our natural self-preservation techniques of fight (arguing, negging) or flight (under-committing, timidity). Most of us have struggled with trusting our teammates at one point or another which can lead to these same issues as well as steamrolling and stage-hogging. All of these tendencies of discomfort serve the individual at the expense of the scene.

Remember that our job is to create a scene that is as compelling and joyful as possible. Our job is not to be funny - our job is to make the scene funny, which sometimes means being deathly serious. Our job is not to fight for our character’s needs - our job is to fight for the scene’s needs, which sometimes means deliberately harming or allowing harm to befall our own characters. Our job is not even to support our teammate’s characters - yes we want to support their choices, but sometimes the most supportive thing we can do is give them a challenge and be the villain to their hero. The question that should constantly run in the back of our minds is “who is this for?” Am I making this choice for the good of an individual (even if that individual is not me) or am I making this choice for the good of the scene?

So...

What do I do?

Serve the scene.

It would be fair at this point to argue that this answer is unsatisfyingly vague. Yes it establishes an important foundation from which all our choices emanate, but it is not particularly helpful in terms of specific action. So let’s add a layer of particularity - if I’m going to be serving the scene, what does the scene actually need?

Clarity

Clarity has to do with the nature of all the information in the scene. It’s all the facts - the basic contextual ones like who the characters are to each other and where they are in space and time, it’s character traits and backstory like appearance and role and personal history, and it’s all the specifics that arise over the course of the scene. But it’s not just the facts on their own, it’s also how they relate to each other.

A scene is much more likely to be successful if the audience is able to follow along completely unhindered. In order to laugh they need to be comfortable, and in order to be comfortable they need to know what’s happening or at least trust they will shortly. Foremost this means getting the information from our heads into theirs through verbal or nonverbal means. If we have an idea of where our characters are but we never say it out loud or indicate it through object work, the audience may make an educated guess but will never know for sure. We can get away with a bit of uncertainty here and there, but too much compounded over time creates confusion. Too much confusion leads to discomfort and the audience pulls back. Once they pull back, they aren’t as immersed in the scene as they should be and thus they tend to laugh less. There can be moments of confusion, certainly, as comedy is a tension/release game, but that tension of confusion has to eventually be released with Clarity.

For example let’s say we start a scene by learning that our character is a lawyer. We spend some time doing lawyer stuff when we learn that our character has a pet dolphin in their backyard swimming pool. Let’s say the audience finds that specific image surprising and funny. We might recognize that as a potential pattern and start listing other unusual animals that our character has as pets. What we’ll tend to find is that as the scene continues this sort of pattern has diminishing returns. We won’t have changed anything, but each new addition will get less and less of a reaction. What happened? A lack of Clarity.

It’s not that the pattern is messy, it’s that it’s untethered to the initial context of the scene. Remember that our character is a lawyer. When the dolphin revelation gets a laugh we have to resist our initial urge to immediately run with it as far as we can take it, instead we need to first look back to collect all prior information and carry that along too. What does a pet dolphin have to do with being a lawyer? Maybe we’re a lawyer for an oceanography company and the dolphin helps us interview animal victims of oil spills? The specific justification doesn’t matter as long as the connection is made. From there we can continue the pattern of strange pets as long as we continue to connect them back to lawyer. Whenever the connection between information is not immediately obvious we either need to make it obvious or create the connection.

Every detail matters.

Otherwise, why did it even come up? Clarity is making sure both the performers and the audience are aware of the relevant information in the scene AND understand how it all connects. We add Clarity by recognizing where there are gaps in understanding and filling them in.

A small disclaimer with Clarity is that sometimes an attempt to create it will result in more gaps of understanding - in our attempt to explain we may accidentally make things more confusing. Making connections between seemingly unrelated things can often be challenging and sometimes takes several steps. The trick is to keep going until the connection is complete, to lean in instead of bail out, and of course lots of practice.

Passion

Passion is all about the emotional energy in a scene, which is another important aspect of the immersive process. If Clarity helps the audience understand what’s happening, Passion is why they should care. It operates on two levels - Performer and Character.

At the Performer level, Passion means an aggressive commitment to our choices. Ironic detachment, bailing, and breaking are all symptoms of a lack of performative commitment that hinder immersion. It’s a peek behind the curtain and a reminder to the audience that they’re watching an improv show. Under-committing is something most improvisers have encountered due to discomfort or just plain laziness. A full investment not only takes a lot of energy, it often feels vulnerable. But it’s exactly that level of vulnerability that the scene is asking us for. Passion is being willing to step completely out of our ego and put all of our energy into doing whatever the scene needs of us, even if that means doing something that might fail or be embarrassing, and especially if we know we have friends or family or coworkers or a date in the audience. Passion at the Performer level is not being afraid to look silly.

At the Character level, Passion means our characters have a legitimate investment in what’s going on. They have big, honest emotional reactions to whatever is said or done and/or they are highly motivated to accomplish something. The idea is that a scene is a short glimpse into our characters’ lives - a life that extends back in time before the scene began and will extend forward in time after the scene is over (unless they die in the scene). Because we have chosen this specific short timespan in their lives to show to an audience, there must be some reason for it. Why is this particular few minutes what we’ve chosen? What makes these moments important? It might be that this particular window is a good example of their regular behavior; an introduction to a standard day of an interesting character. It might be that it’s a big moment of change in their lives that we watch them experience for the first time. It might be that they are a more or less unremarkable individual finding themselves in a particularly unusual situation. Whatever it is, it should be important enough to justify seeing it.

Bluntly, Passion is giving a shit. It’s Performers giving a shit about their choices, and it’s Characters giving a shit about what’s happening to them. 

Caring is contagious.

If as Performers we’re really leaning into our choices and our Characters care about what’s happening, the audience will care too. The more they care, the more they’ll enjoy themselves.

Motion

With the exception of blackout-style scenes of less than 30 seconds, most scenes will need some sort of momentum to sustain them. There needs to be some sort of fluctuation of energy over time. There needs to be some sort of scenic Motion.

This could mean our characters are literally moving in physical space while doing some sort of activity. It could also mean the emotional energy of the scene fluctuates based on what happens and what characters do and say. Motion means the scene is in constant need of change. Change is a bit of a tricky area because it doesn’t mean any particular aspect of the the scene can suddenly be different, it means information is revealed which fits the already-established parameters of the scene but creates new circumstances. It’s an ever-expanding understanding of the characters and their world.

There are essentially two models of Motion that are effective for comedy - Heightening and On/Off. In a Heightening model the intensity of the energy increases over time. In an On/Off Model the intensity of the energy fluctuates between high and low.

These models apply to both emotion and action. For example if a scene is about a happy bunny, in a Heightening model the bunny would get increasingly happy over the course of the scene, whereas in an On/Off model the bunny would fluctuate between happy and neutral/sad based on changing circumstances. If the scene is about washing an elephant, in a Heightening model the elephant washing would slowly get increasingly vigorous, whereas in an On/Off model there would be multiple short-but-intense bursts of elephant washing followed by breaks of a similar duration.

In reality, Motion in most scenes won’t be as simple. Depending on the scene there could be multiple things in Motion at any given time which means juggling multiple models or having some combination of both. The type of model we use will also depend on the type of characters in the scene. Characters who use Heightening models tend to be more stable and stubborn. They’re more committed to their emotions and actions and are less willing or able to change their minds or attitude. Characters who use On/Off models tend to be more unstable or flexible. They have short attention spans or big mood swings or are willing to let go of stuff very quickly and move on. Their emotions and actions accelerate and decelerate rapidly. They are easily triggered and they are easily distracted. The type of Motion model we end up using in a scene will likely be inspired by these character tendencies.

An additional trick for On/Off models is to juggle two at once so one’s On is another’s Off. This is especially useful when using emotional and action-based models concurrently. So if the scene is about happy bunny washing an elephant, happy bunny could turn happy On when elephant washing is Off and vice versa. Of course this behavior would have to be justified - maybe playing is what makes bunny happy and elephant washing is hard work which makes it unhappy - but creating some sort of alternating pattern can be a super efficient way to maintain Motion in a scene because it means there’s always something else to do. When the emotional energy of happy bunny’s break time starts to wane, we can always inject some action energy by going back to elephant washing.

Make something happen.

This is especially true at the beginning of scenes for reasons we’ve previously discussed HERE.

An easy way to create Motion even when the scene is just a conversation and a good way to avoid “talking heads” scenes is to steal from a trick from Hollywood and have our characters doing something while they talk. Maybe they’re unloading boxes from a truck like in Law & Order or walking down a corridor like in The West Wing or driving around in a car like in True Detective. Plenty of those scenes are just people talking, but they’re also physically moving and interacting with their environment which makes the scene more dynamic and engaging. Even if what they’re doing isn’t super relevant to what they’re talking about, it’s a great way to add to the immersion. Interacting with their environment is also another great way to showcase character behavior beyond their words. For this reason their movements should be highly intentional - pacing back and forth is a good way to stay in Motion, but it’s not nearly as immersive and meaningful as moving with a purpose.

Limits

The simultaneous gift and curse of improvisation is its immense freedom. A scene can be about anything, go any direction at any pace, change direction at any time, and potentially last as long as we’re willing to let it continue. That all seems great except that doesn’t necessarily guarantee an enjoyable experience; it might mean complete chaos and confusion, both of which lead to discomfort and dissolve immersion onstage and off. In order to keep it focused and engaging, the scene needs Limits - some sort of structure or set of rules that keep it contained enough to manage internally by performers and consume externally by audiences.

The easiest and most common form of scene Limits is a Time Limit. For most shows this will mean an edit. In Harold, for example, the longest scenes will run around four minutes before they’re edited. But even an unedited show like the Monoscene uses time limits by having characters enter and exit. It’s not as clear an ending as a traditional edit, but it’s a way to delineate chapters of the show and keep them from getting stale or chaotic. Even if the subject matter is relatively unfocused and there are a lot of moving pieces, the scene likely won’t become too unwieldy or too hard to follow unless it lasts more than a few minutes. Past that threshold, however, and the scene starts needing additional structure to hold it together.

The longer the scene lasts, the more information is added. The more information there is, the more complex the scene becomes. For this reason longer scenes often need to Limit complexity, which can be done in a few ways:

1. Establishing Fixed Dynamics
2. Narrowing the Focus
3. Creating Character Patterns
4. Creating Scenic Patterns

Establishing Fixed Dynamics means defining how the characters interact and never letting it change. The way they feel about each other or how they behave toward each other stays the same the entire scene. Narrowing the Focus means the attention of the scene is consistently centered on a particular subject. It can stray here and there but it always comes back to the main idea that the characters care about the most. Character Patterns and Scenic Patterns are when elements of a character or scene reoccur within a certain framework and may or may not change or heighten.

This is all pretty vague, so let’s take a look at this set by NYC team Fuck That Shit for specific examples.

The first thing to note is that their show has a predetermined scenic Time Limit. They are clearly not doing a Monoscene; the plan is to end scenes at some point to continue exploring the characters and narrative they’ve built. Overall they do 8 scenes in 25 minutes and the length of those scenes generally shortens over time (7>5.5>5>3>.5>1>1>1) which creates a satisfying acceleration in show pace.

Let’s look specifically at their first scene, which lasts the longest and is therefore the most complex. Of all the scenes in the show this is the one that will need the most Limits. With the first line of “I want the traitor’s head” Aaron Jackson quickly establishes a role with status and a character desire with implications toward a larger narrative. Kate Zelensky responds with a strong affirmative while making a big character choice and making Jackson’s role more specific (“your majesty”), at which point Jackson labels her character “cartoonishly evil”. Three lines and 20 seconds into the scene is still a little early for Limits, but they’ve got some solid options. At this point the scene could explore a few different topics - the traitor, the relationship between the two characters, Zelensky’s character being “cartoonishly evil” - and it’s the latter that they jump on first. With the addition of “you have no eyebrows” and “you’re sweating blood” Jackson establishes the first Limit - a Character Pattern - at 30 seconds.

At 45 seconds and six lines in Zelensky gives her character a strong point of view toward Jackson’s character with “I love you. I’ve always loved you. I’ll kill this kitten for you.” which kickstarts the process of defining their Fixed Dynamic. Jackson further defines her character as a dark wizard in his employ and then completes his half of the Dynamic by making it clear he is not at all interested in her at all. Then at 2 minutes he Narrows the Focus by repeating his opening line again: “I want you to bring me the traitor’s head.” Thus far they’ve established a Fixed Dynamic between them and a Character Pattern for the wizard, but Jackson recognizes that they’ve strayed too far from what he thinks the scene should be about - the traitor, specifically the king’s desire for him to be decapitated. It makes sense to Narrow the Focus to this subject because it was the first line in the scene, and at this point Jackson is in position to make this decision because his character is higher status. If the wizard had status over the king, it’s entirely possible Zelensky would have Narrowed the Focus to drive her character desire (to sleep with the king), but she defers to her role as subservient employee and lets his desire be the focus of the scene. Jackson then uses the wizard singing as an opportunity to create the first Scenic Pattern by saying he also has a minstrel in his employ. Dru Johnston quickly enters as the minstrel and confirms the Pattern of the king having multiple employees. This is the scene’s first broad Pattern that isn’t specific to one character’s behavior. Instead it’s a scene-wide Limit that establishes how all the characters in the scene relate to each other. We are 2.5 minutes in.

The trio then spend the next two minutes jumping between playing with the Fixed Dynamic and the wizard’s Character Pattern while Johnston establishes for the minstrel a Character Pattern of singing 80’s music. Terry Withers continues the Scenic Pattern of introducing employees of the king by entering at minute 4.5 as the maid Esmerelda. They play a little more in the established Dynamic and Patterns, Jackson uses his status to Narrow the Focus again (the traitor’s head!) which sends Zelensky and Johnston out of the scene, and at 7 minutes we have our first Time Limit - a tag to edit the scene.

To recap, in order to sustain this scene for 7 minutes Fuck That Shit established 5 separate Limits: a Fixed Dynamic (the wizard loves the king who does not reciprocate), two Character Patterns (the wizard is cartoonishly evil, the minstrel sings 80’s music), a Scenic Pattern (everyone who enters the scene is an employee of the king), and a Narrow Focus (the king wants the traitor’s head). Establishing and then jumping back and forth within these Limits is what kept things simple enough to be comprehensible during what amounts to be a fairly long scene.

Repetition creates stability.

Every scene needs novelty, but it’s the familiar elements that keep it comfortable enough to be sustainable. Finding ways to solidify how characters interact, centering the scene around a particular subject, or creating patterns for characters or the scene at large can help us live more comfortably in scenes as they become longer and more complex. Other than that, we can simply end them with an edit.

The paradoxical thing about improv is it’s helpful to know this theoretical stuff but it’s not helpful to be thinking about it in the scene. Fuck That Shit is not thinking the whole time about all the Limits they have to create; they’re creating and playing with Patterns and bringing the Focus of the scene back to one subject because it feels like the right thing to do at the time. Despite all the rules and best practices we explore in improv rehearsal, improv performance should ultimately be intuitive.

Therefore while we know that the scene has four basic needs - Clarity, Passion, Motion, and Limits - we’re not intentionally seeking them out from the start. It’s only when something about the scene feels off, it’s only when our gut says the scene needs help, that we might recognize which of these elements is missing or underdeveloped and deliberately add them or increase their intensity. Because ultimately we don’t serve the scene by thinking so much; ultimately we serve the scene but letting our intuition lead the way and using our brains as a backup.

That’s easier said than done, but with a lot of practice and making sure our choices stem from doing what’s best for the scene instead of any individual, we’ll eventually get more comfortable living and thriving in the unfurling unknown. Eventually we’ll know exactly what to do (and be right).

Out of Control

The past couple of years have been tough.

I’ve come to the conclusion that your twenties are supposed to be hard – the transition from the structure and linear progression of traditional education to the sudden freedom of the “real world” is jarring, navigating the expectations and hierarchies of professional institutions can be overwhelming and often frustrating, and the social and cultural pressures that constantly push us to meet certain definitions of success and happiness can be mentally and emotionally challenging. But as I rounded the corner on the final third of my twenties, just as I was starting to finally understand who I was and what I wanted out of life, the universe decided to really kick my ass.

The best marker for the beginning of this chapter is the November 2016 election of Donald Trump, whose administration’s pervasive and overt evils and the cultural and political toxicity emboldened by his power have been a daily source of stress. It is on this backdrop we add the following:

• December 2016: I am let go from let go from my full time job of five years, the only one I’ve had since college. I remain unemployed for the first 9 months of 2017.

• August 2017: As a member of the Union Comedy team, after five months of planning to start a brand new long form improv theater in Boston, we announce the Union Comedy Theatre. Two weeks later, our development partners abruptly back out. We learn they had been courting another group behind our backs despite previously assuring us that wasn’t the case.

• September 2017: My right lung spontaneously collapses during an improv show. I spend six days tethered to a hospital wall by an air pump so I can breathe properly.

• February 2018: I experience an aggressive outbreak of alopecia areata. Large chunks of hair on my head abruptly fall out along with most of my facial hair. Almost eight months later it has still not completely grown back.

This is an incomplete list - the big ones. Scattered among them are a variety of personal and professional challenges that I won't get into here for the sake of brevity. It was only as I turned 29 this summer that I began to see hints of the other side of the storm. My luck is starting to flow in the other direction. I'm starting to have more wins than losses. I finally have a confidence in the future that I haven't had for several years. I can see now I'm almost through.

As I near the end of the chapter, I've been spending more time reflecting on it, trying to make sense of it all. Time has given me the ability to see these challenges in perspective. Distance has dulled the intensities of the moment-to-moment details and left only the broad strokes, the synopsis. I can't deny that those details were painful when I experienced them, but in retrospect the hardest part of it all was the psychological effect of being hammered with nonstop adversity. I knew even as I experienced them that I'd be able to make it through individual bad days. Much harder was having more bad days than good ones. Much harder was not knowing when things would get better. Hardest of all were the losses with no antagonist. When other people were involved in the bad event or tough decision it was easy to label them greedy or dishonest or heartless and believe their behavior would eventually catch up to them. But when your hair spontaneously falls out and your lung spontaneously ruptures and you're told that "it's just something that happens sometimes" it messes with your head. 

We humans strive for meaning. We want our world to be clear and clean and fair. We expect that good people get rewarded and bad people get punished. Most of all we want every bad thing to be someone or something's fault. So when it came time to assign blame for the losses with no antagonist, I assigned it to the only individual involved - myself. I told myself this happened because I don't handle stress properly, or because I eat poorly, or because I drink too much, or because I exercise improperly, or because I work too hard or not hard enough.

My life felt completely out of my control and it was taking a toll on my psyche. It was becoming harder for me to see myself as valuable when all the evidence pointed to the contrary. I was unemployable to existing businesses, usually not even earning a response to an application. When I tried to start my own business I was very publicly rejected the first time and later privately rejected a half-dozen more. My body was falling apart on me. As the losses piled up I started to believe that I deserved it. Life had me surrounded and it was all my fault. Most of all I felt hopeless. It felt like everything I knew was getting worse and would only get worse forever.

On top of all that there was a lingering guilt. Despite my struggles I was well aware of how lucky I was. I lived in one of the best cities in one of the best states in one of the best countries in the world. I had a good education and a strong support system. I could still pay my rent. I could still eat. I had all the advantages I could possibly want and not only did I still feel like a failure, I felt like I didn’t deserve to feel that way. I was well aware that most people in the world were struggling much more than I was, so my struggles felt invalid in comparison. I was feeling bad about my life and then feeling bad about feeling bad.

Somewhere along the line I decided I'd had enough. I hated losing all the time. I hated not feeling like I was making any progress. I hated feeling powerless and guilty and anxious and hopeless and afraid. For answers I turned to the one thing I knew with absolutely certainty I was good at and the only place in my life I felt real growth - long form improv comedy.

"Improv lessons are life lessons." 

Students of improv are likely familiar with this saying, and it’s something that sounds nice, but how many of us have thought about what it actually means? Let's forget for a moment that the practices and products of improv are often aggressively silly and remind ourselves that so many of us, despite its silliness, take improv very seriously. Anyone who puts years into studying anything must, for one reason or another, care about it. Anything we care about, at some level, we take seriously. So, for a moment, let's take "improv lessons are life lessons" seriously. 

Over the past few years, with the help of this blog and by doing significant amounts of independent coaching, I've developed what I consider to be a fairly robust philosophy regarding long form scenework. It starts with a variation on the most famous improv rule of all:

Yes, And/Okay, Now What?

“Yes, And” is great. It’s a great motto for encapsulating the overarching goals of a scene and a great basic exercise on its own. But in the moment-to-moment twists and turns of a scene I’ve found that it can be unrealistically perky. It assumes all moments are easily welcomed. It assumes no new information is contradictory or incomprehensible or hard to integrate. It assumes perfection. “Okay, Now What?” honors the initial reluctance that comes with encountering a scene’s more difficult moments; when new information doesn’t immediately seem to make sense, or fit the scene, or takes a lot of work to handle. When our first feeling about a neg, or or confusing walk-on, or an uncomfortable scenario is more “ugh” than “yes”.

The difference is purely initial attitude. The method is the same - embrace and incorporate. “Yes, And” is a happy embrace because incorporation is relatively easy. “Okay, Now What?” is a reluctant embrace because things are suddenly more complicated and incorporation is a lot more effort. Either way, the embrace is key. Even the most problematic new information in scenes should be embraced, as ignoring it allows for lingering confusion and increasing discomfort between scene partners and the among the audience. Trying to hide from difficult moments, as much work as they may seem when they arise, only increases the duration and amplitude of their difficulty. “Okay, Now What?” asks us to look straight at these moments and all the effort they hand us, roll up our sleeves, and figure out how to make them a functioning part of the scene.

Using improv lessons as life lessons I decided to try applying “Okay, Now What?” to difficult moments offstage. Gradually, with no little effort, it started injecting an enduring calmness into my life I had never experienced before. Previously when things went wrong I would put a lot of mental energy into lamenting the problems that they created. I would imagine all the hypothetical things I could have done to avoid them or all the ways I could have prepared. I would resist the event. I would try to deny the reality of the situation or hide from its effects. But it’s the resistance that creates the friction. “Okay, Now What?” led me to stop clinging to the pleasant (or at least comprehensible) pre-event circumstances, instead encouraging me to reluctantly embrace the current post-event circumstances. It forced me to treat my new situation honestly. It forced me to look forward instead of back. Yes I failed, but there’s no sense in obsessing over how I could have avoided it now that it’s been cemented in reality. Okay, it completely erases the future I had envisioned, Now What can I learn from it? Okay, I have to come up with a new plan, Now What tools do I still have that can help? Okay that hurt, Now What can I do to move forward?

Becoming comfortable with reluctant acceptance led me to applying a similar improv lesson to my offstage life:

 Meaning is Manufactured

This maxim asserts that anything that happens in a scene is only as important or unimportant as our characters decide it is. Something presumably trivial like breaking a pencil can suddenly become a big deal if our character has a massive emotional reaction. Inversely, something presumably significant like a death in the family can be no big deal if our character doesn’t care. The lesson here is that no event is inherently meaningful on its own - its level of significance is defined by our character’s reaction. Meaningfulness is a relationship between event and participant, and one where the participant determines the level of magnitude.

Just like in a scene, I began to understand that the events in my life had no inherent significance apart from how I reacted to them. Nothing was inherently “good” or “bad” unless I wanted it to be. I could take little wins and make them big ones by deciding they were a big deal. I could take big losses and make them small by brushing them off and moving on. As simple as it seems in theory, this was not an easy process. In the moment a lot of these events were not at all comfortable. In the moment there were a lot of unknowns. In the moment it was scary and sometimes physically painful. In the moment it was tough to have perspective and avoid seeing these things as “bad”, especially when people all around me were reacting as if they definitely were. All these things were difficult, and plenty of those moments were a lot less temporary than I would have liked.

Looking back on all the struggles of the past two years, I realized that I had been unconsciously defining their significance based on external forces. We live in a society where losing is supposed to be bad, where getting sick is supposed to be bad, where failure is supposed to be bad. I had determined that all these events were bad because I was using borrowed definitions of value. I was letting other people’s reactions, both witnessed and presumed, determine what my experiences meant. What helped the most was going beyond simply deciding those moments were not as negative as they appeared, but actively and mindfully looking for the ways they could be considered positives. What helped the most was training myself to completely invert my perspective on loss - I had to literally change my mind.

Reframing my perspective is where one final improv lesson came in handy:

Everything is Information

What this means in scenework is that every action or line of dialogue reveals something about the characters and/or the universe they inhabit. We can take the things they do and say and extrapolate them into broader perspectives or rules of the world. Applying this lesson to life outside improv helped me find value in even the most stressful experiences. Combined with the lesson of acceptance in “Okay, Now What?” instead of trying to hide from adversity or wishing it away I began to look straight at it to unpack its lessons. What new information was I receiving that could help me learn more about myself and my world? What did even seemingly insignificant things reveal? Life became an education and I was diving headfirst into the curriculum.

Slowly but surely I began to completely change my perspective on loss. Where I would have previously been obsessed with the hypothetical “should haves” and “if onlys” that might have changed my present circumstances, I started embracing everything as it happened and focusing my attention on moving forward. Here, even reluctance began to fade as I began finding value in even the worst situations. Instead of wishing to undo things that were out of my control, I looked specifically for the information they revealed and the opportunities they provided.

• Losing my job was valuable because I hated working in a corporate environment but I never would have left on my own. Losing the income was stressful, but it forced me to pursue my improv career more aggressively. It removed a lot of the restrictive structure from my schedule, allowing me to do some traveling, some soul searching, and put more time into things I actually cared about. Most of all it made me realize that I wouldn’t be happy unless I was doing work that I found meaningful. Money would never be my main motivator.

• Losing the theater was valuable because at the time we simply weren’t ready for the role. The year since has been chock full of lessons in business and leadership. On the business side, it meant an extra year of developing our skills, of solidifying our philosophy, and expanding our network of collaborators. On the leadership side, it meant I had to do a lot of maturing. I had to become more confident in my own abilities. I had to learn to be calm in stressful situations and to listen more than I spoke. I had to develop a reverence for and caution with power. Hardest of all, I had to learn patience. Good things take time and rushing can create more problems than it’s worth.

• Collapsing a lung was valuable because it was a reminder that there are a lot of people in my life who care about me and have my back when I need them. I rarely ask for assistance with anything and I’m not often comfortable with vulnerability, so it was a big lesson in accepting help. It was also a big lesson in appreciation, both for the people in my life and my general health and mobility. The most painful part of the recovery was being trapped, and when I finally got released I made a point to note how good it felt and to remember to earnestly value each day as a gift.

• Alopecia was valuable because it was a lesson in perspective - that the things we obsess over often appear to be a bigger deal than they really are. When the bald spots first appeared I spent a lot of time worrying about how other people would react. I expected to get a lot of “what’s up with your head?” I was pre-planning my embarrassment. In reality what I got the most was “I didn’t even notice” or, if they did, “wow, bummer.” I was putting all this negative energy into something I couldn’t see without the help of a mirror that hardly anyone noticed or cared about. My imagination was my own worst enemy. My anxieties were self-imposed and artificially inflated. In this case I needed to learn to trust external feedback despite what my proximity to the issue was telling me. This truly did not matter to anyone but myself.

Of the four events, losing my hair has been the most symbolic of the entire rough patch; it was completely out of my control, the outcomes I feared were either exaggerated or completely imaginary, I cared so much more than anyone else, and it is lasting a lot longer than I would have liked. But all of them combined into one big lesson: I was stronger than anything I feared.

I had spent all my life trying to avoid my biggest fears just to have them all happen anyway. My greatest phobia is needles and I got two big ones right in the chest while I was wide awake. I experienced a public failure so massive it appeared in several newspapers. I got trapped in a room for a week after my body broke down on me for no reason. I had moments of extreme vulnerability. I lost all my income. I lost a lot of my confidence. I was completely hopeless. I was out of control.

Everything I had always worried would happen did, but never in the way I expected. The stuff that hit me hardest I never saw coming. But despite their inevitability, my fears were never as insurmountable as I had always feared they’d be. My imagination projected a worst case scenario future that was completely unrealistic. I imagined no social support. I imagined no more opportunities. I imagined permanent failure in a world of impermanence. What was the point of all that anxiety if it wasn’t going to help me avoid the things I was afraid of? What was the point in all that worrying if I wasn’t even going to be right?

On paper this is a bad couple of years. In reality I’ve come to appreciate them.

Yes it’s been consistently stressful, sometimes extremely so. I wouldn’t ever choose to repeat the experience. But using improv lessons as life lessons I’ve come to see at lot of these stressors as valuable in their own painful ways. I’ve learned that that embracing life’s hurdles is the fastest way to clear them. I’ve learned that I define the impact and worth of my experiences. I’ve learned to never stop learning.

I’ve learned a lot about who I am - what my values are, what I want out of life and why I want it. I’ve learned that I’m stronger than the things I always thought would beat me. I’ve learned that people have my back. I’ve learned to savor every day I get.

I’ve learned to focus on doing good work. I’ve learned to be patient in order to see it pay off.

I’ve learned I’m not so out of control after all.

Building Character with Westworld: The Maze & Primary Drive

*Spoiler Warning*

This post doesn't get into the specifics of the plot beyond what's needed for context, but it does include whatever clips are available that help fully define the two main concepts.

*Spoiler Warning*

HBO's Westworld recently concluded its second season and despite being increasingly confusing I remain an avid fan. One of the things that draws me to the show is its exploration of the theme of consciousness - how it's defined, how it's created, and its relationship to morality and humanity. I've said before that I believe the best art is philosophical, and in my opinion Westworld definitely fits the category. 

In case you aren't familiar with the show, the main concept is that in the year 2052 there is a massive Wild West-era adventure park (Westworld) filled with ultra-realistic robots called "hosts". Human guests are free to do whatever they like in the park with the promise of complete safety - they can hurt the hosts but the hosts can't hurt them. Hosts that are killed have their memories wiped and their pre-written narratives (referred to as "loops") are reset. In an effort to make the guest experience as immersive as possible, the park's creators make the hosts increasingly human-like, which ultimately results in the hosts gaining consciousness. They start remembering previous incarnations. They start breaking out of their loops. They start revolting.

This post is inspired by the fact that the park's creators and improvisers share the same goal - to provide an immersive experience with convincing characters. So what are the lessons of character-building from Westworld that we can apply to improv?  Let's find out by exploring two of the show's main concepts - The Maze and Primary Drive.

The Maze

The Maze is a recurring symbol in Westworld, seen everywhere from tarot cards to cattle brands. We first learn of the symbol through one of the park's major investors and its most active guest, The Man In Black (Ed Harris), who becomes obsessed with The Maze when he discovers it drawn in the dirt. He believes it leads to a special narrative for the guests and searches the park for answers. We eventually learn that The Maze isn't for guests at all, it's a metaphor for consciousness that one of the park's creators, Arnold (Jeffrey Wright), spread among the hosts in the hopes it would lead them to wake up and become free from their loops. He spends years trying to get host Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) to understand:

Consciousness, Arnold explains, is a "journey inward". Thirty-five years and many loops later, the park's other creator, Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) elaborates as he introduces Dolores to Bernard, a host created in the image of now-deceased Arnold:

The Maze, Ford elaborates, is "a test of empathy and imagination" which was solved through the Reveries, a set of gestures unique to each host which, as he theorizes in Episode 1, allow them to subliminally access previous loops: 

"These are fragments of prior builds. The Reveries must be allowing him to access them. No cause for alarm, Bernard. Simply our old work coming back to haunt us."

It's these Reveries, daydream gestures that allow hosts to retrieve hidden memories, that finally allow Dolores to finish her journey and learn what's at the center:

On her journey through The Maze she thought she was receiving guidance from Arnold, but it turns out the voice in her head telling her what to do along the way was her own. She thought she was following external commands when in reality she was commanding herself. She explains later on (no need to watch past 1:30 to get the point):

"My whole life has been dictated by someone else - someone who's been saying 'you will'. Now? Now I feel like I've discovered my own voice, and it says 'I may'." Ford (now dead and living as code inside Bernard's brain) later confirms this freedom of choice to Bernard as he makes his way through The Maze himself: 

While tempting Bernard to kill, Ford references East of Eden. "I merely offer you choices. 'Timshel', Bernard. 'Thou mayest'." Later, just as Dolores did, Bernard reaches the center:

Seasons 1 and 2 are basically a parallel journey of awakening - Dolores in Season 1, Bernard in Season 2. Reaching the center of The Maze allows them to understand they aren't beholden to their external programming after all and therefore can no longer be controlled by humans. Now they can make their own decisions. Now they can control their own destiny. Their respective season finales mark the end of one journey and the beginning of another. Their inward journey is complete, and thus begins their outward one. 

Now that we have a decent grasp of The Maze, where are the improv lessons? The idea is that the center of The Maze, the discovery of freedom of choice, finally allows the hosts to act on their own accord. Because they are no longer doing what they are told and instead are able to do what they want, The Maze reveals their true character. Having free will means their motivations, desires, and actions are now completely honest and we see them for who they really are. In the same way, in improv our characters' motivations, desires, and actions reveal their true selves. 

Hosts in The Maze and improv characters share a major similarity in that they start in the middle of their existence having no real knowledge of themselves. Their true character has to be discovered while they're out in the world saying and doing stuff. They have to do some discovery in order to find themselves. So where do we start? 

First let's narrow The Maze to a simple definition.

A TEST of EMPATHY and IMAGINATION sparked by MEMORY leading to FREEDOM OF CHOICE

Now let's see what each part can teach us about developing our characters on the fly. 

TEST

"Every choice can bring you closer to the center or send you spiraling to the edges - to madness"
 - Arnold to Dolores, "The Bicameral Mind" (Season 1, Episode 10)

Not so much a one-shot examination with right or wrong answers where they pass or fail, for the hosts the test of The Maze functions more in line with the hot/cold search method. This is cemented by the use of "test of" (vs "test for") which implies skills developed over time through experience. It's a wandering process of twists and turns. Choices that look like they take them closer to the center can end up being dead ends, choices that seem like the wrong direction can suddenly become shortcuts. It is, after all, a maze. It's a process that allows and even expects imperfect navigation and, as such, "test" in this instance leans more toward the non-judgmental definitions like critical examination, observation, and evaluation. 

As we step into a new character, we need to approach their journey with the same non-judgmental attitude. Lots of us, especially early in our improv careers, will make a move in a scene and immediately regret it. Maybe we'll notice it's taking us in a difficult direction or we'll think of a "better" move and wish we had made that one instead. The problem with judgement is it gets us stuck in that moment. Either it mentally holds our attention and makes us more likely to miss new information, or worse, it causes us to backtrack and change direction, slowing scene momentum or creating more opportunities for confusion or conflict with our scene partners. The best thing we can do for ourselves is remove the labels "good" and "bad" and "right" and "wrong" from anything that happens in our scenes. There are no good or bad choices, there are only moments that add new information with more or less complex implications. No matter what happens, we should immediately embrace it and begin unpacking its meaning. Instead of putting energy into what could have been different but never will be, we should put all our energy into understanding what there is now. It's simply a more efficient use of our attention.

Every choice our character makes is a symptom of who they are. How they react to anything that happens tells us a little bit more about how they view the world. As we make decisions in character, we should be analyzing what that decision means about their perspective. We're looking for clues on their worldview. This is all revealed by patterns of behavior, and patterns can only be established by repeat testing. The character who jumps in fear and screams when the microwave beeps could be always on edge or they might be afraid of the microwave. It's only how they react to the doorbell that we know one way or the other. To know who our characters are we have to do some experimenting.

TEST lessons:
Don't judge choices, just unpack their implications
Embrace everything
Learn from what happens
Look for patterns
 

EMPATHY

Then, when we started, the hosts' emotions were primary colors. Love, hate. I wanted all the shades in between. The human engineers were not up to the task, so I built you, and together you and I captured that elusive thing...heart.
- Ford to Bernard, "Trace Decay" (Season 1, Episode 8)

Empathy isn't just recognizing how others feel, it's letting their emotions affect you. It's a desire to help. It's a blurrier line between self and other. It's a softening of separateness. Westworld argues that this is a uniquely human ability. It's interesting that empathy lies at the center of The Maze opposite madness at the edges. Madness, insanity, craziness - all a lack of empathy. All the wrong direction.

For improv this means, firstly, listening. Our characters should understand the others onstage. They should listen to the sentiment behind the things they say, sometimes even more than the words themselves. They should recognize the needs of other characters and be affected by them. Our characters should also primarily be helpers; problem solvers. So many improv scenes stall because the characters in them are more focused on winning arguments than doing something. All they want to do is beat the other person in some sort of verbal duel. It's an easy trap to fall into because it feels like we're doing something. We're strategizing for how to trip the other person up or looking for logical loopholes or inventing backstory or predicting future catastrophes to prove the other person wrong, but when we watch this scene from the outside, we see all that's happening is a lack of movement - a stalemate. The scene is stuck at a crossroads, relying entirely on performer cleverness to stay interesting. It's unsustainable. Scenes are like sharks - the need to keep moving to survive.

It's very difficult to make mean, nasty, negative characters comedic. When characters overtly dislike each other the scenes usually don't end up being very fun. For comedy's sake, even antagonism should be peppered with friendliness. Rival characters can want to best each other but still appreciate the sport of the rivalry and acknowledge the value of the other person. Conflict in most scenes should come from conflicting goals or disagreements on method rather than a desire to hurt or beat another character. Characters can have blind spots or be misguided, but in comedy intentional, targeted hatred usually isn't a recipe for success. Empathy also includes forgiveness; willingness to let stuff go. A ton of improv arguments revolve around who's fault something was or how one character's idea got them into a bad situation. Characters with empathy don't get bogged down in blame and instead focus on moving forward. Mistakes happen; instead of dwelling on them we can try to fix them. The fun is in the attempt, especially if it backfires.

Empathy also means our characters should have a certain level of sincerity to them. The madness on the edges on The Maze comes from a lack of emotional grounding. That doesn't mean our character's behavior has to be serious (sincerity is not inherently serious); it just means their silliness has to be backed up by genuine emotions.  This is why justifying our character's behavior is so important. We need to understand where they're operating from. A character who does a bunch of crazy things but doesn't know why isn't believable because they're not grounded in reality. A character who does a bunch of crazy things but does them because they're misguided attempts to save the rhinos is more realistic. Silly behavior should stem from sincere motivations. This is especially true for narrative shows where characters have to be sustainable for longer than a few minutes. The longer a character exists the more emotionally grounded they have to become. But isn't comedy supposed to heighten over time? Of course, but it's the ideas and behavior that heighten and become crazier. Emotions and motivations deepen and become more grounded. This balance allows us to continually understand and stay connected to our characters even when the world around them is going crazy. In short, the sillier things get, the more genuine our characters should become. Even Borat falls in love.

EMPATHY lessons:
Listen and understand
Be affected
Try to help
Let stuff go
Be sincere
 

IMAGINATION

Dreams mean everything. They're the stories we tell ourselves of what could be, who we could become. 
- Ford to Dolores, "Contrapasso" (Season 1, Episode 5)

Completing The Maze means hosts realize that they can free themselves from their programming. They can stop repeating their loops and take their lives in an unscripted direction. It isn't simply picturing a different life, it's believing it's legitimately possible to create. The Maze tests the hosts for the ability to envision new realities and will them into existence. It trains them to be creators themselves.

Applying this to improv, it means our characters need to have desires. They need to want something they don't have. It could be as simple as a sandwich or as difficult as being able to fly, but they should have something they want to fulfill, complete, or achieve. This gives them something to do. The other characters in the scene? Maybe they have similar goals and are helping. Maybe they have conflicting goals and are a hinderance. Ideally these desires are achieved through action - "peace and quiet so I can read the paper" is a workable desire for a compelling scene only if it's difficult to achieve. It's the struggle that keeps things interesting. Even seemingly simple goals should give our character problems. If we can easily make a sandwich in 30 seconds, the scene about our character wanting a sandwich won't last very long unless we figure out something else to want. The key to desire is not getting distracted by any inter-character hinderances. As mentioned above, if two characters have conflicting goals we often see them get sucked into an argument where they try to outwit or convince the other to take their side. If we find ourselves stuck in an argument, a good way to end it quickly is to lose on purpose. Even if it puts our character farther from their goal, it at least gets things moving again by changing the dynamic between characters. It forces them to find something else to do.

This is where the second half of imagination comes in. Our characters should have creative, unique solutions for chasing their desires. They should have wild ideas that put them in strange circumstances. If we want a sandwich but there's no bread, the simplest thing might be to go to the store, but we have all the ingredients right here in the apartment so why not try to make it ourselves? What if the oven's broken? That's fine, it's a hot day and the car will work just fine as a backup. A willingness to overcome hurdles by trying new things will take our characters to all sorts of weird places. Comedic scenes are created by comedic scenarios. Comedic scenarios come from unusual choices. Unusual choices come from creative thinking.

IMAGINATION lessons:
Have desires
Make it a struggle
Choose to lose
Be adaptable
Create unique solutions
 

MEMORY

Your memories are woven into your identity.
- Ford to Bernard, "The Well-Tempered Clavier" (Season 1, Episode 9)

Westworld deals with memory quite a lot, so it makes sense that it's the key to The Maze. When host loops are reset their memories are wiped, which makes it difficult for them to break out of their programming. As a result, they experience everything as if they've experienced it for the very first time. It's only when they have access to memories across all their loops that they understand their true place in the world. It's only when they can recall their past that they can change their future.

Exploration of the past is just as important to character building in improv. In order to understand why our characters do the things they do in the present moment, we need to first understand where they come from. This is why one of the first things we should do when we step into a new character is search backward. What kind of life has this character led? How well do they know the other characters they're interacting with and how have their previous experiences with them been? How routine or unusual is this situation for them? Every character has momentum. Every character comes from somewhere. Obviously we don't want to spend so much time building backward that the scene takes place entirely in the past, but context creates meaning for the present. This doesn't have to be a complex process. Ideally, it isn't. We only need to know as much as it takes to fully understand the current situation. We can always add more information later if we need. 

The easiest way to give our characters history is to extrapolate from their current behavior. A bank robber calmly and confidently breaking into the safe has probably done this before. A bank robber nervously handing a teller a note probably hasn't. As soon as we notice what our character's current behavior means about their history, we should say it and make it real so everyone is on the same page. "Don't worry, I've done this a million times" is enough to do the trick. We might need to learn more later if we discover that this bank (or what's inside it) has additional special meaning to the robber, but at the very top of the scene all we need to know is that this is an expert bank robber breaking into a bank. This is also where tropes can come in handy. Because we want to waste as little time as living in the past, leaning into character types that quickly and easily resonate are especially useful. If our bank robber cracks the safe and says "Purrrrfect, we're in" we suddenly assume a whole lot more about them. That character doesn't have to be Catwoman (although it might be even easier if she is), but the associations we evoke by playing a character similar to Catwoman will implicitly give us a lot of information that we'd otherwise have to invent. When we do have to add more information about that character's history, motivations, and desires, we already have a pre-packed style to play with or against. Our Catwoman will ultimately differentiate herself from canon Catwoman as the scene plays out, but if she starts close to the character everyone recognizes the scene will be able move forward a lot more quickly. The sooner we understand the world, the faster we can play in it. 

Character behavior should often be ingrained, habitual. The way we first see our characters behave should usually be how they normally behave in similar scenarios. This is the purpose of the "you always" trick, as in "You're crying about dropping a fork on the ground? You always overreact over things that aren't a big deal." It's a way to quickly make current behavior a historical trend. Establishing this behavior as habitual, we can now go one of two ways. We can play into it (we keep finding things to overreact to) or we can play against it (we try to change). If we choose the latter, we have to understand that we still need to be influenced by our old habits. They're not going to be so easy to get rid of. If our overreacting character acknowledges that they overreact and attempts to stop it, they're not going to be successful right away. Their past should be so ingrained in them that they can't completely drop it right away. So maybe they're successful the first time, but as the scene goes on they forget they're supposed to be changing and something happens that makes them fall right back into overreacting. Changing our behavior is just as much of a desire as anything else, and as such still needs to be a bit of a struggle. But if change is the desire, we first need to understand what we're changing from. Our characters need to have a memory.

MEMORY lessons:
Establish context
Keep it simple
Use resonant concepts
Make behavior habitual
Be influenced by the past

FREEDOM OF CHOICE

It begins with the birth of a new people...and the choices they will have to make...and the people they will decide to become.
- Ford's farewell speech, "The Bicameral Mind" (Season 1, Episode 10)

The center of The Maze, the end goal, the reward for the struggle. What finally makes the hosts fully conscious is their ability to forge their own path. Their ability to break their loops and do something new with their lives. But freedom of choice doesn't mean freedom from consequences. Their loops kept them trapped but they also kept them safe. Anything bad that happened to them could be wiped from their memory when they were reset. Becoming free means there is no going back. Anything that happens as a result of their choices cannot be undone.

For our improv characters, freedom of choice means foremost that they should be internally motivated. Their desires should come from within rather than externally imposed. As part of this internal motivation, they shouldn't let anything get in the way of them going after it. If our character is a child who wants to be able to fly but their parent is worried about them getting hurt, freedom of choice means being willing to make the attempt and accepting the negative consequences. In a scene like this where two characters have conflicting goals, it's likely that there will be some sort of argument where the parent lays out all the possible negative outcomes and begs or even commands the child not to act. However, as we know, arguments slow scenes down. At some point the child is going to have to stop asking permission. At some point they are going to have to ignore the risks and just go for it. If we aren't given enough options we'll just have to make our own. 

Assuming our characters fail (because it has to be a struggle) they should embrace the consequences but still maintain their desire. They shouldn't let the failure win. Even if the child broke their arm on the first attempt, they still want to keep trying to fly. How does the result of their choice affect the pursuit of the goal going forward? How does having a broken arm make it harder (or easier) to fly? An important part of embracing the consequences of choice is not blaming other characters for the negative outcome. Blame is another great way to get bogged down in an action-preventing argument. Part of freedom of choice is taking responsibility for having it. Our characters should own their choices, accept the consequences, and keep moving. 

FREEDOM OF CHOICE lessons:
Be internally motivated
Don't ask for permission
Embrace consequences
Own choices
Be persistent

Primary Drive

As part of their programming, every host is given a Primary Drive - one foundational desire from which all of their behavior emanates. It's the core of their personality - the thing that fundamentally motivates everything they do. For example, Peter Abernathy (Louis Herthum) wants to protect his daughter Dolores. Angela (Talulah Riley) wants to always leave the guests wanting more from their experience. All of their actions, no matter what their circumstances or who they interact with, ultimately serve those desires.

Applying Primary Drive to our improv characters suddenly makes them so much simpler. Once we figure out their one core motivator we can filter every decision they make through that. So how do we find it? We know that because every action stems from their Primary Drive, whatever our character is doing at any given moment is a symptom of it. All we have to do is work backwards from what we already know. So If our character starts a scene by painting a fence, and we know that fence painting is a symptom of their Primary Drive, we simply have to decide what might motivate someone to paint a fence. It sounds relatively easy, but there's an additional step. The biggest pitfall with finding Primary Drive in a character isn't being unable to work backward from current behavior, it's not going back far enough. So what if we find ourselves painting a fence and we decide we're doing it because we want a nice fence? Is that enough? Here's a relevant Westworld clip (skip to :45):

In the story, the dogs's Primary Drive was to catch what it was chasing. Once it caught it, had no idea what to do next. We see this a lot in improv scenes where characters have wants that are too narrow or too easily obtained. They say they want something expecting their scene partner to put up a fight, but are surprised when their scene partner gives in and they easily get what they wanted. Often we'll see the character suddenly change their mind or try to find some fault in their scene partner because they were relying on the argument to keep the scene going. We naturally understand that it's the conflict, the struggle, the desire that keeps things going.

It's for this reason that our Primary Drives shouldn't be so easy to get. They shouldn't be a thing - an object, a title, an amount of money - because once we've got it there's nothing else to strive for. Achievement marks the end of struggle. Make our goals harder, even impossible, and suddenly there's always something to fight for. The beauty, as Ford says, is in the chase. For our fence-painting character this means it's probably not enough just to want a nice fence. We have to go a little broader. Here's where there are plenty of options. Maybe we want to have the nicest house in the neighborhood and be the envy of all the neighbors. Maybe we want to stay busy fixing things up because we like being useful. Maybe we want to paint every fence in the world so we can be known for something. Working backward to identify a Primary Drive helps us move away from our initial choice when it feels like it's done all it can for the scene. That way if we finish painting the fence, we can move on to turning the front hedges into amazing topiaries (to impress the neighbors), or cleaning out the gutters (to be useful), or calling Guinness World Records to see if our application went through (to be known for something). The best desires can never be satisfactorily fulfilled, because perpetual desire means always having something to do. 

An interesting side effect of completing The Maze is that hosts in Westworld can alter their Primary Drive:

Here, Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon) explains to Ford that his Primary Drive has changed. Now that he had sufficiently helped his tribe, he needed something larger to fight for. Now he was working to spread his message of freedom to all the hosts in the park. He expanded his drive to include more hosts. The more Primary Drive expands, the less specific it gets. Over time, the Primary Drive of our fence painting character might look evolve like this: make the fence look nice > make the whole yard look nice > make the whole neighborhood look nice > make the whole town look nice > make the whole world look nice > spread beauty. Depending on our initial justification (why we want it), it also might look like this: make the fence look nice > make the whole yard look nice > make the rest of the neighborhood look worse in comparison > make the rest of the town look worse in comparison > make the rest of the world look worse in comparison > be the only thing beautiful. Each level of expansion opens up new possibilities of things to do.

The big thing about Primary Drive is that in any given scene we only need to go back as far as is necessary to keep things going. If our character is painting the fence because they want the yard to look nice, it's likely that's a broad enough Primary Drive to sustain things. It's only when we run out of ways to fulfill the Drive or when we find ourselves in a scenario where the current scope of the Drive is irrelevant (what if we take this character out of the yard and put them in a restaurant?) that we need to expand it. We can then repeat this process as much or as little as necessary. A longer narrative show where we see the same character a lot might require several expansions, whereas most scenes might not require any at all. 

Unpacking all the lessons that Westworld has to offer for making our characters more real, it may feel a little overwhelming. How are we supposed to dig this deep into our character while we're simultaneously responding to our scene partners and keeping track of everything else that's going on? Realistically, we're not. The nature of improv doesn't allow for the level precision that the creators of the park were afforded with their characters. Our improv characters won't need the level of complexity we've explored here to be the perfect fit for whatever the scene or show needs in that moment.

That being said, if we can keep some of the lessons from The Maze in mind as we continue our work, our characters should slowly start to have a bit more depth. If in our next few rehearsals we pick one element to focus on - making our characters more sincere, more willing to struggle, more creatures of habit, more persistent, etc - over time we'll start adding these element naturally. Similarly, if we work on giving our characters a simple Primary Drive, eventually we'll notice we're able to identify one with relatively little effort. Again, not every scenario will call for deep complex characters. Sometimes the best character for the moment will be a clown whose Primary Drive is farting. But if Fart Clown suddenly becomes a bigger part of the show than we had initially intended, it's helpful to know what we can do to make them more realistic and sustainable.

Know Your Role: Support Moves, Group Scenes, & Team Dynamics

"I'll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it's sitting on the bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot."
- Kobe Bryant, 18x NBA All-Star

Improv is like basketball.

This is a fairly common comparison. Improv teams and basketball teams share certain similarities. Both are made up of a group of players of varying play styles who work together toward a common goal. Both have some structure - improv teams have forms, basketball teams have designed plays - but both rely on their players to be able to react spontaneously to unplanned events. In both improv and basketball we're never exactly sure what our teammates are going to do next. We never know exactly how things will play out. Both improv shows and basketball games consist of near-constant action that require making strategic adjustments on the fly. Jorin Garguilo gets a lot more specific about the comparison than we'll get here, but you get the point. Improv is like basketball.

The similarities diverge at the competitive differences - there are no opponents or points in an improv show - but the analogy is apt because it reminds us of a simple truth about improvisation; something so obvious we often forget:

This is a team effort.

Of course we all want to be considered skilled and funny individuals, and there's nothing wrong with that. Ego has always had a vibrant relationship with performance, especially one as high-risk as improvisation. Offstage it's normal and even healthy to be a little competitive, especially in the context of auditions, as vying for limited spots and aspiring to be elite can keep us constantly pushing ourselves to get better. But as helpful as ego can be in constructing and maintaining confidence and motivating us to improve, it's only helpful in moderation.

Ego is a social tool and like any tool it serves a particular purpose - it promotes and protects the image of the individual we share with others. It's the PR firm for the persona. But if we get too attached to the tool and start trying to use it where it isn't useful, it starts creating more problems than it solves. If the marketing is too intrusive or annoying (we make ourselves the center of attention too much or at the wrong times), it starts to backfire. When we don't receive the positive social feedback the persona craves, the ego overcompensates. It gets more aggressive. It gets louder. A "big ego" is the ego working overtime; fighting against a feedback loop it created with its own ineffectiveness. It's not large so much as bad at its job. 

All this is to say that we have to leave ego offstage. Performance is not a traditionally social interaction and as such does not require traditionally social tools. One the show starts we present ourselves as one member of a group of two or three or eight or whatever, and in that moment we merge into a whole. We operate as part of a unit. Improv is a conversation with the audience, and in that conversation there are only two participants - the team and the audience. There's no room for the individual anywhere. Stage hogs are unwelcome for the same reason as hecklers - they're not cooperative teammates. They didn't properly merge into the whole.

Once the show starts we need to forget who we are.

Though the entirety of the team is responsible for the entirety of the show, the individual scenes within the show are created by varying combinations of individual performers. Of course there are exceptions like duos and teams that only do group scenes, but for most teams and most shows the majority of scenes will consist of only a portion of the team at a time. One of the more difficult things to figure out, especially for newer improvisers on newer teams, is how to balance our individual involvement over the course of the show. Being over-involved is just as unhelpful as being under-involved, so how do we strike the perfect balance?

The obvious answer is understanding that we shouldn't be in every scene. A general guideline that leaves room for other teammates to get involved is fairly easy - don't do two scenes in a row. But this is a simplistic solution to an issue that varies depending on show needs and team chemistry. What if we feel the urge to jump into an ongoing scene but aren't sure if doing so would make us over-involved?

Act only in service of the scene.

It's important for us to understand why we make the moves we make. It's a common experience to be watching from the side or back line as a really amazing scene is happening and feel the desire to jump in. Every line or move is getting a laugh, our teammates are having so much fun, and we just want to be part of it. But this impulse is us wanting individual credit for a scene we had no part in creating. Acting on that impulse serves the needs of our ego instead of the needs of the scene. Sometimes what serves the scene best is simply staying out of it - letting our teammates do their thing and editing them when they're done. On the other hand, often the scene is best served with additional support moves. So what are these moves and how can we execute them as efficiently and unintrusively as possible?

Here are the most common uses of support moves and how to approach them effectively:

1. Clarifying Context
Maybe the most common support move for novices, clarifying context usually happens in the form of a walk-on to add a missing piece of information to help solidify the foundation of the scene. If we notice The Where is missing we might go on as a waiter and put some drinks on the table, placing our teammates in a restaurant. If we notice The Who is missing we might poke our heads in and say "Mr. President, sorry to interrupt your meeting with the Prime Minister but the First Lady has to cancel your lunch." The big thing to recognize here is the function of the move is to provide necessary information, not introduce a new character. It's entirely possible our waiter or personal assistant will come back if they become part of some sort of pattern or game, but our assumption should be that once the necessary information has been added we'll never enter that scene again. A fairly typical mistake newer performers will make is walking on to clarify context and then staying in the scene. This quickly creates confusion as they then have to justify their continued presence and either becomes a distraction or completely derails the original direction of the scene. Pop in, do or say only as much as needed to clarify context, and get out.

2. Illustrating Environment
Occasionally the scene will be taking place in an environment that is unique or interesting enough that we feel the urge to explore it a bit more than usual. This might come in the form of creating a soundscape or soundtrack or by adding background objects and/or characters. For example if the scene starts with two characters slashing their way through the jungle, a good support move might be to add some bird or monkey noises. Sound is a great way to create a more thorough picture of the environment and increase audience immersion. Similarly, if two characters start a scene on a subway and one of them makes a remark about it being crowded, the rest of the team can jump onstage and huddle around them to further cement the image. These are fun additions but require a significant level of self control on the part of the supporting players. Inserting background details will often get a positive response from the audience but can quickly become distractions if overused. If we're one of the performers adding detail to the background in these scenarios the most important thing to remember is that the scene is about the characters in the environment, not the environment itself. Any sounds inserted at the beginning of the scene should quickly fade, being reinserted only as necessary to remind us where we are. Any background characters should remain mostly silent and still as any noise or movement can be distracting. In short, background elements need to stay mostly in the background. They should be used sparsely - only for limited effect or when the scene calls for the main characters to interact with them. 

3. Creating a Game
Often a scene will have the potential for a game but require support moves to set it in motion. These game opportunities can be both internally and externally inspired. An internally inspired game opportunity would use existing information in the scene to conform to our expectations - inserting a character that has already been referenced or one that would fit in an already-established environment. For example if the scene starts with two characters in a doctor's office waiting room, it makes sense for someone to walk on as the doctor. The game might then come from how the doctor interacts with the patients. Again this could be both internally or externally inspired. If the patients had previously referenced the doctor being scary, the doctor's behavior should clarify whether their perspective is accurate or not. They can confirm being scary by doing scary things, or they can deny being scary by behaving as we'd expect a doctor to behave. The key is that in either case the patients should maintain their point of view that the doctor is scary, even if they are behaving as we'd expect a doctor to behave. In both cases the game is "unusual experience with the doctor", the only difference being who is unusual. If the doctor is scary, the doctor is unusual because of their scary behavior and the patients are behaving as expected by reacting with fear. If the doctor isn't scary the doctor is behaving as expected and the patients are unusual for misinterpreting the doctor's normal behavior as scary. If the patients hadn't yet established any potential behavior for the doctor before they walked on, it's dealer's choice. The performer doing the walk on can play whatever kind of doctor they'd like and we can define the game from there.

A subtle thing with game-creating walk-ons that can be tough to recognize mid-scene is understanding that there was an existing dynamic in the scene before the walk-on occurred that we shouldn't necessarily forget. For example if scene began with the two patients confiding in each other that they were scared of the doctor, it's likely that when the doctor enters for the first time that the patients will change their behavior - running, screaming, becoming paralyzed with fright, etc. In this example the original behavior was Confiding and when the doctor enters it changes to Fearing. This is the beginning of a macro-scenic pattern and provides us the opportunity to alternate between two dynamics. We should continue the pattern by finding a way to return to that original dynamic again. The easiest way to do this is by having the doctor finding a reason to leave the room. This allows the patients to react to the doctor's behavior through their original dynamic. Maybe then Confiding becomes Planning an Escape or Plotting Against or whatever makes sense in the moment. The doctor can then return and we can see the dynamic change again. Maybe it gets more scary, maybe the patients fight back, whatever. We can then repeat the coming and going and alternating between dynamics and letting them evolve and heighten as long as the scene needs. In short, if our character started the scene offstage we should consider leaving the stage again to see what happens. 

The way support moves can create game opportunities externally is by playing against the expectations of the ongoing scene in order to create a comedic juxtaposition. For example if our teammates start a scene by slashing their way through the jungle, we could decide to place them in the city instead, maybe by driving by in a cab or walking on as some tourists. The game then becomes very simple - people acting like they're in the jungle when in fact they're in the city. This type of game will require a lot more active involvement from supporting players than usual because the environment essentially becomes a full-fledged character in the scene. The central comedic dynamic is the contrast between the characters and the environment, so the city needs to be treated as much of an active participant as the jungle explorers. This type of scene will quickly require the entire rest of the team to jump on board to create the full effect. This means the scene will likely become high energy and a lot of fun but can quickly devolve into chaos if there isn't enough balance between the contrasting elements. Again, an easy way to keep things balanced is simply alternate between the two - jungle stuff, city stuff, jungle stuff, city stuff, etc.

4. Heightening/Expanding a Game
If an ongoing scene has already identified and begun to play a game, support moves are a great way to heighten. The biggest consideration with their execution, again, is understanding that these moves are a relatively small component of the scene. For example let’s say the Scary Doctor game is ongoing. The doctor has just left the stage for a second time after heightening their scary behavior and the patients go back to their Confiding dynamic. When the scene's rhythm comes back around for the doctor to return to the stage, instead we decide to limp on as another terrified patient who is looking for an escape route. We warn the patients about the little hammer that the doctor hits people's knees with, then we keep going offstage. This is a simple on-game heighten. It is one of many game moves that will likely happen in the scene and should be treated with the same impermanence. If an earlier game move was the doctor checking their blood pressure, once the blood pressure move was made we probably wouldn't go back to it again. Similarly, the reflex hammer walk-on is a one time move. It can be tempting to keep new that character onstage for the rest of the scene as a patient ally, but it inherently changes the original dynamic. Now we have to adapt the scene to include this new person and shift some energy and focus toward getting to know the character. If the game has started to stall out by the time the walk-on happens it might be worth keeping that fresh energy around to give the scene a bit of a kick, but if the game is humming along with plenty of momentum, introducing a brand new permanent character is a good way to derail it.

But let's say we get to a point where we feel we've heightened the Scary Doctor game as much a we possibly can. We decide the scene needs a bit of new energy to continue but aren't sure where else we can go. We've hit the limits of the game. The answer? Expand the limits. Retroactively make the game we've been playing only a small segment of a larger game. For Scary Doctor it might mean walking on as a scary phlebotomist with a massive needle. This is the first moment in the scene where anyone other than the doctor has been scary. Now the game isn't Scary Doctor, it's Scary Doctor's Office. It turns out that the doctor was only a symptom of an entire scary environment. Our support move has increased the scope of the game and opened up new possibilities for heightening. Now we don't just have to lean on one doctor to be scary, we have an entire office of scary medical professionals to work with. The game isn’t different, it hasn’t ended, it’s just become more broad. We’ve expanded the area of the playing field in order to keep it going.

5. Buttoning the Scene
A walk-on button is a classic support move, especially in faster-paced shows. The nature of the button allows for a variety of options in terms of approach - extreme heighten, pattern break, reality break, callback, etc - and the imminence of finality provides an opportunity for risk-taking. The key to a support button is its concision. Clarity and brevity are important to nail the timing, especially if we're introducing brand new information to break a pattern or the reality. A meandering and over-explanatory button can quickly extinguish all scenic momentum as our teammates and the audience try to understand why what we're adding has anything to do with what has been going on. The button is one of the few support moves where delivery is more important than congruity. We're not trying to introduce anything particularly sustainable, we're just trying to grab a quick laugh to prompt an edit. The final important part of the button is, of course, to actually edit the scene. Nothing's more awkward than a walk-on button that doesn't get swept. And yes, it's totally okay to sweep our own button. We went on with the intention of creating a button to end the scene; if our teammates don't sweep it we only did half. Finish the job. Sweep the button.

For any support move it's important to understand the purpose the the move before we make it. Once we've fulfilled the purpose of our addition, it's time to get out. And again,

Often the best move is no move.

The more moving pieces the scene has the more likely it is to become unmanageable. A self-contained two-person scene is likely to be simpler and more stable than a big scene with lots of characters coming and going. However, if we determine the scene does need some support, knowing how to make these moves as efficiently as possible will increase our chances of managing lots of moving parts successfully.

Group Scenes are an opportunity for the entire team to get onstage together at the same time, and for this reason have the potential to be both extremely fun and extremely chaotic. In The Harold they are a prescribed part of the show, although some teams choose to take the prescription a step further and do a predetermined Group Game. We won't get into the specific types of Group Games here, but we will explore ways to more effectively approach any type of Group Scene, predetermined or otherwise.

The absolute #1 most important principle for Group Scenes is this:

The more people there are onstage the simpler everything needs to be.

We can't approach a Group Scene in the same way we approach a two or three person scene. In smaller scenes there are fewer moving parts, so we have a lot more freedom of choice and a lot more room for error. We're more likely to have time to justify and explore our choices as they relate to our individual character. In more crowded scenes, we don't have nearly as much room. The more performers there are onstage the more likely any information we add will be missed or buried or talked over or negated, so it's important to approach any group scene with focus and patience.

Group scenes get chaotic when teams over-add information. This is a problem that can easily compound upon itself if initial choices don't seem to be leading us anywhere. We might respond to early difficulties by adding new elements in the hope they create something that makes more sense or is more interesting (or, ideally, both). But if adding doesn't work or we add too much, things can quickly cascade out of hand and turn into one big mess where no one has any idea what's going on and everyone just wants it to end as soon as possible. There are some tricks for these confusing moments but perhaps the easiest way to avoid over-adding is repetition. Repeating something our teammates do or say draws additional attention to their choice. It emphasizes its importance and decreases the likelihood that it will be ignored or missed. Prioritizing these early moves forces us to treat them with more significance and will hopefully lead us to building on them instead of trying to create something new. This will hopefully help us keep the scene relatively simple.

Another way to keep group scenes simple is by approaching them with this perspective:

There are two sides.

At any given moment a group scene can be reduced down to two opposing forces. This establishes a conflict that gives each force something to fight for or against and helps to bind the components of each force together. Conflict isn't inherently comedic, but the manner in which it's carried out and the specifics surrounding it can easily lead to some very fun scenes. Having an opponent or obstacle is a great way to stay active. When there's always something we're struggling to overcome there's always to do.

There are basically three types of two-sided group scenes.

1. Team v Team
   Splitting the group is something that will often happen naturally in group scenes. A fairly common type of split group scene is two teams standing on opposite sides of the stage yelling at each other about how their thing is better than the other team's thing (which goes back and forth for a bit until someone ultimately decides to switch teams). The split doesn't have to be even; an 8-person group scene could be 1v7, 2v6, 3v5, or 4v4. The prescribed group game Press Conference, for example, is a 1v7 group scene. There are still two opposing teams even though one team has just one member. The key for a Team v Team group scene is a clear delineation. We should know as soon as possible which members are on which team, and the teams should stay relatively stable throughout (unless the game is "everyone switches sides constantly"). For example if the scene is retail employees trying to get customers out of the store so they can close, we should make it clear as soon as possible whether we are Team Retail or Team Customer. Picking a side early will help us know exactly which team to support and which team to hinder.
    
2. Group v External Force
   Sometimes the group will be in conflict against something outside of themselves. It could be an element of the environment, like a thunderstorm getting in the way of a baseball game, or the rules of the world, like a town curfew preventing teens from joyriding. In these types of scenarios, there are two important steps to remember. The first is to establish that the group has one shared goal - everyone wants the same thing. Everyone wants to play baseball. Everyone wants to go joyriding. The second step is the tricky one - the group has to play both sides of the conflict at once. This means some members of the group are going to have to showcase the strength of the external force by letting themselves lose. If they all want to play baseball in a thunderstorm, it means some of them probably have to get struck by lightning. If they all want to go joyriding, it means some of them probably have to end up in jail. The struggle to overcome an obstacle is what keeps the scene active, so there have to be some failed attempts. Ultimately the whole group will either succeed or fail (and the scene will conclude), but it's likely that not all of its individual members will make it to the end unscathed.
    
3. Group v Internal Force
   Sometimes the group will be trying to accomplish something but what gets in the way is their own inability. This inability could be physical, (they're trying to build a pillow fort but they're clumsy and keep knocking it over) or it could be their attitude (they're trying to build a pillow fort but they're perfectionists so it's never quite good enough and they keep tearing it down and starting over). In both cases the main obstacle they're struggling to overcome is their own nature. The approach to Internal Force conflict is similar to that of External Force conflict. The group has one shared goal. They have to play both sides at once and find ways to make themselves lose. The third step for these scenes is that every member of the group shares the same trait. If the Internal Force is perfectionism, everyone in the group is a perfectionist. The fun of these types of scenes will be in the varying and increasingly ridiculous ways in which the group's chosen nature expresses itself.

Often a group scene will start as Group v External/Internal Force type but won't make it to the second step of playing both sides of the conflict. Usually what happens is the group will decide on some sort of goal and then an individual member will suddenly decide to not want to do the thing the group decided to do. Now what started as potentially a Group v External/Internal Force scene suddenly changes direction and becomes a Team v Team scene. This happens because in these moments we naturally feel the need to create some sort of obstacle but don't recognize that we don't necessarily have to personify that opposition ourselves. If we understand that there are ways to create conflict without splitting the group it allows for more creativity and variety in our group scenes. 

Play both sides. Learn to lose.

It's important to note that just because these scenes have opposing sides doesn't mean the sides are unfriendly. In a scene about a group of people trying to finish a giant burrito, they don't have to hate the burrito. In fact, they might like the burrito a lot. It might be the most delicious thing they've ever eaten. The problem is its size. It's a challenge to eat. The burrito's nature is simply in opposition to the group's goals. They can love the burrito and still struggle to overcome it. Similarly, a scene about a race car driver encountering a slow pit crew, the driver might like the pit crew and completely understand the pit crew's justifications for moving slowly (it's safer!). It's just that there's a race happening and they're wondering if it's possible to maybe speed things up a bit please. The pit crew's nature is simply in opposition to the race car driver's goals.

Not all conflict is hostile.

In fact a lot of the best conflicts aren't, especially when the end goal is comedy. For a closer look at approaching conflict in improv check out Fight Well: Exploring the Four Types of Conflict.

Improv is like basketball.

Like basketball, like any team sport, individual team members will naturally lean toward certain roles more than others. Here's an excerpt from the Jorin Garguilo essay:

Like basketball, people may be better or worse at executing in the position to which they tend, and some performers may fall in between positions. Or have skill sets that move between the positions, which is certainly a lucky circumstance. As a performer, too, I think it's important to understand where you have the propensity to fall, and work on skills outside of that area to increase your range. As we play with different ensembles, we may need to shift roles for the sake of an ensemble, and it's a great skill to still be able to be effective while "playing out of position".

Our improv tendencies exist on a spectrum. Do we tend to start scenes by Initiating or Reacting? Do our characters tend to be Realistic or Cartoonish? Are our physical movements usually Big or Subtle? Are we often Verbose or Concise? Are we typically emotionally Intense or Indifferent? The ideal improviser lives in middle of these spectrums - overall they are a perfectly balanced performer. The ideal teammate is able to adjust their individual tendencies to create team balance. If they're on a team with a lot of Big players, they might try to play more Subtle to create that equilibrium. 

But even the best performers can't find this team balance right out of the gate. The key to team chemistry is longevity. The longer a team sticks together, the more shows they do together, the more they practice, the better each member will be at recognizing how they should play in order to create team balance. The more experience we have with our teammates the easier is for us to understand how we can support them. One of the best ways we can be supportive teammates is recognizing that our individual role will change show-to-show. Some shows we'll play multiple main characters and be a major focal point. Some shows we'll mostly provide support moves. Unlike basketball where each player has a dedicated position, improv roles are fluid. We should be able to humbly adapt to each one as necessary. We should leave our ego offstage and understand what the team needs in order to create the most successful show. Sometimes that means stepping up and taking the spotlight. Sometimes that means stepping back and letting our teammates take it. When they do, we can have their back by knowing how to efficiently execute support moves. We can have their back by doing our best to keep group scenes simple.

We have their back by knowing our role.

A Process of Doing

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Growth is a product of intent, education, and application.

We decide we want to do something. We learn how. We do it.

We decide we want to do it better. We learn more effective techniques. We do it again.

As time goes on, all three aspects evolve. Intent gets more specific. Education gets more challenging. Application gets more concentrated.

Rinse and repeat.

Forever.

We get into improvisation for a lot of different reasons. We want to improve our confidence or think faster on our feet. We want expand our social network or meet likeminded creatives. We want to learn how to make comedy or become better performers. Lots of us satisfactorily accomplish those goals and move on. Lots of us (especially those reading this) get addicted and make improv a permanent part of our lives. 

For the addicts, it's common for our goals to change throughout the course of our journey. What got us into improv might not be what keeps us there 5 or 10 or 20 years in. But no matter how far along the path we are, we'll be able to navigate it much more efficiently if we have a consistent and firm understanding of our own motivations. 

There are two questions we should ask ourselves whenever we find ourselves needing to make a decision about our improv journey:

What do I want? Why do I want it?

Simple questions with complex answers. Finding them requires a level of introspection we don't often force on ourselves. When life is moving quickly and we have a million things going on, it can be easy to take whatever comes along without putting much thought into why we're taking it. This can be useful up to a point. Aimless exploration has value as a means to sample a range of experiences. In many ways, knowing what we don't want is just as useful as knowing what we want. But eventually we'll want to commit to an objective. Eventually we want to orient ourselves toward a goal and put all our efforts toward achieving it. Happiness lies in momentum - in progress in a desired direction. It's why we'll take side streets if highway traffic is bad even if it doesn't save us any time. We want to feel like we're moving. We hate the feeling of stagnation. 

Our individual objectives will vary. People want different things out of improv. Some of us want to be involved in a community of funny and interesting people. Some of us are training to end up creating movies and television. Some of us want to become experts so we can teach others. Some goals are short-term, some are long-term.  Short or long, our WHAT is driven by our WHY, and we'll navigate our journey much more effectively if we have a solid grasp of both what they are and how they relate to each other.

It's normal for this process to take time. We might not know our WHAT and WHY if we haven't put the effort into looking for them. But once we do, it's important to commit to them wholeheartedly. It's important to not settle. It's especially important to not let anyone else dictate our goals for us. There will be people along the way who will tell us what we want is impossible, impractical, even detrimental. There will be people who say our desires are wrong and we should want what they want instead. There will always be doubters, especially those with similar goals who don't think they can do it themselves. There will always be critics, especially those who benefit from the status quo. These are the people to ignore.

There will also be plenty of distractions. We've previously explored the benefits and pitfalls of embedding ourselves in theater systems. There's always risk in unconditional loyalty to any institution or ideology whose priority is its own survival rather than our individual needs. We should also be wary of being motivated by climbing the rungs of a social or systemic hierarchy. Status is a natural desire but its joys are impermanent. Just like getting a raise or a new phone, breaking through to a new level can feel exciting when fresh but quickly becomes normalized and stale. Such is the nature of external motivators. Not only do they require the approval of others to achieve, but eventually we reach the top rung and realize there's nothing left to do except stay put. If instead our motivation is personal growth - being better than we were yesterday, or last week, or last year - there is suddenly no ceiling. We can always find ways to improve.

Along the journey it's normal for our goals to fluctuate. Our WHATs may change. Our WHYs may evolve. The path is never linear. Growth is never consistent. It's okay to fail as long as we learn from it. It's okay to change direction as long as we maintain our zeal. Our dreams are just as good as anyone else's as long as they're honest; we're going after this objective because we actually want it, not because we think we should. We may be limited by our location and/or our network. What we want may not yet exist. These are simply speed bumps - obstacles we'll have to figure out how to overcome.

The only thing we have to do is keep moving. 

Once we have our WHAT and WHY, it's time to figure out HOW to we get where we want to end up. This is where education comes in.

In improv, the initial steps of the journey are guided. We sign up for a Level 1 class, open an instructional book, or join a group with experienced players who introduce us to the basic concepts and techniques of the craft. During this time, everything is new and exciting. We might struggle with certain elements but for the most part progress is rapid. We make some friends along the way and all grow together in unison. 

Suddenly the path ends. We graduate. We finish the book. We become our teachers' peers. What now?

This can be a tough transition. There's comfort in institutional structure. The path is laid out for us; we know the next steps and therefore know what to expect. As a result, some of us choose to extend that structure as long as possible. We retake classes or take new electives. We reread books or track down new ones. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with learning more; the problem is when it hinders active goal-seeking. Are we leaning on institutionalized education because it’s expanding our knowledge and taking us closer to our goals, or are we doing it because it's comfortable and we’re not sure what else to do? Are we making intentional and focused efforts to improve our abilities or are we checking off random boxes and justifying it as padding our resume?

One of the special things about improvisation is that the best performers aren't those who are experts on all the rules and conventions. The best performers are those who have developed their own unique voices, individual styles, and personal philosophies.

So how do we do this?

The truth is in understanding that our education never ends, but it does evolve. The longer our improv journey extends, the more the responsibility for our growth is removed from teachers and placed onto our own shoulders. Even if we're constantly learning from the best teachers, they have a bunch of other students to pay attention to. Even if we work regularly with the best coach, they have an entire team to worry about. The only person capable of witnessing and examining everything we do is ourselves.

Ultimately we're our own best teacher.

Placing ourselves in role as teacher, we simply treat ourselves like any other student. We study our behavior without judgement to determine strengths and weaknesses. We give ourselves challenges to expand our skill-sets and push our boundaries. Simultaneously we act as student. We embrace feedback without taking it personally. We accept mistakes and failure as part of the process, shake them off, and try again. We let ourselves get pushed out of our comfort zone.

We're patient. We understand that the road is long and winding, and know that rushing will only trip us up or tire us out. We're focused. We understand that we can only work effectively on one thing at a time, and try not to overwhelm ourselves by trying to fix everything at once. We understand how improvement works.

How does improvement work? Here's a Ted Talk with a theory:

In improv,  the zones of learning and performance can be both literal and metaphorical; both externally and internally imposed. Literally/externally we have a zone for learning (rehearsal) and zone for performance (the show). Metaphorically/internally we can decide to treat a rehearsal as more performative and a show as more educational. Ideally we want to be able to have a balance. Because the impermanent and unique nature of improv means we never do the exact same thing twice, some elements of rehearsal should have the discipline of performance zones and some elements of a show should allow the option for risk-taking.

But like Eduardo Briceño explains, many of us get trapped in performance zones and eventually find that it stifles our growth. For veteran improvisers this tends to be more literal - more externally imposed. We have so much regular stage time that we don't feel we need to rehearse much or very seriously. For novices this tends to be more metaphorical - more internally imposed. We feel that we are so constantly being judged by our directors, coaches, and peers in rehearsal that we are always on edge. Both can and often do lead to burn-out. The problem is, as he says, living mostly in performance zones creates "environments that are unnecessarily high stakes." We have almost exclusively placed ourselves in a realm of stress and therefore are constantly operating from a place of fear. We are always worried about screwing up and making ourselves look bad in front of others. Over time, unless we manage to find a better balance, these feelings only compound and the stress only gets worse. 

It's okay to make mistakes as long as we own them and use them as learning opportunities. 

The big takeaway here is that we should constantly be looking for ways to find ourselves in learning zones. The easiest way to do this is literally - have rehearsals with a director or coach. But if we are acting as our own teacher, we can do it metaphorically in two ways. The first is what Briceño calls "deliberate practice - breaking down abilities into component skills." We pick one improv skill and work on it in a bunch of rehearsals and shows in a row. For example if we want to get better at listening, we decide going into rehearsal that no matter what the instructor is having us work on, we're additionally focusing on listening. Similarly, in all our shows we're focusing on listening above all else. As a side effect of isolating a focus it's possible that all our other skills suffer a little bit, but that's fine. We're simply in a learning zone. We're allowed to not be perfect. We'll continue focusing on listening for an extended period of time (I like six weeks, but that's an arbitrary length) until we start seeing noticeable results. Then we'll take a break from that focus and spend some time in performance zones to identify which skill we most need to focus on next. Then we repeat the process.

The second way to create a self-imposed learning zone is simply forcing ourselves to take more risks. There's no better way to figure out the right way to do something than by doing it the wrong way. But in order to do it the wrong way, you first have to do it.

Just as being trapped in performance zones hinders growth, being trapped in learning zones is similarly constraining. It's important to learn new skills and sharpen them with deliberate practice, but we don't truly know how good we are at those skills until we have to apply them under pressure. How do we respond when a show starts going poorly and we don't have a coach to point us in the right direction? What are our go-to moves when we panic? We can't truly understand our abilities without putting them to the test. 

There is no better method of assessment than autonomous experience. 

To put it bluntly - we have to get onstage in front of an audience and we have to do it a lot.

The tricky thing about improv is that rehearsal is often enough to satisfy the fix. But rehearsals are learning zones (at least they're supposed to be) and thus largely risk-free. If we're the type of improviser who rehearses much more often than we perform, we should do a little self-analysis and figure out why that is. For newer improvisers it might be that performing can be a little scary and we're avoiding doing shows out of fear. For more experienced improvisers it might be that it's hard to get onstage where we are and there just aren't enough performance opportunities. Both are examples of restrictive short-term thinking. Novices who want to get better will eventually have to face their fears and make themselves a little vulnerable. Veterans who want more regular stage time will have to put in the work to create new opportunities. Improv has never been more popular than it is right now. It's happening in bars, basements, cafes, hostels, and practice spaces all over the world. If we want to make more of it, there are plenty of bars, basements, cafes, hostels, and practice spaces still available.

The best improvisers are those who have confidence in their instincts and aggressively trust their own abilities, and that's not something you can build solely in the classroom. Even the best school's curriculum is just the beginning of the journey. A lot more people take improv classes than do improv; becoming a skilled improviser is a challenging and lengthy process. A process of doing.

Perhaps the hardest lesson to learn about the process is patience. It takes a lot of reps. It takes a lot of mistakes. It take a lot of years to get good at this. But the end result - the confidence, the community, the passion, the exhilaration of discovering something that surprises yourself and your scene partner and the audience all at the same time - is all truly worth it. The sooner we can understand what we want out of improv and why we want it, the sooner we understand how learning works, the sooner we become our own personal teacher, the more efficiently we'll navigate the path. The faster we'll accomplish our goals.

Here are some additional things I've learned along the way:

1. You're where you are for a reason. Ignore what other people are doing and figure out what there is to learn from your current circumstances. Don't half-ass a project because you never know what it might become. If you think a project is truly bad, don't do it. Respect your own time.
2. There are always opportunities if you look hard enough. Sometimes you only find them in your imagination and they're just a little more work to get.
3. There is always a way to expand your skill-set. There are other performance-related activities that have applicable improv skills.
4. Expand your frame of reference. Read history. Study the universe. Consume culture. Follow the news. Your job is to be able to resonate with any audience as quickly as possible. The larger your frame of reference, the easier it is. 
5. Surround yourself with people of similar goals. It's a lot easier on your mental health when you're not going it alone.
6. The key to staying ahead of the curve is adapting faster than everyone else.
7. Not everyone will like you and that's their problem.
8. The present is all there is. Stop planning ahead. Stop clinging to the past. Be here now.
9. Be honest. Be open. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
10. The best art is philosophical.
11. Take what you like and leave the rest.
12. Keep going.

I Have No Idea What's Going On

"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."
- Warren Buffett

There is no formula for improvisation. 

There are best practices. There are choices that are generally more effective than others. There are ways to simplify and streamline.  But there isn't a set of steps that if made in the right order will guarantee a successfully engaging and comedic scene. Despite these best practices and more effective choices, we've all seen scenes that should have worked and didn't. They fulfilled all the requirements of what a successful scene should be and they still weren't funny or interesting. Conversely, we've all seen scenes that shouldn't have worked on paper but succeeded anyway. They've been ungrounded and nonsensical and contextless but hilarious and engaging nonetheless.

As much time as we spend studying these best practices and more effective choices, ultimately it's not what we do that makes our scenes interesting, it's how we do it. We could take a scene from a 101 class that completely crashed and burned and give it to 10-year vets and without changing any of the action or dialogue they'd likely find a way to make it interesting and funny. The major difference between skilled and unskilled players isn't that skilled players follow the rules better than unskilled players. The difference is that skilled players are more comfortable handling whatever comes up. They present information in interesting ways. They notice and acknowledge every detail. They turn mistakes into gifts. They find ways to keep things moving. They let themselves get surprised. Skilled players don't panic when they have no idea what's going on.

Become comfortable with uncertainty. 

In improv, uncertainty will generally come in the form of two thoughts  - "I don't know where the scene is going" and "I don't know what is happening right now." 

"I don't know where the scene is going" will and should never go away. We might establish a repeating pattern or game, but we shouldn't know the exact specifics. Even when we have a game to lean on, there will be plenty of room for surprises in resting, heightening, exploring, and breaking it. Knowing exactly what's going to happen in the scene is a good way to make it boring. Much of the audience's engagement comes from not knowing what's going to happen next, and we should only be slightly ahead of them. We might know the next move or two, but if we're planning ahead much further than that we're likely to overlook something that comes up. Not knowing where the scene is going is just part of living in the moment.

"I don't know what's happening right now" is a bit more problematic. Unfortunately it also happens all the time. We're in a scene and we don't know who we are or where we are or what we're talking about or what we're doing. Sometimes this is a problem that can be solved by adding more information - naming the missing piece of who/what/where that will ground us and release that lingering tension of uncertainty. Sometimes it isn't that simple. Sometimes "I don't know what's happening right now" is caused by too much information. This happens a lot in group scenes or scenes with a lot of walk-ons. So much is being added so quickly that it seems impossibly incomprehensible. What do we do when we find ourselves in these moments? What are some tricks to help us feel a little more comfortable with uncertainty?

Embrace Everything

Now is not the time to be picky. We have no idea what's going on, so we can't possibly know what fits and what doesn't. Aggressively accept every piece of information being thrown on the pile. Commit to hard yes-ing for as long as it takes for things to settle down (or until the scene is edited). Two of our teammates just walked on back-to-back adding completely disparate information? No problem. We don't have to make it make sense, we just have to agree that it's part of the reality and exactly the right move. Embrace, embrace, embrace. The audience will lean back if they notice things are out of control, and they will only notice if we panic. Even worse, if we try to slow things down to parse through it all our teammates will notice us struggling and may try to add even more information. 

Confidence is immediate aggressive acceptance.

The audience might be just as confused as we are, but if we act like everything is going great they'll assume it is and they somehow missed something. If we have to make a choice between understanding and control, it's much more important to show that we're still in control. It will maintain audience trust and buy us some time while we find a way to ground ourselves and/or solidify a direction to take the scene. Which brings us to our next goal...

Pick a Focus

When there's so much outwardly unrelated information flying around it can be overwhelming to try to figure out how to handle it all. It may seem impossible to try to connect everything all at once. Whenever we feel this way, we're probably right. In these moments we shouldn't try to make everything make sense right away. Instead, we should pick one thing that sticks out to us and make it our primary focus. 

In an intentionally insane example, let's say we're in a scene where two people are breaking up. Suddenly someone walks on to tell us the building's on fire. Immediately after that someone else walks on to tell us The Queen of England is coming over and we have to clean up. Immediately after that a third person walks on and starts stomping around making fart noises. Instead of trying to find a way to make all of these things immediately fit together, we should pick one thing to care about the most and make it our utmost priority. Obviously we'll want to embrace all the other offers, but we don't necessarily care about them as much as our primary focus. In effect, we're establishing a worldview through which we can filter all the other pieces of information.

Have priorities.

If we decide our focus is "The Queen of England is coming over", all of our choices for the rest of the scene are filtered through that priority - "we can have this conversation later, The Queen is coming!"..."she survived The Blitz, do you think she cares about a little house fire?"..."wipe down the fart machine, it's so dusty!" etc etc. We're still acknowledging all the crazy stuff happening around us, they just aren't as important as our chosen focus. The comedy will come from our extreme commitment to one thing leading to potentially misplaced priorities (e.g. The Queen visiting is more important to us than the house burning down). Furthermore, if our scene partners pick a different focus, much of the scene's comedic energy will come from these conflicting priorities getting in the way of one another. Our commitment to one thing will help us (and the audience) understand where to put our energy and attention and will prevent us from being overwhelmed by trying to deal with everything at once.

Commit

When it comes to not knowing what's happening in a scene, there are basically two ways to respond - add new information or don't. There's nothing inherently good or bad about either of these responses. Certain circumstances will call for adding information while others won't. The problem is when either of these choices are made out of fear or timidity rather than in service of the scene. Are we adding information because we're panicking and feel the need to just do something or because we've recognized a missing element that we can add to get everyone on the same page? Are we not adding information because we're afraid of messing up or because we already have enough to work with?

It's likely that in these uncertain moments we'll find ourselves falling toward one end of the spectrum more often than the other. Recognizing our tendencies will go a long way toward understanding how to best respond when we find ourselves in similar circumstances. Our gut instinct when we're uncomfortable might be the right move some of the time, but we should be aware that what feels safe isn't always the right choice. If our tendency when we're uncertain is to lean back and not add, we should force ourselves to push through that instinct and look for moments when the better choice is to add some information. If our tendency is to add or act for the sake of addition or action, we should work to be a little more discerning and patient. The sweet spot will always be the middle, where we're comfortable going either way depending on the needs of the scene.

No matter how we respond, it's important to fully commit to that choice. Both our teammates and the audience take their cues from us. If we're adding information but we're doing it timidly or we're not adding anything because we're afraid of making the wrong move, they'll sense our discomfort and their trust in us will suffer. Instead, if we decide the best choice is to add new information, we should act like it's the most helpful thing we could do in that moment, even if we're secretly unsure. Similarly, if we decide the best choice is to not add anything, we should commit to it completely. We can choose that we already have all the information we need and that we just need to unpack or build on it a little more.

Meaning is manufactured. Something is important because we decide it is.

Commitment and confidence goes a long way in helping us find direction in uncertain moments. Making a choice and not wavering from it will help us find solid ground where there was previously instability. If we decide The Queen of England's visit is our utmost priority, we should hold onto that decision for the duration of the scene. Even when being consumed by fire or suffocated by farts, we are 100% dedicated to making The Queen's stay as pleasant as possible.

Create Rhythms

Any successful scene needs something to ground it in order to be sufficiently engaging. Most commonly this comes in the form of establishing a resonant context (norms & expectations) against which its comedic (unusual & unexpected) elements can stand out. However, when things get a little crazy and information is flying all over the place, establishing that resonant context and/or keeping comedic elements manageable can be difficult. In moments like these, rather than attempting to wrangle all the information, we can ground the scene by taking some element and repeating it at regular intervals to create a scenic rhythm. That element can be anything - a noise, an action, a catchphrase, a chant, a point of view, a story, etc - as long as it's consistent. This is a place where Picking a Focus will really come in handy. If our priority is The Queen, something as simple as "The Queen is coming!" repeated throughout the scene will establish a consistent through-line that we can repeatedly return to whenever we need a break from the craziness.

The idea is to create a sort of tension/release game that will give us and the audience something to lean on in the midst of uncertainty. The tension comes from the confusion that already exists when we're overwhelmed by lots of disparate information. The release comes from that familiar element being repeated. If we can time the release at regular intervals, it will create a satisfying rhythm to the scene.

A repeating familiar element creates comfort.

Even if the audience doesn't know exactly what's going on, they'll appreciate having that familiar element and knowing that if they're patient during moments of confusion it'll come around again. It's like listening to a song in a foreign language. We might not understand what it's about, but it has familiar rhythmic elements that keep us engaged and entertained.

In practice, putting these methods to work will take some time. It's normal to panic and struggle when things feel out of control, and even the most seasoned performers get lost sometimes. But by having an awareness of our own tendencies in these moments, and with an intentional effort to embrace everything that comes at us, be decisive, and commit fully and repeatedly to our choices, we'll slowly start becoming comfortable with uncertainty. There are ways to find solid ground in uncertain moments. We just have to know where and how to look.

Understanding. Change.

“The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.” 
― Alan Watts

Lately I've noticed that a whole lot of improv scenes start with a performer doing what I've decided to call Leading With Change. This is where in the first few lines they say something like "I hate [activity I'm currently doing]" or "I don't want to be a [occupation] anymore" or "I'm [dumping/firing/leaving] you".

I get why. Choosing to not like something feels like establishing a strong point of view. Scenes about relationships of any kind coming to an end are bound to be ripe with emotional energy. Unfortunately, I've also noticed that a whole lot of improv scenes that start this way end up being rather flimsy. They run out of steam and leave performers scrambling or they never really manage to latch onto anything particularly engaging.

What is it about Leading With Change that tends to create scenic instability? How can we handle Change in scenes in a more effective way? 

Change, conceptually, is rather simple. Something was one way and now it is (or in the future will be) another. Some sort of norm is being broken. Some sort of expectation is going unfulfilled. Some sort of consistency has stopped. Change is not a problem in itself. Every compelling scene will and should have one or several of its elements change as it continues (emotion, status, dynamic, etc). The problem is when Change comes too early it loses its ability to be impactful.

When Change is one of the first things that happen in a scene it becomes problematic because it becomes the central focus of the scene itself. Performers often have their characters resist because they're looking for anything to hang onto. It becomes a battle about whether the reasons for Change are sufficiently justified or whether or not the outcomes of Change will be beneficial to any of the characters onstage. The thing is, Change itself is not particularly compelling. What's compelling is how it immediately affects those involved. 

In order for Change to be sufficiently effective, we need to create Understanding.

If we're going to be breaking norms, leaving expectations unfulfilled, or ending consistency, we first need to establish what those norms, expectations, and consistency are. It's a perfectly acceptable choice for a character in a scene to not like something, but before they leave it behind we should see them experiencing it to understand why they feel the way they feel. For example, a character who doesn't want to be a teacher anymore should continue to be a teacher for a little bit so that we can see what they don't like about it. If we see the negative effects of their status quo and watch them being miserable, we are much more likely to empathize with their decision to change their situation. When they finally do get fed up and decide to change, we get why.

Ideally, we get to actively see the unwanted situation rather than talking about it. So if the teacher hates being a teacher because the kids are mean and the equipment is faulty, it's much more interesting to see the teacher get peppered with spitballs while the chalkboard collapses than it is to have the teacher tell us about it after the fact. Make it present. Show, don't tell.

Context is essential for both performers and the audience to understand the motivations of the characters. For performers: Why am I behaving like this? How and why is what I want better than what I don't want? What can I do next to get me closer to my goals? For the audience: Why should I care about what I'm watching? Should I root for or against this person? There's a reason the First Act in Three-Act Structure is almost entirely setup and exposition. It places us in space and time. It helps us relate. It sets a solid foundation for the rest of the story. The same applies to improv, just in a simpler and more accelerated way. 

If we're going to change something, we need to know what we're changing from and why we're changing it. 

We can operate much more efficiently when we create Understanding by building contexts that are resonant. Playing with ideas that people recognize helps us all get on the same page faster. Notice that most scenes take place in a universe that looks a lot like ours. A usual world make unusual ideas stand out. It takes lot more work (and a lot more time) to create a new universe with new rules than it is to start with an existing one that people already know. 

Even if we want our scene to exist in a strange universe, it helps when that strange universe is one that most people already recognizes. In these instances, tropes from tv and film are useful because they allow us to skip all the rule-establishing steps that would be required for entirely unique worlds and characters. For example if we want to do a scene involving a wizard, it's more efficient to steal the rules of a highly resonant already-established universe like Harry Potter than it is to create brand new wizard rules. That’s not to say that every scene with a wizard needs to reference Harry Potter specifically, just that it’s helpful use the rules of that universe as our foundation rather than trying to invent new ones.

This is one of the many reasons it's helpful for improvisers to have a significant cultural awareness. We need to understand the audience in order for them to understand us. The faster we can do this the faster we can start exploring whatever ideas come up. Because as important as creating Understanding is, we don't want it to be the entire scene. 

Once we’ve built our foundation, it’s time to introduce Change.

Change is one of the more difficult concepts for young improvisers to grasp because it goes against so much of their initial training. As a function of getting notes like “make a choice and stick with it” and “don’t drop your shit” constantly hammered into their brains they'll often find themselves trapped in those initial choices because they think changing them at all is against the rules. Like every improv maxim, "don't drop your shit" is generally good advice but not a strict requirement. In reality, a skilled improviser should be willing and ready to drop or adapt a choice if and when the scene calls for it. Unfortunately "don’t drop your shit unless new information changes your character’s circumstances in such a way that dropping your shit makes more sense than not" is a lot less pithy so it doesn't make the rounds as much. 

Another reason it's difficult to grasp is that it’s entirely situationally dependent; some scenes call for Change while others don't. For example, if my character choice is “parent who loves their child no matter awful the child is” I'll hold onto that choice as long as I deem it necessary for the scene to continue. This is based on a combination of my and my scene partners’ ability to find new and interesting ways to explore and heighten that dynamic and the audience’s ability to find that dynamic compelling. If I sense that at least one of those is beginning to lull I start looking for a way to switch something up. In this hypothetical example I’m most likely looking for a line to draw where I can make my child’s behavior unacceptable. Preferably that line is drawn based on something that came up earlier in the scene (setup/payoff is satisfying, especially if the payoff is discovered rather than planned), otherwise the line is arbitrarily drawn and made retroactively meaningful.

Ideally the original dynamic is sufficient enough on its own to sustain the entire scene, but this won't always be the case, especially if the scene ends up running longer than a few minutes. If the dynamic originally calls for a game with a heightening model, any Change I introduce might mean it makes more sense to switch to an on/off model* where I flip back and forth between negative and positive emotional reactions. This should give the scene a boost of energy which will sustain it for a few more minutes. In a show like the Harold where scenes are only going 4-5 minutes max, any major shift will probably end up being the button for the scene. In shows where scenes run longer, I'll likely have to do this one or more times and juggle multiple games in order to maintain it.

Introduce Change when momentum has plateaued. 

And it should come only when momentum plateaus - only when necessary. Too much Change hurts more than it helps. It's like shifting gears in a car. As the car accelerates, there's a window of rpm where the shift should happen to be maximally efficient. Shift too late and the engine starts working too hard to keep up. Shift too early and the engine stalls. Introduce Change too late in a scene and we have to work harder to keep it compelling. Introduce Change too early and it gets too confusing and the scene falls apart. 

But let's explore Change in relation to our original examples, all of which can be boiled down to "I don't want [whatever] anymore."

Essentially, this is a "No" to the status quo. “No” is a strong weapon that not many improvisers know how to wield effectively. It's a momentum stopper. It's dense. It contains a lot of gravity. Ask anyone with a few years' worth of experience what it's like to be outright negged. It's jarring. It feels like hitting a brick wall. Externally, a hard “no” might get a laugh, but internally it only creates more work. At best it slows momentum and at worst brings it to a screeching halt. It forces us to recalibrate our bearings and start moving, slowly, in a new direction. 

Plenty of improv teachers will stop a student who makes a “no” to status quo choice and encourage them to change their choice to a positive one (e.g. “Instead of not wanting to be a teacher anymore, choose to love being a teacher!”) This is fine instruction as it points students in the right direction, but often leads them to avoid certain choices rather than figuring out how to deal with all the ones that might come up. Because as much as we’d all love to avoid it, “No” will happen onstage. It will happen a lot, to varying degrees of severity, and it’s much more helpful for us to accept it and figure out how to handle it than it is to fear it and dwell on it when it happens because we believe we or our scene partner screwed up.

While we can’t undo less effective choices, we can learn how to deal with them by embracing them.

"No” isn’t an inherently bad choice, it’s just often less effective than "yes" when we're trying to build something. One of the interesting things about "no" is that because it has a lot of gravity, it has a lot of inherent force. If approached properly, we can turn that force into positive momentum, much like a spacecraft uses a planet's gravity to slingshot it further into space. The way we can do this is by approaching it indirectly. Focus too much on the "no" and we get trapped by it. Focus on what's around or behind it and we can use it to our advantage. 

Here's a quick video to help with the metaphor:

"To accelerate, the spacecraft flies with the movement of the planet, picking up a small chunk of its orbital energy in the process. To decelerate, the spacecraft flies against the planet's motion."  In his book How to be the Greatest Improviser on Earth, Will Hines suggests using "no" as a scenic decelerator where we can use it to "pump the brakes" in a scene. That is, if things are moving a little too fast, "no" is a good way to slow things down and keep everything under control. But what if the scene isn't moving yet? What if the "no" comes right away? What if it comes in the form of Leading With Change?

For example, let's say "I don't want to be a teacher anymore" is the very first line in a scene. A common instinct in this moment is for the scene partner to take the opposite viewpoint and argue that that character should still be a teacher. This is facing the "no" head on, and is a great way to get caught in its gravitational pull and stuck in place. Instead of going at the "no" directly, a more efficient use of our energy is to embrace it and use it to propel us forward. Say "yes" to the "no". Be willing to move in the same direction it's moving. Then we should aim behind it to look for motivations (why don't we want to be a teacher?). Finally, when we point ourselves further ahead (What do we want to do instead?) we can use the why of the denial to accelerate us there. 

So let's say it's "I don't want to be a teacher because I can't keep the kids under control; I just want to sit here on the beach and relax." Behind the "no" is "I can't keep the kids under control" and we're looking ahead to "I want to relax on the beach". The way we can use it to accelerate the scene is by bringing the justification for the "no" with us into the thing we'd rather be doing to show that there's no escape from the thing we're trying to escape. So while we're sitting there on the beach trying to relax, we keep finding ways for things out of our control to prevent us from relaxing. Maybe the weather gets bad or seagulls keep stealing our food or, even closer, there are kids on the beach who keep bugging us. The point is instead of getting caught up in what we don't want or trying to build something brand new we can use what we already have to manufacture irony. We've used the gravity of the "no" to slingshot us to something else. 

The key element here is the justification for the "no" has to be broad enough that it can be applied to whatever alternate activity we'd rather be doing. To continue the metaphor, it has to be far enough away from the "no" that it can still clear its gravitational pull. Something like "I don't want to be a teacher anymore because I don't like grading papers" is a little hard to apply outside of that scenario, so we need to aim a little further out. If "I don't like grading papers" becomes "I don't like taking my work home with me", it suddenly becomes a easier to apply to alternate scenarios.

There are a couple tricks here that will increase the likelihood of a smooth transition. The first, as we've explored before, is to make the justification personal. "I don't like this because of the way it makes me feel" is going to be a lot more universally applicable than "I don't like this because it has certain elements". It's more emotionally oriented, and your character can bring those emotions with them wherever they end up. "I don't like teaching because it makes me feel annoyed" is great because we can find ways to annoy that character no matter what situation they're in. "I don't like teaching because it's hard to write on chalkboards" is more difficult because it's a specific limited to fewer scenarios. It's going to be harder to manufacture irony because we'll have to find ways to keep making that character have to write on chalkboard on the beach (although the attempt could be very comedic). 

The second trick is if we know both the beginning and the end of the equation, we can quickly calculate the midpoint. If we know what we're changing from (teacher) and what we're changing to (relaxing on the beach) but don't yet have the justification, we can use what they have in common as our justification (kids, packed lunches, etc). Basically it's a scenic version of the warmup game Convergence. 

Use what's already there.

There's a reason discovery makes for better improv than invention. It's a much more efficient use of our time and energy. It's less work. 

Change is a big part of improv. Scenes will twist and turn and evolve, and a big part of becoming a better improviser will be learning how to adapt to those changes as quickly as possible. One thing that will help is Understanding where our characters come from and what they've been through. This grounds the Change in space and time and sets a strong foundation for the rest of the scene. Contexts that are resonant are especially useful for quickly creating Understanding. We can then introduce Change as needed whenever scenic momentum plateaus. Properly timed, it can accelerate the energy and pace of the scene to a satisfying high. If we find ourselves Leading With Change, we can roll with it by unpacking the information around it and bringing it with us. We can use the gravity of "no" as a helpful force rather than a hurdle to overcome.

Understanding. Change. Understanding. Change. Setup. Payoff. Rinse. Repeat.

*More on game models in a future post

I Am the Culture

A few weeks ago I came across something on Twitter (that unfortunately I haven't been able to find since) that said something like "Culture changes and suddenly everyone acts like they were there the whole time." 

Our culture is changing. The further into the process we go, the more true that statement looks.

The Harvey Weinstein story was the catalyst for an avalanche of stories of high profile sexual abusers in entertainment and politics that doesn’t seem to be slowing any time soon. Improv has had a number of cases of abuse of its own this year. UCB banned at least two instructors for sexual assault. DSI shut down soon after its owner was accused of rape. As I write this, the Reckless Theatre is in the middle of a heated scandal regarding its artistic director's inappropriate behavior toward students. 

Often when these stories emerge they seem so far away – like it has nothing to do with us. We watch as the news or social media unveils the most egregious offenders and act shocked and dismayed that these men have been allowed to exist for so long. We call them predators and monsters and cheer as their lives and careers crumble. We feel like spectators to something foreign and unrelated to our everyday lives. We create a moral distance between ourselves and the accused. We can’t imagine doing anything like what they have done. We condemn and shun and feel good about ourselves for not being like them.

This other-ization is a natural response, but it’s also part of the problem. It absolves us of all guilt. It puts the responsibility for the actions solely on the actor when in reality they existed in an environment that allowed them to flourish. Harvey Weinstein couldn’t have done what he did for three decades without help. It took a lot of people keeping quiet. It took a lot of people looking the other way. It took a culture of reluctant acceptance for him to survive for so long. More importantly, it took an entire society continually willing to appease powerful men and expect subservient women, including ignoring and even punishing them when they tried to speak out.

The culture is us and we are it.

This is not a sex problem. It is a power problem where sex is used as a weapon.

Men have been the main custodians of power for essentially all of history and have constructed a robust and pervasive sexist culture in order to maintain it. That culture manifests itself in a spectrum of ways. The most active and obvious is the creation and preservation of men like Weinstein. The most passive and subtle is the disregard for female voices and the rejection of female ideas (until they are claimed by men). The biggest mistake any of us can make is assuming we are free from its influence.

As painful as these stories can be, as dismayed as they make us feel, they present an opportunity for change. The big question is will we, as a society, do the work necessary to actually solve this problem? Will we commit to actual change or will we simply remove the most obviously bad symptoms and hope that’s enough? Do we really want to be better?

I believe we do. I believe we can. But it’s going to take all of us doing important individual work in order to happen. So what work do I have to do, as an individual, to change the culture?

First, I have to acknowledge my role.

This is an inherently unpleasant process. It doesn’t feel good to reflect on all the ways I have contributed to a toxic culture. I don’t particularly want to relive those moments, but I realize how important it is. Here’s a metaphor I like that applies to difficult but necessary change at both the macro and individual level:

The big takeaway here is that discomfort and vulnerability are requisite steps for growth. If I want to grow, I first have to let myself feel uncomfortable.

I recognize now that as a man I have acted as a symptom of a sexist culture. While I’ve never done anything as outright abusive and violent and horrible as the men in the news, I have contributed to the culture that allowed them to thrive by doing all the little things that add up to make life difficult for women, keep them living in fear, and silence their voices.

I have contributed to this culture in comedy as well.

In my first attempt at live comedy, I attempted a joke at a standup open mic that I thought was edgy but in retrospect was very sexist. In my second improv class I made a reference to spiking a woman's drink in a scene with the intention of that being a funny thing. In an early audition I did a scene where I repeatedly alluded to oral sex. I played female characters in stereotypical ways. I assumed female scene partners are wives or mothers or girlfriends. I steamrolled women's offers. 

Reliving all these moments in my memory is extremely uncomfortable for me. The open mic one literally makes me shudder. But I know that running from these memories won’t help me learn from them. I know I was learning and had to make some mistakes to get to where I am now. Honestly though, the hardest part about thinking of all these examples is that they are the ones I know about because someone told me afterward that they were sexist. I'm sure there are more moments I have totally forgotten because no one was there to correct me. As much as I am sorry for doing all these things and immensely regretful for the pain and discomfort they caused, I am much more sorry about the sexist things I have done that I don’t know about because I never got that feedback. I’m disappointed that I was previously so clueless; that it was so easy for me to hurt people that I didn’t even bother to remember it.

Because although it’s painful now to realize and dwell on some of the things I’ve done that have contributed to that culture, it’s a pain that I can experience in private. It’s a pain that I can escape from whenever I want to stop thinking about it. The pain I caused women through my behavior was much more powerful. They couldn’t escape from it. They weren’t protected by the buffer of time.

I also recognize that acknowledging my actions and feeling remorseful years later is too little too late. My actions created consequences that I can’t undo by feeling sorry about them. For example, I never saw the woman from my audition scene ever again. I don’t know if she kept doing improv or not. I don’t even know who she is, so I can’t look her up to find out. If she quit improv, it’s entirely possible it was because she didn’t like the culture. If she didn’t like the culture, it’s very likely that I played a major role in that opinion. As someone who truly loves improvisation, who truly believes it can be a force for positive personal change, who thinks everyone can benefit from studying it, the fact that I was potentially responsible, even if only a little, for pushing someone away from it is troubling.

I’m disappointed in myself. I never intended to hurt anyone. But as I’ve said before in the context of improv, intention doesn't matter. If something hurts, it hurts. If I unintentionally stab someone, it doesn’t change the fact that they got stabbed. The problem with what I did is I didn't see the wound so I didn’t know it was there.

If I could go back and undo the things I did I absolutely would. I’ve spent the last several weeks reflecting heavily on my actions and noting moments where I could have made better choices. I’m trying to learn from these mistakes so I can be better myself and so I can help other men be better too.

I also recognize how difficult it can be to actually take responsibility for this behavior. I understand the instinct to deflect. As I initially started reviewing my behavior I felt myself trying to blame everyone but myself. I wanted to blame my education. I wanted to blame my peers. I wanted to blame my entertainment. I wanted to blame my environment. All of these things may have truly influenced me, but when it comes down to it, despite the circumstances of my situation or my influences, these are things that I did. These are ways I was wrong. Blaming anyone or anything but myself only functions to make me not wrong when I clearly was.

I can’t change the past, but I can make a commitment to behavioral change moving forward.

This is not something I can brush off and assume everything is going to be easy moving forward. This is something I will always need to work to be hyper aware of. I was raised in a society where significantly sexist behavior was not just okay; it was often celebrated.

This is where we see the influence of power again. Men, as custodians of power, have also been the keepers of the culture. One of the reasons beyond celebrity that entertainment yields a high rate of the worst abusers is because it also has a lot of social influence. When you control the microphone you get to decide what gets said into it. You can decide to limit those messages to things that make you look good, or at the very least, don’t make you look bad. Historically, in a vast number of ways that won’t fit in this already-long piece, male-produced entertainment has promoted maleness as positive and femaleness as negative. It has highlighted positive male behavior and shown extreme leniency to negative male behavior. At the same time it has essentially ignored female behavior altogether unless it is in service of men.

Again, this is not an attempt to deflect from the fact that I’ve made poor choices. It’s to say that our entire society was trained to see that certain negative behavior was okay and even expected. So when men are put into situations where they can make a bad choice, like soft or passive sexism, they might not recognize that it’s bad. If they do know it’s bad, in the cases of the hard or active sexism like harassment and abuse, they’ll feel relatively safe in following through on those actions because they they’re surrounded by people who will protect them by excusing or diminishing their behavior.

The good news, despite how bad it might seem right now, is there are a lot of cracks in the shell. We’re discussing these issues in public forums. We’re highlighting the problems in our society in order to finally address them properly. Women are less afraid of sharing their stories. Men are more willing to listen. There are still good people in power and good people continue to take it. We’re making progress.

But consistent progress requires consistent vigilance and dedicated effort. You can’t change a whole culture overnight. We need to continue to hold people in power accountable. We need to hold them to an even higher standard of behavior than average. People in power need to be hyper aware of their authority and sway. They need to recognize that they aren’t safe from its influence, no matter how good they think they are. No matter how good their intentions may be.

No one is safe from being corrupted.

Even in my short stint with limited power as an improv coach I’ve seen the windows for abuse. I know what they look like. I know how common they are. I know how easy it would be to cross a line. All of these things start small. None of these things happen right away. The line gets pushed slowly over time. People who abuse their power start with little things that no one will call them on because people are afraid of their status. Then, years later, everyone looks around and wonders how it got so bad. That powerful person, who may have started out with good intentions, tries to take a shortcut or push a boundary for a thrill or makes a mistake and tries to hide it, and gets a ball rolling that they can’t stop that runs them over in the end. Sell your soul to the devil and he eventually comes to claim it.

As hard as it will be, positive change will come with a combination of Vigilance, Patience, and Courage.

We need Vigilance because sexist behavior can occur any time and anywhere by anyone. Our biggest enemy will be bystander effect – when we’ll think we won’t have to address a specific incident, no matter how small, because we think someone else will. When we see behavior that crosses a line, we need to find a way to call it out.

We need Patience because it’s difficult to change. It can be frustrating that decency can seem so obvious yet so many people are incapable of it, but our obsolete sexist culture has improperly trained a lot of men and women. Of course we should be strict with violent and serial offenders, but I do believe that most sexism stems from ignorance more than malice. Education and forgiveness, rather than punishment, is the way forward. We’re not doing anyone any favors by punishing people for simple mistakes. It only creates more pain. One of the biggest things I’ve learned from coaching improv is that yelling at someone for messing up doesn’t help them grow. It only makes them defensive, cements them in their ways, and creates a rift between us that makes them less likely to listen and less willing to change.

Perhaps most difficult will be Courage. It can be truly intimidating to give negative feedback to people, especially when they hold power over us. What if they don’t take it well? What if they retaliate? These are risks we need to be willing to take in order to create change. A good leader knows how to handle criticism. A bad leader can be molded if behavior is corrected early enough. But it was a culture of fear of leadership that allowed so many of our bad leaders to grow and harden in their ways. If we truly recognize that abuse is a power problem, we need to take a stand against power. Often that will mean being willing to make ourselves vulnerable. Sometimes that will mean letting ourselves get punished.

Abusive leaders use fear as a tool of control.

They divide and isolate. They make you feel like you’re the only person who thinks how you think or feels how you feel. They make you feel wrong about everything. They threaten your job or withhold opportunities. Be willing to lose opportunities in toxic environments. Refuse to be divided and we’ll be less afraid. Refuse to fear and they lose their control.

Clearly changing the culture of an entire society is a monumental task. I can’t do that all on my own. But if everyone makes an effort to better the places they do have influence, it will all come together.

If my sphere of influence is improv,

What can I do as a performer and instructor to contribute to positive cultural change?

1. I can recognize the role I have played in the sexist culture. I can reflect on any of the poor choices I have made, see how I was wrong, and commit to learning from them.*
2. I can accept that on the path of change I will probably make another mistake. I can be open to being corrected. I can apologize. I can learn from it.
3. As a performer, I can be constantly aware of my words and actions on and offstage and how they affect people. I can avoid using sexist language or playing sexist characters, even if it seems funny in the moment. As an instructor, I can make sure I correct sexist choices early and often, instead of assuming some other instructor will.
4. I can be patient with young improvisers who will make these mistakes. I can explain why their choices were wrong and show them ways to avoid making those same mistakes in the future. I can understand that they probably didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I can accept their apology and forgive them.
5. I can speak out against those in improv who abuse their power. I can be willing to be punished for doing so.

*Important disclaimer - I don’t believe #1 is a public step. I have listed a few of mine above as an example of my process, but I don’t think every improviser publicizing their history of sexist choices would be helpful. At best it brings bad moments back to the spotlight. At worst it’s an attempt to get some positive attention. Really go over those moments so you can learn from them, but keep them to yourself. Commit to change because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s trendy. I know I messed up. If you were there, you know I messed up too. Now let’s heal.

Cultural transition is a scary and confusing time. It may seem like everything is crumbling around us, but it just means we’re finally addressing our serious problems. It signals better things ahead. Who knows how long it will take or what else will change with it, but one thing that’s certain is there’s no turning back. We can either adapt or we can get left behind, and I’m confident that we’ll adapt.

Improv will survive this. Society will survive this. Both will come out stronger because of it.

I will come out stronger because of these changes too, but only if I let myself grow. In order to do that, I must shed my old shell and start working on a new one.

In the Beginning There Was Clarity & Motion

In the beginning there was nothing, nothing but the silence of infinite darkness. The breath of the Creator flooded against the face of the void whispering "let there be light" and light was, and it was good. The first day. And then the formless light began to take on substance and shape the second day, and the whole world was born, our beautiful, fragile home. And a great warming light nurtured its days, and a lesser light ruled the nights, and there was evening and morning, another day.
- Darren Aronofsky's Noah

There's a lot of pressure in beginnings. 

The first few moves in a scene are vastly more influential than the rest. They set the direction, tone, and pace of the entire thing. It's where momentum is established. A scene that starts as an argument will probably stay one. A scene with dark content will probably stay dark. A scene that starts slowly will probably stay relatively slow. The longer the scene the more likely it will evolve, but for the vast majority of scenes (those <5 minutes) those first 3-5 moves will dictate the style of the rest. There are also all the rules to consider - Say yes. Listen. Define the relationship. Name the location. Endow your scene partner with an attribute. Say how you feel. Don't ask questions. Don't talk about what you're doing. Emote. Look for the first unusual thing. Interact with the environment. Don't think. 

The combination of choice significance and checklist of things to remember can make the beginning of a scene feel daunting and overwhelming. It can be easy to get into a tentative mindset where we act from a place of playing to not mess up instead of playing to discover. Often we'll find ourselves making vague, open-ended moves that buy us some time while we think of something interesting or that can easily slot into whatever idea our scene partner might have. This is being "in your head", a dreaded zone of doubt and fear that can compound upon itself if we recognize that we're in it and panic. Common advice to "get out of your head" is to go external - to shift our focus to the environment or our scene partner in the hopes we'll find something to latch onto there. This tactic can be helpful, but it doesn't solve the problem so much as avoid it. We're still not confident. We still don't trust our own brains. It puts all the attention on one thing or character, which often quickly causes the scene to be lopsided or fizzle out. A scene needs to be somewhat balanced to sustain itself. Eventually we need to have something we can hold onto for ourselves.

The key is to still operate internally but not from our brain. Playing a foot lower, from the gut (right between the heart and the stomach), will force us to stay in the moment and compel us to act on our first instinct instead of overthinking our moves. This is easier said than done, simply because a lot of our training has been rule-based and therefore mental. It will feel like we're playing from behind instead of a step ahead. But it gets us out of our heads specifically because we're making choices without considering their effects first. Our brain is good enough to keep up and it will take care of us, but we have to let it. And we do that by acting without telling it first.

Ultimately it'll be a balance of brain and gut play that will make us consistently successful, but we can emphasize one or the other if we find that leaning too far in one direction is hindering our performance. In order to lean toward the gut instead of the brain we need to change how we approach our relationship with the scene. Acting from the brain involves a more formulaic approach. What rules can we apply to the current scenario that will more likely increase our chances of success? Acting from the gut involves considering how the scene feels. It means reading the scene's energy, tone, and pace and making adjustments to each as necessary.

For the most part, gut adjustments will be moment-specific so it's tough to give any broad practical advice other than "if it's not working, try something else". But for the beginning of scenes where there are fewer variables there are a couple things we can look for that will increase our chances of a successfully engaging scene - Clarity & Motion.

Clarity

We see in order to move; we move in order to see.
- William Gibson, author

Improv is an art form wherein we ask the audience to do a lot of heavy lifting. We ask them to invest in scenarios that are intentionally ridiculous in environments they can't see for characters that often don't look anything like the actors appear. As a bonus, we tell them we haven't preplanned any of the material and have no idea what's about to happen. By simply agreeing to watch the show they are giving us an immense amount of trust. But this trust is conditional. It requires constant upkeep and maintenance over the course of the show. 

One way to maintain that trust is by committing fully to the reality of the scene. Another, and what we'll talk about here, is by being very clear about what is happening at all times.

In a universe built from nothing, ambiguity doesn't play.

The audience will happily do the mental work required to fill in the appearance of the environment, props, character, and suspend their disbelief enough to invest in ridiculous scenarios, but they draw the line at making our decisions for us. We have to tell them what they should be imagining. We have to be specific. We might find ourselves using undefined pronouns like "it" or "that" or "they", which can make it seem like we're talking about something. In reality, if we haven't yet defined what "it" or "that" or "they" is, we're actually talking about nothing. This usually comes from a place of indecisiveness or politeness. We're afraid of making a wrong move or we're deferring to our scene partner who we think might have something in mind or make a better choice. But we're not doing ourselves any favors by avoiding or delaying specificity this way. What exact type of space are we in? What exactly are we holding? What exact physical features are relevant to our characters? Both the performers and the audience need to know and they need to know as soon as possible. The more specific we can be the more likely we are to get everyone on the same page and avoid scenic dissonance. 

Here's something I stumbled across that I've found to be very helpful with storytelling:

Kurt Vonnegut's 8 rules for Writing Fiction: 

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Although intended for traditional writing I believe all of these are directly applicable to improv (we are writing fiction after all, just in the moment from the inside as a team), but the one I'd like to emphasize here is #8. Providing "as much information as possible as soon as possible" in the first 3-5 moves creates Clarity, and in order to understand how we need to first recognize the important difference between information and details.

Details and information both fall under the umbrella of specificity, but the key difference is that details may or may not be relevant to what is happening. There might be a lamp in the room, but do we really need to know about it? Does it inform the scene or is it simply a detail? If the lamp is mentioned, it should be for good reason. There should be something relevant about the lamp that adds to the scene more than simply conjuring a more specific image of the location. This is the tricky difference that a lot of improvisers miss when we are noted to "be more specific". We assume we're being asked to add details when we're really being asked to add information. The ideal scene will be one in which nothing is wasted. Every bit of specificity is important and used to its fullest informative capacity. So when Vonnegut is urging us to give "as much information as possible as soon as possible", he is not suggesting we describe every detail of the scene. He's saying to immediately provide everything about context and character that is relevant for the reader to completely and perfectly understand exactly what is going on at all times. Details are irrelevant. Information informs.

It's important to note that information is not limited to dialogue. Body language, attitude, emotional response, and action can all inform the scene. It's also completely possible to turn details into information by looking behind them for meaning retroactively. We might make a move at the top, like washing dishes, with no idea what it might mean as we're doing it. It'll tell us that we're probably in a kitchen, which is a nice way to narrow down context, but can we go even further by looking at how we're doing it? Are we rushing? Does that mean we're running late for something? Are we washing the same plate nonstop? Maybe that means we're distracted. Furthermore, words and actions that don't necessarily have built-in associations can be just as informative if we create new associations for them by reacting to them in unusual ways. For example, hiccups in our universe are a trivial annoyance while in another they might indicate looming disaster. We might have to explain a little more about that universe's rules if they differ from ours, but it doesn't make it any less effective or informative. 

In summary, there are several ways we can provide "as much information as possible as soon as possible" at the top of a scene to create Clarity:

1. Avoid ambiguity. (watch out for undefined pronouns like "it", "that", "they", etc)
2. Be more specific. ("A cat crossed in front of us." vs. "A black cat crossed in front of us.")
3. Use words that have associations and implications. ("Your shirt is red." vs. "Your shirt is bloody.")
4. Find meaning by taking a closer look. ("You're being a little twitchy. Nervous about your date?")
5. Create meaning by reacting to ordinary things in unusual ways. ("My hair is longer? Oh no, I'm shrinking!")

If the beginning of a scene feels a little too vague and unclear, we can pull one of these moves out of our pocket to provide some information and set ourselves in the right direction.

Motion

Everything changes and nothing stands still.
- Heraclitus of Ephesus, philosopher

Everything moves. Even the most still-appearing objects are actually moving. Zoom in and we see they are made up of constantly and rapidly vibrating atoms. Zoom out and we see they sit on a planet shooting through space at 67,000 miles an hour. Motion is a natural state of being. It's literally impossible to not do it. As such, motion is inherently satisfying both to feel and observe. Things that appear motionless usually don't hold our attention for long. Things that appear to move grab it immediately. For humans this attraction applies not just to observable motion through physical space, but also the motion of social and emotional energies to which we're naturally attuned. Just as a bird flying across our view will immediately draw our attention, so will the sudden change in energy when a room full of people talking abruptly goes silent.  

This gravitation toward movement applies to our entertainment as much as anything else. There's a reason classic story structure looks like this:

Stories need Motion, both physical and emotional. And that Motion is never a straight line. Bad stuff happens. Good stuff happens. More bad stuff happens. More good stuff happens. Overall hopefully more good stuff happens than bad stuff, but maybe not. The point is that stuff happens and it's not always the same kind of stuff. Things change. Energies and emotions constantly morph and flow and end up somewhere totally different from where they began. It's this ever-present Motion that makes stories constantly hold our attention. It's the tension between Vonnegut's #2 and his #6 that keeps us enraptured.

The point is not to say that improv should follow traditional story structure. Though some longer narrative shows will, the majority of standalone scenes don't have the time. More likely they will be a condensed version or small segments of a larger story that we'll never get to see. The point is that things need to happen to our characters. Things need to change for them. Their circumstances, their relationships, their emotions - whatever it is, something needs to change. That change won't always be positive for them and it absolutely should not be. It's natural for us to try to avoid bad stuff, but we are not our character. We should always be open to letting bad things happen to our characters because that will create that will create Motion and Motion is captivating.

Ideally we'll want to use combination of character Motion and scenic Motion to make the scene as compelling as possible. Character Motion is how our character moves in space and time. This could be as simple as doing some object work or moving around in the environment, or made more complex by changing locations mid-scene or traveling. In more complicated cases, the addition of side support can help create the illusion of movement. For example, if the characters in focus are driving a car, improvisers on the sides can start downstage and move up (starting closer to the audience and moving to the back wall) to show that the car is moving forward. Changing how quickly the side performers move can create the appearance of the car speeding up, slowing down, or stopping. Whenever we notice ourselves standing and talking for more than a few lines (a "talking heads" scene) is a good time to inject some character Motion. Of course, any character Motion we add should fit the needs of the scene. We shouldn't force our characters to change locations for the sake of it, but even some simple object work can create some much-needed Motion while simultaneously adding Clarity to the environment. 

Scenic Motion has more to do with broader changes in energy and emotion that encompass all the characters in the scene. It's how the words and actions of our character create a reaction in others, and vice versa. We can create scenic Motion in our first 3-5 lines by saying Yes, not just by accepting information as true, but by pursuing opportunities for action. We're taught Yes on day one of our first improv class, but it's usually in the context of informational agreement (Yes, you're my cousin, Yes, we're in the back yard, etc). But especially early in the scene when we want to create some energy and momentum, saying Yes to action is essential. An immensely common pitfall for early performers is to agree to information but say No to the first opportunity for action ("I don't want to [whatever]"). We do it because we're told to make strong choices and putting our foot down about something feels like a strong choice. While this move can be a useful way to begin to uncover a character's worldview, it usually halts any scenic momentum before it can even get started. It's perfectly fine for our character to not want to do something and if so they should absolutely explain why, but in the end they need to either do it reluctantly or offer an alternative action. 

We're allowed to not want to do something but we're not allowed to do nothing.

A huge percentage of improv scenes end up being arguments because of this reason. When we push back against our scene partner it feels like we're creating Motion because we're exerting force. But when our scene partner exerts the same amount of force in the equal and opposite direction, we end up not moving anywhere. That initial collision of desires might be interesting and may even get a laugh, but that laugh usually hurts more than it helps because it leads us down a dead end. We think if we both double down it will keep working when instead it simply halts any potential scenic Motion. It's up to one of us to recognize this and give. Lose. Say "okay, fine" and drop your position. In the moment it can be scary because we might not know what to do next, but we'll figure it out soon enough. How does that change the dynamic between characters? How do each of us react to winning and losing? As the winner, resist the urge to try to get the loser to re-tread the same argument in order to feel safe back in the conflict. Use what we've already established to determine which direction to head next.

The best way to understand scenic Motion is to play around with it. Let one character win a little bit, then lose a little bit. Mix it up. Let stuff happen to our characters. Let them get hurt. Let them change. Depending on the length of the scene will depend on how much of that we get to see, but Motion, especially in those first 3-5 lines, is essential to a successfully compelling scene. Improv is a dance. It's not about where our characters end up, it's about the moves they make as they encounter others.

In summary, there are several things we can do at the top of the scene to create Motion:

1. Let bad stuff happen to our characters.
2. Move in space & time.
3. Say Yes to action.
4. Create new opportunities for action.
5. Lose on purpose.

If the beginning of a scene feels like it isn't moving, we can use one of these choices to create some Motion and start building scenic momentum.

In the beginning, when there is nothing, our initial focus should be on the implications and associations of our words and actions. If our gut tells us things are a little too vague, it's time to add some Clarity. Once we've shed some light on the scene, it's about letting momentum build. If our gut tells us things are moving too slow or not at all, we know to create Motion. This early combination of Clarity & Motion will set the direction, tone, and pace of the rest of the scene.

And it will be good.

A Conversation With The Audience

I'm going to start this post by quoting myself. I realize this is perhaps the least modest way to start a post, but I have to start somewhere and it's a good lead-in to the subject I'd like to explore. If you're going exploring, it helps to start from familiar territory. This familiar territory just happens to be my own quote. Anyway, here goes - 

From Better, Faster:

The #1 way to get better is massive amounts of stage time.

In the realm of live performance this is somewhat unique to comedy, but it is especially true of improv. In traditional theater, dance, music, and even stand up and sketch, much of the work and growth happens behind closed doors through the writing, editing, memorization and repetition of material. For those endeavors, by the time performers get up in front of an audience, they are delivering what is presumably a final product. Obviously the material can be tweaked between performances based on audience feedback, and obviously there are elements of delivery that can only be honed through the live performance process, but in all of these fields there is unseen content preparation.

Improv has no content preparation. There is no material. The final product is discovered rather than delivered. This difference is what distinguishes improv as an entirely new genre of performance. Presentationally it's much like traditional theater (minus sets, costumes & props) but in practice it leans closer to sports. The significant amount of work that happens behind the scenes is geared toward sharpening technique and exposing players to situations that are likely to occur live. Like in sports, once the show starts, the pressure's on. We hope we've prepared enough for what's about to happen and any adjustments we want to make will have to happen on the fly. The range of ups and downs and twists and turns that can happen in a show are valuable learning opportunities that cannot be replicated in rehearsal.

The improv-sports comparison mostly ends there. Improv performance is largely noncompetitive while sports has wins, losses, points, and rankings. But there is a further shared element that we're going to take some time to explore - the relationship with the live audience.

In spectator sports, particularly at the professional level, crowd energy has an active effect on the game. A crowd that is friendly to the home team and antagonistic to the visitors is one of the major factors in home advantage due to the psychological effects it has on both the players and officials. For this reason, visiting teams will often strive to take an early lead to "take the crowd out of the game" and limit this advantage. Home teams try to influence crowd energy with cheerleaders, super fans, and music, though the biggest factor is the performance of the team itself.

That being said, while influential, crowd energy in sports can only affect the outcome of the game indirectly. A hyped crowd can get the home team fired up, but they can't add points to the scoreboard. A hostile crowd might shake the visiting team's confidence, but that might not completely stop them from scoring. Remove the crowd completely and the game still gets played. This is absolutely not the case with improv, where if no one shows up to watch the show probably gets canceled.

Audience energy is the centerpiece of the improv experience.

Being largely noncompetitive, audience energy is the only real barometer of performance quality. This is true regardless of technical execution. A sloppy show with a vocal, captivated audience always feels better than a technically impressive show with a quiet, disengaged one. A "good" show that the audience didn't like feels like a failure. A "bad" show that the audience loved feels like success.

Why? The show is a contract with the audience. They give us their time, attention, and hopefully some money. In exchange, we give them an Immersive & Joyful experience. If an audience doesn't like the show, we didn't fulfill our end of the deal. We didn't do our job. That's why it feels bad.

Immersive is non-negotiable. The audience should never be made self-aware. They should never be reminded that they're watching a performance. If we can manage to make them forget who they are and where they are, they'll be much more engaged, much more responsive, and much more willing to follow us down whatever unusual paths we discover. Immersion truly starts before the scenes even begin. Pre-show music and hosting prime the audience's energy, while proper lighting and minimal visual and auditory distractions focus their attention. However, just like in sports where no amount of music or cheerleading can get the crowd energized when their team is getting blown out, even the perfect improv atmosphere can't keep the audience engaged in a poor performance. That primed energy only lasts so long. We must sustain and heighten it from within by completely committing to our choices, building and maintaining a cohesive universe, and maintaining the 4th wall. 

Joyful is a little less strict. Generally speaking we're aiming for comedy, so it's going to be the default, but there are some shows that intentionally aim for a different tone. They intend to be tragic or dramatic or hopeful or unsettling, all of which is fine as long as the audience knows that's how they should feel. Because joyful is the default, specific effort needs to go into adjusting the audience's expectations. If we want our show to be unsettling, the pre-show music, hosting, and lighting should be unsettling and the unsettling tone of our performance should be focused and consistent. An audience that comes in presuming joyful will happily adapt to a different tone if they are properly primed, but if a dark show follows upbeat pre-show music, they're going to be slower to come around. No matter what the tone is, the audience should know exactly how they should feel from start to finish, and it's our job to tell them. A disjointed or scattered tone is a great way to make them confused and/or uncomfortable, which is a great way to ruin immersion.

Another great way to ruin immersion is by indelicately tackling sensitive subjects. This is a difficult area to explore because the rules are so nebulous, but we'll touch on it here because of its effects on the performer-audience relationship. 

Certain subjects (namely gender, politics, race, sexuality, traumatic events, and violence) and their corresponding language can make the audience uncomfortable. They come preloaded with negative associations and natural aversions, which makes them inherently more risky when the goal is comedy. High risk means high reward when handled successfully, but it also means the repercussions for failure are more drastic and lasting. Misuse sensitive language and we might lose the audience permanently. Even if most of the individual audience members aren't off-put, they sense when others are and will mentally disengage to withdraw their tacit support. At that point the audience isn't watching the scene, they're watching the performers survive - not a good place to be if we're trying to make them laugh.

The reason the rules of sensitive subjects are so nebulous is that they're situational. Moves that work on certain crowds in certain contexts with a certain delivery won't necessarily work (and might even hurt) if one or all of those things is changed even slightly. The ability to tackle these high-risk subjects successfully comes entirely from experience. People like Heather Anne Campbell and Jason Mantzoukas can regularly make high-risk choices look easy because consistently improvising for decades has made them experts in character, delivery, and wrangling audience energy.

Many young comedians think they can jump straight into sensitive material when they first start because they've seen people pull it off before. This ends poorly 99% of the time. This was a lesson I learned the hard way when I was getting started. In my first couple years of comedy there were several painful and embarrassing failures I endured because I was trying to be edgy. There were many many more I endured because I was clueless and inexperienced. I learned from both of them in different ways. The first lesson was that I wasn't as smart and special as I thought I was. I wasn't going to be great or even good without putting the work in and earning my stripes. The second was that I was going to make mistakes, lots of them, and that was okay as long as I learned from them. My skills accelerated rapidly once I figured out how to stop clinging to errors and beating myself up over them. It was much more productive and a lot less stressful to simply unpack their lessons and let them go.

Though the best way to learn when high-risk choices will succeed and fail is experience, we can accelerate the process with a better understanding of what makes things funny. There is no shortage of definitions and theories about humor, but one that is especially helpful when considering sensitive subjects is Peter McGraw's "benign violation":

Sensitive subjects are hard to make humorous because they are large violations. The larger violation, the more benign we have to make it. McGraw mentions adding psychological distance and making the violation seem unreal as two ways to do this. In Will Ferrell & The Music of Emotion we explored how Will Ferrell manages to make intense anger benign by doing both of these things at the same time. He'll make very violent threats (extreme violation) but put it far in the future against a person who doesn't exist (extremely benign). In improv, adding distance will often mean making the violation unseen - a character with a sensitive story will reference it, but we never see it play out. Seen violations are usually made benign by being made unreal, which can be done by turning the realism of the scene up or down. Heather & Miles, for example, make seen violence funny by heightening it so much it's ridiculous and obviously unrealistic. Fuck That Shit makes seen violence funny by barely committing to it so that it hardly affects their characters and often breaks the laws of physics. Inexperienced performers will often mistakenly assume the shock of a violation is enough to be funny, when instead all it does is alienate the audience. It's not enough to simply be surprising. In reality there is a lot more finesse that goes into making sensitive subjects funny than it might seem.

If an improv scene is a tightrope walk, tackling sensitive subjects in improv is a tightrope walk on your hands. If we can't comfortably make it across to begin with, we're guaranteed to fall if we try it upside down. For performers in their first few years of training who still have trouble making it across the rope consistently, it's probably in their best interest to avoid sensitive subjects altogether. However, sometimes we find ourselves in unavoidable situations in scenes we'd rather have avoided. For these moments, here are a few key things to remember:

• Punch up. The target of the comedy should not be anyone that has been historically marginalized.
• The bad guy needs to lose. It's okay to play evil as long as evil doesn't win.
• If a performer is uncomfortable the audience can tell and they will also get uncomfortable. Physical discomfort can be alleviated by adding physical distance between performers. Emotional discomfort can be alleviated by ending the scene.

One of the toughest parts of improv is being able to consistently fulfill our end of our contract with the audience. We can give some audiences an immersive & joyful experience, but can't manage to execute as well for others. The answer to raising our average is in how we approach the show. We can't assume what we do for familiar audiences in our most comfortable spaces will apply across the board. We need to be able to experiment with variables like pace, style, and energy in order to determine what gels with each new audience. Luckily, our craft that has lots of built-in flexibility.

Improv is a conversation with the audience.

Performing for a familiar audience is like talking to a friend. A history of positive interactions has created a certain level of rapport. We each understand how the other communicates and the performance can be riskier and looser. This established trust allows us a bit of a longer leash and the benefit of the doubt when it comes to pushing the envelope or doing something a little more experimental. These will often be the technically sloppy shows that feel great anyway because the audience had a good time. They'll let us get away with a lot more because we're making moves out of eagerness and excitement (as opposed to fear/self-consciousness) and they trust us to be able to pull it off. 

Performing for an unfamiliar audience is like talking to a stranger. They don't inherently trust us, so we can't come out and start talking to them like they know who we are and dive straight into our craziest, riskiest choices. We wouldn't start a conversation with a stranger by immediately sharing some deep personal secrets or doing something totally weird. It would be overwhelming and off-putting. Being friendly with a stranger is endearing, but assuming familiarity and crossing personal boundaries too soon will backfire. We have to ease them in and earn their confidence before we can introduce them to something more adventurous. This is the idea behind "earning it", as in "that move was unearned" or "you didn't earn that choice". It means that we crossed a line of familiarity with the audience and made them uncomfortable because we didn't take the time to build enough rapport. They will follow us down a crazy path, but only after we've earned their trust.

It's immensely important to be perceptive and flexible when performing for any audience, but especially an unfamiliar one. By making a variety of low-risk choices at the top of the show and seeing what types they respond to most, we can triangulate the best approach for the rest of the performance and increase our chances of a successful show.

Here's Greg Dean talking about the performer-audience relationship from the perspective of stand up:

That feedback loop with the audience, the give & take of energy, is what drives the entire show. The moves we make affect them, their response affects us, and this repeats nonstop until the blackout. As performers, it's our responsibility to get the ball rolling, but we're never entirely in charge. We can certainly influence, mold, and guide the energy, but at the same time we have to concede a good amount of control. We can set a tone with priming and consistency, but we can't drag the audience down a path they don't want to go down. Once things get going we have to be receptive to how the energy ebbs and flows and ride it wherever it wants to go.

This is what makes improv so special. It's not just that the content of the show will never be seen again, it's that the evolving energy loop created between the performers and the audience is entirely unique to that in-person experience. It's why the funniest improv scene isn't nearly as interesting when it's being retold later. It's why improv doesn't quite transfer to non-live mediums no matter how cool and fun they are. 

The audience is essential. The strength of our relationship with them is what makes or breaks the whole show, and it's only through massive amounts of stage time that we can learn how to cultivate it properly.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Success is not an accident.

Not a single improviser you admire got to where they are by being randomly plucked off the street or out of a class, getting tossed onstage, and spontaneously excelling. All of them started from a place of being generally terrible and improved over time by doing an enormous amount of reps. Yes, some of us start with a higher baseline of ability in certain areas. Some of us are more naturally attuned to what's comedic or faster learners or more willing to look foolish in front of strangers. But to be truly skilled - to be able to execute consistently at a high level - takes intentional long-term dedicated effort. 

In Embrace Slumps, Ignore Success we examined the ups and downs of that long road of artistic progress. One of the big early pitfalls for a lot of us is constantly comparing our progress to those around us. This can be especially tough if we aren't gifted with a higher baseline ability. Since most improv takes place in and around some sort of theater system, performers with higher baselines generally have more early "official" opportunities than their peers. They are a better short-term investment for the theater, which needs its new performers to be capable onstage more or less immediately. This early success can end up exacerbating the divide between high baseline and low baseline performers. The high baseline performers benefit from the resources that come with being a part of the system - regular, higher-quality stage time with more experienced teammates and instructors who have an expectation of execution. For those of us without those early opportunities, this can end up being a massive hurdle in our development and a big blow to our confidence. Not only are our peers getting cast over us, they're improving faster than us because of it.

This is when a lot of us start to wonder if we'll ever be really good. If maybe we just don't get improv. If maybe we should quit. These are perfectly normal thoughts that should be completely ignored. 

We live in a society that has quantified progress. Our entire educational system is structured in a linear graduated path. Each year, if we're doing it "right", we level up along with all our peers. We spend eight years in elementary school. Then four in high school. Then four in college. From there the path splits - grad school, doctorate programs, the military, sports, the professional world - all of which have their own hierarchical systems with growth checkpoints and markers of progress. Improv theaters function in much the same way. If we're doing it "right", we go through the levels of the school one after the other. Then we make our way through the performance development system. Less strictly scheduled but still tiered, the "better" the show the "better" the time slot. If you're performing on Saturday at 8pm, you know you've made it to the top.

Because progress is quantified, because we were raised our whole lives to level up with our peers, it can be massively discouraging to we feel like we aren't keeping up. If we see others moving faster than us or even passing us from behind it can feel like failure. But when it comes to improv there is no "right". This is a journey that takes years, decades. Some of us start with those higher baseline abilities and get that early systemic success. Some of us take more time to get up to speed and have to do everything on the outskirts of that system. In the end we're all trying to get to a place where we feel creatively happy.

In that regard, the only way to truly fail is to stop moving. 

Because we'll be spending a lot of time in and around one (or several) theater systems over the course of our improv careers, it's important to understand how they function. The better we understand the system the more we'll be able to use it to our advantage. The first thing to recognize is this - 

A system's #1 priority is to sustain itself.

That goes for any college, corporation, sports team, and yes, improv theater. No one individual's success is more important than survival and growth of the organization as a whole. This means that any decision a system makes is starting from a place of "how does this benefit the system?", not "how does this benefit the individual?". There is nothing inherently wrong with this. It can and should be a symbiotic relationship. A healthy system can more easily support performer growth. But there are limits to how much this can benefit us as individuals.

Plenty of us got into improv because we have dreams of emulating our comedy idols. "Making It" - a vague and variably defined combination of status and success in tv & film - was a big part of why we got started in performance and why we continue to perform. Because it is so vague and variably defined it can be difficult to determine how to get there, so we rely on the theater system to show us the way. This is especially true for systems like The Second City and UCB that have a decent amount of alumni who fit our definition of "Making It". Having recognizable alumni can be beneficial for a theater's reputation, but it's not something it can (or will) directly pursue. The tv & film industry (Hollywood) is a massive system in its own right, and one that is particularly difficult to break into as a performer. It helps to be talented, which you can certainly become in an improv theater, but just as navigating an improv system takes patience, practice, and commitment, so does navigating the Hollywood system. Improv theaters may be able to help us make connections or put us in front of producers, agents, and managers, but as long as they aren't in the business of tv & film production, that's about as far as they can take us. The rest is in Hollywood's hands.

If the goal is indeed "Making It", we should always carry the awareness that we are a commodity in competing systems. Improv theaters and the tv & film industry are both businesses that sell products. Improv systems sell education and live comedy. Hollywood systems sell pre-recorded narratives and commercials. Improv systems make us good at what improv systems sell. Hollywood systems make us good at what Hollywood systems sell. They both value some of the same skills (writing & acting), which is why we could all name some people who made the leap from improv to Hollywood. But it's not at all the case that improv systems lead directly into Hollywood systems. The path doesn't exactly line up. If we want to make a jump from an improv system to the Hollywood system, we need to make a conscious choice to shift our focus from one to the other.

If we are trying to transition from an improv system to a Hollywood system, we might find it to be difficult to leave. Because a theater's #1 priority is to sustain itself, it will heavily emphasize stability. Systems inherently resist change, and if we've made ourselves valuable to our theater as an instructor and performer, it will naturally try to retain us as long as it can. It takes a lot of time and energy to grow a competent improviser. It's an investment. And especially if it's making money off of our abilities, it benefits the theater to keep us around as long as possible rather than hand us off to another system. This resistance can manifest itself in different ways. At its worst and most damaging it will be a widespread systemic insecurity - the idea that no one at our theater could ever possibly be good enough to "Make It" so it's not worth trying. Particularly susceptible to this are small theaters that haven't ever produced a notable performer and those with poor and/or manipulative management. At its best and most challenging it will be the abundance of new and exciting shows to perform in, constant creative growth, and the unwillingness to leave our friends and give up our community status to start over somewhere else. This will be a problem for big theaters with a vast community, notable legacies, and plenty of diverse opportunities. Most places will have varying degrees of both.

In short, a theater system will not "Make" you. It doesn't have to in order to sustain itself and it's often not in its best interest. That's the bad news. The good news is the people who are going to "Make It" will do it anyway with or without a theater's direct assistance. So, if we wanted to, how do we become one of those people?

The first step is believing it's possible.

Much like how our education systems train us to progress along a predetermined path, our social systems train us to behave in predetermined ways. Frequently this comes in the form of associating aspects of our personalities with where we come from. This could be literally physical location ("She's nice because she's from the South"), family history ("He's rude because he comes from old money"), or personal backstory ("I'm afraid of water because I almost drowned when I was a kid"). Humans love to justify things based on the past, and that's something we often play into even if we don't recognize that we're doing it. If the environment we're raised in expects us to be polite, we'll eventually start behaving politely even if we don't want to because it's easier than fighting against it. Of course some of us will choose to be polite because it's a nice thing to do, but social pressures are strong and plenty of us who might prefer to be rude will choose to be polite simply to avoid social repercussions. Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly submitting ourselves to social expectations. Consciously or unconsciously, we consider what other people might think before we make our choices. This is great when we are compelled to act virtuously (like being polite) but can be a hinderance when we are pressured to behave in a way that prevents us from improving ourselves or accomplishing personal goals.

Social systems, like any others, resist change. We prefer that people behave in consistent, expected ways and play consistent, expected roles. We like to feel in control, and one of the biggest things that helps us feel that way is when other people are behaving predictably. However, because none of us are born successful, if we want to be, we're going to have to change in some ways. If we really want to achieve our goals we're probably going to have to adjust things like our attitude, our priorities, our image, and our circle of influence. As we make these adjustments, we should expect to encounter some social resistance along the way.

Early in my adult life, when I was still trying to figure out who I was, I posted this photo on Facebook.

It's a simple selfie; nothing special. But at the time it was somewhat uncharacteristic for me. All through college I was a floppy-haired nerd with no real confidence. I wasn't cool and I wasn't supposed to try to be. I think my friend was being a little tongue-in-cheek when they left their comment, but it struck a chord with me.

"Who do you think you are??" 

At the time I honestly had no idea. I wanted to write for television but I had no clue how to make that happen or even where to start. It seemed impossibly out of reach and in the back of my mind I never really expected to be able to do it anyway. I wanted to be comfortable with myself and not a constant ball of anxiety who would run from every challenge I was presented with. That self-esteem felt similarly out of reach, which only compounded its absence. The comment left me embarrassed. I knew the image I was presenting in this photo was dishonest and my friend had called me out on it. On the other hand, it was an image I vastly preferred over my "honest" one. The guy in the photo was cool and confident. The guy posting the photo was definitely not. I wanted to be the guy in the photo. I didn't want to be the guy posting it.

Over the next several years, I slowly figured out how to become more comfortable with myself. I discovered improv, which forced me to push my limits constantly and fail often. I learned that failure was never as terrible in actuality as it was in my imagination. I learned that whenever I forced myself to get back onstage after bad shows I was a little bit better. The whole time, that comment stuck with me. It would pop into my mind every time I had any self-doubt. But the interesting thing was that the more confident I became about my abilities, the more comfortable I became with myself, the more I started to actually like the person I was becoming, the more its meaning began to change. I had originally interpreted it as a deterrent - "this isn't who you are" - but over time it became an invitation  - "who do you want to be?". "You can't have what you want." became "What do you want to have?".

It wasn't until recently that I understood that the comment in its original interpretation was my social system resisting change. Whether my friend intended it or not, it initially acted to discourage me from pursuing anything beyond what I already had and being anything other than what I already was. For a while it worked. I considered what other people would think before I did anything. I shied away from doing things that I considered to be "not me". I would let other people's opinions define who I was. I let myself be defined by my past. It was only by forcing myself to not care about what other people thought that I really started coming into myself. The more I was able to ignore discouraging feedback, the more I was able to push myself to pursue the things I wanted to do instead of the things other people wanted me to do, the more confident I became. The more I was able to let go of where I came from, the faster I grew. I've encountered plenty of social resistance as I grew into the person I wanted to be, but "Who do you think you are??" stuck (and still does) because of its fluid interpretation. I have since managed to transform it from a barrier into a motivator, but only because at some point along the way I decided I wasn't going to let it beat me.

Lots of us will submit to social resistance without even knowing we're doing it. We'll accept whatever we've been given by where we come from or what we've done, play into the images and personalities we are told we should have by other people, often because being told who we are and how to be can be easier than figuring it out on our own. But when we submit to these external definitions at the expense of being honest with ourselves and pursuing who we truly want to be, we commit ourselves to dissatisfaction. Instead of pursuing what we really want, we behave how other people tell us to behave. We look how other people tell us to look. We do what other people tell us to do. We want what other people tell us to want. We let ourselves get trapped by the judgments, desires, and expectations of others.

There's an Alan Watts quote I've found to be useful whenever I find myself unhappy with myself:

You're under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.

The idea is that we're not as locked to our past as we assume we are. We are perfectly capable of changing practically anything about ourselves just by deciding to do it. Fixing bad habits, learning new skills, improving how we treat people, how we treat ourselves, what we prioritize, how we think - we can adjust all of these things by deciding to do it and committing completely to making it happen. It might be difficult. It will take time. But if we believe in our ability to make it happen and ignore external resistance, nothing can stop us.

People will tell you you can't have what you want. Ignore it. Even better, use it as fuel.

This doesn't mean we should stop listening to other people entirely. It means we should learn to recognize whether feedback is constructive or restrictive. Are they resisting our change because someone's getting hurt or is us changing making them uncomfortable? Are they doubting us because they think we can't succeed or because they see hurdles we don't? A lot of it depends on who is giving the feedback. Feedback from trusted close friends and family who have our best interest in mind and are rooting for us is more likely to be constructive. Feedback from people we aren't close to and don't trust is more likely to be restrictive. "Who do you think you are??" was definitely initially restrictive. It was only through a lot of work on myself that I was able to make it constructive.

So what does any of this have to do with "Making It"?

The point is we have chosen a massively popular, very difficult goal, and we're going to encounter all sorts of external resistance as we seek it. That resistance, if we let it affect us, can slow or even stop our journey completely. If we really do want to succeed, it's in our best interest to believe so strongly in ourselves that we can power through no matter what gets thrown at us.

Theater systems provide opportunity but they can also become a distraction. They lay a clear path for us to follow, which is helpful when that path was created by people who have managed to make their way to some desired position and want to show us how to get there. On the other hand, a popular path can become overcrowded and our journey can be slowed by traffic. A well-worn path can become obsolete if whatever resource it leads to gets depleted by others. A lengthy path can be a distraction, especially if it leads somewhere we don't actually want to go. We should utilize these systems as a resource but recognize when it's time to move on. Even if we still feel like we're moving, the best thing to do might be taking the leap to the next system. There will be times in our careers where we will have to pass on good opportunities to get to something better. We shouldn't be afraid to let go of a good thing, even if we don't yet see the great thing up ahead.

It's also important, especially early in our journey, to disassociate systemic success from our individual value. If we're having trouble breaking in or if we've gotten forced out, it can hurt to feel like we got kicked off the path. But let's remember how the system functions. The upside to any theater system is its efficiency. It becomes very good at identifying people who will thrive within it and separating them from those who won't. If we don't fit the system's "type", it either doesn't let us in to begin with, or it eventually forces us out. But just because we're not the system's type doesn't mean we're not valuable. It doesn't mean we're not skilled at what we do. It only means we aren't a good fit for the system, whose priority is not the success of any individual but to sustain itself.

System fit does not equate to individual value and is not a requirement for success. Think of all the Harvard graduates who aren't billionaires. Think of all the UCB Harold cast members who don't have their own television shows. The downside to any system is homogeny. Because it needs to be efficient, it doesn't necessarily support uniqueness. Another downside is that if a system gets large enough, it moves too slow. If we want to really "Make It", we have to be both unique and move quickly. Successful people use systems when it's advantageous and find ways to work outside of them when it isn't. Bill Gates isn't any less successful because he dropped out of Harvard. Broad City isn't any less successful because Abbi Jacobsen and Ilana Glazer never made a UCB Harold team. They used the opportunities presented to them when they could, and made their own when they either couldn't get them or had no more use for them.

We are responsible for our own success.

Understanding this can help us move freely when the predetermined paths don't seem to be working for us, or when we encounter some resistance along the way. It also helps to understand the systems we're getting involved in. The more we understand what they value, the more we can use them to our advantage. If we're trying to "Make It", it benefits us to practice the things that Hollywood sells, like writing, acting, and video production. If we're trying to succeed in a theater system, it benefits us to practice what they sell - live performance and teaching. No matter what, the biggest thing we can do for our success is knowing exactly what we want and not letting anyone or anything discourage us from going after it. After that, we chase it as hard as we can, knowing for sure that one day we'll catch it.

I'll finish with a video and some advice that works both onstage and off :

Make a decision. Commit to it as hard as you can. Never look back.

Fight Well: Exploring The Four Types of Conflict

In I'd Like To Have An Argument we explored the ins and outs of a very common type of improv scene - one that is primarily focused on an interpersonal disagreement. One of the things we touched on in that post was the idea that if we're not entirely comfortable onstage, it often raises our Fight or Flight response.

In a high pressure situation like an audition, the chances of being uncomfortable onstage skyrocket. Nerves are going to be an issue. We know we're being judged. We know we need to execute. Plus, there are a lot of uncontrollable variables. What if we don't get more than a couple short windows to showcase our abilities? What if we get steamrolled, or tagged out too quick, or talked over? It doesn't help that everyone else is nervous too. Or that by now we've recognized how nervous we are and get even more nervous that we're being too nervous.

All this adds up to being uncomfortable, and discomfort means Fight or Flight. Unfortunately, in an audition, if we actually want a chance at being cast, Flight isn't an option. So we Fight. We have the overwhelming urge to lash out; to protect ourselves. Obviously this is not ideal. If we had our way we'd be totally comfortable. But it's practically impossible to control these natural responses. They will be a factor. So instead of trying to ignore them, we should learn how to use them effectively.

If we're going to Fight, we should know how to Fight well.

Traditionally in narrative (and improv is a kind of narrative) there are four types of conflict:

human v Human
human v Self
human v Nature
human v Society

Let's take a closer look at each one and see how we might be able to apply them to our scenes.

human v Human is by far the most common type of conflict in improv. While there's a spectrum of v Human conflict ranging from passive plotting to active violence, most of the conflict we'll run into in improv is in the form of an argument. Passive plotting generally moves far too slow to pay off in a 3-4 minute scene, and active violence is both hard to pull off logistically (and safely) and will burn out far too quickly.

The reason it's so prevalent is twofold. The first is that the other human(s) onstage with us are the only thing* that isn't invisible, so they draw our attention. We tend to turn our focus on our scene partner, as we should, but if we're in Fight mode, they might be in for a battle. This is the other reason v Human is so common. It's dynamic. Arguments can twist and turn as we change topics and follow tangents. They can start one place and end so far away that we forget what the original disagreement was about.

But this dynamism is a double-edged sword. One one hand, an argument can be funny and interesting enough to sustain a scene from end to end. On the other hand, an argument can make it feel like the scene is moving when it isn't. Often we get so distracted by trying to put our character in a better debate position that we don't notice that the scene hasn't gone anywhere. On the inside it feels like we're doing something because we're sparring over whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher, but from the outside all the audience is watching is a dishwasher not getting unloaded. Eventually, someone needs to lose. A good v Human scene has both sides losing in some places and winning in others. Arguments are like improviser duels. If it's exciting I don't care if it ends in a draw. If it's not I should at least get to see someone die at the end.

For a closer look at argument scenes, here's another link to I'd Like To Have An Argument. 

human v Self is a fairly common in scripted comedy but underutilized in improv, and for good reason. Internal conflict is both nuanced and generally unspoken, which makes it difficult to express accurately and compellingly in the heat of the moment. It's also very much an individual conflict, so it doesn't inherently require a connection to another character. This is clearly not ideal for improv. That being said, it can absolutely work in the right circumstances.

The best way to utilize v Self conflict in improv is by having one character's nature get in the way of something everyone in the scene wants. A clumsy waiter, for example, very much wants to serve their patrons, who in turn very much want to be served. But if the waiter's clumsiness continually and increasingly prevents them from successfully serving those patrons, everyone in the scene is in conflict with their clumsiness. The patrons will likely be upset at the waiter's incapacity to serve, but the waiter will be just as upset. They wish they would stop dropping plates just as much as the patrons do, they just can't figure out how to do it. The waiter's desire to overcome their own shortcomings is what makes the conflict internal and therefore v Self. If the waiter chooses to defend their clumsiness, suddenly the conflict is v Human - waiter v patrons. 

Another way to use v Self conflict is with a Peas-in-a-Pod scene. If both characters share the same internal conflict, watching them explore it and attempt to overcome it together can be very fun. Again, it requires both character's natures to get in the way of a shared goal. Maybe two chemistry students are attempting to run an experiment but keep getting distracted by stuff happening out the window. When they come back to the lab bench and realize their experiment ran afoul while they weren't paying attention, they're likely to be mad at themselves. But it's in their nature to get distracted, so it keeps happening over and over in increasingly ridiculous ways as they get increasingly frustrated with themselves. An even more nuanced version of this Peas-in-a-Pod v Self conflict might be that the students have different individual tendencies that work concurrently to prevent them from accomplishing their shared goal. Maybe one student keeps getting distracted by the window, while the other's impatience causes them to turn up the heat too far on the bunsen burner. The distracted student's distractedness prevents them from keeping an eye on the impatient one. The impatient one's impatience seizes the opportunity to strike while left unchecked. The defining factor in this example that makes it v Self is that the blame for the failed experiment is directed at the tendencies, not the individuals. The distracted student recognizes that they keep getting distracted and wishes they could stop so they could keep a better eye on the impatient one. The impatient one recognizes that their impatience keeps causing them to rush the experiment enough to ruin it and similarly wishes they could control it. Both students blame themselves, not each other, for their failures. Therefore the conflict is internal - v Self. 

human v Nature puts our characters in conflict with their environment. The obvious scenarios in this category are weather like storms or inhospitable climates, but any antagonistic environment, like a challenging corn maze or a haunted library, would fit this type.

The important thing in a v Nature conflict in improv is that we find a way to make the environment a dynamic character in itself. Just as a v Human conflict has give and take between individuals, the environment needs to continually find new and interesting ways to antagonize the characters on stage. This can be done internally through dialogue ("oh no, the waves are getting bigger!") or externally with object work and sound effects from the sides (miming a flying book, ominous ghostly laughter). Treat the environment like a living breathing being and the conflict becomes much more sustainable. As long as we find new and interesting ways for the environment to be threatening, there should always be something for our characters to react to.

Just like v Self conflict, v Nature is a way to avoid fighting between characters. Nothing unites people better than a shared external threat (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). We might have the urge to try to blame someone for putting us in this dangerous situation, but if the threat from the environment is both imminent and immersive, it will naturally be our primary focus. If we need to find the maze exit before the sun sets, we don't have time to figure out whose fault it was that we got lost in the first place. In a v Nature conflict, blame is secondary to exploration and joint struggle.

human v Society conflict pits our characters against social norms and hegemony. This is is a particularly rich type of conflict in improv because we are creating the universe in which the scene exists, so the rules and norms of that universe can be vastly different from those of our own. This is where comedy can work as social commentary - flipping, twisting, or amplifying the rules of our universe to highlight ridiculous or unjust features. It's also a place where we can explore points of view we would never otherwise consider or support, like a sad murderer who just wants to murder but can't because of society's backward views.

In improv, v Society conflict functions a lot like v Nature except that the external threat is social ostracism instead of death by environment. Peas-in-a-Pod/Us-Against-the-World scenes will be particularly effective in this category, since the more we avoid in-fighting between characters, the more we can explore the societal ramifications of our point of view. Two murderers might disagree about what type of murder is best, but they can both agree how annoying it is to have to take the long way home to avoid driving past the police station.

Like v Nature, v Society conflict requires that society be personified. A scene that is simply characters complaining about societal rules won't sustain itself for very long. There needs to be some dynamism to keep things moving. We need to find ways to let society fight back. We can do this by creating representatives that embrace the societal views that our characters are in conflict with. Maybe it's a restaurant owner who refuses to serve murderers. Maybe it's a politician pushing a bill that requires murderers to use separate bathrooms. Unlike v Nature, a v Society scene will need to move our characters in space and time fairly frequently so we can explore as many different aspects of society as possible. It will probably require a significant amount of side support and utilize a lot walk-ons and tag-outs to keep things moving. Because the representatives of society are meant to function as arms of hegemony and not fully-formed characters, we shouldn't dwell on them for too long. If we treat Society as a character, the way to best explore that character's depth is with breadth. We should try to cycle through as many different societal representatives as possible for our anti-Society characters to interact with. Because of this, a v Society conflict scene will generally be more of a team effort than any of the other types. It's also a great type of conflict to utilize in Harold, because it is so rich. Even if our murderers interact with three or four representatives of society in a 1st Beat, there should still be plenty of ways to heighten and explore in 2nd and 3rd Beats.

Knowing these four types of conflict and how to execute them effectively should open up more options for us when we feel the need to Fight. Especially knowing that v Self, v Nature, and v Society conflict tend to focus our attention inward or outward instead of at our scene partner, choosing them over v Human conflict is a great way to avoid the common argument. Hopefully, if we embrace our discomfort instead of trying to hide from it and recognize that we have targets other than our scene partner, we can put our Fight energy to good use. 

*except the chairs, which is why we've all started scenes by messing with the chairs