When we first start taking improv classes we have no expectations. Actually, we are ecstatic. We are just so happy that we finally got up the nerve to start doing it. Each week, we look forward to improv class. We rush off to it. Our life starts to change. Our crappy day job becomes tolerable. Our body changes. People think we […]
I am so grateful that there are so many schools, teachers and methods of improvisation. It's the best thing for the art form and is one of the reasons it keeps growing. That was not the case when I started taking improv classes back in the late ’80s in Chicago. In those days, you had three places […]
The number one rule in improv -- over "Yes, And…," listening, finding the game in the scene, environment, adding specifics, and developing character and emotions -- is “Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously.” It has happened to all of us. We make a Harold team, or get hired by a big comedy theater, or finish a […]
Improvisers have all heard that we need to add specifics to our improv scenes. Specifics are they fuel that keeps scenes going. The more specifics we use, the less we have to work to figure out what’s going on. Without them we’re in "Vaugue-land" -- not a good place to take our scene partners or the […]
Accepting other people's success is not easy. Sooner or later it will happen to all of us: One of our friends will get ahead while we are left behind. It’s always hardest with the people we are closest to. You may start out in improv classes with people, and some of them will end up […]
A little over a month ago, Will Hines, a well-known teacher from the UCB, and I started a new segment on our blogs where we decided we would each solicit questions from the improv community and share our answers with you. (By the way, check out Will's great improv blog, too: http://improvnonsense.tumblr.com/) We had such fun […]
The one thing that the improv community has taught me over the years is how to chase the carrot at the end of the stick. Whenever I do this, the result is always the same: I end up eating a lot more shit than carrot. It's rarely worth it. I always end up sacrificing a piece of myself, and I never really get ahead. As I […]
By far the thing I hear most from improv students when they first start working with me is: "I want to do characters. Teach me how to do characters. My last teacher said I need to do more characters." I get it. I have struggled with this myself. There was even a time when I […]
Improv is a family, and when a member dies, regardless of whether or not he had a direct impact on you, you are affected by it. This was the case when I heard that Jason Chin died last week at the age of 46. I was in the back of an airport shuttle getting thrown […]
Beware of the buzz kill. That person who is in your group or in your class who takes a perfectly good show or class and shits all over it. They do it with their words. They do it with their negativity. Have pity on them; they don't know any better. I should know, I am […]