Lessons from Lucy

One of the most common mistakes we can make in improvisation is inventing rather than discovering.

Your scene will fall into one of two categories: a premise scene or an organic scene. If you have a premise, you can introduce your first line with enough information that your scene partner knows to follow you. (The UCB Manual says a premise will contain a base reality and the first unusual thing.) An example might be, “Okay all you NBA All-Stars, get into my office. The government says we have to make the game more accessible to short people with bad aim.” In that scene, you know who you are, where you are and what you’re doing. And you have an unusual idea that you can play with.

Many times, however, we don’t have a full premise. We have what the UCB Manual calls a “half-idea” or “chaff.” You may enter a scene with an idea for a location or a character or an emotion. You may enter a scene with nothing in your head. If so, you’re in an organic scene and it’s time to start exploring with your scene partner.

Beginning an organic scene is often scary for improvisers. We crave laughs, so if they’re not coming in the first 30 seconds of a scene, we might say or do something totally random.

“Welcome home, son.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
(Two minutes of boring father-son talk results in internal panic.)
“I’M A ROBOT.”

Those panic moves are called invention because there’s no build-up to them. Indeed, we may have a scene about a dad who discovers he’s a robot, but there’s a huge difference between discovering that organically and blurting it out without laying the groundwork.

You are a storyteller. Your job is to help the audience follow you to absurdity. You can certainly start with absurdity, but that scene is going to be very short. A scene about three werewolves doing gymnastics routines to please a chaos demon can’t last long before the audience gets bored.

To illustrate the organic way to discovery, let’s jump back in time to 1951 and any random episode of “I Love Lucy.” Nearly every Lucy episode follows the same pattern: An innocent mistake or misunderstanding leads to an outrageous scenario. The show is brilliant at taking us along for the ride. Take this episode for example.

The episode begins with Lucy reading a murder mystery. It ends with her aiming a gun at Ricky in the club. If you started the episode with Lucy aiming the gun at Ricky, you wouldn’t empathize with Lucy. She’d be an insane, anarchic figure. If you cut directly from Lucy reading the book to the gun confrontation at the club, that would also seem very random. Instead, the episode takes us step-by-step through the reasons that Lucy felt compelled to pull a gun on her husband.

1. Lucy nervously reads the murder mystery. Ricky startles her.
2. Ricky jokes about how a husband might murder his wife.
3. Lucy reads the mystery again. Once again, she’s startled as Ethel arrives.
4. Ethel tells Lucy she learned how to tell fortunes. Ethel reads a hand of playing cards and suggests Lucy is going to die.
5. Ricky gets a phone call about some dogs that are going to appear in his night club act. He writes the names down.
6. During the phone call, Lucy walks in as Ricky talks about “getting rid of” a singer. Because we know Lucy is already jittery, she misreads this call as Ricky talking about killing her.
7. During the call, Ricky also talks about the prop gun he has in his desk. Lucy believes he’s talking about an actual gun.
8. After Ricky leaves, Lucy sees the gun and reads the list of dog names, mistaking them for women Ricky will pursue after Lucy is dead.
9. Now in full-blown overreaction mode, Lucy hides metal household objects under her housecoat to protect herself from Ricky’s murder attempts. In a great bit of physical comedy, she explains that she’ll keep moving so Ricky has a harder time hitting her.
10. Ricky arrives home to find his wife acting insane. She bobs and weaves around the kitchen and a pan falls out of her housecoat.
11. Fred arrives and suggests that Ricky should sneak a sedative into a drink for Lucy so she calms down.
12. Lucy sees Ricky putting the sedative into the drink. She’s now convinced her husband is trying to poison her.
13. Ricky manages to get Lucy to drink from the glass. She wildly overreacts, assuming she’s dying. She briefly passes out.
14. Ethel arrives and wakes her up. Lucy says that if she can’t have Ricky, no one can. She grabs the gun.
15. At the club, Lucy is prepared to kill Ricky with the prop gun, but all is revealed. The women’s names are the dog’s names. The gun is a fake. Lucy was overreacting the whole time.

This is a great example of escalating the story organically. A leads to B, which leads to C. The behavior is justified by what preceded it.

To use the UCB terminology, the “base reality” is that Lucy is nervous. The episode spends 12 minutes (exactly half of the episode) making her more and more nervous until she finally acts. At the 12-minute mark, Ethel shows up to see her friend wearing kitchen supplies as armor. We’ve crossed into absurdity. Note that most normal people would simply ask their spouse to clarify if they thought a murder plot was afoot. Lucy’s blind spot opens the door for comedy.

I’m assuming the episode came about because the writers sat around and said, “Wouldn’t it be fun if Lucy thought Ricky was trying to kill her?” They probably pitched bits like Lucy wearing the pots and pans, the dance to switch the drinks and Lucy bringing a gun to the club. Then they had to lay down the structure. It’s crucial that we follow Lucy’s logic. Now the fun bits fit in context. (South Park’s Trey Parker explains this in this video.)

Too often, we have fun ideas but haven’t supplied the context. Or we make the jump in our heads without taking the audience along. That’s invention, and it feels artificial. Of course, Lucy’s adventures are artificial as well, but they feel more real because we’re given reasons behind her behavior. Even if we don’t agree, we empathize. And that’s why her comedy holds up more than 60 years later.

The Day Grandpa Ate Carpet

I’m directing a sketch show through the writing process right now and one of the performers wrote a scene with a crazy yoga teacher and a student who isn’t quite buying in. Crazy characters are fantastic for comedy, of course. The Groundlings excel at that kind of style. Consider characters from their famous alums like Melissa McCarthy, Cheri Oteri, Chris Kattan and Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman).

If you are confronted with a crazy person in real life, how do you behave?

Consider a scene that begins with one actor playing a grandfather who’s pulling up the carpet and eating it. How do you react?

The audience will buy one of two reactions: Call out the crazy behavior or act like it’s totally normal.

If your actual grandpa were eating carpet, you would stop him. The audience would like that scene because it’s immediately clear that one character cares for the other. Wherever the scene goes from there, we know that there’s an important relationship at stake. And, inevitably, when Grandpa starts eating the carpet again, the audience will like that. (The audience loves seeing the result of forbidden behavior.)

But let’s say your grandpa always eats carpet. In that case, you might see him ripping into the rug and say, “How’s the carpet tasting today, Grandpa? Need any salt?” That’s certainly odd, but also a scene the audience could buy. If Grandpa always does this, you wouldn’t be fazed. And by offering salt, you’re acknowledging the behavior, condoning it and helping your scene partner by heightening the scenario. Also, you still care about Grandpa in this scene.

A novice improviser would try to split the difference. Grandpa’s eating carpet, so you say, “Hey, knock it off,” but you don’t act concerned, the way you would in a real situation. Or you might try to “yes and” the situation by saying, “Grandpa, you’re eating carpet? I’m going to eat particle board.” Where does the scene go from there? There’s no relationship, just two weirdos eating weird stuff. Or, worst of all, you could ignore it entirely, leaving Grandpa to eat carpet the whole scene while you disconnect and probably rummage in the dreaded improv kitchen cabinets.

Your character has to care about something, even if it’s just themselves. If the weird behavior that starts a scene affects something your character cares about, you’re off and running. If you don’t care, the audience won’t, either.

Getting back to our Groundlings actors for a moment, consider the world of Pee-Wee Herman. Here’s a total spaz wandering around the planet and nobody calls him on being a total spaz. In fact, on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, he had several equally weird friends: a cowboy, a globe, a chair and a genie. Sure, Pee-Wee was weird, but his weird was normal to his friends. In “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” he ventures outside his home and into the world where literally no one stops and says, “You’re a lunatic!” That would ruin the fun.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, look at Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat character. He exists solely to make real people uncomfortable. That movie was a blockbuster because everyone in the audience could relate to trying to deal with that maniac. The strained reactions to his antics were real, so we bought into the scenarios.

Think of a crazy character like a hot tub. If the opposing character is used to the heat, they’ll climb in and everything’s fine. If the opposing character is NOT used to the heat, they’ll jump out right away and they’ll be reluctant to go back in.

The success of a scene featuring a crazy character usually has less to do with the character and more to do with the actor playing opposite that person. Choose to buy in and support or call out the craziness. There’s no room for indecision.

Find the Music of the Scene

A gym filled with bored-looking teenagers.  An alienated 3-man rock band screaming about the desire for entertainment.  It sounds like this.

A man trying to spook his date with a scary story.  Dancing zombies.  It sounds like this.

A strong woman declaring her worth and rallying others to do the same.  It sounds like this.

Why do these music videos work so well?  Why do we get scared by those shrieking Psycho violins or the Jaws bass?  Why does that Benny Hill music suit a goofy sped-up chase sequence?  In each case, we have an excellent marriage of image and music.  The combination lifts both to a higher level.

Whether you know it or not, every scene you’re in also has music.  Your voice is the instrument.  Its tone, its volume and its pace communicate an enormous amount of information.

Don’t believe me?  Watch a really bad actor.  His words, his voice and his body are all saying different things.  Not to pick on Hayden Christensen, but this is brutal.

This fails on nearly every level.  He’s supposed to be seducing Natalie Portman.  This scene has all the sexual tension of, well, sand.  What he says isn’t sexy and the way he says it isn’t sexy.  He doesn’t look at her.  He flicks a rock (or something) in a really weird way.  His cadence is off.

Contrast that to this.

Holy smokes.  It doesn’t even matter what these two are saying to each other.  Just ignore the words and listen to the cadence and the tone.  You can hear Jennifer Lopez is playful, but Clooney is calm and steady.  Eventually, J Lo matches his calm and steady tone.  They’re ready to bone.

The Out of Sight scene will work if you close your eyes and listen.  It would even work if you didn’t speak the language.  It would also work if you turned down the sound.  Note the falling snow, the soft lighting and the fact that Clooney almost never blinks.  This is straight-up seduction.  And when you marry the sound and the image, it works perfectly.

If you purposely choose to make your words incongruous to your tone and cadence, you can easily create comedy.  The Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team was expert at this.  Many of their characters said absurd things straight.  The incongruity results in a big laugh.

While directing a rehearsal of a sketch show, I noticed my performers had lost the music of their scene.  While they stood in the right places and said the lines correctly, they’d done the scenes so many times, all the energy had fallen out of them.

To fix this energy lapse, I had them run the entire show, replacing their normal lines with gibberish words.  They had to get me to believe their scenes without the crutch of funny lines.  Suddenly, they relied much more heavily on their body language, as well as their volume, tone and cadence to convey the comedy.  The characters and the scenes came alive again.  I told them that as long as they played the “song” of each scene, the words were merely an added bonus.

Ask yourself if your scene would be funny if muted.  Ask yourself if it would be funny in the dark.  You don’t have to have both, but it sure helps.  Why tie a hand behind your back?

When performing a scene, make sure to use your physicality, your voice and your words efficiently.  Be sure to switch up which gets more attention from scene to scene.  If you’re going to be incongruous, be so deliberately.

If you perform the song of your scene well enough, the audience will go home humming your tune.

Got an improv question?  E-mail me at boilingpointimprov[at]gmail.com

Calm Down. Calm the F Down.

Why do so many scenes start so badly?

It’s probably because we’re filled with nervous energy.  We have a character or a scene in mind and we CAN’T WAIT to share it with the audience.  We jump up and throw down our idea real hard and then…

Usually nothing.

I’ve been improvising for a long, long time and I think I can count on one hand the number of (non-callback) opening lines that elicited a big laugh.  The audience is much more likely to respond to the second line.  The funny rarely comes from the situation.  It comes with how we respond to it.

Think of stand-up comedy for a second.  How often does the first joke slay an audience?  Almost never happens.  A comedian crafts his set, taking the audience on a ride with him.  The best jokes are staggered throughout the set, usually culminating in a big finish or callback.

That’s the real secret of comedy.  The audience needs to follow your journey to buy in.

That said, many young improvisers freak out when a scene doesn’t get laughs at the start.  If you watch masters like TJ & Dave, their first lines are usually incredibly mundane.  (“Dare to bore,” TJ says.)  They’re discovering the world together, and once they establish the world, they start to play.

Mark Sutton advocates taking a moment at the top of the scene to realize what you’ve done, then doubling down on that for the duration of the scene.  You have to throw the clay on the wheel and spin it for a while before you end up with pottery.  No one ever says, “That was an amazing lump of clay you had there.”

I recently saw a show where cast members hardly listened to the initiations.  The second person on stage seemed more interested in being a wacky character than building a world together.   Here’s an actual example.  The show’s suggestion involved a discussion of -philes (audiophiles, pedophiles, etc.):

“I’m sorry, ma’am.  We don’t offer a crustophile pizza.”
“Well what do you have?”  
“A full menu of regular pizzas.”
“I have dementia!”

What?

“Nice initiation, but isn’t my WACKY CHARACTER so much more fun?”

When someone declares themselves crazy, the scene is usually over.  (There are exceptions, of course. ) How would you react if you worked at a pizza place and a customer told you she had dementia?

That initiation implied that a woman had specifically asked for a “crustophile” pizza.  Why?  What kind of request is that?  What other weird things could she ask for?  That was the offer of the game – a game that got denied so she could play crazy.  The scene was awful.

Yes, there are different schools of improvisation.  And some advocate creating a big, strong, bulletproof character at the top.  But if your character is so invulnerable that he/she can’t change or be affected by the situation, why bother playing with another person?

Not every initiation is a winner.  And really, the initiation only needs to convey some information, not the entire story.  But if you feel like hitting the panic button on a scene and throwing your partner under the bus to do a solo showcase, you should reconsider why you’re doing improv in the first place.

Slow down.  Breathe.  Explore the idea.  Build it together.  Don’t do a walk-on when an edit would suffice.  No canvas was ever perfected with the first stroke of the brush.

The audience wants to see you build together.  They want to see you agree.  They want to see exploration and discovery.  Those organic moments yield the best laughs.  Don’t force it.

Got an improv question?  E-mail me at boilingpointimprov[at]gmail.com

When Wrong is Right

When playing with my young nephews, I notice there is something universal about the appeal of misbehavior.  Whether it’s Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge, Pandora opening that box or Dorothy fleeing the Yellow Brick Road, the excitement begins when a character simply does the opposite of what they’re told.

My nephews.

With the boys, it’s as simple as telling them (playfully) not to do something.  When they do it, and I pretend to be mad, they always laugh.  Always.

In polite society, we usually do what we’re told.  There are consequences to rule-breaking.

In comedy, rule-breaking is fundamental.  The Three Stooges.  Bugs Bunny.  The Marx Brothers.  Animal House.  We love the vicarious thrill of seeing a character doing something we would never do in real life.  Importantly, there are no lasting consequences for the misbehavior and these characters always get away with it in the end.

Check out this amazing scene with Liam Neeson from Life’s Too Short.

What’s funny about that?  Neeson states his objective is comedy.  Then he fails at comedy over and over.  Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais repeatedly tell him AIDS isn’t funny.  Over and over, Neeson mentions AIDS.

When I coach, I repeatedly tell improvisers, “Don’t do that,” means, “YOU MUST do that.”  The audience desperately wants to see the consequence.  Often, the person issuing the command is in higher authority and audiences love seeing the superiors suffer.

It’s important to note that misbehavior for misbehavior’s sake is rarely funny.  Tom Green humping a dead moose reeks of desperation.  The key to humor is the explicit (or occasionally implicit) request or command from one character and the direct violation from another character.

Doing exactly what is requested of you is helpful to advance a scene, especially if it’s a low-stakes request (e.g. passing the salt, washing the dishes, providing customers with the food they ordered).  But if it’s a high-stakes request (e.g. never shake a baby, don’t feed the Gremlin after midnight, never push the History Eraser Button), the entire audience will lean forward in anticipation of the consequences.  Use that to your advantage.

Got an improv question?  E-mail me at boilingpointimprov[at]gmail.com

The Last Days of Martin de Maat

I did not know Martin de Maat. To me, he was just a black and white photo on the Second City Training Center student newsletter.

Martin is best known for the quote, “You are pure potential.” It’s a lovely thought, and it encompasses all that improvisation can be.

As I was clearing out some old papers, I found all my student newsletters and I thought it would be a fitting tribute to share each of the “Notes from Martin” that graced the front of the newsletter. They are presented below exactly as they appeared.

March 6-May 14, 2000

Although the purpose of the Training Center includes preparing talent for Second City’s stages, we do not want to forget that the program has two other equally important goals – the exploration and advancement of the art form and the training of actors and writers. All three are in place to support you in your objective, be that Second City employee, improvisational artist, actor, writer, or conscious courageous human being. I write to suggest that the ends other than Mainstage are as valid as getting hired by us.

Yeah, yeah, easy for me to say. I’ve already got a job. The fact is that you do too. (I admit the pay could be better.) It is your job to be a student of this work. It is a powerful position. By definition it is “one who has yet to know.” It means that the moment you declare yourself a student you clear your slate, need not prove anything, and become pure potential. A position of authority contains limitation. Student leaves you wide open to make it up your way. You can improvise your future and the future of the art form. In being its student you are its future.

You can use your experience as student here to move closer to your dreams, or you can put too many of your hopes in one outcome and limit your investment potential. I suggest diversification. Imagine other employment and pastimes to which this work applies and invest energy into those as well. Recognize how it can impact your current job. Research other improvisational groups and consider involvement. Collaborate with your peers to create a group with its own unique vision.

Actors cull a living in their art. A little income here, a little there, it adds up to a career. Think about participating in other theaters and schools. Involvement in more than one organization helps you become a more rounded artist. It also promotes feeling that you are part of the community. For many improvisers, being part of the tribe is payment enough. Ultimately what you are looking for is for a fulfilling experience offering your art and ideas. That canvas may well be Second City, but it can just as likely be elsewhere. Elsewhere is not less valuable, it is just different.

I do not mean to discourage you or to suggest that it is impossible to make it to “Mainstage”. Actually being hired in one of the positions we have for actors is highly possible, be it Business Theater or touring company. It is worth the shot if it interests you. What I do want to discourage is your being in “Level A” wishing you were in “C” or being in “C” in a hurry to be in “1”. This “where I am is not good enough” pattern is difficult to break. It goes on and on. You can imagine it as being in a touring company wishing you were in “etc.” or “etc.” wishing for “Mainstage,” or “Mainstage” wishing for “Saturday Night Live.” Everyone could be busy not doing his or her job. They would be missing much of the present experience while auditioning for the future. (Luckily, we do not have much of that going on.)

Be all right where you are. Commit to the process rather than worrying about the product of your investment. It is the same as improvising. The only way for the next moment to realize its full potential is if 100% of your energy is in this one.

Bless you and keep growing.

Martin de Maat,
Artistic Director

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May 15-July 30, 2000

Contemplate this. What purpose does art serve? There is, after all, no harmless art. Each image, word or brush stroke creates an effect. All art has an influence. It can challenge the status quo and often begin rumblings that can, and sometimes do, transform social paradigms.

Stimulation of ideas through free expression is the basis for our strength. The artists’ insights are what define a Second City revue. Maintaining high reference levels acknowledges the audience’s intelligence and engages them in thought. Humor is simply the lubricant that makes our points of view palatable. It is necessary and honorable but not the entire entertainment. Don’t sacrifice a scene’s effect or ideas just to get an easy laugh.

Second City revues are a late twentieth century manifestation of Bertolt Brecht’s ideas about the purpose of theatre. He believed that the importance of theatrical offerings lies in stimulating thought and delivering the author’s message. He also believed that theater exists to improve the mass’s life condition. I add that theatre is responsible for providing the audience with some relief from their lives and considerations. Laughter focuses them in the moment. Humor softens the blow. Acceptably presented ideas stimulate, and the total experience provides them with satisfaction and excitement. We are responsible for what we say and how we say it to make sure that this happens.

A performer’s influence is defined by how individual audience members comprehend the presentation. Audience members orient their perception from their individual frames of reference. What they perceive is dependent on their experience and morals. This framework defines their interpretation. It is our responsibility to make offerings that are general enough to reach the widest audience while not losing the artist’s point of view. Herein lies our integrity.

Please remember that the expression “our” includes you.

Humor remains our primary delivery conduit. It is our promise to the audience, but shock, style, and cleverness can also be used to wake them as well. Enrolling the audience through emotional identification is also a substantial means of embroiling them in our notions. Brecht dislikes humankind’s propensity to identify emotionally, but we do not. It has been depended on from the ancients. If empathy and pathos are worthy enough for Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Stanislavsky, they are a good enough method for Second City.

Anything is possible if properly handled. And it is your job to see how close to the line you can walk. Here are several simple lessons to move you into a successful creative experience. Avoid an abundance of easy choices that exist simply to shock. Easy, repeated sexual references confuse a scene’s point of view. Discard language and subject matter that serve no purpose or threaten the audience’s willingness to receive a message. Remember our audience is made up of family and friends. Understand that the audience will hear what they want, and be certain that you are saying what you mean.

I invite you to ruminate on what you really want to say. I suggest a series of societal, political, and interpersonal reflections that demonstrate the ludicrousness that exists in our lives. That is what satire is, and satire is what we do.

If you have questions about this newsletter article, feel free to contact me.

Play well,
Martin de Maat, Ph.D.
Artistic Director

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July 31-October 8, 2000

About what we do at Second City.

We teach improvisational techniques and train actors through improvisation, mindful that the bulk of our stage work is the creation of a fixed revue developed through means of ensemble improvisation. This revue includes satirical sketches, scenes of various length and subject matter, music and other theatrical stylings ordered to become an entertainment. The material is developed in rehearsal and tested out at night during the improvised set that follows a show. Eventually, new material is filtered into the first two acts (we call these preview performances) until two new acts have emerged. We have an opening night, label it a different, hopefully relevant, title and continue the process. We proceed to experiment with new scenic ideas. They are stimulated either from the actors’ conceptions or audience suggestions. Any of these new ideas could develop into part of whatever the next offering will be.

A scene’s content and message is sometimes thought out prior to the first time it is improvised. The actors improvise to establish beats or with a goal. They improvise it two or three times and “keep” the beats they like. These beats are ordered in a sequence which makes sense, locked, and rehearsed as set material. Sometimes the actors improvise a scene and then figure out what it is all about. Sometimes they go home and write something. It does not much matter where the material comes from. What does matter is that it stays in some process of exploration and discovery for a while and that the actors know what they are saying in that scene.

The simple goal is to satirize that which we find ludicrous in our society and make it funny. The audience gets to laugh at the silly stuff and perhaps challenge their own belief structures and societal paradigms. It lightens their load and may cause reflection.

We also use improvisation as entertainment unto itself. We present sets and jams that are completely improvised. The seeds of new material are often discovered during these sessions. We also include games and spot improvisations in our sets and sometimes within our revues.

Our primary purpose for teaching improvisation is to prepare students to use it as a tool to create new material. This is the focus of the Conservatory Program of The Training Center. Yet we also teach improvisation to enhance acting techniques and to expand social skills. This is the focus of the Beginning, IFA and High School Programs. These are equally important endeavors.

Whatever drives you to study this work, enjoy the process of exploration, discovery, and growth. The performance (product) is important, but it wants to come second to the learning that can be culled from both the product and the process.

GLOSSARY:

BEAT – an ordered sequence of events or lines that maintain its own beginning, middle, and end, yet becomes part of and serves the whole scene.
CONSERVATORY – the upper levels of The Training Center. These students create material, perform on Sunday nights and eventually run a show on Monday nights.
SET – an act of improvised material or works in progress. The third act of our regular show.
SPOT – a totally spontaneous scene generally based on a suggestion from the audience.

Martin de Maat, Ph.D.
Artistic Director

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Autumn 2000

I am privileged to have been included in the “we” of Second City since early childhood. I attended Second City’s shows in its first year of existence. But my first real exposure was through my aunt, Josephine Forsberg, who was studying improvisation there – and would eventually become Second City’s Director of Workshops. She called one day and wanted me to come to class. Josephine felt that the study of improvisation would benefit me, even though I was just a kid. “There is this woman,” she said, “teaching.”

That woman was Viola Spolin and those workshops changed my life, saved it, really. Valuable life lessons and a call to consciousness were the reward for an early morning train and bus ride and a walk along Lincoln Park to attend Saturday classes. Viola was in Chicago to complete work on her book “Improvisation for the Theater.” She used the class to settle on methods for speaking about the games. One of the great acknowledgements of my life is Viola telling me that a scene I had improvised helped her finally settle her thinking on the game “Explore and Heighten.” There I was, a child of nine and ten, improvising with adults and playing parents and bosses. I never missed a class.

Viola was gentle and kind, patient and accepting. She heard every word I spoke. I never felt in appropriate or disrespected. Viola loved children. She created her “Theater Games” for them. The games and exercises were then and are now a type of social work. They were meant to rescue us from the inconsistencies of childhood. They were designed to simulate self-esteem, self-confidence and courage. They taught communication skills that allowed me and others to know we are not alone. I am honored to be one of the children under her influence.

Viola died in 1992. There was a collection of funds for a memorial or such being carried out for her. My secretary opened the letter requesting donations. She said “They’re collecting money for Viola. How much do you want to send?” “Everything,” I replied.

It seems there is nothing I am that has not been influenced by her touch.

Martin de Maat
Artistic Director, The Second City Training Centers

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February 13, 2001

I’m dictating this from my hospital bed, so forgive the informality of my newsletter entry this semester.

Recently my days are filled with doctors. Last Wednesday one of the young interns came in and said, “I have never seen this before.” When someone asked what he meant, he said, “I see hundreds of patients, but the people in this room never end, this kind of attention and respect, these visitors, flowers.” He paused. “I don’t have anything to do with your case, but I feel left out. So if I can answer any questions or help, let me know.”

In the last few weeks the outpouring of support has been wonderful. It is a comfort that cannot be described. I am unimaginably blessed by each of you.

My primary doctor and close friend returned from a trip to India this week. Imagine him walking into Cabrini’s Manhattan Hospital trying to find me. He asked the desk clerk downstairs to find my room number. It is a big place and I have moved. Without pausing, the person behind the desk said, “1124.” “Are you sure?” my friend said, “You didn’t even look it up.” The desk manager raised her head and replied with a heavy New York accent, “I’m sure. I’m very, very sure. All I say, all day long is 1124.”

This room is filled with endless messages, phone calls, stacks of mail and visitors. Please accept this note as thanks. It is important to me that you know that I know how you feel. You mean so much to me. I love each of you and I’m very, very proud of you.

Martin de Maat, Artistic Director

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Martin de Maat passed away peacefully surrounded by family and friends on February 15, 2001 at Cabrini Medical Center in New York.

A Performer’s Guide to Facebook

Facebook is a blessing and a curse.  For performers, this is more true than for the average Joe.

As a creative person, please observe these rules during your visits…

1) Less is more.

Remember, brevity is the soul of wit.  If you post about everything in your life, your audience will hide or straight-up unfriend you.  While the audience is your friends, even friends will grow tired if you never shut up.  So be judicious with your status updates and other posts.

Similarly, if you invite me to every single show, my chances of attending are low.  If I see only a select few invites, I’m more likely to come.  Years ago, Michael Patrick O’Brien once sent a personalized MySpace message directly to me, inviting me to come to his show.  After I attended, he thanked me on my wall.  He didn’t just randomly stick invitations in a shotgun and spray them all over Chicago.  That’s why I came.

2) Volume doesn’t equal success.

Life as a performer is feast or famine.  For all of us.  All of us.

Some friends will let their excitement over success overwhelm their better judgment.  You got cast in a show?  Great.  Post again on opening night.  We don’t need daily updates about how wonderful the project is.

And when the dice aren’t tumbling your way, checking Facebook can be downright corrosive.  “That guy seems to get cast in everything,” you say to yourself.  He doesn’t, but he never posts about his failures.  Take all the bullhorn screaming with a grain of salt.  If you have to tell everyone you’re successful, you’re not successful.

3) Support your friends.

Be attentive to your colleagues online.  Clicking the “like” button or even leaving a “Congrats!” on their post takes you less than one second.  But it creates a disproportionate self-esteem boost for the person on the other end.  When someone posts their video, just click the like button, even if you never watch it.  And if you’re a true friend, make the time to watch the stupid thing.  At the very least, it may inspire you to create something of your own, if not collaborate with that friend.

And on the rare occasion that someone really nails something, share it with your friends.  Be a good gatekeeper.  Let the light shine through.

4) Limit your time.

Facebook is humanity’s greatest time-suck since masturbation.  Essentially, it’s the same thing.  Ego masturbation.  A little of that is okay.  (Ten minutes a day?)  Any more than that and you risk being sucked into a self-congratulatory black hole from which there is no escape.  The good and the bad of Facebook increase exponentially the more time you spend there.

5) Clicking a button is no match for action.

Facebook is not real life.  No one will eulogize you by remembering how hilarious your comments were.  No TV producers are sitting around, combing Facebook statuses for the next great writer.  Audiences don’t buy tickets to read your wall.

Shut down your browser and open a word processing program.  Write something.  Film something.  Collaborate.  Meditate.  Get out in person to support a friend’s show.  Go do an actual hobby somewhere.  You are not a prison inmate.  You can travel and live how you choose.  Don’t waste your limited time clicking a “thumbs-up” button on cat pictures all day.

I understand the lure of the site.  I was in the Second City Conservatory so long ago, I had to make a Geocities page to try to advertise the thing.  On show nights, I’d take chalk and scribble show info on the North Avenue sidewalks.*  Promoting shows back then was an impossible pain in the ass.  But now, it’s too easy.

Listen to your muse.  Follow her.  She will never steer you to Facebook.

* Immediately after that, a Piper’s Alley security guard poured water on my chalk advertisement and erased it.  I waited ten minutes, then stole his watering can and put it backstage at the ETC theater.  I wonder if it’s still there…

Got an improv question?  E-mail me at boilingpointimprov[at]gmail.com

Your Suggestion Makes a Dinosaur

Most improv shows begin with the solicitation of a suggestion.

Depending on your audience, you might get something great or, more likely, you’ll get an item of food or a body part normally covered by a bathing suit.

I’ve seen some teams try to steer the audience away from that by asking a different question.  “Name something that’s important to you,” or, “What’s your favorite song?” or, “What’s a favorite gift you’ve received?”

Regardless of how you get it, the suggestion is simply a jumping-off point.  If your show sucks, you can’t blame it on the suggestion.  After all, you don’t credit your suggestion for a good show, do you?

Think of your suggestion like the mosquito trapped in amber in “Jurassic Park.”  It’s your team’s job to suck out the dino DNA and build a bad-ass human-chomping dinosaur with it.

If the audience shouts, “Cow!” you could easily begin a scene with a cow.  That’s fine.  But what does “cow” mean to you?  Part of the food chain?  A hurtful slur toward a fat person?  A word we teach babies?  There’s more to “cow” than just “cow.”

If you were a painter or a novelist using a cow in your art, many viewers would try to surmise why you chose the cow.  It must be a symbol.  It must mean something.  Right?  It wasn’t selected at random.

Similarly, the suggestion from the audience should send you on an exploration on a theme.  They want to see you take the suggestion’s DNA and turn it into a dinosaur.  Harness your group’s unique, dynamic mind and build something ferocious.

Previously on the topic of suggestions…

Got an improv question?  E-mail me at boilingpointimprov[at]gmail.com

You. Must. Fail.

All my life, I’ve been afraid of failure.  I remember crumbling into tears while struggling to master a new musical scale on the saxophone.  Before every audition, I feel my throat dry up and my brain crumble into dust.  Even talking to a pretty girl can seem as impossible as a running leap across the Grand Canyon.

Why?

Failure doesn’t feel good.  Choking my way through a scale, botching an audition or being rejected by a potential date feels downright rotten.

When we’re children, we learn to avoid things that hurt.  Touch the hot stove once and you won’t touch it again.  In fact, all the adults in our lives specifically tell us to avoid those things that will hurt us.  (It is for our own good, after all.)

What we’re not told is that many of the things that hurt us will not kill us.

So, my friends, I encourage you to fail.  It’s only through failure that we find success.

Yes, failure may sting.  But you’ll grow more accustomed to it the more you do it.

Think of it this way: When you were an infant, you sucked at walking.  Seriously.  You were terrible.  You couldn’t even stand.  When you finally stood, you fell.  All the time.  Up.  Down.  Up.  Down.  Your giant noggin made you a top-heavy failure in the balance department.  So how many times do you reckon you fell before you could walk competently?  And what if you quit before that point?

Everything we learn – everything – follows the same pattern as learning to walk.  Sure, you may be able to transfer existing knowledge to a new task, and you may pick it up more quickly.  But you’re still going to botch plenty before you fly.

In improvisation, failure will be your constant companion.  Your coach will spend hours talking about your team’s failures.  Audiences will transform into crickets.  Your teammates may look at you like you deserve to be quarantined in some laboratory for failed improvisers.

And then, one day, you’ll put up a scene that works.  No notes.  Laughter from the audience.  Back-pats from  your teammates.  You did it.  You had a good scene.

Then the next scene comes along and you fall on your face.

Even those of us who know how to walk manage to fall now and then.  Sometimes you have to walk in the dark through uneven terrain.  While you know the basics of walking, the environment changes.  Then, it’s up to your instincts and luck to keep you upright.

So we practice.  We try our skills in ever-changing situations.  Over time, our balance improves and our scenes get better.

When you do fail (and you will), you must treat yourself with the kindness of a child who has fallen.  The kid doesn’t want to fall.  But he does.  So you pick him up, dust him off, give him a hug and send him on his way.  You are that kid.

Success gets all the press.  Success gets all the praise.  Success inspires admiration.  But I promise you, in the entirety of human history, no one ever succeeded consistently without having fumbled through dozens (if not hundreds) of failures.

Your challenge is to embrace failure.  It is not the goal.  It is the path.  And when you find success, remember how you got there.  Don’t fear returning to failure.  You could discover a new way to walk and a new path to new success.

I close with a quote from Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, who recounts something his dad once told him: “Your weaknesses will never develop, while your strengths will develop infinitely.”

Got an improv question?  E-mail me at boilingpointimprov[at]gmail.com

Fear Slayers! (All-Star Roundtable)

Nearly one year ago, I wrote a blog entry called, “Stop Caring.”  Problem is, I haven’t.  I still care.  And I think you can draw a clear line through the improv community.  The majority of us care what the audience thinks.  The rare minority do not care.  And those in that minority are usually our best and brightest.

It seems to me that caring about your audience is about as effective as a basketball player caring how the crowd reacts.  You’ve got to block all that out, focus on your teammates and remember your goal.

“A good show” shouldn’t be your goal.  I don’t even think “a good scene” should be your goal.  Your goal should be immediate.  You want to be present in the moment, reacting honestly.  If you do that, your success rate skyrockets.  Think about the scene or the show and you’re out of the moment.

Think of it from the audience’s perspective.  Do the biggest laughs come from anticipation?  From reflection on something that happened earlier?  Or from what’s happening right now?  The audience is living in the moment as they watch you.  To connect with them, you also must live in the moment.  You thinking ahead is the same thing as an audience member thinking about where they’re going to dinner after the show.  It’s disconnecting.  It’s breaking the immediate moment that is crucial for laughter.

But seriously… how do we stop caring so damn much?  I reached out to some of the bravest improvisers I know and collected these responses.

Brendan Jennings – “This is a tough one.  As I’m sure you know, it’s an ever-raging battle against oneself on stage. For me, confidence is everything. Trusting instincts, blindly leaping into a scene, trusting my fellow improviser, all stems from a confidence that I’ve had to build over however many thousand of shows I’ve done. But I’ll admit I still sometimes get rattled if a house is dead. It doesn’t happen as often now and I never go onstage caring about what an audience thinks. But every now and then, I’ll catch myself worried about why a house is dead, realize I’ve now mentally checked out of show, try to get back into it, worry again, then hate myself for stinking up the joint.

For a newbie, I would say focus your energy on losing yourself in the show, make moves from your gut and trust the audience will come along for the ride. If they don’t, fuck it.  Hopefully you feel good about your work and now you’re focused on the next show.

For a veteran, I’d say remember you’ve been through this before, you’re not magically unfunny all of a sudden, stop thinking about the audience and get your head back in the show, dummy!”

Craig Uhlir – “My best laughs are the ones I don’t expect. Commitment laughs are the best kind. If ya wanna be an actor ya need to let go of the audience. Also, the moment you start trying to ascertain why the audience is laughing you will disconnect from your scene partner(s). It’s tough playing with partners in it for the audience and not in it WITH me and for me.”

Mark Sutton – “The audience feeling is something you only have so much control over. You care, of course, that they like the show. But you can’t do the show ‘for them.’ You have to do your show… i.e., trust your ability and your sense of humor and have the confidence that it will speak to the audience.“

Jamie Hoggson – “Just ‘do.’ Do something. Do anything. It is so important to commit to what you are doing at the top of the scene. Step out on stage, give yourself a gift (a character trait, something from the opening, or some good old fashioned object work) and commit to that idea. This will help take away the deer-in-headlights effect and get you away from ‘talking head’ syndrome, i.e. two improvisers just standing on stage talking. This approach to the top of a scene will also allow you slow down, breathe, listen, and then get ready to attack! Don’t feel like you have to have some amazing opening line. Don’t feel like the success of a good scene rests on your shoulders. Make strong choices at the top of the scene and make them SIMPLE. This way you know what you are doing, your scene partner knows what you’re doing, and lastly, that dipshit audience that has yelled out ‘dildo’ all night knows what you’re doing.

So in summary: Commit to the bit. Then grip it and rip it!”

John Hartman – “I think you’re right that when you stop worrying so much about what an audience thinks, you remove a censor that you didn’t know was there. You’re able to access something a little deeper, more of your own voice. I think the best improvisers are the ones that are ‘over it’ in the best way possible. This is not to be confused with not caring about what they’re doing – far from it; in fact, it’s a form of caring more. Once you get rid of worrying about all the bullshit of, ‘Am I gong to get on a team?’, ‘Is someone important here watching tonight?’ ‘Do I really have to perform with THIS guy again?’, etc. ad nauseum, then you’re able to really focus on playing.

We all get a little nervous still I think – you have to in order to get that adrenaline going. But if you’re up there and you’re too aware of the audience and ‘how it’s going,’ that’ll stop you. The best advice I can give for someone in that position is to give yourself a quick mental slap – whatever works for you. Something along the lines of, ‘Fuck it.’ As a Buddhist might say, ‘Let it go.’ If you’re having a thought in your head that you don’t like or it’s getting in the way, you should never have that thought more than once. Move it to the side and don’t allow yourself to dwell on it. This is supposed to be fun after all! Yes, you want to give the audience the best show possible, but they want to see you doing what you do best. So give them that. With no filter.”

Dave Maher – “Truth is, I haven’t quite figured out how to stop caring what the audience thinks, but I know that the times I’ve really tried to play to the audience have taught me how dangerous it is. I guess my advice would be to go the other way and try as hard as you can to please the audience. Then you learn just how fickle they are and how little they like you pandering to them. That won’t teach someone the skill of not caring, but at least it will teach them the importance of developing that skill and give them a vision of the alternative. Addition by subtraction, but I guess it’s as good a starting point as any.”

Scott Morehead – “I don’t go into any show and think, ‘How am I gonna get the audience going this time?!’ The audience can’t give me much. They can listen, think, and maybe react (laugh). But for that to affect me, I have to give those things value. And to some extent, I do… I LIKE when the audience gasps or laughs or whatever. BUT, I don’t let that dictate MY actions.

One of my favorite shows I’ve ever had with (CounterProductive Lover) was one where the audience didn’t laugh once. We just played a bunch of circus freaks in various situations and the show ended with Peter Robards and I as siamese twins trying to do a push-up. Both of us supporting the others body weight, but only able to use one arm each. I laughed so hard that I cried.

So what does that mean? It means that the audience can’t help you. They can’t laugh hard enough to make a connection with your scene partner. They can’t pay attention to you enough for you to listen to your teammates. They aren’t up there with you. They are safely tucked away in those seats where they don’t have to do shit. You, on the other hand, have a responsibility…not to the audience, but to your TEAM.

If you ever find yourself caring about the audience during the show, double down on your buddies. Your teammates will save you every time… with fun choices and interesting characters and amazing callbacks. All the fucking audience can do is laugh. Big fucking deal. Your team mates can do all of the aforementioned and laugh, TOO! If after the show you feel like the audience hated you or the show, go up to your buddies and tell them one thing that you loved or laughed at. Guess what? Show is instantly saved.”

Christ Witaske – “I just read a great quote about this on Miles Stroth’s wall: ‘Great improvisers never look worried on stage. It’s not that they became great and stopped worrying, they stopped worrying and became great.’

I think the best improv happens when you trust you instincts and the more you do it, the less you give a shit about what the audience thinks.”

Conner O’Malley – “I would say that when I accepted that it was okay for me to care and that the audience is on the improvisers side that I felt more comfortable on stage. I used to think that the audience was against the team. I felt like, how can they be on board after watching us fuck our way through a Harold opening that didn’t get many laughs or make much sense?  I wouldn’t.

But then I started thinking about it and felt that even the most snobbish, arms-crossed, negative attitude audience member deep down wants to be surprised and see something really funny. The audience combined has invested money, through purchasing tickets, to see something new and funny and that can only happen once in a improv show. They put money, actual money, to see you express yourself and share your talents and abilities with them. To see you and your friends play and have fun. You’re in a room of (nearly) 100 people who are on your side who are all hoping for the best and are supporting you. They want to have fun not see you in pain.

After I stated looking at the audience psychology in that way I felt supported and free to take risks and try to surprise them and live up to the full potential of the evening. It killed the fear and replaced it with hope. The logic of everyone on my side stared bleeding in to everything from writing to auditions and then just life in general.”

Susan Messing – “I understand that the performer can worry about the audience – after all, we’re doing comedy, and if the audience doesn’t laugh, that kind of ultimately defeats the purpose. That said, I don’t follow the ‘light of the laugh’ as if that’s the affirmation that I need, because I don’t. So let’s say the audience is laughing and I use that as a template that I’m doing well – that means in order to heighten the moment and ‘do better,’ I had better be even funnier for the next joke that lands. Yeah, good fucking luck with that, especially because in improv, they’re not laughing at ‘funny’ as much as they’re enjoying specificity. When the audience isn’t laughing, that doesn’t mean that they’re not fascinated. So when I hear them laughing, somewhere in my head I think, oh they’re tickled like I am, and then I recommit to the moment. Through time I have learned that if I’m having a great time onstage, the audience is with me.”

Pat Raynor – “Occasionally there are shows when I am still self-conscious. It really depends on the venue. More and more I feel like I have nothing to lose. I could get cut (from a theater’s roster) if I say something that is horribly offensive, but it would have to be pretty bad. When certain people are watching – it’s narrowed down to two or three in the city – I become a little hesitant. From the outside, you fear their judgment, which is absurd because, in most cases, I know something about their personal life and they share the same human weaknesses we all do. I, by no means, am impervious to those same eyes. When I am in the mindset that everyone has ‘flaws’ (usually what makes us interesting) it is more liberating.”

2008 Air Guitar World Champion Hot Lixx Hulahan – “My golden rule for performing is: ditch the shame.  In a competitive air guitar sense, when someone is given only 60 seconds to leave a mark, it is painfully obvious when that person is holding back. If you are afraid that putting yourself out there will make you look stupid, remember that half-assing looks infinitely worse. When someone leaves it all on the stage, even if they sucked, they are commended and appreciated at least for their daring and commitment.  Think of some of the classic Chris Farley or Will Ferrell bits of SNL.  The content isn’t what’s funny, it is their unhinged belligerence.  Not that everyone has to be so gregarious but you have to at least explore the extremes.

THE most important thing, really, is to make sure you’re having fun.  Like, a fucking blast.  Otherwise, go back to the life that left you so hollow that you felt
you needed to join an improv class.”

See also: What Air Guitar Can Teach You About Improv.

Aarón Alonso – “All you need you already have.

Actually, not caring comes hand in hand with caring. In my limited experience as a performer I have learned that you do have to care about the audience. In comedy, the audience and their reactions are the most important elements you need to give importance to to execute your comedy, it’s just a question of how to care about the audience. If you really care and enjoy yourself then you will automatically have the audience entertained by you which is how to alleviate the burden of even thinking to care for the audience.

The way I am still learning to do this is via experiments from a clown course I recently took. The goal is to find ultimate personal integral pleasure from your own vulnerabilities and ideas. You have to stop caring about the institutions, stop caring about the success ladder, have fun, have all the fun. If you have fun then the audience will have fun with you.

It’s hard not to care because of your possible interest of wanting to fit in a limited commercial style, theme, or content that is somehow pressuring you or attempting to configure you in order to perform a certain way or play certain characters. In other words, your dependency and yearning to be liked in order to get that opportunity to reach your goal maybe what’s scaring you to make true choices. That being said, if your idea does not convince you stop being scared of not fitting in to these contents and institutions for the sake of the audience. The audience has no preconceived notions of you or what you have done, they are there to be on your side.

My clown teacher, Phillip Gauiller, told me, ‘I never said you were a bad performer, your ideas are the ones that are just horrible.’ This pushed me even further on not giving a fuck on where to fit in.

If the audience is not laughing, you are not being true to yourself, and when the audience does laugh when you are being true to yourself you will feel something beautiful. It is the most gratifying feeling as a comedic performer you will ever feel. I have felt it maybe 4 times in my life thus far. It’s hard and you have to be brave, but if you think about it, why is it hard to be true to yourself? That’s a question only you can answer. If you stopped having fun, then why are you still doing it? What have you lost? Work for yourself, do not work to be part of something.

Smile. You are the dream.”