Tonight I had a very odd experience. I went to a short form improv comedy show with a friend and wished I were up on stage doing improv. This is strange to me because for most of my life, I’ve enjoyed improv, but been terrified of doing it.
At one time, I took a six week improv intensive at iO. Chicago between my freshman and sophomore years of college. I learned a lot while I was there but I spent most of the summer quaking in my boots. The form was complicated and confusing and I was in awe of the in-the-moment creativity of my peers. They were so smart and so current. I just felt like I was a broken grandfather clock with grinding cogs lumbering around with compact electric alarm clocks all primed to go off at the same time.
Over six weeks, we had six different teachers who were improvisers at iO. Each had their own team and some even directed or created other shows there. The best thing about the program was that all of the students were comped for every show at the theater. Every day I would wake up, work out, walk to class, do improv for about six hours and then I’d stick around all night with my team to watch shows at iO. It was best way to learn the form and all of its variations. It was also the best education in team work that I’ve ever had.
I saw some of the worst improv and some of the best while I was there. I think it’s absolutely true that longform improv can be a horribly derailed train or it can be the most brilliant thing you’ve ever witnessed. Yet, I found even the worst performances were interesting to watch. I was right there with the actors, urging them through some unspoken power- through a primal audience energy, to pick up the pieces and rebuild their scenes. The artform takes such simultaneous awareness of your partner and of yourself. Most importantly you have to concentrate less on what makes you funny, and more on what will make your partner’s job easier.
Agree to go in whatever direction your partner suggests. Don’t waist time arguing. Improvisers call this the rule of “Yes, And.” Always try to give your partner gifts. Don’t ask questions. Just tell them what they’re doing. Tell them who they are. You have to build the scene brick by brick. Establish an environment as quickly as possible. Create a relationship. Stay away from sex or fart jokes in order to keep things interesting. Don’t use women as sex objects so that you’re not tempted to fall into an “easy laugh” situation. It’s all about solving the puzzle of walking on the stage with no lines and using your minds, voices, and bodies in order to build entertainment. When a team assembles the puzzle quickly and accurately, it’s truly one of the most astounding things I’ve ever experienced.
The other great thing about the shows at iO is that many teams have created their own forms and broken away from the traditional “Harold.” One of my favorites was “Armando Diaz.” In this form, a person steps forward to announce themselves as Armando Diaz. He or she takes a suggestion from the audience and uses it to start telling a true story. The story doesn’t have to be funny, it just has to be honest. Then they step back and the other people on the team do scenes using the story as a suggestion. The scenes don’t have to be exactly from they story. They can be based on a word, a different take on a situation in it, anything. Suggestions in improv are just fodder. You don’t have to connect to them exactly. They’re just to help the actors go off of something to get their minds running. Then after about 3-5 scenes, Armando Diaz steps forward and tells another story using the original suggestion as inspiration. Then the other players do more scenes, etc. The best Armando Diaz show I was was when Charna Halpern, one of the founders of iO and a close friend to Del Close who was the creator of long form improvisation, did a guest appearance as Armando Diaz. For every monologue, she gave a small vignette of a moment with Del. It was an incredible performance not just because the improv was good, but because the monologues were a celebration of the man who planted the seeds that blossomed into this entire “movement.” I’ll never forget that night. Everyone who was there knew they had just witnessed something special. By definition, it was a “One Night Only” show, a moment we all shared and had not been shared at any time before and would never be shared again.
Another form I enjoyed was a group that took a suggestion and did a two act play based on it. It was such a selfless experience, each scene having to be built on its own and then the next scene having to be built upon the last in order to form a full story. The best part about it was that it didn’t necessarily have to be funny. It was all about building the story piece by piece. The best example I can think of was a night where they did a murder mystery. The idea in itself is funny because the ending was just as much a mystery to the audience as it was to the actors. However, there were also points that were sad or made you sit on the edge of your seat waiting to find out who the killer was.
My all-time favorite show to see at iO is TJ and Dave. It is also the hardest show to get a ticket to. Every Wednesday night, TJ Jagodowski and David Pasquesi stand on the stage and say “Trust us. All of this is made up.” Then the lights go dim. When they come up, what ensues is a 45 minute show starring just the two of them. It’s the kind of comedy that percolates slowly and takes as much time as it needs to come into full bloom. It requires such focus and teamwork and this particular pair is a killer combination. They’ve been working together for so long that they can work fluidly and creatively with ease. Again, it’s not always funny. Sometimes it’s sad or poignet, but it is a guaranteed incredible story telling experience.
At the end of my summer at iO, we all got to perform on the Del Close mainstage. I was completely terrified of that “moment of truth.” It was completely “sink or swim” at the end of a really intense training period with no second chances. My team spent so much time together in class and out of it. We had taken adventures on the weekends, going to museums and Cubs games. I even had everyone over for a “sleepover” party so that no one would have to make their way home late at night. We really bonded over the course of the summer. I think I was so self conscious at the time that I never let any of them know how incredibly talented and smart I thought they all were. Stepping out on the stage with them at the end of the summer was just such an honor. I simply wanted to support what they were doing and try not to worry about whether or not I got any laughs.
Our final show was a success. We fired on all pistons and I felt confident that I had given it my all and made my contribution to the end result. When the program was at an end, I knew I had learned a lot but I also was ecstatic to be back in the world of scripted theater. I felt like a sailer who had been lost at sea and was finally returning to dry land. I didn’t think I’d ever in my wildest dreams elect to do improv again.
I guess I didn’t know myself very well, because last night I put my name down on a class sign up list at the National Comedy Theater. The writer inside of me has really inspired me to return to that form as a way of accessing that part of my brain and exercising it. It’s such a great way of making yourself more aware of your surroundings and aware of what it is to listen and respond constructively in a collaborative creative atmosphere.
Until recently, I’d been so dead, so ambivalent about my surroundings and my world. Now, my brain has awakened from its hibernation period and is hungry for more. I intend to feed it.
I find myself increasingly unwilling to go to work, to suffer the doldrums and intense ordinariness of my “day job.” My mind is pulled, tugged every which way, every way that is not the task at hand. I need air to breathe, to write, to envision. Yet, I sit at this desk as this conflict rages inside of me. I sit at this desk and make rent, running out the clock. When did this happen? When did I become so boring for eight hours a day?
I want to scream sometimes, but propriety shuts my mouth. Responsibility makes me see my commitment through.
When the clock strikes 6 PM, I practically leap from my chair, tripping over my legs as I dive for the door. I dash home and open my lap top, finding all of my projects waiting for me as my brain sparks to life. The electricity courses through my fingertips and ideas buzz and beep all over my body. I am alive. I am whole. I am doing what I want to do, rather than what I have to do.
Suddenly it’s 2 AM and I must find a way to get to bed so that I can wake up in time to get back to work, back to being boring. The job isn’t hard. It isn’t even awful, but it still looms like this horrible black hole, sucking me in and depleting me of energy. Every day is like a Monday morning after a weekend you didn’t want to end.
There are never enough hours in the day. By the time I get moving with all of my artistic endeavors, it’s too late to get much done. I want to go to more auditions, but I have to be able to pay my rent every month. It’s a delicate barefoot dance on a floor of broken glass.
When does your day job just become your job? It’s a question all artists must ask themselves and they must be wary of the answer.
There are facts. You must pay rent. You must feed yourself. You must pay for electricity. You probably need money for entertainment and fun with friends once a week. You could live without that, but you’d most likely go insane.
When you are trying to work creatively, it often doesn’t pay from the outset, or if it does, it’s not very much. Right now, I’m having to make my money at work while simultaneously preparing my book, creating a webseries with a friend, and going out on auditions. Do I know if any of those things will make any sort of profit?
No.
If the book gets published, that would be amazing, but that doesn’t mean that it will absolutely make a profit. As far as the webseries goes, we’ll be lucky if we break even on it unless something miraculous occurs. As for auditioning, you have to get cast in order to make money, and even then, a lot of the plays you do at the beginning of your career are with people who can’t afford to pay you, or if they can it’s a negligible stipend.
That said, I have to make all of my money in my “day job” at the moment, which means that I have to be there so often that I hardly get time to work on my real job, my true purpose. I get home and my brain is humming, but my body is exhausted. It takes effort to think straight and coral my ideas into a cohesive thought process. I want to read a book and expand my mind. I want to write for this web column. I have to edit the current draft of my book. I have a script due on Wednesday to show to my collaborator. I need with every fiber of my being to do all of that in order to move forward artistically, but I’m drained. By the time I actually get sucked, body and soul, into any facets of my creative life, it’s too late to indulge my inspiration for more than a few hours.
Some people would say that when your day job starts to get in the way of your “real job,” that you should start looking for a way out. A lot of naysayers would reply with, “Why would you leave the job that makes money for one that makes a bit less money, or take two jobs that make less money but are more sporadic? I’ve go news for you. You already doing your real job.”
My response to them is that art is about risk, both on and off the stage. You have to believe that your art is your real job, whether or not it’s making money at that particular time. If you don’t, you run the risk of it becoming a hobby. George Seurat never sold a painting in his life, and yet he is known today as one of the main innovators of the pointillist artistic movement. He never gave up despite bad reviews and non-believers in his own time. He was somehow able to see his visions through and make enough money to get by. It was worth it to him.
If artists never approach the edge of that cliff and take a leap of faith, nothing will ever happen for them. It’s as simple as that old adage, “nothing risked, nothing gained.” Of course, it is hard to feel like going for that blind plummet, especially in this economic climate, but art still has to happen. My real “career” still has to be forged, even if it means reducing my hours at my “day job” and going out less on the weekends with friends. Like Daedalous and Icarus, I must fashion my wax wings and take to the sky, unafraid to fly towards the sun and hoping that by the time I reach it, my wings will transform into those of an albatross soaring across unimaginable distances.
Otherwise I’ll just become that boring person that I hate for 24 hours a day instead of just 8, and that would surely kill me.
Over six weeks, we had six different teachers who were improvisers at iO. Each had their own team and some even directed or created other shows there. The best thing about the program was that all of the students were comped for every show at the theater. Every day I would wake up, work out, walk to class, do improv for about six hours and then I’d stick around all night with my team to watch shows at iO. It was best way to learn the form and all of its variations. It was also the best education in team work that I’ve ever had.
The other great thing about the shows at iO is that many teams have created their own forms and broken away from the traditional “Harold.” One of my favorites was “Armando Diaz.” In this form, a person steps forward to announce themselves as Armando Diaz. He or she takes a suggestion from the audience and uses it to start telling a true story. The story doesn’t have to be funny, it just has to be honest. Then they step back and the other people on the team do scenes using the story as a suggestion. The scenes don’t have to be exactly from they story. They can be based on a word, a different take on a situation in it, anything. Suggestions in improv are just fodder. You don’t have to connect to them exactly. They’re just to help the actors go off of something to get their minds running. Then after about 3-5 scenes, Armando Diaz steps forward and tells another story using the original suggestion as inspiration. Then the other players do more scenes, etc. The best Armando Diaz show I was was when Charna Halpern, one of the founders of iO and a close friend to Del Close who was the creator of long form improvisation, did a guest appearance as Armando Diaz. For every monologue, she gave a small vignette of a moment with Del. It was an incredible performance not just because the improv was good, but because the monologues were a celebration of the man who planted the seeds that blossomed into this entire “movement.” I’ll never forget that night. Everyone who was there knew they had just witnessed something special. By definition, it was a “One Night Only” show, a moment we all shared and had not been shared at any time before and would never be shared again.
My all-time favorite show to see at iO is TJ and Dave. It is also the hardest show to get a ticket to. Every Wednesday night, TJ Jagodowski and David Pasquesi stand on the stage and say “Trust us. All of this is made up.” Then the lights go dim. When they come up, what ensues is a 45 minute show starring just the two of them. It’s the kind of comedy that percolates slowly and takes as much time as it needs to come into full bloom. It requires such focus and teamwork and this particular pair is a killer combination. They’ve been working together for so long that they can work fluidly and creatively with ease. Again, it’s not always funny. Sometimes it’s sad or poignet, but it is a guaranteed incredible story telling experience.
