"Only he who is well prepared has any opportunity to improvise."
- Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Lantern
How can you prepare for improv? It's all made up right? Preparation for improv is workshopping. Learning to play, exploring styles, formats and ideas. Learning to remove the inhibitions and allow yourself to be vulnerable. Because if you are vulnerable you are open to ideas. Preparation for improv is playing and having fun. Preparation for improv is exploring all the different styles of performance that will be thrown at you. But that's all the technical stuff. Preparation for improv is, most vitally, knowing the people you are working with. Their strengths, their weaknesses. Developing trust and knowing what the other person is thinking.
"With Improv it's a combination of listening and not trying to be funny."
- Kristen Wiig
One of the first things we say in our workshops is don't try to be funny. Trying hurts. It's painful to do and it's painful to watch. Trying can unbalance the scene and wreck the game. To quote the great philosopher Homer Simpson, the lesson is Never Try. Trust in the scene, in your partners and yourself. Listen to the great offers your partners are making. The funny will come. The joy of improvisation is watching all the puzzle pieces fall into place, that moment when a perfect joke, emotional beat or response happens so completely in the moment. That "you couldn't write it" moment. Trying to be funny is bringing a fully built house instead of a brick. Trying to be funny is scripting. If you're on stage with people you know and trust then you never have to try because their job is to make you look awesome and your job is to make them look awesome.
“THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, only opportunities.”
- Tina Fey
“Fall, then figure out what to do on the way down.”
– Del Close
It is impossible to fail in improv. I am not a master of Japanese Noh theatre but it's fun to watch me do it. Not everyone is the best at improvising a song with a complete rhyming structure, but conviction is just as powerful as accuracy. We are human, we make mistakes. If you mishear your scene partner you have created an opportunity to go off on a whole new tangent. If you drop something in a scene then you make it part of the scene. Everything that happens on stage is a gift and an offer to build from and create something unique and exciting. Trust in the audience. Trust in your scene partner. Trust in yourself.
Sean Mason 14/01/2015
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