20 Years of Improv Songs

Tom Carrozza (center) with other performers at SUNDAY NIGHT IMPROV.

My father once admitted to me that he spent a good deal of time between installments of the weekly Sunday Night Improv comedy jam thinking of titles and musical styles for "Can You Sing This?" My father attended almost every SNI jam we did for about ten years, and while he liked many of the "bits" (as he called them) that we did, his particular favorite was "Can You Sing This?" I don't know when we started doing it in the jam – probably since the beginning in 1993 – but its format has always remained refreshingly simple. The performer is given an absurd and/or evocative song title from the audience and a musical style is overlaid on that. Then, in collaboration with the piano player, an instant song is created. 

My father felt audiences often didn't stretch the performers enough, either suggesting mundane titles or predictable styles (rock, rap, and jazz being the most popular). That's what got him thinking about titles and styles during the week. In one show, for instance, someone yelled out the title, "Surfing Monkeys." For a style, my father was quick on the trigger, calling out "Zero Mostel." With Noel Katz on piano, Doug Nervik improvised wonderful lyrics – even though the slim Nervik in no way resembled the hefty Mostel, the song captured the essence of Mostel in a Fiddler on the Roof parody that is loads of fun. Watch the video: the audience laps it up – but the performers are having a good time meeting the challenge, as well.

The performances – both good and bad – were, like most improvisations, one-shot deals, created, performed, and quickly forgotten. But not always. Luckily, some of these shows were recorded over the years and now, in honor of Sunday Night Improv's 20th anniversary, I have gone through the poorly organized archives and prepared the best of the crop, which we will be showing on YouTube, and which will also be available on CD and DVD. The titles will be unknown to everyone, but they are evocative (and show the variety of suggestions we get from the audience): "Rutabaga Baby" (performed by Tara Lynn Wagner, who is now a reporter for New York 1), "Something Is Better Than Nothing," "I Was Raised By a Cocker Spaniel," "Simon Was a Blind Mouse," "The Difference Between Hamsters, Mice, and Rats," a personal favorite called "Jesus Is Mean to Me," and the brilliant "Lazy Chair," which should be recorded as a "real" song.

But that's unfair. They're all real songs, and "Can You Sing This?" is a wonderful showcase for talented performers, both on stage and at the keyboards. Indeed, my father always thought we should do a special night of "Can You Sing This?" – two hours utilizing four or five performers  (he didn't say so, but he was probably thinking of showcasing his favorites: Larry Bell, Linda Hill, Cate Smit, Doug Nervik, and Joe Mulligan).  He talked about it for some time, and when he became ill with cancer, I decided to put on the show he had wanted. Tom Carrozza and I planned the big event; there would be 15 performers who would think of their styles in advance, prepare costumes, and get suggested titles from the audience. The big night came, and although he was very ill (he would die two months later), my father attended. 

He watched in silence and afterwards, I asked him how he liked the big show, the culmination of his "dream." He was, typically, blunt in his comments. "You Hollywooded it up," he said. "The magic of 'Can You Sing This?' is that the stage is simple,  and the performers have to evoke a style on the spot, without any preparation or costumes. You don't need all that crap. You just need a singer and a piano. That's what makes it so wonderful."

He was right. So I think he would be pleased with the songs collected on the new CD and DVD, which are available from www.sundaynightimprov.com (or come get one at our 20th anniversary show this Sunday).  It's full of memorable moments. Doug as Zero Mostel. Carole Bugge singing a duet with Rhonda Friedman about why someone "Loved Rhonda Best." Larry Bell and Rosemary Hyziak coming up with rhymes for cocker spaniel in "I Was Raised By a Cocker Spaniel." And I challenge you to quickly get the Chris Griggs/Julian Blackmore song  "Lazy Chair" out of your mind. It's that good.

May 12, 2013

Block and Denial Festival

The theater is run by Endgames Improv, and their stated goal is to "stage cheap and free improv comedy shows as well as teach longform improvisation that is a blend of the best parts of Chicago, New York and LA's style. We believe that great comedy should be affordable and accessible and should NEVER come with a drink minimum. Ever."

Established in 2010, EndGames Improv, says their website, "is a product of a few improvisers' dream of creating a flourishing longfrom improv comedy scene. Our instructors have studied at the top improv training centers around the country (Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, iO Chicago, iO West, BATS and The Second City) and now they bring their combined training and passion for fun, edgy and honest longform improvisation to the San Francisco scene."

Inspiring words. If only the improv matched them. 

Last night, I saw what was possibly the worst improvisation show I've ever seen – and believe me, I've seen a lot of improv since 1981 when I first began improvising on the stage. Sure, you can say the performers are young kids and they don't know any better -- but if they put themselves out there as an improv troupe, they owe it to their audience to present something other than pointless nonsense that goes nowhere, says nothing, uses virtually no audience suggestions, and, bottom line, isn't funny.

"Our improv philosphy is that the skill of improvisation is for everyone, and everyone can do it," says the Endgames website. This is true -- and it's a philosophy I've taught for years. Yet “everyone can do it” is different from “everyone can do it well.” When an improviser gets on stage with other improvisers, he or she is part of a collaboration, and whether he/she is doing so-called long-form or short-form (a distinction without a difference in my book) improvisation, improv is about building something together. You put in an idea, then I put in an idea, each of us contributing something to the construction, until we have a completed scene. "Yes and..." is the bedrock of improvisation. You introduce an idea and I say "yes" to it and add my idea. Your idea plus my idea equals our idea. Whether you're doing short-form, long-form, or mid-sized improv, this is a crucial principle.

In the Endgames Improv show I saw last night at the Stage Werx Theater in San Francisco, you'd think the improvisers had never heard of this core concept. There were two groups performing, each in a 30-minute set, both were doing long-forms, which only require one suggestion. The first group got "Milwaukee" as their offer, and began a scene with two men having their IDs checked in a bar, apparently in Milwaukee. The two bartenders began sneering at the ID, saying that it identified the two men as California residents. They kept repeating this information as though repetition would make it funny. There was no explanation offered for the sneering (explanations are called justification -- i.e. justifying what the spontaneous idea means and they are the glue that holds scenes together), there was no relationship (the two sets of men were strangers, which generally makes it harder to do a scene; if you have no shared past, it's harder to make something meaningful happen), and there was no point to the scene. It ended abruptly (as long-form scenes often do), with a transformation into a scene between an improviser playing film director Robert Zemetkis and two other characters (this was inspired by a reference to the two men in the bar being film students). The scene, as with most scenes by this first group, went nowhere.

The rest of the improvisations were like that, pointless except for those who could follow the structure, which, in the "Harold" format much ballyhooed by the Upright Citizens Brigade, brings back characters and ideas from previous scenes. For those unfamiliar with "Harolds," the sequence just looked like an aimless mess, having as little to do with the suggestion as the characters had in common with real people. 


And you'd think these people never had a "Basics of Improv" class. The first things you're taught in improv are "Don't deny. Justify. And make active, rather than passive choices." Both groups performing on Thursday night asked a ton of questions, with answers that blocked or denied the action.

Why is that bad? Questions are not in and of themselves bad; they are just passive, passing the buck to someone else, who has to come up with the answer. Better to make assumptions, or at least ask assumptive questions. Rather than saying, "How are you feeling?" it's better to ask, "Are you still feeling sick?" Then the improviser can say, "Yes...and I've gotten worse." He is not denying – and id also adding his idea into the mix (your idea plus my idea = positive motion).

What about blocking or denying the action? You don't want to say "no" (that stops the action cold and you then have to come up with a new idea) and you don't want to disagree. When Joan Rivers was improvising years ago at Second City, she'd frequently deny. "How are the kids?" her scene partner would ask in an assumptive question. "We have no kids," she would reply, getting a laugh but punching a big hole in the reality of the scene -- and in her partner's faith in her ability to collaborate improvisationally. Disagreement gets you into an argument, which is usually boring to watch, and because the actors have equal status, the scene remains static and goes nowhere. Someone has to give ground for the scene to proceed.

There were a lot of Joan Rivers moments in last night's show – and I don't mean that as a compliment. "Give me your shoes," one improviser said to another at one point.

"No, I don't want to," he replied.

"Give them to me."

 "No."

"Give them to me.  I want them." 

"No."

And it went on like that for few more beats, until the shoe owner relented and gave him one shoe. Then the argument continued until he gave him the other shoe." And in all that wrangling, the faintly funny idea – that wearing and running in the shoes made the pursuer became horny for the pursued – got lost.

The second group was marginally better than the first -- at least they played a group of characters that knew each other – but they were the "Question Kids," too. They rattled off so many questions you'd think they were getting paid by the query. Most of the blocking was knee-jerk, amateur stuff:

"What day is today?"

"Thursday."

"No, it's Saturday."

"It's Thursday."

And later:

"Why didn't you invite me to the party?"

"I did."

"No, you didn't."

When Monty Python’s John Cleese and Michael Palin build a whole sketch around saying "No" ("The Argument Clinic") that's funny because that's the premise. When you do it the way these folks do it, that's not funny, that’s ineptitude.

Blocking and denying is about keeping control – you deny someone else because you think your idea is better. But it rarely is. The second group performing last night did a 25-minute scene that, at one point, involved a lizard turning into a man. Although the improviser had good physicality as the lizard, there wasn't much point to it all, and watching the dueling ideas was painful: someone suggested they turn the lizardman back into a lizard; someone else said let's turn the woman he had sex with into a lizard and make them a pair; someone else said let's keep him a lizardman, and so it went until people started implementing their dueling ideas. It was a mess, a nasty fight for control that went on until the lights went out.

The second group had started their set with promise, with each cast member stepping to the front and describing objects in the room. It got quite elaborate – and at first I thought that was the bit. But it wasn't. They pretty much ignored the reality they had spent five minutes setting up, walking through imaginary tables and beds as though they themselves hadn't placed them there. This set-up was just an exercise that someone must have taught them but which they didn't know how to use.

Which is not a bad way to sum up most "long-form" improvisation I’ve seen. Long, short, or medium length, improv is about scenes. And if you can't do a believable scene that makes a point about people and relationships, then you have no business doing a show on an improv stage. You're just jerking off in public. And that's not a pretty sight.

October 26, 2012         

Control and Chaos

I've been teaching improvisation since 1987 and performing it for even longer. I took my first class with George Todisco, the founder of Chicago City Limits, in February 1981 and it would probably have been my last class if George hadn't been such a good teacher. I remember doing a scene with my ex-girlfriend, Sari. (We had dated briefly and then became friends and partners in a public access cable show called Videosyncracies. Hoping to improve our sketch-writing skills, we attended a few classes around town: sketch-writing, stand-up, and improv. We had seen an improv show with the original cast of CCL and I was blown away by their split-second ingenuity).

In any event, Sari and I took a class with George. I remember the first scene with Sari, and it was one big argument. I didn't know then what  I know now: that new improvisers usually fight in their first scenes. That's because neither wants to give up control (it's scary to give up control but you have to give it up -- at least partially -- to make a scene work; improv is about collaboration: your idea plus my idea equals our idea, as I frequently tell my students).

Sari and I battled it out and limped through our first improv scene. Afterwards, George could have been blistering in his criticism. But, realizing that positive feedback is essential to beginners, he found something good to say about our scene: "You had good energy," he remarked. I was proud of my work then, and excited: I had good energy!  I felt I could do this improv thing, and continued in classes with (at various timexs) George, Carol Schindler, David Regal, Linda Gelman, Paul Zuckerman, and Chris Oyen. I spent seven years in classes before I began teaching my own in 1987.

I began performing in 1984 in an instructional way. I had been working out improvisationally with a group of fellow classmates from CCL. We would meet at the Biles Dance Studio on West 24th Street once a week to perform improv scenes, songs, and games. Chris Hoyle, one of the members, came to use one night in July and said we could perform at an 11:30 PM gig at Ye Olde Triple Inn, a bar on West 54th Street. We were all interested but cautious and agreed on three things: that I would be the head of the group and that one woman in the group (not present at this meeting) would be booted out. My first decision as group leader was to postpone any performance until September.

That said, I was surprised when Chris called me the next day to tell me he had booked the group, dubbed the New York Improv Squad, for a performance in three days and that he had asked the girl we had booted out to be in the group. I was stunned, and all of us were quite nervous about going on. (Chris had disregarded all the carefully thought-out decisions we had made.) Yet, he was right. We ended up doing a well-received first show (even the booted-out girl was fine). Chris didn't want to wait, instinctively knowing that doing is the path to learning.

And that reminds me of another short story I often tell my students. It is about a would-be standup comedian I knew once. He told me he had been working for months on his stand-up material. "Have you tried any of it out before an audience?" I asked him. "No," he replied. "I'm going to wait until it's perfect." As far as I know, he's probably still in that room somewhere, trying to perfect it.

May 18, 2012

Five Books, a DVD, and Improv

“The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not-very-good idea that was only slightly better, which somebody misunderstood in such a way that they then said something that was really rather interesting, which was picked up by somebody else who combined it with an earlier idea, which most people had forgotten, all of which was reshaped by somebody else, and so on...the starting point of the building process can be a bad idea…”  – John Cleese

It seems like I've been improvising my whole life. I don't mean living my life as improv – there would be nothing special in that since life is a big improv and we are all the players – I mean doing improv for the theater.

I first encountered theatrical improv when I was 11 or 12. My father and mother had guests over, and my father thought it would be fun to improvise a murder mystery involving all our guests. They were game and so, without telling them anything except that they would be suspects in a murder investigation. After that, I spent 1968 to 1971 improvising radio-style shows on audiotape and from 1971-1974, improvising movies on Super-8 film.

During college, I did little improv, but started performing again in 1980 on the public access cable show, Public Abscess, which eventually led to Videosyncracies, a sketch comedy show.

Looking to improve my sketch-writing, I attended an improv class taught by the late George Todisco in 1981. I loved it. I have been improvising ever since, in class for seven years with George, Carol Schindler, Linda Gelman, Paul Zuckerman, David Regal, and Chris Oyen as my teachers at Chicago City Limits, and one memorable class with Del Close of Second City (I remember him smoking throughout the class and discarding his used cigarette butts in a Pepsi bottle).

I performed with the New York Improv Squad from 1984-1986, helped Gary Stockton and John Weber win the Stanislavski Open (an improv competition in 1986) as part of Improv DaDa, and took over the improv jam from Ian Prior in 1993 (renamed Sunday Night Improv).

I began teaching classes in 1987. My first few classes only had two people attending, but I didn’t despair; I figured if I kept coming every week and offered a good product, they’d show up. And they did. Within a few years, I was teaching on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday nights, all the time developing and adapting  games to fulfill specific needs.

Looking back, I amaze myself at how much teaching I did. But I really enjoy it; teaching is as wonderful and as different as the students you instruct. Over the years, I have had celebrity actors drop in for class, people with various disabilities – a blind man, a double amputee, and a fellow with MS – and also doctors, psychiatrists, writers, comedians, senior citizens, 12-year-olds, and, of course, actors. Once, I agreed to teach 45 teenage students from Canada. And it wasn’t a straight lecture. They all had to participate, because I always feel that you learn more from doing it than watching it.

And I learned almost as many lessons as I taught.

I learned that improv is a social experience, that while the form itself is essentially shallow (a great scene gives an  illusion of depth but is gone forever once it’s over) the ties and connections that develop from improv can last a life time; after 30 plus years, the relationships with some of my closest friends – Alan Saly, Tom Sinclair, Christian Doherty, Carl Kissin, Ian Prior, Tom Carrozza, and Carol Schindler – were born in the trenches of improv.

That point came home to me years ago when I taught a perfomance class with the group, The Wingnuts, which featured Denny Siegel (later on Whose Line Is It Anyway?), Beth Littleford (later on the Daily Show), Mike Bencivenga (director of the film Happy Hour and the recent hit play, Billy and Ray), David Storck (co-author of the book, Ensemble Theatre Making), and most of the cast of The Chainsaw Boys. What touched me was how everyone hung out together after those classes, how much it was like a family. All because of improv.

Over the years, my students have frequently asked me why I didn’t put all my insights, anecdotes, and mantras (like the one for “Listening, Observing, and Communicating”) into a book. I toyed with it, but never seemed to find the time. When my former teacher, Carol Schindler, returned to teaching a few years ago at my theater, we would naturally talk about improv scenes, techniques, and all that jazz. Then my book, Overheard on a Bus, was published. Carol and I were talking about that, and I said, “Why don’t we do a book on improv?” She said, “Sure!” How improvisational! And, in the end, working with Carol has been just as fun as working on a scene, except this relationship has lasted longer than three-minutes, and no one has turned off the lights yet! Thanks, Carol.

The book, A Doctor and a Plumber on a Rowboat, is finally here, available from Amazon. It makes a great Christmas gift (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). And if you really want the full experience, you can see Carol and me talking about and performing improv in my documentary on improvisation, Sense and Nonsense, at the ridiculously cheap price of $5.31 from Amazon (and this is a longer version than the one on You Tube, featuring Joe Perce, Linda Gelman, John Fulweiler, and others who got cut from the shorter version). Completists will want to pick up items from this site.

Jerry's Fantasies

Tom Soter (far right in white jacket) in 1985 with the N.Y. Improv Squad.

A BLAST FROM MY PAST

My Life as an Improvisor, Pt. 2

"Tom, you'd better sit down," said the voice on the other end of the line. "I want you to be prepared for what I'm about to tell you."

"I'm sitting down," I said, not recognizing the name "Janet Smith" on my caller ID nor the voice of the man on the phone.

 "This is Jerry Patterson, Tom."

 "Jerry Patterson," I said slowly. I paused. "It's been a long time."

Twenty-five years, in fact.

It was aroung 1984 or 1985 and I had just been involved in improv comedy for a few years. I had been studying with Carol Schindler, an excellent teacher at Chicago City Limits, when Jerry turned up. He was a short, stout guy, with a nervous smile and an obsequious manner, who said he had studied improv in Florida and now hoped to make a splash here. One thing was certain: he was trying to ingratiate himself with everyone in the CCL class circuit. From small to large, there wasn't any assistance that Jerry wouldn't offer. He volunteered to help on the set of my public access cable TV show, Videosyncracies, and was very useful. After class, he'd treat people to drinks, praising their work and modestly downgrading his own.

Everyone found Jerry a nice enough guy, although he seemed to try too hard and was, well, you'd have to admit it, a little weird. One improv class we took together, for instance, was devoted to an exercise called "Fantasies," in which an improviser was allowed to play-act a favorite fantasy and his fellow performers had to go along with him. Jerry's fantasy was as odd as the guy, both ingratiating and self-destructive. He wanted to be a talk show host "with Carol Schindler and Tom Soter" as his guests. But as we played it out, he interpreted everything Carol or I said to him as an insult, as though we were putting him down. Which we weren't. So, his fantasy, really, was to be a talk show host who is insulted by his guests, Carol Schindler and Tom Soter.

Jerry's self-destructive nature was fully revealed in his last days at CCL. It turned out that he had been borrowing money from his fellow students by passing bad checks among them; he had even paid for classes with rubber money. Since everyone hung out together from class, it was inevitable that we would exchange notes and find out. But, Jerry obviously wanted to be found out. It was probably another fantasy of his.

The last straw came when he paid Mike Honda, his roommate and my classmate, with two bad checks. He had also, Mike said, stolen a shirt of his. Mike had reported Jerry to the police, but Jerry had apparently skipped town. Then, the police called Mike: they had found Jerry at the 34th Street YMCA. They had picked him up and wanted Mike to go to the station house. Mike brought me along with him.

We entered the squad room at the precinct. It looked like a set for Law & Order. Jerry was seated by the side of a desk, with a plainclothes detective working at the desk. Jerry stood up when he saw, but did so awkwardly because, I noted, one hand was handcuffed to the desk. "Sit down, Jerry," said the cop, without looking up from his paperwork. I wondered, Was this a Jerry fantasy, too?

The detective who had brought us in took us aside and asked us what we wanted to do. Did we want to press charges? Mike, apparently feeling sorry for Jerry, turned to me.

"What should we do?" he asked.

I, in turn, said to the detective: "If Mike doesn't press charges what happens to him?"

"We turn him loose."

 "And he'll probably do more of the same?”

“Yes.”

“If we press charges?”

“We book him and he spends the night in jail before his arraignment tomorrow.”

I looked at Mike, he nodded, and then, for the only time in my life, I was able to play cop for a moment and said, “Book him!”

The last time I saw Jerry was when Mike and I were downstairs at a phone booth, as two cops brought Jerry out in handcuffs and hustled him off to a jail cell. I never heard from him again. Until now.

“Jerry Patterson,” I said. “The last time I saw you was in a police precinct.”

“Yeah.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to audition for your show, Sunday Night Improv.”

“Why?”

“There aren’t a lot of improv venues out there,” he said matter-of-factly.

Or suckers willing to be burned again, I thought.

“I’ve straightened myself out,” he said, as though he had read my mind.

“I’m not holding auditions right now,” I said, diplomatically adding: “Why don’t you just come to the show and see if it’s something you want to get involved with?”

Silence.

“Let’s play it by ear,” I said, wondering if he had perhaps hung up.

“Okay,” he said awkwardly. “Maybe I’ll see you in the fall.” The line went dead.

What was that all about? I thought. Was he legit? Or maybe my rejecting him was just another episode in the Jerry Patterson Fantasy Show.

August 27, 2010

(Some of the names in this story have been changed to protect me.)

Loon Over Manhattan

MY LIFE AS AN 

IMPROVISOR, Pt. 3

Soter with NY Improv Squad, 1985

 

Be careful.

That’s the advice I offer to any aspiring improv teachers out there. I’ve had my share of oddballs in the classes I’ve taught since I began teaching in 1987, but none as loony as Dan (we’ll keep him anonymous) and his wife, who both studied with me in the 1990s.

Dan was a dynamic performer. He delighted in playing preachers and prophets and was well suited for the part. Magnetic in his manner, over six feet tall, thin and gangly in his appearance, he could evoke a crazed preacher with ease. His wife was, as I recall, somewhat mousy and quiet, content to remain in the shadow of the Great Man.

They came to my Friday early evening class fairly regularly. So did a rather large woman whom we’ll call Josephine. Now, Josephine didn’t like to be touched. By any one. So, I had to warn newcomers (and remind veterans) not to touch Josephine during a scene.

Apparently, Dan didn’t get the memo. During one group scene, Josephine, Dan, the Wife, and another student were sitting around an imaginary table and, for some reason, Josephine was berating Dan – rather savagely, I might add. At some point during Josephine’s monologue, Dan made eye contact with his wife and, zombie-like, she stood up and walked to a position behind Josephine. At another barely noticeable signal from Dan, the Wife placed her fingers around Josephine’s throat.

The class and I watched, mesmerized, as the next few events occurred in what seemed like slow motion. As Josephine yammered on with her insults, the Wife seemed to tighten her grip. We all thought it was stage play – you know, an imaginary squeeze – and Josephine hadn’t objected to the touch and was apparently playing along. Even down to her face turning purple. I was about to interrupt and compliment them on their acting, when the Wife let out a yell and Josephine inhaled and exhaled mightily. “I couldn’t breathe,” she said between breaths. “I couldn’t breathe.” But she apparently had been able to pinch the wife hard enough to get her to let go.

As everyone sat in stunned silence, I offered some advice about respecting each other’s space, not killing anyone during class hours, and anything else I could think of at the time.

The moral of the story: take your students seriously – or there might be serious consequences. And watch out for the loons.

September 19, 2010

My Dinner With Miriam

 

The scene is a coffee shop. Miriam Sirota and I are talking about improvisation.

“What do you feel has to happen between a group of people to make a group scene work?” Miriam asks.

The scene is a coffee shop. Miriam Sirota and I are talking about improvisation.

“What do you feel has to happen between a group of people to make a group scene work?” Miriam asks.

“They have to have a lot of silence at the beginning. And beyond the silence, they have to clear their heads of any preconceived ideas. Then they have to watch what the other people are doing, listen, and observe what’s happen and not speak until they feel they have something to say. Sometimes you speak without knowing what you mean entirely. You have to trust and leap somewhere. I know that sounds very mystical, but you rely on techniques to try and figure out who the people are, even as you’re acting them out. The best thing that can be said is you have to trust who you’re working with.”

“For me,” says Miriam, “in a group scene where so many people are involved, you have to be aware of what is the scene is about. Who are the people in the scene? Who is the conflict with? And you have to play the part that you need to play within that. Because a lot of times, people try to pull focus in a group scene, they try to take over instead of listening and observing.”

“There’s a very good example of that. We did a scene at a funeral and someone made a mistake and made a reference to one of the dead people being our mother, when we had established that it was our father. And some other improvisers offstage rushed on and changed the coffin – it was very broad and comic and explained the confusion, but it also broke the realistic mood and made it into a big gag. Instead of trusting that we could have explained the mix-up ourselves. But it didn’t stop there. Soon they started changing the coffin regularly and turned that into a pattern, a disruptive pattern, because they didn’t trust that we had anything happening and they wanted to get some immediate laughs going. That’s a good example of what happens if you don’t give improvisers their space you don’t give the scene its space to breathe.”

“You’ve taught improv for years. What do you think is the most common problem that most newcomers have?”

“They think they have to be funny. They feel like they have to come up with gags and quips and play zany characters. They’re not real. They try to come up with one-liners, rather than realizing that what improv is about is playing a thinly disguised version of yourself in different situations and using the same skills you use in life, which is to listen, to observe, to communicate, to try to not judge. And they’re very judgmental of themselves when they get up there.”

August 25, 2010

The Happy Warrior

"Neurology has determined that Doug lost 90 percent of the left side of his brain, with no hope for recovery. He looked forward to a poor quality of life in a nursing home, which he has always expressed that he would not want. It was a difficult decision for us, but was done in love and mercy. It was a family decision to let Doug pass on to his next adventure." – statement from the Nervik family, October 2012

I don't remember when I first met Doug Nervik. He always seemed to be there, tinkling on his piano, smoothly singing clever improvised songs with an ease that he also brought to old standards and to the opening game he would frequently employ at my weekly Sunday Night Improv jam sessions.

"Hello, everyone," he would say in that upbeat way he had, "we're going to play a game right now. I play a TV theme song, and you call out the name."

He would usually begin with something everyone knew, like the theme song from Gilligan's Island or The Beverly Hillbillies, and then progress on to harder tunes, like The Wild Wild West or Hill Street Blues (when someone would invariably call out the wrong show – Bonanza, say, after he had played The Wild Wild West – Doug wouldn't exactly say they were wrong, but he would slyly segueway from the one tune to the other, transforming The Wild Wild West into Bonanza, so that the audience member would realize his or her mistake and someone else would get a chance to guess again.)

That was Doug all over, one of the sweetest guys I knew. (It was also an ingenious way to get audiences to feel comfortable calling out suggestions.) He never liked to say "no" -- and perhaps that came from his improv training. For, although Doug was technically not the greatest of piano players (which he himself would admit), he was one of the most heartfelt and one of the best improv piano players. He never left you hanging on stage, musically, always followed when you knew where you were going, always led when you needed someone to follow. You were never alone when you were on the stage with Doug, never abandoned. His music, seamless and unobtrusive, gave you the backing you needed to look brilliant on stage (or at least not so bad as you might have been).

I guess I must have met Doug at Chicago City Limits, where I spent seven years in classes, learning how to talk on stage without a script. I knew he worked with the First Amendment and For Play, as well, and had even played for my performance workshop group, Wingnuts and (at times when Noel Katz wasn't around), for The Chainsaw Boys. But I got to know him best when he performed for my improv jam. He was there from the beginning, in 1992, when John Webber and I had inherited it from Ian Prior (who had in turn taken it over from Jane Brucker), and his tall, lanky presence became a familiar site at the weekly show.

He was great on piano, but he also loved to perform on stage. He once agreed to play piano for a show, but asked if he could also get in some stage time at another show as a "performer not just a pianist." He was terrific as a performer, but he was never "just a pianist." When he would perform as an actor not a musician, I frequently had him come on stage and do a bit where he would sit with the show's pianist that night and the two of them would improvise together on the keyboard, taking an old standard like "Heart and Soul" and riffing on it.

Watching the two pianists' hands fly over the keyboard, working now in counterpoint and then in harmony, playing games with each other as they created a unique, never-to-be-experienced-again jazz masterpiece, was breathtaking and often brought thunderous applause from the audience. It wasn't that they were so very extraordinary as musicians, it was the overall experience that wowed you. There was the low-key way it all started, with Doug walking out on stage quietly, sitting down, and then picking out a few notes on the piano as though he were discovering the instrument for the first time. He and his collaborator would build the piece slowly and methodically, like good improvisers, climbing to a comedic crescendo bit by bit, drawing you in through the power of the collaboration.

He made it all look so easy – which it wasn't (as was evidenced when I tried the same game with less fluid piano players). But that was Doug all over. He was supportive, kind, and always there if you really needed him. 

I remember the last time I spoke with him in person. He hadn't played the jam for me in years (in fact, I heard he hadn't played much anywhere in recent years), but he was as cordial as ever when we ran into each other on Broadway and 79th Street. He was rushing somewhere, but we stood and chatted for a few minutes. I consoled with him over one of his brothers, who had recently died, and the talk got around to my father, George. My dad, who attended the jam every week for years, had often praised Doug profusely – so much so that Doug started referring to him as "George, my agent." And when my father came down with cancer, Doug was devastated. I remember him sitting outside my father's bedroom after his last visit. The look on his face spoke volumes.

As we finished our conversation, I, of course, extended an invitation for him to play at Sunday Night Improv. He didn't say yes and he didn't say no, perhaps, because like any good improviser, he wanted to keep his options open. But two weeks later, when I called him to say that I was in a bind for an upcoming show – none of my regular pianists were available – he agreed immediately. That was an exciting moment. Doug was back!

Alas, it was not to be. A few days before the show, I received a message from Doug that he had suffered a stroke – the first of two – and that he would be unavailable. Doug and a stroke seemed like two incompatible terms that were hard to wrap my mind around. Doug and a stroke! How could a man so vibrant, so athletic, so ready to jump in and save the day on stage suffer a stroke? It seemed incredible.

It is almost as hard to believe that he will soon be gone. A world without Doug is like a world without one of its great happy warriors. For Doug fought the good fight against an unfeeling world. He truly lived the adage: "Life is a big joke. It only hurts if you don't laugh."

Goodbye, Doug, old friend. You will be missed.

October 21, 2012

(Doug died on October 23, 2012.)

The Pink Elephant Spontaneous Arts Show

MY LIFE AS AN IMPROVISER

Part 1 P1010062.JPG

The man was missing an arm. That was obvious.

I was teaching my Tuesday night improv class at the Lucy Moses School when a new student came in. And he was clearly missing an arm.

Now teaching people to improvise may seem like a contradiction –­ how can you learn to be spontaneous? – but it actually isn’t as strange as it sounds. As children, we can usually be very spontaneous, saying the first thing that comes into our heads, damn the consequences. But as we grow into adulthood, we are taught to reign in those spontaneous thoughts (lest we be considered rude or, worse yet, a bit nuts) as we find our place in polite society. When you teach improv, you use various techniques to get people to avoid censoring themselves. You teach them to once again be free to share their thoughts.

In any event, this new student walked into my class, sans arm. I politely ignored commenting on it and didn’t consciously notice it any more. But my unconscious must have been working over time. “How did he lose his arm?” it must have been saying to me. “How does he manage?” “What’s it like?” And although I pride myself on being sensitive to my students' needs (and have successfully run a number of improv classes since 1987), I found myself making unconsciously insensitive remarks.

“You had one arm tied behind your back,” I said to another student in my comments after a scene he had done in which he put up an impediment to succeeding. After I said it, I realized that my new class member might find the remark in bad taste. I made a few other off-key comments, and at the end of class I talked to him about the good work he had done, encouraging him to come back. I also apologized for the brief comments that I thought might have bothered him.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” he said, jokingly adding, “It was rough, but I can take it.”

I vowed to myself that I would do better, and one week later, when I was walking to class, I ran into my one-armed student. He was limping.

“Did you hurt yourself?” I asked.

“No, I screwed in my leg wrong,” he replied matter-of-factly.

I smiled wanly. His leg missing? And Mr. Sensitive Improv Teacher commented on it?

It was going to be one of those nights.

The happy ending to this tale of insensitivity was that the young man whom I had so abused (and amused) went on to take my classes for years, and even ended up in my performance class and in my  Sunday Night Improv comedy jam. And when he performed, he was terrific. But at one show, my father, in the audience, noticed that his fellow performers would often do scenes about people losing limbs and other body parts. When he commented on this phenomenon to me, I explained it was the nature of spontaneity, and the more you tried to staunch it, the more it would surface. Not unlike the so-called "Pink Elephant" syndrome. "Don't think about pink elephants," you tell a person. Then, of course, all he can think about is pink elephants. Improvisers at jam.

My father, naturally, didn't listen to me (do fathers ever heed the warnings of their offspring?), and the next week, when my student came to watch the show,  my dad went backstage and warned the cast of his presence. "Now be  careful what you say," he added as he left the dressing room. They all thanked him and promised to be sensitive, and even though I knew they all meant it, I shook my head in knowing despair. Sure enough, the performance that night could have been titled, "A Pink Elephant Showcase for the Unconscious at Work." Indeed, not since the French Revolution have there been so many scenes of people getting arms hacked off, heads guillotined, and other acts of de-limbification. The moral of the stoy: leave well enough alone.

A footnote: a few years later, I had a student who suffered from multiple sclerosis. He was confined to  a wheelchair, and he was very funny, often using the chair – and his condition – as the basis for humor. Not knowing this when we first met, however, I spoke with him before his initial class about how to refer to his condition.

I brought the matter up, I explained to him, only because of an experience I had had as a writer at Habitat magazine, interviewing someone in the mayor’s office for the handicapped for a story I was writing. “Do the handicapped…” I had begun to say to the mayor’s rep before he had cut me off. “Don’t use the word, ‘handicapped,’" he had warned. “It’s negative. It puts a negative spin on their condition.”

I had tried again. “Do the disabled…”

“Don’t use the word, ‘disabled,’ he had warned once more. ‘It’s negative, too. It puts a negative spin on their condition.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I suggest ‘physically challenged’ or, better yet, ‘people with disabilities.’”

I could see that phrase smoothly fitting into a story. Nonetheless, I realized people were sensitive and that words do matter. So, I had complied, and now in my improv class with my MS-afflicted student, I asked him, “What should I call you?”

He paused, as though thinking deeply, and then, with exquiste comic timing, replied: “Call me a cripple, Tom.” He laughed uproariously and we were students of each other for many years thereafter. 

 August 25, 2010

Workshops

We offer workshops every Sunday night at 5:30 P.M., Monday night at 7 P.M., and Wednesday at 6:30 P.M. at the Soter/Lee Blackbox, 236 West 78th Street (212-353-7716). What will you learn? Take a look at the section below or go to our home page.

To contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions, write , or call 212-353-7716.

NEW YEAR'S RATE:
COLLEGE STUDENTS (WITH CURRENT I.D.) $15 A CLASS!

FAST AND FUNNY IMPROV
An ongoing drop-in class, for anyone who wants a quick tour of the improv world. The class, for all levels, features performers from the cast of Sunday Night Improv. You can do scenes with veteran improv performers – and then stay and see them perform in Sunday Night Improv! Class fee includes a ticket to that night's performance of SNI.
Time: Sunday, 5:30-6:30 P.M.
Location: Soter/Lee Blackbox 236 West 78th Street
Fee: $10 per class; fee includes ticket to performance of Sunday Night ImprovInstructor: Tom Soter

  Teacher: Tom Soter in 2008. 

  IMPROV FOR EVERYONE
An ongoing drop-in class, focusing on how to create improvised scenes and stories. Students are taught the basics of good scene work in a supportive environment.
Time: Monday, 7-9 P.M.
Location: Soter/Lee Blackbox 236 West 78th Street
Fee: $25 per class; $225 for ten classes
Instructor: Tom Soter 

  IMPROV FOR EVERYONE 2 Chicago City Limits alumnus Carl Kissin and SNI producer Tom Soter offer more techniques for improvised comedy.  Time: Wednesday, 6:30-9 P.M.
Location: Soter/Lee Blackbox 236 West 78th Street
Fee: $30 per class; $325 for ten classes
Instructors (alternating): Carl\Kissin, Tom Soter

 

CORPORATE WORKSHOPS

Carl Kissin

We also offer corporate workshops. Call/e-mail for more information.
"Our design department's Improv 'theory & practice' sessions with Tom Soter were a remarkable experience for all of us. Over a two week period, the NY Design Department at kpe engaged in theatrical improvisation seminars. Having now experienced these improv sessions for myself, I realized all over again that we've got a really amazing group of individuals here - sharp, spontaneous, thoughtful, ingenious. and, did I say creative? The excercises ranged from simple speaking to collaborative storyline generation. Tom Soter, the coach, designed this program especially for us to encompass the
challenges of the studio environment - presence, articulation, presentation, cooperation, communication. I recommend the improv approach to everyone. At the very least, I think that as a department, it 're-introduced' us to the qualities that make us a great team. thanks again, Tom!" – Scott Nazarian, executive, kpe advertising

THE ART OF
IMPROVISATION

By TOM SOTER

Three men and two women stand on a bare stage. Suddenly, quickly, each says one word at a time. "Jim" "went" "to" "see" "his" "mother." Faster and faster, they speak until the five sound like one person telling one complete story. It is an impressive performance, and even more impressive when one realizes that it is completely improvised.

When most people think of improvisation, they think of quick jokes, one–liners, and stand–up comedians. Yet when most stand–up comedians think of improv, they are puzzled. "Most of them think we have a wonderful storehouse of one–liners that we just associate with the situation," said Paul Zuckerman, producer and former cast member of Chicago City Limits, a New York improvisational troupe. "People don't really understand what improv is."

Improv: Early Years

 

Improvisation is the "comedy of the moment," and it has become so successful since its rebirth in Chicago many years ago that dozens of improvisational groups have sprung up around the country, with a solid handful in New York City. It's no wonder, too: improvisational alumni include Robin Williams, Chevy Chase, Alan Alda, and Joan Rivers. Such TV series as Saturday Night Live and SCTV often developed material using improv techniques, further giving respectability to improvisation's brand of fast–paced humor.

What is improv? It has its basis in the commedia dell'arte, an Italian Renaissance form of theater in which a traveling comedy troupe would perform farces without a written script. Though the basic scenario was agreed upon, the pacing of the story often depended on audience reactions.

Modern improvisation started in Illinois in 1955 when students from the University of Chicago began performing improvised skits from their own scenarios. This group developed into the Compass Players and later into Second City, from which many other improv groups are descended. In the near–vacuum of political humor of the early '60s, Second City's off–the–cuff comedy –– dealing with literature, the Church, Korean War veterans, Joe McCarthy, and marijuana –– was as unusual for its material as it was for its method.

Compass Players

 

"When we started out at the Compass," recalled Del Close, one of the company's early members, "we were entertaining each other and our peers. Where did you go to hear jokes about Dostoevski or Newton's third law? Certainly not the burlesque house. And in the anti–intellectual environment of the Fifties, it took a certain amount of courage to stand up in public and admit that you had an education you weren't ashamed of."

Del Close: Compass Player

  Taking a chance is one of the most important elements of improvisational work. But the risk is somewhat less than it might seem to the audience because the improviser is guided by training and by discipline learned and developed through a series of rehearsal/performance "games."

All these games involve skills that everyone everywhere uses without even thinking twice: listening, observing, and communicating. In fact, everyone improvises every day because everyone speaks off the cuff, without using a script: You listen towhat people tell you; you observe how they say it (are they angry or happy?); and then you communicate your response, either verbally or non–verbally. Everyone goes through this process –– but only improvisers turn it into an art form.

Improvisers also build on trust. First, they trust that their partner will help them –– and second, they train themselves to trust their first response to a suggestion by the audience or an idea by their colleagues. Trusting is one of the things that gets in the way of everyone when he or she is trying to create: every person can be spontaneous –– think of when you are having a good time joking around with friends; or of the spontaneity of children, who say the first thing that comes into their heads.

What gets in the way of spontaneity is our own self–censorship, our feeling –– taught us by our parents, our peers, our employers –– that there are certain "acceptable" and "unacceptable" things, and that we can look foolish if we do the latter and not the former.

Improv is about teaching a person that it is okay to look foolish and say silly things; that only by saying what is silly can you get to what is truly funny. The more you trust yourself, the more amusing you can be.

Similarly, an improviser must build up a bond of trust with his colleagues. Part of that means never denying the reality set up by his partner. When Joan Rivers was with Second City many years ago, said Close, "she would break the reality of a scene in order to get a laugh. Someone would say, 'What about our children?' and Joan would say, 'We don't have any.' Okay, you get a quick, easy laugh, but you've also punched a big hole in the scene. All the actors have on stage is each other's belief and faith and if that's gone, then you've just got cheap wit."

Improv is also about making assumptions. An improviser always tries to add information to a scene, in an attempt to be "active" and not "passive." An improviser asking "non–assumptive" questions –– ones that offer no information about him or the other character –– can cripple his partner because such questions do not further a scene. A player who asks, "What's that?" doesn't give his partner anything with which to work; he establishes no connection between them. On the other hand, a question like, "Aren't you ever going to take out the garbage?" implies both that the two know each other and that they have a particular conflict.

"Once the audience suggested 'film noir,'" recalled CCL's Paul Zuckerman about an improv exercise in which the improvisers tell a story using different movie styles. "What did that mean? I thought, it's a French word meaning 'black' or 'night,' and I thought of a school of film where you have incredible use of shadow. So I used that kind of imagery. Rather than saying, 'I don't know, so I'll just try not to be noticed.' You have to make a strong assumption."

 

CCL's Paul Zuckerman: noirish

 

Improvisers also observe their own body language, and trust that it will suggest ideas to them. "It is possible to get a clue from your body as to what kind of character you might be," explained Close. Standing pigeon–toed, for instance, with head bowed, might suggest to the improviser that he is a passive, submissive character; he might approach the cast member on stagehesitantly. If he thrusts his chest out, however, and holds his head high, that might suggest he is a powerful figure, on his way to the presidential suite.

Using your physical and emotional self is crucial in improvisation because the improviser, with so little time to think, is often playing a thinly disguised version of himself. You might be playing a pair of doctors and you don't know much about doctors. What's more important is that you're two men who happen to be doctors. The scene should not be about medicine but about how two people react –– realistically –– to a life and death situation.

On stage, of course, none of these theories are obvious. The improvs are fast and clever, and the audience responsive. Improvisation, in fact, is a mystery, and the reason audiences are interested is because everyone is trying to find the solution. "Improv is mutual discovery, mutual support," noted Close, "[it is] the adventure of finding out what it is we're doing while we're doing it. All you know is where you've been. You don't know where you're going."