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