Take Improv Seriously

So The Radical Agreement Project has an all community meeting coming up on Sunday 11/3. This is just our second community meeting since RA embarked on a new phase, one in which we are pushing many more performances and workshops and looking to grow what has been a very special, but admittedly pretty small online community of comedy artists. This post is meant to prepare attendees for that meeting by discussing a governing principle that I believe is advantageous to improv institutions looking to grow: Take Improv Seriously.

At the bottom of the post I am also adding a list of questions for us to discuss at the meeting which will serve as a de facto agenda. I doubt we’ll get to every question, or even half of them, but I’d appreciate you going through them all the same. If you think I am missing anything we should discuss, please let me know.

A few caveats about taking improv seriously.

First, the point of RA’s Community Meetings is to make community decisions. As discussed in our first meeting, online improv is still developing and no one has quite figured out the secret formula to ignite the magic and passion of in-person improv in an online setting. So just like the first meeting, questions about how we might do just that will be asked and the community will shape the answers we arrive at.

While all this is true, I would nonetheless like us all to keep this principle (of taking improv seriously) in mind as we consider our way forward.

Second, improv is not serious. In fact it is dopey. Improv is so dopey that most people would probably agree it was reasonable if you compared the art form to basket weaving or LARPing.

Yet improv can also be spectacular. 

It can regularly reach comedic heights of hilarity and weirdness that scripted work struggles to attain. It can create a group mind between members of a team allowing them to seem telepathic in their sudden communal decision making and anticipatory support of each other’s contributions. It can inspire its practitioners so much that they may compare it to a religion or attempt to change their personal lives in ways that echo the lessons of improv comedy. 

But it can’t do those things if we treat it like it is basket weaving. 

An Improviser Who Has Decided To Take Improv Seriously

Let me give you an example from the UCB Theatre where I first took classes in 2003 (and then again in 2007). At that time UCB took improv very seriously (for improv) and you could tell from a couple of the rules they had in place related to their classes:

• You couldn’t be more than 15 minutes late to class or you were not allowed to enter the class and you were marked absent. These were 3 hour classes, so missing 15 minutes was the equivalent of missing less than a tenth of the class.

• You couldn’t miss more than 2 classes or you failed the class and would need to take it again.

• You had to go to the theater and watch live improv shows twice during the 8 weeks of any classes you took, or you failed the class and would need to take it again.

I learned about these policies on the first day of my first class in 2003 and I was stunned. “The gall” I thought, or something like that. “The unmitigated gall.”

I mean these were expensive classes. I had paid $325 in 2003 and that was a lot of money for me then. How could they tell me I couldn’t be 15 minutes late for something I had paid for? 

And how could I fail an art class and have to take it again? It seemed impossible to me.

But fail it I did. I was late by more than 15 minutes three times. I was an overachiever too, I managed to be more than 15 minutes late in just 7 of the 8 classes.

It stung. I felt a low level of shame. And I knew that if I had wanted to be on time, I could have done it.

When I got back to classes in 2007 I had to take level one again, this time for $350. 

But I discovered something, to my dismay, as I went through the core curriculum UCB offered at the time. I appreciated the lateness policy. It resulted in the whole class (mostly) being on time and focused when the teacher entered the room. 

And the other policies were good too. Not being able to miss class meant most people didn’t miss allowing us to grow as a team of improvisers. And the policy about seeing shows meant we all learned more about improv faster.

It helped that I found the classes to be insightful and that my teachers were able to demonstrate to me the power of UCB’s approach to improv. I began to believe that the improv classes I was taking were not just a fun pastime. I remember beginning to believe that UCB had something valuable to offer partially because they refused to sell it short.

I distinctly remember going out to a bar with my fellow level 2 students one night. One of them was upset. She explained that her boyfriend was getting fleeced by UCB because they were insisting he take level 1 even though he had previously studied for years at The Groundlings.

“They said they wanted him to learn their approach to improv and that The Groundlings approached improv differently than them,” she scoffed, over what looked like a delicious mixed drink.

But that made sense to me. I had practiced short form improv very avidly from 5th grade through my sophomore year at college. But even with 9 years experience, I was finding UCB’s hyper intelligent approach to improv very difficult to keep up with. 

I decided I was glad UCB wouldn’t just wave this Groundlings improviser into a class they didn’t think he belonged in. I didn’t think he was bad at improv, in fact I was fairly certain he must be pretty good at it. But being good at an art form is not the same thing as being proficient in every approach to that art form (Norman Rockwell probably would have struggled in a class taught by Monet, and vice versa).

“They really mean it,” I thought on my cab ride home that night. “And if they mean it, maybe I should too.” 

So for the next two years improv became my life and it paid off. I got good at it.

Then I made it my life for another three years, and got even better at it. I’d like to think I stayed just as serious ever since. But that isn’t true

When I became a teacher in 2012 the classes were $400. I hated enforcing the policies but I knew that if I didn’t my classes would seem less serious. I watched as newer students struggled with the outrage that I struggled with in 2003.

And they had a point! $400 is a lot of money!

But UCB had a better point. $400 is a lot more expensive if your class isn’t worth the money, which it wouldn’t be if the class wasn’t being taken seriously by your teacher or by the other students.

A few years later, under a lot of pressure, UCB began changing some of these policies. I don’t remember all the changes but I do remember that the 15 minute policy moved to 30 minutes. 

Now you could waltz into class 27 minutes late, find a seat, put your bag and coat down noisily and shake the snow off of your boots while your classmates tried to stay focused on whatever exercise they were working on. Sure, lots of times it wasn’t like that, but some of the time it was.

It wasn’t as serious and it had a bad impact on the overall commitment within the class. Why should a student try hard in that environment?

I remember very clearly in 2015 teaching a class when a student interrupted me to say they needed a few minutes to take the elevator down to the lobby. It was the last 15 minutes of class and the student explained they were hungry, so about 30 minutes earlier they had ordered a pizza and now it was time to go get it. Of course I can’t say that was 100% because of lax policies, but nothing like it had ever happened in one of my UCB classes before.

That is the perspective I come from when I wonder what policies and practices an improv institution should have in place. And I’d ask that we keep it in mind as we review different procedures on Sunday, November 3rd.

Here are some things I’m hoping to discuss at the upcoming meeting:

• Overall how are shows and workshops going?

• How are notes going after shows and should anything change?

• How are coaches going for the two house teams, including practices, shows and paying the coaches?

• What do we think about hosting our shows on Zoom? Should we try streaming to a different platform or hosting the shows entirely on a different platform?

• House teams are currently performing Conducted Story Craze style long form shows, should anything change?

• Should all RA shows receive notes?  How should that happen?

• I intend to add a third team in January and possibly I may break up and reconfigure one or both current house teams. What questions or concerns do we have about that procedure?

• How do we feel about current show attendance?  Should we make a marketing push and if so, how?

• Should we make morning sessions for the free beginner workshops permanent?