Today I'm very distressed because my best friend,
who happens to be a lion, has somehow been injured in a skiing contest.
Warn and scene. The preceding scenario may seem ridiculous, but it is a
regular day for a comedy improv actor.
Improv is a form of acting in which the actors come
to the stage with no script and are responsible for setting the scene, creating
characters, and interacting based only upon an audience suggestion given to
them about 10 seconds before the scene. This may seem hard, and it
certainly is, but from my experience people make it out to be too
difficult. In reality, what you need to know to get started can be
divided into two areas: one's own thought process, and interactions with
others.
The human mind develops patterns from our
experiences for how it is supposed to react to various situations. These
patterns are necessary because they simplify life, without them life would come
to a standstill as everyone analyzed each of their decisions. When a teapot
whistles, a person doesn't consciously think about where the sound is coming
from or what to do about it, instead one immediately fetches cups and prepares
for a joyous time with friends. The sound and the actions one takes are
connected, as are thousands of other actions. The trick to improv is
finding connections between what you're doing and saying, and what you already
know. I know lions hunt gazelle; perhaps a gazelle was involved in
causing my friends accident. The more someone practices making these
connections, the easier it becomes.
In fact one could probably master this aspect
pretty quickly, it's the additional chaos caused by the other people on stage
that complicates matters. If it was just one person acting, she could
control how the scene developed and progressed, but the same can't be said when
there are two people on stage. That's where the number one (and perhaps
only) rule of improv comes in, the rule of "yes and". I would
compare this rule to the building of a bridge. When one actor brings up a
new scenario she is effectively sitting a board down on the bridge. Then when
the next actor agrees with that idea he is affixing the board to bridge, and
when he further builds on scenario he is setting yet another board on the bridge.
An actor saying no is tantamount to destroying the bridge (which is not very
entertaining from an audience standpoint). With the rule of "yes
and" in mind, I quickly get to the hospital and my lion friend tells me
yes he was injured in a race with the gazelle, and consequently lost his honor
because of the defeat. Now the only way for him to recover his honor is
for me to defeat the gazelle. The "yes and" rule does two
things, it allows a scene to develop and it develops trust between the actors.
This trust is key. When a person is on stage
he is displaying his soul, how can he effectively do this if he is constantly
worrying about being ridiculed? It's when everyone in an improv troupe
trusts and accepts each other that ideas start to flow, things start to become
interesting, and most importantly scenes come to an exciting and hilarious end.
Perhaps this ending involves me
challenging the gazelle, only to learn that he didn't even know the first race
happened, he just thought the lion was hunting him on skis! End scene.
Now you may be wondering to yourself, why am I writing about improv on a blog about business? Well this is something that can help your business endeavors. The ability to think on your feet is invaluable, the ability to make connections is even more important. One of the reasons I got into improv in the first place was to work on this skill. Get a few friends together and try it out, I promise you won't be sorry.
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