Improv Show

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, you guys.  I cannot emphasize enough how badly you need to go see an improv show right now.  Honestly, I won’t even be mad if you leave in the middle of this sentence, I promise I’ll totally still be here when you get back.

Anyway, if you’re still here (I don’t know why you would be, but whatever) let me tell you why I’m so adamant about this.  This week I attended an improv comedy show at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade theater in Los Angeles. Now I’m the kind of person that gets extremely nervous when it comes to watching other people perform.  I used to get crazy butterflies when I did plays as a kid, so I feel a strong sense of empathy toward the people who memorize things and spit them back out in front of a bunch of people.  So naturally, improv comedy makes me infinitely nervous.  It’s one thing to know what you’re going to say, it’s a whole different thing when you have zero idea what’s going to happen when you get up there *shudders.* Regardless of my empathetic fear, I went to the show.  It was a musical improv show, so there was an added factor of having to make songs up instead of just scenes.  Even the guy playing piano was making up the songs right there on the spot- insanity.

They started with a word from the audience, “brain,” and began talking about little anecdotes from their lives that had to do with their brains.  It started off a little slow, but then it gained crazy momentum.  It ended up being one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen.  Honestly, my face hurt afterwards from smiling and laughing so much at the songs they made up about their brainy situations.  These people were unbelievably talented and the added pressure of it being unrehearsed made it even better.  They came up with funny situations right out of thin air and really worked together to get to the really funny parts of scenes and make them last.

As an aspiring sketch writer myself, I picked up on two very important things while watching the show:

1.       Always say “yes, and” when it comes to improv.

If a performer comes up with a crappy idea, don’t try to change it completely.  That loses the audience and makes it hard for everyone else to get on board and add their comedy to it.  Even if you think the new idea will be funnier and should be worth saying, maybe point it out first then go back to the original idea.  If you thought the character was supposed to be a witch with a broom, but they’ve changed it to a teacher with a yardstick, maybe point it out like “Oh, I thought you were using a broom, but I guess it’s a yardstick.” The audience will appreciate the honesty and find it funny that there was a discrepancy.

2.      Always attend comedy movies, shows, whatever with a friend who laughs at everything.

This is more of a tidbit for show-goers rather than performers, but it’s an important fact nonetheless.  I went to the show with my best friend who finds everything funny (hence why we’re best friends).  Whenever he cracked up during the show, I cracked up.  It’s kind of like watching a show with canned laughter; sometimes those people call attention to funny bits that you might not have recognized in the first place.  It seems a little odd, but it will end up making you appreciate the show more.

Well there’s my spiel.  Now what are you still doing here? Go see a show!