With DCM approaching and my indie team Sex Ghost having a great show last night, I felt compelled to write some things about improv. Grain of salt warning: I haven’t been performing that much improv lately, but I think these things could still be relevant to the 4 people that follow this blog. 

Every time I’m doing an improv set and someone says, “Hey guys, let’s just all have fun,” I get an ice cold shiver in my spine. Here’s why. 

Being in Sex Ghost, with only 4 members, I’ve come to view the idea of support more as accountability. There’s a good chance I’ll be involved in most of the scenes we have in a show, especially considering the 15 to 18 minute sets we’ve been doing in the indie scene. So, I (and my teammates) better remember most of the stuff going on in the show, because chances are I’ll be involved in a second beat or a call-back. In those situations, I really feel like I owe it to my teammates to hit them with clear, concise initiations so they know what the hell I’m talking about. Similarly, I really feel like I owe it to them to really nail second beats, call-backs, and any connections. Feeling accountable to my teammates has made me a better improviser; it makes me listen harder, it makes me acutely aware of what my teammates are trying to do, and it makes me really bummed out when I whiff on one of their ideas. That’s going to happen no matter what, but I think I’ve been able to minimize confusion in scenes by really focusing on what they want to do. I feel responsible to them and to the show, and I feel good about that. 

When someone says, “Hey guys, let’s just have fun,” I think that sentiment minimizes (or erases) that feeling of accountability among improvisers. I think “just having fun” lowers the stakes of a show, and allows improvisers to do whatever they want. Low-stakes, let’s just F-around shows can be great every once in a while. But I think doing them a lot develops and solidifies the bad habits of not listening and being crazy for crazy’s sake. 

“So Steve, you’re saying we shouldn’t have FUN in an improv show? Why are you so mean and why are there so many empty beer bottles around you?” That’s not what I’m saying. I think having fun in an improv scene is essential to playing together, as long as it’s grouped with other communal goals. Last night, Sex Ghost had one of our best shows, and it was a show that the four of us felt really good about (we never all agree on what was a good show). Here are the things we said to each other moments before going on stage, in no particular order:

• “Let’s make sure we start the scene in a real location.” 
• “Everybody make sure you lock down one trait, or one playable game thing that we could volley around.” 
• “Let’s remember to have fun. We do our best stuff when we’re doing stuff we like.” 
• “Let that first scene breathe just a little bit, but not too much, because we have like fifteen minutes.” 
• “Fight that urge to do wacky tag-outs, even though we usually do them.” 

I really think that keeping all of these goals in mind helped us do a great show. I think if we kept just one of these goals in mind, and not the others, then we would not have had a good, balanced show. But I think the “fun” rule is the most dangerous one to put on a pedestal. If we were “just having fun” in last night’s show, we would have done a ton of crazy tag-outs, we would have gone too crazy too fast, and we flat-out would not have honored each other’s ideas as much as we did. With these goals in mind, I think the team felt more accountable to each other not to screw up each other’s games and ideas. 

It’s important to have fun while doing improv, or performing any comedy. If you’re not having a blast, then why do it? But I know that going forward, I am going to stick a few other rules up there with “let’s have fun” in order to deter that icy chill in my bones. In future improv shows, I’m going to try to have fun, and maybe focus on super-clear initiations, and not follow plot (which I do, all the F-ing time). It’s been my experience that focusing on a couple of important things, along with having fun, can help me and my teammates have a great, impressive, satisfying, bad-ass improv show that burns the place down. What’s more fun than that?