Improv Conspiracy Blog

Conspirator Hayley Tantau runs a blog over at TheTheatricalJournalist.com where she has been posting some great content about her continuing adventures with improv. With her permission, we'll be republishing some of her best posts in their entirety. Today's post: Not Sure If: Improv Notes or Life Advice (part 1)

Performing with my current improv team, Foggy Windows

“When an improviser lets go and trusts his or her fellow performers, it’s a wonderful, liberating experience that stems from group support,”
- Charna Halpern, Del Close, Kim Johnson in Truth In Comedy

The most important thing I have ever learnt about improvising (thus far) is also the most simple: listen and react.

“Well, DUH” – said a chorus of people who still say ‘duh’/are aware that listening and reacting is straight-up common sense and human instinct. To listen to something and then react like a human being is what being a functioning member of society is all about.

Alas, to an up-and-coming improviser this lesson takes a while to show itself. I remember the exact moment I learnt this lesson, it wasn’t on stage and it wasn’t in class…

It was before my last show with my first Harold team, The Reluctant Sergeants (who were indeed as reluctant as our name suggested). Before these shows I would get nervous three hours beforehand (this seems absurd to me now, but hey, that’s personal growth for ya!), sometimes I’d even wake up nervous on show-day. My anxiety came from a place of “what if my brain stops working on stage?” “what if I can’t pump out witty one-liners?” and “what if no one laughs at me?” – none of which are really relevant to good scenework.

I recently read “The Power Of Now”, by Eckhart Tolle, and I’m all over it like a rash. Eckhart is a cute little Swiss gnome that knows everything, and he says that we should aim to be “mindful”, “present”, and “in the now”. Our thoughts, he says, are mostly unhelpful and even harmful, as they take us out of a very precious thing – the “now”. This “now” idea is associated with many spiritual practices like Buddhism as well as being popular with psychologists and cute little self-help gnomes.

This idea is nothing new to improvisers, who go on a lot about being present and listening, not being in your head. However, in a moment of non-presence, I had a thought: perhaps after the honeymoon stage of improv-love, when we pore over Johnstone and Close and so on, we may forget what being present on stage really means. I want to talk about it here. Though let me be the first to say, who knows if I have ever been truly present on stage?  I don’t have the answers. Nevertheless, for the purposes of discussion, and maybe a free beer, I want to theorise on how the now Tolle talks about, may help us to improvise in a more joyful and rewarding way.

I started doing group improvised comedy in January 2013, when I signed up for an eight-week beginners course through the Improv Conspiracy. Twelve months later, what started as a whim is now my main extracurricular activity. What with weekly training, regular performances and an upcoming tour to Perth, I see my fellow improvisers more than my friends and family. 

But I do, of course still see my pre-improv friends and, when I tell them I do improvised comedy now, they say the same things and ask the same questions. Usually they’re about how they could never do improv. 

I thought I’d share these because maybe you’re thinking of doing some improv but have yet to bite the bullet. You should! But you have some worries. You shouldn’t. Here are the top five things people say or ask me. 

Andy Balloch has been improvising for three days. An eager student in our most recent Level 1 Intensive class, he is scheduled to perform in tonight's end-of-term student showcase. He graciously offered these thoughts on his brief yet inspiring experience with improv.

I’m no stranger to live performing, or comedy writing. Last year I ventured further into the stand up scene, showcased my second cabaret, co-wrote/directed/starred in a musical, a musical/comedy fringe festival show, and began writing for an international cabaret performer. I have an ego, I know, but I also know comedy writing and performing is an avenue I wish to go down, because I’m good at it. 

So it was with this mentality that I arrogantly strutted into the Level 1 Intensive course. I was cool. I was confident. I knew comedy, and this, I thought, would be a breeze. 

Boy was I wrong. 

You may be here because you’re looking for a creative outlet. Perhaps you had a brief and steamy tryst with go-go dancing, ikebana or Soft Cheese Making In Your Own Home … but broke things off once it became clear that your needs were not being fully satisfied.

You may be here because you spend your workday popping a vein over what is and isn’t billable, dutiable, determinable, ‘not unreasonable but not reasonable’ – and when the English language became so easily screwed and screwable?

You may be here because you have been told more than once to “just relax” and in the ensuing spitstorm of “I AM RELAXED YOU C****S****M****F****” you realized: 

You need to do something fun.