It's All About Improv

I admit it; the title's misleading. But only a little bit.

Following on from Holly's previous post, I wanted to post something that addresses some of the things one should think about when improvising. From my own experience, improvisation is something a huge amount of joy can be derived from - plucking a situation from mid-air and going with it and see whether it works. A good deal of the time, it won't. But that's the risk you run.

Firstly I wanted to address group improvisation, which is something we start the Workshop meetings with. One of the keys to any sort of success with this is to make sure you're totally comfortable with the people you're working with, and there's no easier way of doing this than stripping back social niceties and norms and just let yourself be loose. Playing simple warm-up games like stretching out, pointing at someone then saying your own name, walking around uttering nonsense like "mushrooms are not a fruit" and "bananas" are a great way to form some sort of bond with others, mainly because you're all in the same situation.

That's when you can go into improv proper. There's a great deal of different improvisation games you can play, a list of which can be found here: http://improvencyclopedia.org/games/index.html - a popular one being Freeze. A lot of the time this will involve two people, trying to let situations play out in as amusing a way as possible, often reaching absurd levels. As the name of the game might suggest, someone can jump in at any time they see fit and so the scene changes. Sounds easy, right? Not always. There are some important rules to follow when improvising with others, put best by Tina Fey, better known to many as Liz Lemon from 30 Rock (the first four seasons of which I would highly recommend) and a member of the Second City Improv Group, in her book Bossypants - http://mycareertopia.com/tina-feys-rules-for-improv-and-the-workplace/. Follow at least some of these rules and there's a recipe for, well, some success.

Which leads me onto solo improv. This is a totally different ballgame. A lot of the time when I'm performing I'll either deviate from the script or dispense with one entirely and really set a challenge to myself. I've found, especially in solo improv, that movement, intonation and expressiveness are three key things that'll help you. Winging it and letting rip can not only be nerve-wracking, it also has the potential to go wrong. But don't worry. If you keep yourself calm, collected, make sure to use the space available to you and fling your arms about, use your face to convey emotion and let these be the anchors you use to improvise a verbal piece around. It allows your breathing space, time to think and most importantly adds extra dimensions to your performance. Another good tip is to have two or three keywords at your disposal so that you've got a base to work around. It could be any three words. I recently did a performance where I incorporated cricket, a dry cleaners and an argument with a friend into proceedings and I felt it went quite well with good audience reaction.

There's not more I can really say about improv as my experience is very limited, but I challenge you all to try and perform improvised pieces and see where it takes you. If you're working to a script, don't let that constrain you. It's not a bad thing to interact with an audience now and then too - you can create rapport, and unless we're all curmudgeons, that's not a bad thing, right?

That's my two penneth for today. I don't know whether any of this has been any help, but let me assure you, I totally improvised this blog post. If I write any more it'll go into the realms of absurdity, so I'm going to go ahead and deny you that. So there.