A Silver Lining To The Death of Scripted TV
artists need the stage more than ever
The big talk amongst my actor and writer friends in LA is that scripted TV in Hollywood is dead. Here’s the more common reasons:
It’s become too expensive to film in LA. What little of scripted TV is left is being filmed in Atlanta, Vancouver and Toronto.
And soon, even THOSE productions are doomed because AI is coming (has arrived?) to replace everyone. No matter how much the unions fight it, producers will find a way to use fewer humans and let the robots do everything.
A bleak prospect.
I'm not qualified to guess how accurate this is. It certainly FEELS like there's less TV work, even for my usually very successful friends.
The Stage Is Back
But I do notice one trend: everyone is touring their live act.
Everyone is getting back on stage.
It used to be you used the stage to GET to the television screen. But now it seems you use you exposure on television to boost your touring act.
Ben Schwartz and Friends. How Did This Get Made? Dropout TV. Off Book. Varietopia. Comedy Bang-Bang. The Doughboys. The Ultimate Improv Show has done stops in DC and NYC. Holy Shit Improv is in Edinburgh Fringe this year for the second time. The George Lucas Talk Show has visited several cities. Not to mention TV people who have been doing stand-up for years at least partly to remain independent, like Chris Gethard and Joe Pera.
I love it.
Touring has long been a way for artists to capitalize on their success without record labels / TV studios / mysterious production companies being able to somehow keep all the money. Not that live sets aren't without stories of corruption and exploitation. But in general, an artist with a following can do a live show and get paid a whole lot sooner than they can sell a TV show.
If the Patreon business model freed podcasters from needing advertisers, the live act might --- at least SOMEWHAT -- free creative people from needing to please Hollywood gatekeepers.
Improv Classes: Now More Than Ever
And why am I writing about this in an improv blog?
Because there is no better way to get better at stage performing than improv comedy classes.
And I suppose stand-up comedy shows.
But improv especially turns regular people into stage actors.
Okay, I'm not really interested in shilling improv classes with this essay. Honest. It's more than I want to celebrate that I'm seeing a skill set that I value take the spotlight again.
Stage acting is its own animal, separate from TV/film acting.
It's easier to suspend disbelief on stage, so you can create more surreal stories.
Although you need a BIGGER energy, in general, to be on stage, you can have a wide variety of those big energies. You can have deadpan people, frantic people, confident alphas, nervous cowards -- these can all thrive. Whereas on film, you need to saw the ceilings and floors off of these sine waves to make them look more natural.
You have to react to the moods of the audience. They have a vote in what's happening, even in a scripted show. So you need to be open, and adjust to what you're feeling. A warm room, a late show, a show on the day of terrible national news, a young crowd, a drunk crowd -- they all want something different.
Stage acting allows pauses. It allows slowness.
All of this tends to go away in scripted TV comedy, which is usually fast, loud and natural.
What I'm saying is: look for me on tour soon. No, not really. Well, maybe, I don't know.
But I love stage acting and I'm glad to see it being demonstrated by some of the funniest people I know!
Let me know in the comments if this is all especially obvious and/or dumb. Okay bye bye.
Plugs
The World’s Greatest Improv School: The improv school I run with Jim Woods and Sarah Claspell. We’ve got classes online, in LA and even a few in NYC!
How to Be The Greatest Improviser On Earth - My improv book, available at Amazon. Kindle or print (also on my web site for more if you don’t want to buy from Amazon). It’s a hodge-podge of advice I wrote in 2016 about doing improv. If you’re broke and want a free PDF version just email me and I’ll send it over.
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For what it is worth, my wife and I would absolutely come see you live if Tacoma or Seattle, WA were a stop. But nothing in between!
TOTALLY AGREE. I literally wrote something similar on a job application.
“I believe the antidote to most of our current cultural poisons is creating live shows with other people in a shared theater space… [especially] since smaller phones, bigger in-home screens, and greed aren’t going away.”
I probably won’t get the job, but that won’t change my mind.