The “not listening” thing is the thing. I love pulling premise but I hate that the minute I do the expectation is that I know what the scene is. I don’t and shouldn’t. It takes all the fun out of it when people play a premise that way. You get that first laugh and then if the two improvisers don’t let the scene surprise them it just becomes two people serving one. Or you get the “you didn’t respond to my initiation the way I wanted” dear-in-headlights look that I see a lot in Harolds. Or on the flip side some nervous players if they don’t understand/recognize the pull, instead of listening they do something wackadoo crazy to try and force a new laugh. For some reason though I see this less in post-Harold premise teams. Once they graduate they lighten up and let the premise not be the whole scene.
Last thought, even in premise the “intimate unusual” guideline may be too rigid for every situation. Sometimes it’s just a cleaner and less hamfisted scene if you gift the behavior. I get the “we wanna know what you find funny” guideline but there is a certain joy in watching the initiator gift their partner and then see the partner inhabit that behavior immediately.
The other qualm I have with premise improv, and maybe the emphasis on premise harolds over all in workshops and classes and the pursuit to make house teams, is that people (myself included) tend to bring a premise mindset to organic improv. It kinda drives people to imagine premises off the suggestion in their minds and then expect the scene partner to know what they’ve been thinking. Also, it drives the receiver of the initiation to feel like they can’t respond in a strong way, fearing they will step on the initiator’s toes, which is especially prohibitive in organic improv where the initiation might be all the player’s got and they need their scene partner to ‘yes and’ to move things forward.
I feel like another issue with premise openings is that it can give you tunnel vision on the backline—if four people feel pulled to the same premise from the opening, then when one person initiates it it leaves you scrambling for an option B and, at least in my experience, disconnected from the Harold as it's happening. Organic sets keep everyone having fun instead of making it a race to see who can get to the most exciting idea first.
I don’t fully believe what I’m about to say, but isn’t it good that some types of improv are harder to be good at? Challenges us to be able to listen and do all the other stuff at the same time.
Asking in the same experimental tone as Sahil: shouldn’t all forms/drills be designed with the worst possible improviser in mind, on the grounds that good improvisers will be fine regardless? I know I’m just restating the premise of universal design, but it seems like it should apply across disciplines.
Lately I've had fun taking a handful of suggestions to inspire a montage. Taking a few shout out suggestions helps give an organic show a broad base of scenes in the beginning and keeps a more clear thread between suggestions and scenes for the audience. And since it's clear how the different scenes are inspired by different suggestions, the connections made by the end of the show are surprising and impressive.
You make a great point about communication side effects from premise. On the organic side of things, I feel like the pitfalls of taking one suggestion are things like getting trapped using the suggestion too directly in every scene, or being to contrived or clever about the 'A to C' approach, or being TOO indirect to the point where the audience loses the thread on how things are inspired by the suggestion (not the end of the world but maybe not ideal).
So I've found the multi-suggestions montage to be a good approach at the moment!
Do you consider a show like Comedy Bang Bang to be a Harold?
I also agree with the real problem maybe lying with players listening better. Being opening to what is being said.
I have not taken an improv class since highschool so nothing I say matters but I do love it quite a bit. Organic feel more fulfilling to participate and play in but also more enjoyable in the audience - when it’s working great .
Harolds need more farts.
This is the brother-ball-busting we need more of in Screw It Comics.
The “not listening” thing is the thing. I love pulling premise but I hate that the minute I do the expectation is that I know what the scene is. I don’t and shouldn’t. It takes all the fun out of it when people play a premise that way. You get that first laugh and then if the two improvisers don’t let the scene surprise them it just becomes two people serving one. Or you get the “you didn’t respond to my initiation the way I wanted” dear-in-headlights look that I see a lot in Harolds. Or on the flip side some nervous players if they don’t understand/recognize the pull, instead of listening they do something wackadoo crazy to try and force a new laugh. For some reason though I see this less in post-Harold premise teams. Once they graduate they lighten up and let the premise not be the whole scene.
Last thought, even in premise the “intimate unusual” guideline may be too rigid for every situation. Sometimes it’s just a cleaner and less hamfisted scene if you gift the behavior. I get the “we wanna know what you find funny” guideline but there is a certain joy in watching the initiator gift their partner and then see the partner inhabit that behavior immediately.
The other qualm I have with premise improv, and maybe the emphasis on premise harolds over all in workshops and classes and the pursuit to make house teams, is that people (myself included) tend to bring a premise mindset to organic improv. It kinda drives people to imagine premises off the suggestion in their minds and then expect the scene partner to know what they’ve been thinking. Also, it drives the receiver of the initiation to feel like they can’t respond in a strong way, fearing they will step on the initiator’s toes, which is especially prohibitive in organic improv where the initiation might be all the player’s got and they need their scene partner to ‘yes and’ to move things forward.
I feel like another issue with premise openings is that it can give you tunnel vision on the backline—if four people feel pulled to the same premise from the opening, then when one person initiates it it leaves you scrambling for an option B and, at least in my experience, disconnected from the Harold as it's happening. Organic sets keep everyone having fun instead of making it a race to see who can get to the most exciting idea first.
I don’t fully believe what I’m about to say, but isn’t it good that some types of improv are harder to be good at? Challenges us to be able to listen and do all the other stuff at the same time.
Asking in the same experimental tone as Sahil: shouldn’t all forms/drills be designed with the worst possible improviser in mind, on the grounds that good improvisers will be fine regardless? I know I’m just restating the premise of universal design, but it seems like it should apply across disciplines.
Lately I've had fun taking a handful of suggestions to inspire a montage. Taking a few shout out suggestions helps give an organic show a broad base of scenes in the beginning and keeps a more clear thread between suggestions and scenes for the audience. And since it's clear how the different scenes are inspired by different suggestions, the connections made by the end of the show are surprising and impressive.
You make a great point about communication side effects from premise. On the organic side of things, I feel like the pitfalls of taking one suggestion are things like getting trapped using the suggestion too directly in every scene, or being to contrived or clever about the 'A to C' approach, or being TOO indirect to the point where the audience loses the thread on how things are inspired by the suggestion (not the end of the world but maybe not ideal).
So I've found the multi-suggestions montage to be a good approach at the moment!
Do you consider a show like Comedy Bang Bang to be a Harold?
I also agree with the real problem maybe lying with players listening better. Being opening to what is being said.
I have not taken an improv class since highschool so nothing I say matters but I do love it quite a bit. Organic feel more fulfilling to participate and play in but also more enjoyable in the audience - when it’s working great .
Wow. I sure left a comment here