Improv Cheats
Breaking the rules for fun
We have 981 subscribers to this right now. If we hit 1000 I will introduce a paid tier. The majority of content will still be free but I’ll do a month truly deep dive on some completely inaccessible improv baloney.
For this week’s newsletter — just like last week, I’m presenting an excerpt from my unpublished book “Improv Shortcuts, Gimmicks, Cheats and Traps.” Here’s “Cheats.”
Cheats
What follows are denials, cheap shots and straight-up breaking the rules. It’s a bit subjective to say what counts as a “gimmick” and what counts as a “cheat.” I think I count it as a cheat if I feel a bit ashamed after I do it, but I still had fun.
I do not imagine these cheats being used from a place of fear or desperation. I see it more like you’re having so much fun that you no longer care about the rules. You make eye contact with an actual audience member and say “hello.” You pick up an invisible glass and say out loud “improv glass.”
This is forbidden magic. It’s not powerful enough to save you, only to keep you entertained as you fly upwards, powered by pre-existing good flow.
“Cut, Cut Cut”
The most common and most maligned cheat. You pretend that the scene has just been a scene in a movie or TV show. Improvisers roll their eyes at this, and audiences love it.
Variation: You step off the backline and say “End simulation” implying the scene had been a scenario on a holodeck (hat tip: UCB team Outside Dog).
“I’ve reviewed your script and I think it’s bad.”
Another class. You enter a scene, wave everyone off, then sit down as if you’re in an office and say “I’ve read that script and I just don’t think it makes any sense.” Then someone else sits down and defends it. “You didn’t like when the dad suddenly had wings?” Etc.
A fun variation: say “Well I read your script.. And I love it.”
Another variation: making it so the scene we just saw is a story someone is reading to children.
“Wake up, Wake up!”
If a scene has become especially chaotic and silly, tag everyone out except one person, direct them to sit in a chair, then shake their shoulders and yell “Wake up! Wake up! You were having the craziest dream!”
Variation: for the person to shake you off, and “go back to sleep,” restarting the scene we just left.
Leave the Person Alone on Stage
You’re in a scene with just one other person, and you find a reason to walk back through the curtain and leave them alone. Make sure you’re not doing this out of fear of being in the scene but instead doing out of the joy of putting the other person on the spot.
Address Someone on the Backline
This is a speciality of my teammate Katie. You’re in a scene, and you turn to face someone who is NOT in the scene and say “Gary? Would you mind?” You have to admonish them.
A fun variation is to endow them as a creep. Like you walk up to someone in the scene, point to someone on the back line and say “That strange man is looking at me.”
”At least put on pants”
A fun move: decide that the other person has not had on pants for this whole scene. This is best done to a high-status authority figure. “Chief, I’ll do better next time. One thing: next time you want to yell at me, could you at least put on pants?”
“Notice anything different? No, not that.”
You say, in character, “Notice anything different about me?” Whatever they guess, you go “Not that.”
This is potentially infuriating for the other people in the scene, but it does seem to work.
Yes, I have done this multiple times.
Make it A Bank Robbery
After a period where you’ve been having a very casual, chatty conversation with someone, say “Well let’s get back to this bank robbery.” This doesn’t always work, but I always enjoy it.
Use The Microphone
If you have a microphone available to you, by all means make announcements into it. The announcements should react to very recent dialogue from people already in the scene. If it’s two parents shopping for their son’s birthday, you go to the microphone and simply say “All birthdays gifts are 20% off.”
Hike up your actual pants
You’re in a scene with someone, and it’s not working. Grab your pant legs and start hiking them up. Yes, this is arbitrary and will be hard to explain. It also tends to work.
An example from a scene I was in:
A police chief calls in two policeman and starts talking about new retirement plans available. It’s a very dry, boring scene. Then the chief started hiking up his actual pants, while still having this very dry conversation.
Chief: “I think you’ll be able to choose what percentage of stocks or bonds you can choose” (Pants hiked up a bit more).
Cop 1: “Will the city match contributions?”
Chief: “I THINK so. I’ll get back to you on that.” (Hikes up pants even more).
Alt: hike up your sleeves. By the end of the scene, you should be shoving them up onto your shoulders.
Squat Low, Stand High, Lean Over
If a scene isn’t working, try squatting down low while the other person is talking. Don’t give a reason. Just ease into a squat. Maintain eye contact with the other person. It should look weird but calm.
When asked why you’re doing it, just say “My back.” It tends to get things going. After a few seconds, you can stand back up. No need to address it again.
Alternate moves that have the same effect:
Stand up on your tip toes and stay there.
Or lean forward on one leg, letting the other stick out behind you, like you’re a flamingo.
Lie down on the floor and stick one foot way up in the air. Must be done for no reason.
Players in wheelchairs can get the same effect by stretching up as high in their seat, or else squishing their head as low as possible into their shoulders. Anything that feels like changing a plane, relatively speaking, gets people’s attention.
I almost listed this as a gimmick because you’re not really breaking any rules, but it’s so silly and arbitrary that it FEELS wrong. Hence: a cheat.
Making someone a famous person late in a scene
After a scene has been going a while, and it seems like the people are normal people, reveal that one of them is a well-known celebrity. You do this by addressing them by their first and last names. “Thank you for your advice, George Clooney.” It’s dumb and it works.
A bit more fun: If you are given a normal name, you make it a famous person. Someone calls you Harry, and then five lines later, you reveal you are in fact, Harry Potter. Harry Potter in particular is fun because you can then at any point fly away on a broom.
Too many chairs / not enough chairs
A group of people trying to sit on a single chair is great.
Also, separately, going backstage and bringing out every chair you can find is also fun.
Throw an object, hit a cat
If someone in a scene ever throws an object out of a window, or even just out of the room -- someone on the back line goes “meow!” as if the object hit a cat. Fun. (hat tip Jim Woods)
Work an actual cell phone ring into your scene
You of course know this one. If a cell phone rings in the audience, you answer a pretend cell phone on stage. Works 100% of the time.
Take Off A Person’ Real Glasses
Another Jim Woods special. He does this to me every twenty shows or so and it always makes me and the audience laugh. It’s so deeply undermining to have your real glasses removed. It’s very funny.
The Close Eyeball Trick
This can only be done to someone you are friends with because you’re going to really be getting into their personal space.
The way this works is that when you would normally step close and be nose-to-nose with someone, you shift your face a bit to the right and move even closer so your left eyeball is right up against the other person’s right eyeball. It’s inhumanly close. It’s almost impossible for the other person not to laugh. But if they do manage not to laugh, and the two of you continue the scene with your eyeballs right next to each other, well that’s a good time right there.
Here’s me doing it to my brother Kevin.
That’s all the cheats!
Plugs, Fresh
Beta Beta - Jim Woods’ and my monthly show at PDA Space in Alta Dena. Saturday 9pm. $10. Characters, bits, sketches.
The Smokes - My UCB team does its monthly show Friday night (tonight) 8:30pm at the UCB Theatre. Splitting the hour with the incredible Big Team.
Stand-Up At Verdugo Bar - Sunday night 8pm Verdugo Bar, part of the Friendship Buddies show.
The Bozos at The Shared Experience - Jim Woods, Sarah Claspell and I are doing a set at the Shared Experience Show Wednesday night Nov 8 at 9pm at Lyric Hyperion.
Plugs, Ongoing
Screw It, We’re Just Gonna Talk About Comics - Comic book podcast, hosted by my brother Kevin and I. We are discussing Fantastic Four comics from the 1980s!
Clubhouse Fridays - WGIS’ weekly improv show. Fridays 7pm at The Clubhouse. Free!
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. 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.
Reuben William’s version of this script is crazy was someone tagging everyone out and returning a movie to Blockbuster “Tron wasn’t what I expected” or “ did you give me the wrong movie? I wanted Free Willy” our last RW show we did one (video stores already long being a rarity) and I don’t think we did one as Curfew ever.