Intentionality As Bait

come for the tag-out, stay for the monoscene

Picture this guy made of gold, in Byzantium | Photo by Paul Rottmann on Unsplash

We live in an age of defiant assholes. Dunking on someone is the most revered comedic act. The president of America is a man whose only communication tactic is to give someone the middle finger. Social media is a hive of angry folks racing to own the “other side.”

What can improv comedy — which demands folks “yes-and” each other — offer to this tide?

In the long run, very little. Improv rewards reacting, empathy and losing.

But this is where “game of the scene” teaching can help. Because playing game allows intentionality.

Meaning if you are a young comedian, raised on front-facing solo instagram characters, crowdwork clips that show people dunking on each other, tweets that own — you will feel safe playing game of the scene. Because the joke is clear.

I taught at UCB New York during its peak, when seemingly everyone in the city even remotely related to comedy was taking an improv class there. I saw actors, stockbrokers, college students, senior citizens, writers, scientists, a few full-on lunatics and even (orchestra stops, a lone mallet rebounds off a kettle drum) stand up comedians.

Stand-ups were generally pretty terrible at improv. They couldn’t play real, they wouldn’t lose, they made everything a joke right away, and they just straight up would not do warm-ups.

But you know what they could do? Tag-outs.

Once the game had been established, they could tag-in and CRUSH. It was comedy time. It was time to riff. Perfect heightening. Surprising and on-game.

They were also okay at premise initiations, right up until anyone else responded.

Because tag outs and premise initiations are the realm of the writer. The UCB brought writing muscles into improv. Sometimes to a fault. Sometimes to great power.

If I were teaching improv to a group of antsy kids (by which I mean human beings younger than 25) I would get right to a living room opening, premise intiations and get those tags going.

I would be lying. I would be entrapping them with the writerly approaches to improv.

Until I saw that a few were hooked on the actual collaboration.

It does happen. There are many stand-ups who are also gifted improvisers. I’ll pick Maria Bamford as one example, but there are many. A minority among the pack, but they’re there.

Once I saw that improv had hooked a few of these hypothetical zinging youngsters, I’d fully pull the rug out: let’s do a monoscene.

Nothing kills bad commitment than a 20 minute scene. Holy crap, it’s funny to watch someone try to enter a monoscene as a criminally violent character and then have to sit there and actually talk to someone. The initial broad choices melt away.

After this class —- all of this is fully happening within my imagination — I imagine a good 80% of the children would flee.

But 20% would stay.

Improv is smaller than ever. But it is far from gone! We are Athens in the Age of Sparta. We are the Foundation Library after the Galactic Empire has fallen. We’re a goddamn golden clockwork bird in a tree.

Exercises to please the impatient: Beat The Hell Out Of The Game, Premise Pulls, Lazy Slacker (the version that allows tag-outs, not the more patient one), 5 Minute Harolds.

Exercises to turn them into true believers: “I Know” Scenes, 60 Seconds of Silence, Choose To Lose, Sound and Movement openings and 1000 Minute Monoscenes.

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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! You can join our mailing list if you want our weekly announcement of shows.

• World’s Greatest Improv (YouTube channel): My improv theater is beginning to stream shows. Subscribe to watch! It’s all free!

• 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 short of funds and want a free PDF version just email me and I’ll send it over.