New Teams
a good teams night equals a good community
WGIS’s new teams started last night. I love the energy of the first night of new teams. The house is packed. Everyone is excited and nervous. We had four Harolds last night and they were all so fun. A big audience showed up and cheered everything.
The best part of starting a theater is you get a community of people you relate to, doing a thing you also love doing. It was a great night!
The presence of house teams has come into question in the larger improv community. They can be exclusionary. They can inadvertently (or sometimes on purpose) manipulate people into paying for classes they don’t really want. How can you fairly shuffle lineups and cut people when, generally speaking, everyone is doing their best? It’s a delicate balancing act that takes a lot of time to do anything that’s even approaching fairness.
So, yeah, teams create problems.
But they also create community. They let people who love improv get to know each other deeply as they watch each other perform while working really hard at it. Teams night is not really for outside audiences. I mean, I’d like them to be funny enough to win over new people. And they often are.
But first and foremost, it’s for the community to perform for each other at a high level and push each other to get better. This is one of the places where comedy partnerships get born. And one of the places where deep friendships begin.
This is our eighth “season” of doing teams. Each season is about five months. We’ve change formats and lineups a LOT. First time, we did Harolds. The next one was people doing an opening and a montage. One time teams had to do “headless” Harolds (no opening).
For the two most recent season, we spread our teams over two nights. Thursday night teams did Harolds. Friday night teams did a form of their choosing.
This time we have eight teams, and they must do Harolds, and everyone plays on Thursday. Two go at 7:30pm, then two at 8:45pm, and then at 10pm is our “competition” (Cagematch) show which is called “KO.” Everyone practices once a week. Everyone gets notes at the shows.
(We also call the show “Life Is A Harold” and you can make of that whatever you wish).
The plan here is unity among the teams.
Wait a minute, did I say Harolds? Aren’t I Will Hines, who wrote about how the Harold sucks? Sort of. I wrote about how the Harold has too many scenes. But people love hating on the Harold. It’s still one of my most popular pieces on here! Charna Halpern defended the Harold on my Facebook page (and honestly, made a great point that I still think about).
But last year, I learned something. Even though I still think the Harold is not a great choice to entertain crowds. And even though I still think teams should not get stuck doing the Harold to avoid becoming “initiation machines.”
The surprising truth is that Harold teams like to watch other Harold teams.
They’re not necessarily curious about watching a Pretty Flower or a Monoscene. They want to see someone else try to do the thing they are doing.
If you have house teams, it’s better if they’re all doing the same form.
The Harold is not great for entertainment. But it IS good for community. It’s a common enemy. Or at least a common challenge. Improvisers love to try and crack it. It inspires them and makes them work hard.
We’re going to let our veteran teams be looser with the form. One team last night has an opening that like, but it tends to run long. So they skipped the group games. It worked last night. We’ll learn more as they do more. I’d like to see teams go without an opening. Or maybe live in the third beats longer.
I’m excited! A new season.
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.
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.
Say what you will about Charna, it is truly one of the funniest things I can imagine to defend a thing you invented by saying "This reminds me of when a hack criticizes Beethoven." Just incredible stuff.