Q&A: August 4 2025
Gethard, being older, vets rehearsals
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Let’s start with a fun one (for me at least) from Chris Gethard.
Chris Gethard:
This is going to get very nerdy very fast but I've been thinking of it and think you will enjoy having this one to chew on.
Back in our NYC UCB days, you were on the team Monkeydick, a very good team with a very unique voice that established very quickly. The team could probably be described as "a bunch of oddballs and dirtbags and Will Hines is there as the straight man to it all". There was way more to it than that, but that is probably the broadest umbrella to use to describe this team for anyone who never got to see you all in action.
When the team went away, you wound up on a team called 1985. I very distinctly remember watching a 1985 show where you placed a chair on stage then started doing hand stands on it like a mad man. It was manic play and physical play that I never saw from you before, and from that point forward I realized you made some very conscious decisions to improvise totally differently. And it's not like 1985 didn't have some big players - Jim Santangeli was on that team and you could have easily continued being the point guard, tossing him alley oops, and it would have worked great.
I have said to myself often (as often as one does when you care about small things in improv that no one else cares about) that I don't remember ever seeing a player as established in style and tone as you were so consciously change aspects of how you played on stage as I saw you do on that one individual night.
So my questions are: Do you remember this? Am I imagining that it was a big shift or is it something you felt as well? Was it a conscious decision on your part to change how you played? Was this a matter of Monkeydick's style suppressing this side of you - ie it was always there and just not needed? - or did you need to conjure it up when you had a new opportunity? And finally as a teacher have you seen moments to help other players who are good but in specific lanes diversify their options on stage the same way you did for yourself?
I am so sorry I am sending this -
Geth
Gethard, you know I love walks down memory lane so I was thrilled to get this. And I’m flattered you remember. I do remember that scene exactly BECAUSE you talked to me about it that night, extremely excited about it.
Know what’s crazy? I remember exactly how that scene started. It was the second group game of a Harold, and the suggestion was “beef” and Gavin Speiller sat down and said “Guys, thanks for being my roommates because finally I have someone to talk about beef with.” And we all just started repeating “beef” over and over again, getting more and more excited, until finally I did a handstand on a chair. I think Sue Galloway was miming playing a trombone and marching around.
So, yeah, I remember it. :)
I WAS consciously switching up my style because I had felt really ineffective on during my short stint on my previous team Arsenal. Arsenal, the team which YOU, Chris Gethard, were once on — along with Peter Gwinn and Christina Gausas. When you all were on it, it was one of the best teams at the theater. But you guys had all moved on. Once I was moved onto it, we kinda sucked. It was a splash of cold water for me that I still had a lot to learn.
So when Arsenal ended and I got moved to 1985, I wanted to be a new Will Hines. I tried hard to NOT be a voice of reason all the time. I tried to play characters, or at least with different energy than mine. I tried to be weird.
It was helped by 1985 being a really strong team where I was friends with everyone, but you are absolutely right that I was consciously trying to be a new Will on that team.
As a teacher, I see students change MOSTLY when they are in new groups of people. New peers bring out different styles of play very naturally. My original team (the unfortunately named (by me) Monkeydick) was big on calling every last detail out — it trained me to not do anything at all fake in a scene. 1985 encouraged silly characters and physical play.
Also a new form or opening can bring out different styles.
Anonymous:
I am rather new-ish to improv. I have been taking classes almost continuously for over a year now and I have taken an advanced class, as well. I have read a number of books, listen to podcasts, and perform in open stage nights occasionally. I’m a little stiff sometimes and other times I struggle to come up with ideas for scene starts or finding the game. Can you provide some pointers to improve on these things? I would love to be selected for one of the house teams, but I need to get more self confidence. I know that you can’t teach that.
First of all, I’m sorry for how tough it feels. Everyone — and I really do mean everyone — feels it.
The MAIN way you get better at this is practice. Every scene you do makes you a little bit stronger and faster and coming up with ideas.
The amount of brain space needed for each idea starts to go down.
Like, let’s say that when you start, coming up with a simple who-what-where requires your brain to come up with an idea the size of a baseball.
After doing improv for six months, that same idea takes up the space of a grape.
And after two years, it’s the size of a pea.
You don’t get SMARTER necessarily, but your brain learns to do less work somehow.
I promise you it’s happening for you. If you are practicing in any way, you are getting better.
An exercise you can do on your own, is giving yourself a suggestion and thinking of an initiation. Do it five times a day. It’s weirdly tiring but it’s good practice.
Another piece of encouragement I have is that even right now while you’re feeling stiff you are bringing something unique to the scene which is your own individual energy. Every human has their own vibe/energy and it’s always unique and always interesting. You are bringing a unique flavor to a scene just by being in it.
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L:
I'd be really interested in the perspective of starting improv when you're older, a few of us have only just picked it up, 30s, 40s, and 60s (!)
It’s very easy to feel like an outsider in an improv class, and being even SLIGHTLY older (like, older than 30) is enough to feel left out. Certainly being older than, say, 40 or 50 or more will make you feel self-conscious.
I do think that the students in their 20s are dismissive of older players — at least at first. They put them all the older players in a bucket and sort of ignore their moves. This is partly because new students ignore EVERYONE’S moves, but there is a small element of ageism that happens.
Young students also tend to always make the older students parents or grandparents, and completely miss when the older student is trying to cast themself as a younger character.
Pop culture references are a landmine when you’re older. People who are in their 20s forget that not everyone has emotional attachment to things that happened when they were kids. They seem to roll their eyes when not everyone knows the same cartoons and movies.
That said, learning how to manage pop culture references are a thing that EVERYONE has to learn. As improv gets more culturally diverse, fewer and fewer students are drawing from the same pool of pop culture knowledge.
I should say, that a lot of older students are resistant to trying new things. Not all, but many. They’re out of practice of being a student. They can be resistant when asked to try silly things. They argue with teachers more.
So, it’s tough. I started when I was 31 and felt super old. Now I smile at that, but I really did feel that way.
The best solution is to take the high road and treat everyone the way you want to be treated. Be positive, talk to people at the break, introduce yourself. If you stick it out for even a few months, and people get know you, it gets way way easier.
Also, there are two big advantages of being older that are good to remember.
One, you’ve had actual life experience to draw from for your scenes.
And two, you’re not going to be as freaked out by something like getting on a house team as others. Like, someone who’s been married and maybe divorced and raised children and changed careers is gonna have an easier time dealing with whether or not a 30 year old improv teacher remembers your name.
Ryan Knoll:
I listened to Yes, Also podcast with Jaime Moyer. She mentioned one of the best pieces of advice she got was to "Play likeable characters."
I'd like to know how to make "likeable characters" consistently and what that looks like from a tactical perspective.
I can't speak for Jamie. I think it's slightly better to try to be characters who like things. Whether they're likeable or not, who can say, but they tend to like things. They're on board, they're in favor or if they're NOT in favor, they're sympathetic. They're curious and interested. That feels like a good default emotional posture for an improv scene. The word “likeable” --- while I think Jamie's advice is good -- students will argue "Well i TRY to be likeable and the audience doesn't like my choices and it's not my fault and there's nothing I can do."
But you CAN choose to LIKE things, you can choose to be interested.
Anonymous:
At what point (if any) do you stop rehearsing with your team?
Longer circumstances: I'm on a team of 12 where the average improv experience level is 8-10 years. Many performers are also coaching other teams, teaching, or (not-improv) parenting. We've got weekly shows and aim to rehearse every other week, but it is HARD to get a night with a quorum. Is it time to just quit trying to make rehearsals happen? Or is there an alternative to coaching that you'd recommend?
Important caveat: The shows are good.
I think it’s really normal for a team to stop practicing and you should let it happen. 8-10 years is a long time to have been doing improv and it makes sense to me that people don’t want to rehearse anymore. A “spot rehearsal” now and then could be good, and I bet people would be into that. Or asking a coach to watch a show and offer thoughts is a good substitute when you can’t rehearse.
Sometimes for a new team, even with veteran people, you might rehearse 4 or 5 times to accelerate the group mind. But I’ve never known veterans to rehearse a LOT.
Exceptions: Ian Roberts and I did a 2 prov show weekly all year last year and we started by rehearsing twice a week for 3 months, coached by up and comer Craig Cackowski. That was his insane idea and I did it.
It started a mini wave of veterans rehearsing in LA. The “Pretty Funny” guys (Ben Rodgers, Jon Gabrus and Dom Dierkes) an improvised movie show) try to rehearse once a month before their monthly show. A few other groups in the UCB realm did spot rehearsals. And I do think it was because they heard Ian Roberts was rehearsing!
And a show I’m part of called “The Sober Show” will do rehearsals every month or so.
Okay, I guess some veterans DO rehearse. But not weekly and not for very long.
Max Hully:
I've noticed that different regional improv scenes will have their own local "dialects" of improv.
You've done and seen improv all over the world. What are some quirks of local improv dialects that you've seen?
Here's an example. I first did improv with Happy Valley Improv at the Blue Brick Theatre in State College, PA. One feature of their Central PA dialect of improv is the "clap edit", where an improvisor on the back line loudly claps four or five times in rapid succession to end the scene. In Happy Valley they do that instead of the "sweep edit" (running across the stage).
I do improv in Philly now, and I kinda miss the clap edit. It takes less activation energy than a sweep edit, so I felt like I was less likely to let a scene go on too long. On the other hand, whenever my friends saw a show there someone would say "That was great! What was going on with the clapping thing?" So it amight have some legibility problems for the audience.
I’ve noticed this but can’t come up with too many examples. Groundlings does “clap in” edits. UCB has people standing on the backline, whereas iO had people standing on the sides. In the UK, they seem to dim the lights after every scene, not just the end of the show. Tag-outs where invented in Chicago in the 90s, so improv scenes that evolved before or separate from that don’t have them.
Ronald Harvey
Could you please write a newsletter addressing styles for receiving audience suggestions? You've seen how European improvisers often take (and openly reject) multiple suggestions (which many Americans reject as not-improv) whereas Americans (especially in Chicago) take the first thing they hear regardless
Hello Professor Ron. This is interesting but I think you’ve summed up all I know about it!
Cynthia:
How do you handle playing with someone who denies or blocks in a scene? How do you handle a team member who continues to block even if the coach has called him out on it several times?
You are not alone in feeling like this! This is my second most common kind of questions, right after “should I still be doing this?” questions. I wrote about difficult players most recently here:
I don’t have a ton else to say. Try to get on another team. Or have a difficult conversation with them — which I talk a bit about in the above essay.
An Improv Instructor:
At the end of Level 5, our last class level, someone asked, how can I measure my improvement in improv? If I'm working out, I can measure the amount I can lift. If I'm running track, I can measure my times. Is there a measurement in improv?
I did not have anywhere near a good answer. I don't know if there is a good answer.
I was thinking of this just today when I was practicing guitar. Am I getting any better, I asked myself? When it comes to a performing art, it’s tough to say.
I think this should best be measured internally.
Do you feel more confident and loose as you do it? Do you feel like yourself on stage?
Here’s a fast checklist of milestones:
Do you usually know the who-what-where of a scene?
Can you remember stuff from the opening later in the show?
Can you remember how the show started while you’re doing the show?
Are you able to find things funny about a scene you are in?
Can you play a character you do not agree with?
Can you switch emotions rapidly without thinking about it?
Are you smart enough to avoid impersonating political figures (this is a joke, kind of)
Okay that’s it!
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Thanks all!