Stand-up v. Improv

Improv is reactive; stand-up is proactive

Oeno Vino wine shop in Atwater Village, Los Angeles closed. More specifically, it changed ownership at the new year (It’s now called “Nico’s”). It had been a place where there were open mics almost every day. I’ve heard the new management wants to keep doing shows, but the specific plan remains to be seen.

I’ve done a good number of spots at the Oeno Vino open mics. It’s close to my house and when I was feeling the itch to test myself, I’d drive over. Without it, I wonder if I’ll get to dabble as often! Stand-up is a difficult challenge, but also invigorating. It makes me solidify my opinions and face my feelings about the real world. People don’t really know me in that world, like they do in the LA improv shows, so I have to win over an audience. It’s exciting.

I do okay sometimes, but I’ve never accomplished anything in stand-up like the consistency that I have in improv. I’m a long-time dabbler, but still a dabbler. I could not fairly give any advice on how to do it well.

But I’ve done it enough that I can report the ways in which it FEELS different than improv.

And here it is: Improv feels primarily REACTIVE, and stand-up feels primarily PROACTIVE.

Stand-up is like “Here’s what I’d like to talk about” and improv is “here’s my reaction to what’s happening to me.”

Since they’re both about comedy performed on a stage, you might think stand-up and improv are closely related. They are not. They are chimpanzees and dolphins - descended from wholly different areas. Stand-up comes from writing. Improv comes from acting. Stand-up is done in clubs, with bars and dinner guests. Improv comes from theaters, where there are plays and velvet seats. Stand-ups were the kids in the back of the class making comments under their breath. Improvisers were the theater nerds in the drama club. Stand-ups in the green room are freaking out, turned inward, going over their set. Improvisers are doing british accents and laughing at each other’s stories, trying to take their minds off the uncertainty of the upcoming show.

Even people who manage to be good at both have spent separate times working on each one, one at a time.

Improv is REACTIVE. Stand-up is PROACTIVE.

You can see this when someone tries to cross over. When stand-ups try improv, they try to control everything, and do not adapt. They rigidly dismiss all offers. They are often quick-witted enough to justify why their characters do not have to change, but that’s besides the point. They won’t (can’t?) dance to the other person’s beat.

When improvisers do stand-up, they don’t have enough of an agenda. They ramble, they lack payoffs. They might have stage command and be good at crowd work (something to react to) but their sets are undercooked.

My own personal experience doing stand-up is that I’ll prepare a set, and then lose complete faith in it the second I’m behind the microphone. I can’t be proactive and set the agenda. My comedy muscles are all about reacting So I need something to react TO, and in stand-up it’s the vibe and energy of the room.

For one mic I had prepared a long set about my experience watching Marvel movies. But when I got on stage, my gut told me no one would care. Instead, the only thing that felt authentic to say was explaining why I had a band-aid on my forehead, and how I had forgotten to remove it during an audition a few hours before.

It went over okay; maybe even well, but it didn’t feel like stand-up. I felt like an improv host talking with the audience before a show.

Another way to express the difference is to see that stand-up is primarily from WRITING. Improv is primarily from ACTING.

Writing jokes in my living room I’ll find I have no strong opinion over what I really have. Is this enough of a joke, is this relatable at all? I need an audience watching for me to gain my internal radar. I had a bit about how I was proud of my skills using an ATM that I was somehow convinced was going to murder. And — perhaps this is no surprise — it never went anywhere, not for a second.

My best moments are riffing in the moment. Improvised commentary — reacting to the vibe of the room. In my set I do an impersonation of the “angry guy at the AA meeting” which was a bit that I improvised during a mic at the Lyric Hyperion mic because I had just come from, you guessed it, an AA meeting where I’d seen an angry guy.

Once in Portland I was somehow doing stand-up at a fairly big show that was being taped for NPR. I dutifully did my set and it was going… fine, I guess? Then a voice came over the PA “I’m sorry, we need to stop.” I would find out after that they weren’t recording properly and needed to start over. Without knowing that, I said “You all heard that too, right? That wasn’t God telling me I’m about to die?” And got the only real laugh of my set.

When my improv friends start doing stand-up they tend to do either: characters or long stories. If they stick with it, they start developing punchier stuff, but it takes a bit.

When my stand-up friends do improv, they have trouble at the starts of scenes. They can’t just say yes. They force absurd things so early. But if they stick with it, they learn to agree enough to get a scene going, and then when it’s time to heighten they really shine.

It’s fun to compare the two.

I’ll miss Oeno Vino! Hope the new place has a place for us east side LA aspiring hipsters to talk about our AA meetings. :)

Plugs, Ongoing

• Screw It, We’re Just Gonna Talk About Comics - Comic book podcast, hosted by my brother Kevin and I. We are preparing to do a series on legendary comics writer Keith Giffen!

• 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.