Improvisation: What It Is, Is Not and Why It’s Necessary
by Stephanie Muller
I bet you’ve noticed that in the last decade or so, your students have started obsessing over this new craze in improvisation. It’s to be expected, really! The wildly popular Whose Line Is It Anyway? and its associated comedic stars have gotten kids hooked on the art of comedy improv. Many high schools now have their own improvisational comedy troupes, and you as a drama teacher may have led improv games to warm up your actors. But (and there is a but), while there is no question that the art of improvisation is essential to the development of young actors, the exponential success of Whose Line? has skewed its definition. As a teacher, it’s important that you fully understand the actual definition and fundamentals of improvisation. That way it will be both easy and fun to utilize it for optimum student growth!
Where some people become confused is not in what improv is, but in what improv is not. Improv is not a separate entity from acting in a play — as a matter of fact, improv should always be utilized in a scripted piece. I was even taught that all good acting is actually 99% improv! Now here’s the kicker. Above all else, it is essential to emphasize that improvisation is NOT about comedy. That’s right. Improvisation is NOT about making the funniest quip at the most opportune time, not about trying to get an audience to laugh and not about picking scenes from a hat. In fact, if you encourage these isolated skills of your students, you’ll find that you are teaching them how NOT to do drama!
So, just what is improvisation? In terms of modern acting theory, it is the brainchild of Viola Spolin, the renowned founder of the famous Second City Theatre in Chicago. According to her, improvisation is the gift of not thinking, the art of being in the moment while onstage, of letting your thoughts and actions come naturally to you without taking a moment to think of them beforehand. It’s the acting technique of keeping a scene’s energy high and keeping its content feeling real. It is a means by which your actors can learn how to break free from the pitfalls of “acting” and “becoming a character,” and instead bring only honesty and truth to the stage. That’s a lot to take in, I know. But can’t you see how your students’ acting abilities will improve as they learn this?
When I entered my first college acting class, I was thrilled at the prospect of practicing my improvisation. I had always killed at the “question game” and loved Wayne Brady’s work on “hoe-down.” But, much to my surprise, my professor informed the class that for the rest of our unit on improv, none of us would be allowed to speak. We would not be doing any “performance” or telling any “stories.” Naturally, I balked. WHAT?! Instead of performing for laughs, I spent two months learning how to utilize the three fundamentals of improvisation: Who, What and Where.
“Who” refers NOT to a “character,” but to the specific RELATIONSHIP between two people. The most interesting thing that happens onstage is the energy shared between two people. Of course, at any one time, there are multiple relationships happening onstage simultaneously. Help your students develop an appreciation for the importance of the relationship with this improv exercise: give them a specific relationship to convey wordlessly with a partner, be it mother-daughter or boss-subordinate, and then have the rest of the class try to figure out that relationship.
“What” refers to an action, that is, a direct action that can physically be done onstage. This is where young actors will get confused; “ironing a shirt” is an action, while “learning to love myself” is not. In Act 3 of Hamlet, Hamlet’s “What” is not to avenge his father’s death. His goal is, very specifically, to get Claudius to confess that he murdered Hamlet’s father. In every scene of every show, an actor should be able to identify and convey the specific action of his or her character. A scene may switch between multiple actions. It is fine if that action does not get accomplished. But, at the end of a scene, your young actor and the audience should be able to tell for certain if the character onstage achieved his or her action. For improv practice, ask your actors to come up with a private list of 20 very specific nonverbal actions. When it is a particular student’s turn, he or she can pick one and silently perform it for the rest of the class. The class should guess what “What” is being... well... what-ed.
Of course, the “Where” of an improvised scene refers to the location. Are we in a laundry room? But there’s more to it than that! Where, specifically, are the entrances and exits? Which way does the door open? How tall is the washing machine, and where is it in relation to the hamper of dirty clothes? An incredibly challenging but rewarding exercise for students is to have them draw a floor-plan to a specific room, establish what furniture, handhelds and other objects are in that room, and mime necessary ACTIONS associated with those objects to wordlessly convey where they are to the class.
As your students grasp these fundamentals of improvisation, you can begin to transfer their newly developed skills to their acting in scripted shows. Have your actors specifically identify their character’s relationships with other characters, their goals for every specific moment onstage and how their setting affects the way the character acts onstage. You should find that the students gain a depth of understanding to their parts that they did not have before. You can also stop your students from falling into the trap of “I’ve-done-this-scene-so-many-times-that-I’m-on-autopilot.” An actor, no matter how experienced, should never know EXACTLY how he or she is going to do a scene. Allow your actors to try something completely different in the middle of a scene, something that they don’t have the chance to think about beforehand, something that is purely an impulse. If your student suddenly kicks a stool over in Act II when you didn’t block that, it’s fine! It’s real. When an actor’s energy is real and unscripted, your audience will find much more enjoyment in watching a show.
Don’t get me wrong, here, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a good round of “Two-Line Vocabulary” every once in a while! It’s just that while the likes of Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie are fabulous improvisers, their comedic genius does not come from actively trying to be funny. Their comedy is a natural outcome of their amazing ability to be completely honest, completely vulnerable and completely focused. And they never forget their three W’s!
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