"Real improv" and a two year old note
Lloydie talks to improvisers on the latest podcast about how genres of improv are sometimes confused with the medium itself - plus how a two year old note changed his teaching
“Yeah, but that’s not improv is it!”
When I was in Sydney earlier this year I met improviser Jim Fishwick. They are the general manager of Jetpack Theatre, who do immersive interactive improvised work, a teacher with Improv Theatre Sydney and currently the artistic co-director of the New Zealand Improv Festival. One thing he has noticed, particularly with mid-later career improvisers is the conflating of the medium of improv with a particular style / genre of improv.
Why does this happen with both improvisers and audiences and how do we move away from that? The latest episode of The Improv Chronicle podcast explores this.
A note I should have looked at sooner
This week’s podcast has had me thinking about musical improv because, at the moment, I’m performing more of that than improv without music (although I’m teaching way more non-musical improv than musical improv. Go figure!).
In the podcast episode that dropped today, Jim Fishwick talks about how ‘musicals’ isn’t simply one genre and that took me back to a conversation I had several years ago with a theatre director who helped me out when I was setting up Rhymes Against Humanity - The Improvised Musical.
Rhymes Against Humanity performing a fully improvised musical at Robin Hood International Improv Festival (pic: Rae Dowling)
Martin Berry has just been appointed Creative Director and joint Chief Executive of Exeter Northcott Theatre in the UK. He’s a director, West End lead actor and one of the most encouraging presences I’ve been lucky enough to orbit during his time in Nottingham.
After watching a couple of performances from Rhymes Against Humanity, Martin suggested that we look into a few more song styles. A lot of what we were doing was standard improvised musical song styles - by which I mean, opening number, I want song and then taking whatever had happened in the scene, and summing up the prevailing energy in song.
One of Martin’s suggestions was to look at Torch Songs and I wrote that down and then left it for about two years. It was something I was always going to get around to. And then, the pandemic hit and one evening I needed something to teach a musical drop-in class online. I spent an afternoon digging into what a Torch Song is and invented a couple of exercises to help facilitate people into doing those songs. I had no idea what I was about to discover.
Torch Songs are very emotional songs about the denial or loss of something treasured - regularly they are songs about unrequited love. The songs I heard online that night were the most powerful improv I experienced in the pandemic. When I eventually came to run the class in a room, in real life, I was worried we would never recapture the same sort of emotional heights but I was wrong.
Often, at improv’s best, people bring an emotional truth to their work. I can’t wait to teach Torch Songs more in the new year (feel free to email me about it if you’d like to learn how to do them!). Why I left it two years to try them, I’ll never know. But when you find a talented, encouraging soul who offers you a good idea, be sure to listen to them. Thanks Martin.
What else is happening?
Having previously published in their commissioning guidelines that they didn’t think improv worked on the radio, BBC Radio 4 in the UK have had a welcome change of mind and commissioned a one-off improvised comedy show. Wing It will feature Cariad Lloyd and Josie Lawrence as part of the cast in a show where “improv legends compete alongside the form's modern all-stars as well as comics who are willing to give improv a stab, in a series of hilarious solo and team-based challenges”.
https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2023/11/16/54510/mike_wozniak_to_host_radio_4_improv_show
Inside Rikers Island Drama Club: Incarcerated Youth Find Solace in ImprovI found this article a compelling read on many levels…
“There is some very validating evidence proving that improv can help mitigate trauma for young people,” Josie Whittlesey, the nonprofit’s founder, said. “I've seen it happen over and over again in our classrooms. The practice of ‘Yes, And’ can create a great sense of safety ... and can make brain function more integrated. I believe this is also why we've been told anecdotally that our program reduces violence with our participants.”
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/rikers-island-drama-club
And here’s a thing I liked (which I’ve seen a few times before) from the late Alan Rickman
Upcoming Shows
If you’re in the UK you can see me performing in Rhymes Against Humanity - The Improvised Musical at The John Godber centre in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire on Sunday 26th November.
Plus I continue to play in “Brand New Musical - an improvised Sondheim show” with Katy Schutte at the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham, London on the last Friday of November, January and February. Want to know what the show is like? I posted a show clip to my personal Instagram a while back which you can see here
Have a great week,
Lloydie