Walking back on and assimilation
The Improv Chronicle returns in podcast and newsletter form.
New episode
The Improv Chronicle is back after a very brief two year hiatus. Did much happen in its absence? I felt it was right to hold back until exactly the right moment to walk-on.
The podcast episode has just dropped and improviser Marcel Blanch-de Wilt argues that there’s never a bad time to do a walk-on in an improv scene. Just get in there! Agree? Check out his reasoning and the musings of improvisers Vera Chok and Sam Irving on the matter.
Assimilation
I’ve been sitting with one thought the past couple of weeks and it has shone a light on how I performed in my early years of improv.
Recently, Improv Chronicle recorded a series of academic talks on improv, organised by The Improv Boost’s David Escobedo. Excepts from these will form part of future episodes.
In a talk given by David, he spoke about how assimilation happens in improv. As new improvisers we can often assimilate to the current improv culture, often at the expense of ourselves and the unique part of our lives that we bring.
This was immediately interesting to me and as I sat with it, I realised how I had hidden part of myself and my life experience in my improv. It is something I had never considered before and it pretty quickly brought my thoughts to how I might have created an environment where others might also have ended up assimilating to fit in.
I think it’s worth saying that we all assimilate to survive a bit, but in an art form that involves bringing yourself to your performance, how do we get around this.
For the first four or five years of improvising, I do not remember playing anything other than heterosexual characters. I was regularly in a husband / wife scene but it’s not until years later that I was in a scene were I was in a gay relationship, let alone one where being in a gay relationship was not the main point of the scene.
For my first few years in improv, I was the only openly gay improviser in the group I performed in. Despite being very open about my sexuality generally, when it came to doing scenes, I fitted in. I assimilated. I didn’t bring one important part of my unique voice to scenes or to the stage.
I never really questioned it or worked out why. I don’t exactly remember when I started playing with characters who weren’t heteronormative, but I am pretty sure it was around the time new members joined the group and endowed me as being in a same sex relationship. These weren’t LGBT+ people either, just allies who saw me and gave me the chance to play something more true to me (shout out to my friend and collaborator Liam Webber who is definitely one such person who did this).
My thinking over the past couple of week has centred around how I can give people permission to bring more of themselves to improv; when I facilitate a workshop, play a scene, host an open jam/show, how do I help people feel like they can expand the culture and not assimilate to the dominant social narrative? I feel like it’s a very helpful thought right now. At some point, it will likely be a podcast episode. If it resonates with you in any way, I’d love to hear from you.
Will Hines pays huge tribute to Improv Chronicle
LA-based improviser Will Hines has paid huge tribute to our podcast by using one of our previous episodes as the subject for one of his recent newsletters. Ok, technically, he might not have done this, but his thought-provoking post about The Harold has echos of one of our previous episodes about Harold.
Big love to Will Hines - maybe check out his newsletter? It’s pretty darn good.
Upcoming shows
If you are in the UK, you can see me performing in “Brand New Musical - an improvised Sondheim show” with Katy Schutte at the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham, London on the last Friday of September, October and November.
Plus I will be performing with Rhymes Against Humanity - The Improvised Musical on Friday 9th November at Nottingham Comedy Festival
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