Where Is Your Focus?

How where we place our focus has an impact on our shows

I'm a firm believer that in improv, as in life, your focus helps determine your outcome.

What we focus on will have huge impact on how we improvise both on stage and also in our offstage improv activities as well.

Let me expand on both.

On stage.

Firstly, where you put your focus on stage is going to have a huge impact on how you improvise.

I am often working on a particular skill in my improv practice; that might be something like object work, the game of the scene or on reacting authentically to my scene partner.

I make a point of only focusing on one thing at a time, because otherwise, if you have dissipated your focus, you will likely dilute the impact of what you're trying to do.

For example, if I'm working on object work, I will make that thing that I focus on both while I'm rehearsing and also keeping it in my mind during shows and jams.

Equally, where we put our focus as an ensemble has a real impact. If, for example, in musical improv, we make a big focus on stage picture and we do that over a number of weeks through rehearsal , then that is likely to have an impact on the types of shows that we produce.

Having a dedicated focus over a period of weeks is always good for an ensemble or for that matter for an individual practitioner.

I understand the desire to work on everything and over a longer period of time, that’s absolutely reasonable as we need plenty of tools in our tool belt, but we need to learn one tool at a time. Mastering each tool individually is worth the time and effort.

Last year, Rhymes Against Humanity did a large amount of work on stage picture, and how we moved as a group on stage. We did this for a few months in the run-up to playing the largest stage we’d ever played. The thinking was that if we could make the most of that space, and use it deliberately, it would benefit the show.

Looking back at the video of that show, it was entirely worth the focus of the team.

As an improviser I’m an expert in beating myself up about what I do, so whenever I feel a bit down on my own improv skills, I pick one thing that I’d likely to be better at, and I focus on that. I’ll find jams to go to so that I can keep working that muscle, until I notice improvement. At that moment, and just for a few moments, I usually stop beating myself up, and I take a little bit of delight in seeing a shift.

Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash

Off Stage

How we talk about what we do, and what we focus on when we do that, has a really big influence.

There was an episode of the improv Chronicle podcast a few years back where I spoke to a number of people about how we market improv shows .

It's a perennial problem that often we just have improvisers watching improvises with the exception of a few big breakthrough shows, most cities get the majority of their audience from the improv community .

I've always been of the opinion that it would be great to expand the type of audience that improv gets.

I often see shows advertised in what I was taught was an “inside out” way of thinking.

Years ago, in the radio industry, there was a big focus where I was working on removing thinking that put the radio station first, and instead replacing it with thinking that started with where the audience were in their lives.

A big shift cames from thinking about the audiences's experience first.

It starts with your first contacts with them, whether that be through a flyer, through social media advertising, or even through word of mouth - how we talk about what we do has big influence on how people perceive our art form.

Do we focus on the audience experience, how they're going to feel, the fact that they're going to have a good time, that it will be funny? Or are we talking about what a Harold is?

One of the phrases that we heard most often in radio 20 or so years ago was sell the sizzle, not the sausage.

If I was to list the constituent parts of a sausage right now, it probably wouldn't seem that advertising.

However, if I describe to you, the smell of a sausage sizzling in a pan, what is like to walk into a room and feel your mouth water and your taste buds perk up, what is like to smell that aroma as it drifts through your kitchen…Well, that's a very different experience altogether .

Very often, I see flyers, posters, social media ads that describe the constituent parts of the sausage, but that do not describe the experience, that do not sell the sizzle .

And when we focus on what really is electrifying about what we do (and by the way, I truly believe it can be electrifying), that's when we start to see a shift in results.

What are you focusing on at the moment? I’d love to know.

Upcoming Shows And Workshops

I’m hoping to bring my Torch Songs workshop to Nottingham before the end of the year. I’m just sorting out a date, so watch this space. It’s one of my favourite musical workshops to teach and I don’t get to do it as often as I’d like. I hope to have more news on that next week.

24th September (8pm) - Loose Goose, The Organ Grinder, Nottingham. Rediscover the joy of improvising. A show for improvisers and their friends to come along to and play.

18th - 20th October - I’ll be at the Remix Festival in Edinburgh. Show timings TBA.

9th November (7.30pm) - Rhymes Against Humanity, Squire PAC, Nottingham. A rollercoaster of fun and hilarity as one audience member’s suggestion gets turned into a ridiculous, fully improvised musical.

16th November (8pm) - Brand New Musical at Improv Fest Ireland (Dublin). An emotional, curious and funny journey into improvised musical theatre, inspired by the work of Stephen Sondheim.

If you’ve read this far, I’m guessing this newsletter engaged you at least a little bit. If you can think of anyone you know who might also enjoy it, please feel free to forward it on.

Have a great week,

Lloydie