Improvisational theatre
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Improvisational theatre (also known as improv or impro) is a form of theatre in which the actors use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously. Actors typically use audience suggestions to guide the performance as they create dialogue, setting, and plot extemporaneously. Improvisational theatre performances tend to be comedic, although some forms, including Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed, are not necessarily intended to be comedic.
Many improvisational actors also work as scripted actors, and "improv" techniques are often taught in standard acting classes. The basic skills of listening, clarity, confidence, and performing instinctively and spontaneously are considered important skills for actors to develop.
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[edit] Improvisational comedy
Modern improvisational comedy, as it is practiced in the West, falls generally into two categories: shortform and longform.
Shortform improv consists of short scenes usually constructed from a predetermined game, structure, or idea and driven by an audience suggestion. Many shortform games were first created by Viola Spolin. The shortform improv comedy television series Whose Line Is It Anyway? has familiarized American and British viewers with shortform.
Longform improv performers create shows in which scenes are often interrelated by story, characters, or themes. Longform shows may take the form of an existing type of theater, for example a full-length play or Broadway-style musical. Longform improvisation is especially performed in Chicago and New York City. Perhaps the best-known, and considered the first, longform structure is the Harold, developed by ImprovOlympic cofounder Del Close.
[edit] Origins
Improvised performance is as old as performance itself. From the 16th to the 18th century, Commedia dell'arte performers improvised in the streets of Italy[1]and in the 1890s theatrical theorists and directors such as Konstantin Stanislavski and Jacques Copeau, founders of two major streams of acting theory, both heavily utilised improvisation in acting training and rehearsal.[2]
While some people credit Dudley Riggs as the first vaudevillian to use audience suggestions to create improvised sketches, modern theatrical improvisation is generally accepted to have taken form in the classroom with the theatre games of Viola Spolin in the 1940s and Keith Johnstone in the 1950s. These rehearsal-room activities evolved quickly to an independent artform worthy of presentation before a paying audience.
Viola Spolin can probably be considered the American Grandmother of Improv. She influenced the first generation of Improv at The Compass Players in Chicago, which led to The Second City. Her son, Paul Sills, along with David Shepherd, started The Compass Players and Second City They were among the first organised troupes in Chicago, Illinois and from their success, the modern Chicago improvisational comedy movement was spawned.
Much of the current "rules" of comedic improv were first formalized among The Compass troupe. From most accounts Elaine May was central to this intellectual effort. Mike Nichols, Ted Flicker, and Del Close were her most frequent collaborators in this regard.
Many of the original cast of Saturday Night Live came from The Second City and the franchise has produced such comedy stars as Mike Myers, Chevy Chase and John Belushi.
Simultaneously, Keith Johnstone's group The Theatre Machine, which originated in London, was touring Europe. This work gave birth to Theatresports, at first secretly in Keith's workshops, and eventually in public when Keith moved to Canada. Toronto has been home to a rich improv tradition.
In San Francisco, The Committee theater was active during the 1960s.
Modern political improvisation's roots include Jerzy Grotowski's work in Poland during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Peter Brook's "happenings" in England during the late 1960s, Augusto Boal's "Forum Theatre" in South America in the early 1970s, and San Fransico's The Diggers' work in the 1960s. Some of this work led to pure improvisational performance styles, while others simply added to the theatrical vocabulary and were, on the whole, avant garde experiments.
Joan Littlewood, the English actress and director who was active from the 1930s to 1970s, made extensive use of improv in developing plays for performance. However she was successfully prosecuted twice for allowing her actors to improvise in performance. Until 1968, British law required scripts to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain's Office. The department also sent inspectors to some performances to check that the approved script was exactly complied with.
[edit] Improvisational Comedy on Film and Television
Many silent filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton used improvisation in the making of their films, developing their gags while filming and altering the plot to fit. The Marx Brothers were notorious for deviating from the script they were given, their ad libs often becoming part of the standard routine and making their way into their films.
Improv comedy techniques have also been used in film, television and stand-up comedy, notably the mockumentary films of director Christopher Guest, the recent HBO television show Curb Your Enthusiasm created by Larry David, The NBC comedy series The Office, the Comedy Central series Reno 911! and Halfway Home and the routines of Ross Noble, Robin Williams, Jonathan Winters, and Eddie Izzard, who often improvise onstage.
[edit] Psychology of Improvisational Theatre
The psychology and neurobiology of improv have not been subject to extensive research. One possible avenue for exploration is the hypothesis of two brain systems for taking-in and reacting to the behaviour of another. One, evolutionary younger, would rely on a theory of mind and rationalisation. The other, evolutionary older and shared with other primates, would rely on how it is comfortable or uncomfortable to react in a given situation: drawing on non-intellectualised emotional experience. [1]
In the field of the Psychology of Consciousness, Eberhard Scheiffele explored the altered state of consciousness experienced by actors and improvisers in his scholarly paper: Acting: an altered state of consciousness. Following the definition in The Psychology of Consciousness by G. William Farthing (see comparative study), the author argues that actors (in performance, drama classes, or in psychodrama) routinely enter an ASC. Acting is seen as altering most of the 14 dimensions of changed subjective experience which characterise ASCs according to Farthing, namely: attention, perception, imagery and fantasy, inner speech, memory, higher-level thought processes, meaning or significance of experiences, time experience, emotional feeling and expression, level of arousal, self-control, suggestibility, body image, and sense of personal identity. The Far Games, a collection of improvisation games designed to popularised improvisation is using an adaptation of this nomenclature to indicates the aspects of consciousness likely to be altered when playing a particular game.
[edit] Improv process
Improvisational theatre allows an interactive relationship with the audience. Improv groups frequently solicit suggestions from the audience as a source of inspiration, a way of getting the audience involved, and as a means of proving that the performance is not scripted. That charge is sometimes aimed at the masters of the art, whose performances can seem so detailed that viewers may suspect the scenes were planned.
In order for an improvised scene to be successful, the actors involved must work together responsively to define the parameters and action of the scene, in a process of co-creation. With each spoken word or action in the scene, an actor makes an offer, meaning that he or she defines some element of the reality of the scene. This might include giving another character a name, identifying a relationship, location, or using mime to define the physical environment. These activities are also known as endowment. It is the responsibility of the other actors to accept the offers that their fellow performers make; to not do so is known as blocking, which usually prevents the scene from developing. Some performers may deliberately block (or otherwise break out of character) for comedic effect -- this is known as gagging -- but this generally prevents the scene from advancing and is frowned upon by many improvisers. Accepting an offer is usually accompanied by adding a new offer, often building on the earlier one; this is a process improvisers refer to as "Yes, And..." and is considered the cornerstone of improvisational technique.
The unscripted nature of improv also implies no predetermined knowledge about the props that might be useful in a scene. Improv companies may have at their disposal some number of readily accessible props that can be called upon at a moment's notice, but many improvisers eschew props in favor of the infinite possibilities available through mime. As with all improv offers, actors are encouraged to respect the validity and continuity of the imaginary environment defined by themselves and their fellow performers; this means, for example, taking care not to walk through the table or "miraculously" survive multiple bullet wounds from another improviser's gun.
Because improv actors may be required to play a variety of roles without preparation, they need to be able to construct characters quickly with physicality, gestures, accents, voice changes, or other techniques as demanded by the situation. The actor may be called upon to play a character of a different age or sex. Character motivations are an important part of successful improv scenes, and improv actors must therefore attempt to act according to the objectives that they believe their character seeks.
[edit] Improv penalties
Within some circles of competition, a referee is called upon to keep improv scenes in check. The referee, although allowed to stop play for his own independent reasons, is generally required to call a penalty for the actions he finds questionable.
[edit] The improv community
Many theatre troupes are devoted to staging improvisational performances and growing the improv community through their training centres. One of the most widespread is the international organization Theatresports, which was founded by Keith Johnstone, an English director who wrote what many consider to be the seminal work on improvisational acting, Impro. There are also many independent companies around the world; a non-exhaustive but lengthy list is available here.
In addition to for-profit theatre troupes, there are several college-based improv groups in the United States that are becoming popularized as a result of programs such as Whose Line is it Anyway?.
[edit] Improv luminaries
Some key figures in the development of improvisational theatre are Viola Spolin and her son Paul Sills, founder of Chicago's famed Second City troupe and inventor of Story Theater; Dudley Riggs, founder of Minneapolis' Brave New Workshop; Del Close, founder of ImprovOlympic and creator of the longform improv known as "The Harold" along with his partner Charna Halpern; Keith Johnstone, the British teacher and writer–author of Impro, who founded the Theatre Machine and whose teachings form the foundation of the popular shortform Theatresports format and Dick Chudnow, founder of ComedySportz which evolved its family-friendly show format from Johnstone's Theatersports.
Some key figures in the development of improvisational theatre are Avery Schreiber, Viola Spolin and her son Paul Sills, founder of Chicago's famed Second City troupe and inventor of Story Theater, and Del Close, founder of ImprovOlympic (along with Charna Halpern) and creator of the longform improv known as The Harold.
In 1975 Jonathan Fox founded Playback Theatre, a form of improvised community theatre which is often not comedic and replays stories as shared by members of the audience. The Groundlings is a popular and influential improv theatre and training center in Los Angeles, California.
One former Groundlings director, Stan Wells, has generated two new longform styles: the clap-in and transformation styles. Transformation is currently only performed by The Transformers Improv Troupe, but the clap-in form has been performed at the Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade, and at the ACME Comedy Theatre.[citations needed]
David Shepherd, with Paul Sills, founded the The Compass Players in Chicago. Shepherd was intent on developing a true "people's Theatre", and hoped to bring political drama to the stockyards. The Compass went on to play in numerous forms and companies, in a number of cities including NY and Hyannis, after the founding of The Second City. A number of Compass members were also founding members of The Second City. In the 1970s, Shepherd began experimenting with group-creatied videos. He is the author of "That Movie In Your Head", about these efforts.
A more comprehensive view of Improvisational Theater Can be found on the Improv Wiki [2]
[edit] References
- ^ Claudon, David. A Thumbnail History of Commedia Dell' arte. 2003
- ^ Twentieth Century Acting Training. ed. Alison Hodge. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Povinelli, Daniel J.. On the possibilities of detecting intentions prior to understanding them. In B. Malle, D. Baldwin, & L. Moses (eds.), Intentions and Intentionality: Foundations of Social Cognition. MIT Press 2001.
[edit] See also
- Ad lib
- Atellanæ Fabulæ
- Busking
- Commedia dell'arte
- Improvisation
- List of improv games
- List of improvisational theatre companies
- Improvisation
[edit] External links
[edit] Further reading
- The Living Playbook: online collection of improvisational games, by Seattle troupe Unexpected Productions.
- How to Be a Better Improviser: an excellent primer on some of the basic precepts ("ground rules") of improv, by improviser and teacher Daniel Goldstein.
- How To Improvise Shakespeare A quick crash course on how to better improvise in the style of Shakespeare.
- Improv Encyclopedia lists over 500 improv games, exercises, techniques and terminology.
- The Improv Wiki discusses techniques for performing and learning improv.
- Improvland webpage about improvisational theatre, with articles, resources, message boards and an international links to the groups around the world.
- YesAnd.com features improv news, resources and message boards.
- The Improv Resource Center is a community site for dedicated improvisers in Chicago, New York and other parts of the United States.
- The Chicago Improv Network is a message board and portal for the Chicago Improv Community. Home of a Wiki devoted to longform improvisation.
- Learn Improv The web's oldest and most understandable list of improv warm-ups, exercises, and handles.
- E-zine dedicated to Los Angeles Improv Comunity
- The Far Games Improv games and workshops formats to get wise or laugh trying
- The CIN Wiki A Wiki dedicated to improvisational theater, hosted by The Chicago Improv Network message boards.
- The German improv-wiki A Wiki dedicated to improvisational theater, in German.
- The ISFP Players Handbook A 140+ page Improv Handbook. Includes Hundreds of games, Advice for directors and performers, and long lists of ask-fors, emotions, film & theater styles, etc.
- Business and Personal Benefits of Improv
