What is Improv? ...and Why Isn’t It Just for Actors and Performers? A Brief History “Improv” (short form of “Improvisational Theater”) was developed in Chicago in the 1920's by a renowned acting coach of that time, Viola Spolin. She originally designed the program for children, but it was quickly picked up as an aid to actors and other performers to sharpen communication and self expression skills and produce a more natural and creative performance. Viola’s work directly contributed to the formation of the famous ‘Second City’ comedy troupe, which in turn inspired “Saturday Night Live”, that has endured as the premier launching pad for all the best and brightest comic performers, and quite a few first rate serious actors. Improv is now a widely used foundation training for all types of performance art. What the Training Is The basic training is made up of a series of exercises or ‘games’ that are designed to relax an individual’s usual inner stops, self-restrictions, fears of performance and allow fuller, natural creative ability to emerge. All within a safe, supportive atmosphere. “Charades”, the popular party game, is one of the first theater games, but there are hundreds more that are even more absorbing, and use real teamwork. The games are so entertaining of themselves, that hit shows like “Whose Line Is It Anyway”, which is simply practiced, gifted improv players working within the structure of the games. The training starts with simple exercises, such as ‘the mirror exercise’, in which players pair off, and, stand as if one is facing themselves in a mirror, enacted by the other, matching move for move. Or, one called “Transformation”, in which the players form a circle, and a ‘theme’ is selected, such as ‘sports equipment’ or ‘kitchen gadgets’. The first person creates an invisible object by describing its shape and purpose with no words, just actions. When the player to his right understands what it is, he ‘takes’ it from him, ‘uses’ it to demonstrate his understanding of what it is, then changes it’s shape into a new object and demonstrates it until he’s sure the person to his right understand and can take it over. In one group I was a member of, this became a hilarious pantomime of all the great Halloween monster movies: Jason and his ‘chainsaw’ became Dracula-into a bat became Darth Vader with a light saber and so on. As players become more accomplished, the games get more challenging, such as one called “machine”, in which one player starts a repetitive motion; the next player jumps in and makes a motion that moves off the first motion (like a gear turning a wheel, or a lever that causes a container to dump, etc.); then the next player jumps in and responds to the added motion (such as catching what the container dumps and carrying it up to a hopper–then someone becomes the ‘hopper’), and so on. The favorite of trained improvisors and the most complex games are the spontaneous creation of improvised ‘scenes’, which are fully detailed slices of life-story, that can be funny, dramatic, poignant or in fact display all the human emotions/experiences. Today’s most accomplished screen writers and performers depend heavily on this type of improvisation to create the best entertainment and drama w |
