Improspectives

Improv skills lead to success

Posts Tagged ‘theatre’

Never Lie, Especially Not to Yourself

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In improv, like other arts, the audience wants to see a glimpse of the performers’ true selves. Those expectations make it difficult to deliver a truly satisfying performance when you’re not honest with yourself. That means being honest about your likes, dislikes, habits, crutches, and motives. It also means of being honest about whether you succeeded and to what extent.

Outside of the improv context, I have found it very useful to be completely honest with myself and others about whether I win or lose money when I play poker. I used to play pretty seriously, heading to Atlantic City or Vegas several times a year. Yes, this was before I got married. In the mid to late 90s I was a consistent winner, mainly because poker was just starting to get popular and my skills were a couple of years ahead of the pack. As time went by, the field got tougher and my results suffered. I analyzed my play, decided I no longer wanted to work hard enough to stay ahead of the game, and made the transition to playing recreationally.

I monitored my own play and results, and of course you should as well for whatever you do, but most improv groups have someone who is in charge of giving notes or notes are offered in a group session after a performance. Performers are expected to accept the notes, evaluate them, and incorporate them into their work. Improv notes, like performance reviews in an office setting, have a strong subjective element. Poker wins and losses, though of course guided in part by luck, are much more straightforward. If you leave with more money than you brought, you are a winner.

Where most performers, business people, and poker players trip up is by lying about how they did. Pretty soon the little white lies that save your reputation create cognitive dissonance, especially when someone sees a show or watches you play cards and the results don’t match the image you’re projecting. This realization can strain a friendship or promote distrust among colleagues.

My rule is to never lie to anyone, especially myself, about my performance. I don’t care if it’s about my work on stage, my writing, or at the poker table. I reserve the right not to answer a question (unless my wife asks, she gets to know everything), but I will never lie. This policy keeps cognitive dissonance to a minimum and forces me to deal with unfavorable results. That sounds pretty grim, but it also means I get to revel in what I do right.

Written by curtisfrye

August 21, 2012 at 12:43 am

Posted in Improv Performance, Management, Uncategorized

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Improv and Control

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This post is the second in my series on learning about improv from non-improv authors. My current favorite book of that type is Matthew Frederick’s 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, in which Frederick has some very useful thoughts on control and the creative process.

Kinesthesiologists refer to walking as “controlled falling.” To move forward, you must first unbalance your body and then catch yourself before you hit the ground. This basic human activity illustrates our lives perfectly. Not only must we create an imbalance to make progress; we have to do so repeatedly. In a similar vein, human existence is about the struggle to control one’s environment. Whether you arrange your work area so you’re comfortable or you go after a job, you think will make you happy, you’re fighting for control.

Improv groups that rely on a single, more or less controlling individual can do good work, but in many cases the group’s performances will be something less than the sum of its parts. As Frederick points out, “properly gaining control of the design process tends to feel like one is losing control of the design process.” In another context, racing great Mario Andretti said, “If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.” Improv teams are just like other groups in that everyone is responsible for everyone else’s success. When a performer makes a choice on stage, it is everyone’s job to make that choice work.

In relation to architectural design, Frederick says that every choice must be justified in at least two ways. In improv, justification means incorporating an offer into a scene. There are times when players make multiple offers and only one can be taken up, or someone could make an offer that truly can’t be incorporated without wrecking the scene, but among experienced players those incidents are exceedingly rare. Yes, you always want to make great offers, but Frederick argues that a beautiful composition is the result of a harmonious relationship among the design elements, not a grouping of the most beautiful elements available.

Written by curtisfrye

August 11, 2012 at 8:37 pm

Posted in Improv Performance, Management, Teamwork, Uncategorized

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Discriminative Listening

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I’ve reached the end of my series on the types of listening John Kline identifies in his book Listening Effectively. Kline was writing for U.S. Air Force officers, but his analysis works just as well in the business and improv arenas.

Kline’s final type of listening is discriminative listening. In this case, “discriminative” means to listen with the goal of discovering meaning through sensitivity to body language, tone, pace, and other aspects of speech apart from the words used. Discriminative listening is hardest for individuals who have difficulty recognizing body language. The stereotypical computer nerd is notoriously insensitive to body language and nuance, so much so that sarcasm and irony are lost on them. Body language and vocal nuance vary so much among regions, let along among individuals, it’s a wonder we can understand anything but the most basic statements in our native language.

Body language in business can be a tricky thing. Most individuals learn to control and mask their body language as they progress up the corporate ladder, so you can find yourself latching onto slight indications that have no connection to their true thoughts. It’s also possible to lie using body language, so be aware you might not be getting the whole truth.

Improvisers can’t afford to be misleading — we must communicate clearly and efficiently, especially when we’re being sarcastic or ironic. Doing so helps our fellow performers understand our intent and, just as importantly, shows the audience what we mean. The fourth wall is a powerful barrier to effective communication in scripted theatre, much more so when you’re improvising.

Written by curtisfrye

July 26, 2012 at 12:56 pm

Posted in Listening, Uncategorized

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Significant Objects and Events

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I have one more post to go in my listening series but I had to tell you about the book Significant Objects, just published by Fantagraphics. The idea behind the project was to sell 100 mudane items such as ashtrays and gold-colored rabbit candles on eBay. The twist was that the item description was actually a short-short fiction piece by professional writers such as Meg Cabot, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Scarlett Thomas.

So how much value did the stories, which were clearly labeled as fiction, add to the items? The items cost an average of $1.25 to acquire and sold for a total of nearly $8,000. That’s a profit of about $7,875, or over 6,000 times acquisition cost.

When I was young, I heard a story about an auction where the auctioneer was having a hard time getting anyone to bid on a guitar. One of his assistants picked up the guitar and played a beautiful song, causing the price to go through the roof when the bidders realized the object’s potential. That story is probably apocryphal, but the lesson remains: you make something significant by how you relate to it, whether by making music or writing a story about it.

As improvisers, we use our audience members’ suggestions to create our work. We have a duty to them to make their contributions significant by honoring what they gave us, especially if we’re replaying their day or referring to an important event in their life. Remember also that we can do harm. It’s one thing to show how a person’s day could go wrong, but it’s another to dismiss what they’ve said or done.

Keep your audience’s needs at the forefront of everything you do. After all, they’re the most important group in the theatre.

Written by curtisfrye

July 22, 2012 at 1:27 am

Posted in Creativity, Introverts, Uncategorized

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