Para las Mujeres! Women in Improv!

[Nicole Beckley]

Kat, I definitely feel you on some of these things. If I get caught up in thinking about what I look like as a person before a show it can definitely mess with my head a little, though the green room mirrors have never bothered me (I like to know if my fly is down).

I've found that the easiest way, for me, to slip into playing someone (male, old, or just entirely different from myself) is to change my voice. If I adopt a different rhythm, a different vocabulary, a different accent, I find that my body wants to follow and become that person who speaks like that. (Again, this is just what I've found works for me.)

What's liberating about doing this kind of work is that we have the freedom to play characters that we would never get cast as if we were doing a play or film. It's highly unlikely that I'd be playing a hardened police chief or a crusty old atomic scientist or a giraffe, but it's delightful to get to do it if an improvised scene or story calls for it. Is it going to be totally believable? Maybe not. Is there inherent comedy in that? I think so. Besides, if people want realistic giraffes, they can go to the zoo.

[mpbrockman]

Also, every woman who wants to play more convincing men should walk around with a pair of socks stuffed down the front of their pants for a whole day to see what that's like.

Make it more realistic; put a couple of eggs in there and see how long they last. I'd guess until the first time you encounter a genital-level counter or sit down without thinking about it.

Men & women have whole different sets of ingrained reflexes to protect themselves. In an imminent collision situation, men's hands cover their testicles, women their breasts (oh man, this is going straight to "Context Wars", isn't it?). Watch the different way in which men & women carry lighter objects, say a small number of books. Men will tend to carry them at their sides (like weapons?), women will tend to clutch them to their chests or hold them on a hip (like children?). The hunter/gatherer instincts still hold sway. Speaking of swaying...

The main giveaway that makes for failure is men do not move their hips and women do.

Markedly different pelvic structures make this easier said than done. My observation is that women have an easier time "straightening out" their walk than men do swinging theirs. On men, this almost always looks affected - we just don't have the hip width. Physiologically speaking, woman can accentuate/de-emphasize their hip sway by changing their stride (feet planted wider to "straighten", closer together to sway). Most men can walk practically in-line (toe-to-toe) and still generate little to no sway. Geometry is working against the guys. Still, I think making an effort to walk with feet closer together can help feminize a gait without looking too unnatural.

One more thing concerning physicality and then I have a slightly tangential question of my own. In unfamiliar social circumstances men square their shoulders and lead with their chests (again, a savannah dominance-type trait). Women, however, seem to have the uncanny capacity to lead with their best feature (as they perceive it). Putting aside some of the more obvious options; I've known women who seem to lead with their hair.

Or is that just a male perception? Sorry, I'm trying to stay gender-neutral here but...

Slightly tangential question: is the word "comedienne" as outre as "actress" now? If so, why?

[kaci_beeler]

-Women playing men / Men playing women[/b]
More please, yes. The main giveaway that makes for failure is men do not move their hips and women do. If you can walk around with your hips straight, you make a more convincing man.

The movement of hips is something I was thinking about a lot with playing Robin. There was a Batman show, I think the second one with Mike Kinald where at the top of the show, Bruce and Dick were having dancing/cultural lessons. I realized in the moment I wasn't sure how to dance like a boy because as a woman, I use my hips aloooot in dancing, but I knew in the moment my usual style of dancing wasn't...boyish enough. I made more of an effort to march and just enjoy a more stilted style. I'm not sure how it looked from the outside.

There is a picture of the moment:


In that show I try to be conscious about some of my physical choices, such as voice pitch, stance, etc. When sitting, I don't cross my legs, I keep an open stance, but I can't sit as wide as Deano does (I'd feel like I was preparing to give birth, instead of giving my "Johnstone" more room, which is I guess what Jill is implying with the sock thing?).
In the rehearsal process, my goal was to get my body to sort of memorize how it felt to be Robin, to play and move in a different way than I was used to, so that when I was playing in the show I wouldn't have to think about it as much (especially the vocalizations and speaking-style). I think it helped to work on it a lot outside of the theater, but I also know that sometimes I still do girly things (like stomp on Batman's foot when I'm mad or screw-up my face and curl my shoulders in when embarrassed).
It helps to have the wig, and I'm wearing men's clothes in the Dick Grayson parts. In the Robin parts I wear the form-fitting leotard and spandex vest and tights. It's kinda a mind-fuck, to be honest, because I am very aware of my curves in a way I don't want to be, but I try and put that out of my mind.

Women playing boys is a theatrical stand-by (Mary Martin as Peter Pan, for example), and vice-versa (boys playing women in Shakespeare original practices). Women are more like boys than men like women, for appearance sake.

I guess in the end I try to give it a constant good-faith effort and try hard to stay committed and not "drop". In those moments when you feel awkward or silly playing the opposite sex, I think those are the times to "double down". Commitment more to what you're doing, not less.
If it's a little off, that's a part of the comedy and the joy of doing or playing something you are obviously not.

So funny. As I was writing this, someone I don't know, a lady, who saw the show friended me on Facebook and sent me a nice message about it/Robin including the phrase "I love a chick playing a dude ".

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

can we introduce calling a female playing a male's imaginary junk their "Johnstone" into official improv jargon, please?

[kaci_beeler]

can we introduce calling a female playing a male's imaginary junk their "Johnstone" into official improv jargon, please?

[Jastroch]

If you ask me to play a stripper, I will always play an openly weeping stripper, sadly taking off her shirt, because that's what I find hilarious and it will make you look like an asshole.

JB,

Do you intend to make the character look like an asshole or your fellow performer?

[Spots]

If you ask me to play a stripper, I will always play an openly weeping stripper, sadly taking off her shirt, because that's what I find hilarious and it will make you look like an asshole.

JB,

Do you intend to make the character look like an asshole or your fellow performer?

Endowing someone as a stripper is a dick move. I won't follow Jill's lead and say this is %100 always the case. But for the sake of this conversation I don't see a semantic argument as necessary.

She made her point. It's a comic reversal.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

i don't know...i've known some really cool and interesting strippers (outside their context as strippers). why does it have to be a dick move? Jill's reversal is a valid choice. so is playing the character as a fully realized human being who's working their way through college or trying to feed their kid or...whatever. it clearly CAN be a dick move...but it doesn't have to be.

(then again, i've been endowed as a stripper before, so maybe i'm biased. )

[Spots]

OK, so let the semantic argument overflow into the thought provoking conversation. And..... go.

[jillybee72]

OK. Well. We're really talking about two separate situations bundled into one:

There's a type of improvisor boy. He's probably late teens/early twenties. He falls back on endowing women as strippers and whores. He does that because he is just learning what makes the audience laugh and he knows they will laugh at that; he doesn't notice that it's denigrating to his female scene partners. All the women will drop out of his troupe, he will not know why. This guy I will make look like an asshole. This is because I am an asshole, this is well known.

There is a second scenario, when a grown-up improvisor will label you a stripper or a whore because the scene calls for it. The number of times that occurs is a great deal lower than in the first scenario. I will still play the crying stripper because it is hilarious comedy and in this case it makes the character look like an asshole.

Yes, it is fun to play strippers or whores, like Susan Messing says, you can make them anything you want. However, it's also fun not to play strippers or whores. The exploitation of women and girls through sexual trafficking around the world is not yuks central to me, personally.

[jillybee72]

What's liberating about doing this kind of work is that we have the freedom to play characters that we would never get cast as if we were doing a play or film. It's highly unlikely that I'd be playing a hardened police chief or a crusty old atomic scientist or a giraffe, but it's delightful to get to do it if an improvised scene or story calls for it. Is it going to be totally believable? Maybe not. Is there inherent comedy in that? I think so. Besides, if people want realistic giraffes, they can go to the zoo.

Yes! I love this thought!

[sara farr]

However, it's also fun not to play strippers or whores. The exploitation of women and girls through sexual trafficking around the world is not yuks central to me, personally.

Thank you!! Ditto.

Players should at least TRY to help your scene partners have fun. If them that's f***ed me by putting me in a scene where I can't see the fun of the situation, I guess I should be willing to "fight back" and make the most of what I can only see as sour lemons. But personally it's not fun to have to fight for the fun. In fact, I mostly hate watching people fight on stage if it's just for the sake of their egos -- fighting for their reality, fighting for their idea, fighting to be heard. I'd rather play with thems that freely inspire scenes where we share the fun.

But this may go back to casting. The guys who like to "f***" their scene partners, instead of loving them, will probably end up isolating those that don't, so they end up playing together. Darwinian Improv?

[Spots]

Yes! I love this thought!

That stood out for me too. I had never really thought of it like that. And to be honest, my thought process went way farther beyond gender roles, and I began to question my own stylistic differences with other improvisers. When I read Nicole's post. It was a cool cool thought.

Unfortunately I wouldn't even know how to express it.

[B. Tribe]

I've found that the easiest way, for me, to slip into playing someone (male, old, or just entirely different from myself) is to change my voice. If I adopt a different rhythm, a different vocabulary, a different accent, I find that my body wants to follow and become that person who speaks like that.

I can attest to Nicole's ability to shift voices and tones which always leads to a fully formed character. In our sketch show she played a pretentious art afficiando, a former NFL runningback, a stuck-up valley girl type, an early 50's era wife, an overly enthusiastic morning talk show host, an actor, and a rabid Harry Potter fan (which lead to my favorite line, a very curt and nerdy "Two tickets to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One please!")

As an anecdotal counter to the male who consistently endows his female partners as stripper/whores, I worked with a girl who endowed herself as a porn star or other overtly sexualized character in at least 50% of her scenes. It rarely lead to laughs and served to make both the audience and other performers uncomfortable.

Sometimes I get endowed as a female after I've been playing what I thought was a man. I'll shift my posture and my way of speaking as subtly as possible but there is a definite change in how I play. I'll change my weight to accentuate my hips and slightly raise my pitch. I tend to gesture a bit more. It is probably too caricature-y. The further a character is to myself the more caricature-y it is whether male or female.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

OK, so let the semantic argument overflow into the thought provoking conversation. And..... go.

OKAY!

...wait.

This guy I will make look like an asshole. This is because I am an asshole, this is well known.

HA!

Yes, it is fun to play strippers or whores, like Susan Messing says, you can make them anything you want. However, it's also fun not to play strippers or whores. The exploitation of women and girls through sexual trafficking around the world is not yuks central to me, personally.

clearly SOMEONE needs to rewatch Pretty Woman! she had a HEART OF GOLD, people!