Favorite Improv Quotes

[scook]

"Many people have the idea that to improvise you have to get up on a stage and ‘make it up.’ While it’s true that that’s the bulk of it, it could also be said that the bulk of driving is pointing the car, so let’s allow five-year-olds to do it. Bad idea. To master the art of improv can take many years, and a great understanding, not just of improv’s tenets, but those of many different disciplines. Because there are fewer parameters than any other performing art, one must be prepared for anything that comes your way. That includes forays into the worlds of writing, directing, design, dance, music, singing, mime, stage combat, and especially acting. Once you’ve got all of these down, then you can say that improv is easy."
— Jeff Catanese

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

"Many people have the idea that to improvise you have to get up on a stage and ‘make it up.’ While it’s true that that’s the bulk of it, it could also be said that the bulk of driving is pointing the car, so let’s allow five-year-olds to do it. Bad idea. To master the art of improv can take many years, and a great understanding, not just of improv’s tenets, but those of many different disciplines. Because there are fewer parameters than any other performing art, one must be prepared for anything that comes your way. That includes forays into the worlds of writing, directing, design, dance, music, singing, mime, stage combat, and especially acting. Once you’ve got all of these down, then you can say that improv is easy."
— Jeff Catanese

having forayed into each of those in some capacity (to varying depths), even saying it then would be a damn lie.

[Sully]

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. -- Carl Jung

I love this.

[SarahMarie]

Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, & every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid. -- Keats

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

"There's a difference between improv and just saying shit that's not written down."

-Kareem Badr. at Dog and Duck. last night.

[Spots]

Jordan, I swear to everything holy that every actor puts improv on their resume because there are acting teachers out there telling them "that's what filmmakers are looking for now".


In that case, why don't those acting teachers refer those folks to improv classes??? Better than having an acting teacher who doesn't know what adlibbing is.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

Jordan, I swear to everything holy that every actor puts improv on their resume because there are acting teachers out there telling them "that's what filmmakers are looking for now".


In that case, why don't those acting teachers refer those folks to improv classes??? Better than having an acting teacher who doesn't know what adlibbing is.

yeah, the number of guys i had to audition with out in L.A. who put improv on their resume because their agents told them to take a workshop drove me slightly batty...

[Kenjifujima]

It was kind of a clusterfuck, but a huge load of fun.

[bradisntclever]

It was kind of a clusterfuck, but a huge load of fun.

Surprisingly, this is gold from a spambot.

[York99]

Jordan, I swear to everything holy that every actor puts improv on their resume because there are acting teachers out there telling them "that's what filmmakers are looking for now".


In that case, why don't those acting teachers refer those folks to improv classes??? Better than having an acting teacher who doesn't know what adlibbing is.

yeah, the number of guys i had to audition with out in L.A. who put improv on their resume because their agents told them to take a workshop drove me slightly batty...

And the number of "actors" that I've had to deal with in improv classes (both as a fellow student and as a teacher) whose agents DID tell them to take an improv class and acted as if they were above improv drives me batty.

I love it when stage or screen actors cross over, but not when they're just doing it for a resume credential.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

just read this from Dan Harmon, creator of Community, on the AV Club about writing the show, but it pretty obviously applies neatly to improv as well:

"But more often than not, it's about being like water and just assuming the answer is 'yes' to whatever anyone says, but just subtly always commiting to your tastes in a way that creates this river that flows."

[TexasImprovMassacre]

from a recent email to my level 4 students:

The situation is funny. You don't have to be funny on top of that. Just be the situation, and trust that the funny will come from that.

[Ryan Hill]

from a recent email to my level 4 students:

The situation is funny. You don't have to be funny on top of that. Just be the situation, and trust that the funny will come from that.

Yup. When I start thinking, "I'm funny, and people expect me to be funny. I have to be funny" I fuck it all up. When I'm relaxed and just playing in the scene, people often laugh.

[Jon Bolden]

"Ever catch yourself thinking 'I don't know what to do, or say'?.... how about ANYTHING"

- Todd Stashwick