Geez, Johnstone sure is a grumpy guru.

Asaf · Post by **Asaf** » July 20th, 2007, 10:50 am

http://www.straight.com/article-101999/ ... ne-recants

"I won't go to see improvisers, actually," admits the septuagenarian Englishman. "It's so stupid."

I know that I have trouble watching improv sometimes because I have seen 16 years of it at this point. But I hope I do not get to a point where I can never watch it.

York99 · Post by **York99** » July 20th, 2007, 10:58 am

I really wish I could go to his intensive next month. Every year might be his last. I love me some grumpy old men.

On another note, but from that page... why don't we see these guys at The Hideout and teaching classes:

http://www.straight.com/article-88485/t ... omedy-tour

I think Andy squeezed them out because he's racist.

kbadr · Post by **kbadr** » July 20th, 2007, 11:06 am

I understand what he's trying to say, though.

He doesn't want to see The Nutty Laughy Funster Squad. He wants to see theatre.

And I really agree with his statement about suggestions. More and more, I feel restricted by a suggestion more than inspired. Maybe it's just my own problem, but I see little need for a suggestion for a narrative, and much prefer to be inspired by my troupemates on stage.

York99 · Post by **York99** » July 20th, 2007, 11:30 am

kbadr wrote:I understand what he's trying to say, though.

He doesn't want to see The Nutty Laughy Funster Squad. He wants to see theatre.

And I really agree with his statement about suggestions. More and more, I feel restricted by a suggestion more than inspired. Maybe it's just my own problem, but I see little need for a suggestion for a narrative, and much prefer to be inspired by my troupemates on stage.

I go back and forth about suggestions on a nearly weekly (and weakly) basis.

I don't think I've ever thought they were "necessary" [for the improvisers to get inspiration or (especially) for the audience to believe it's made up]. I waver from them actually hurting the show (and improv in general) to thinking they are a fun, albeit benign, way to start a show.

My biggest problem is that less savvy audience members don't understand that to use a suggestion doesn't mean that the improvisers will use it literally or even to a point where they recognize that it was used.

Ask Jeremy and Madeline about that last point (K* at CTT with the punster fellas).

Jastroch · Post by **Jastroch** » July 20th, 2007, 12:16 pm

"Another of his beefs stems from the incessant rules of the game. One mantra actors heed is "accept all offers," meaning, essentially, go wherever your cast mate takes you. He calls this particular rule a "perversion. I think it's terrible. Bad things have happened to improvisation."

Discuss....

York99 · Post by **York99** » July 20th, 2007, 12:25 pm

Jastroch wrote:"Another of his beefs stems from the incessant rules of the game. One mantra actors heed is "accept all offers," meaning, essentially, go wherever your cast mate takes you. He calls this particular rule a "perversion. I think it's terrible. Bad things have happened to improvisation."

Discuss....

I am not sure what he's talking about. The article was too short and not nearly in-depth enough. I can agree superficially to some extent, but I'm not sure I'm agreeing to the same thing he's referring to.

Discuss...

Roy Janik · Post by **Roy Janik** » July 20th, 2007, 12:36 pm

York99 wrote:
Jastroch wrote:"Another of his beefs stems from the incessant rules of the game. One mantra actors heed is "accept all offers," meaning, essentially, go wherever your cast mate takes you. He calls this particular rule a "perversion. I think it's terrible. Bad things have happened to improvisation."

Discuss....
I am not sure what he's talking about. The article was too short and not nearly in-depth enough. I can agree superficially to some extent, but I'm not sure I'm agreeing to the same thing he's referring to.

Discuss...

I hate to say it, but I agree with Justin. There's not enough detail in the article. But I think he's talking about the fact that people often confuse the mantra of never denying the reality already established with the idea that your character should never deny or disagree with anything said to him or her. If you do the latter, you block out a whole realm of possibilities and emotions. Which is what's hinted at a few sentences later:

He believes improv needs to bring in the full range of human feelings to be truly successful.

York99 · Post by **York99** » July 20th, 2007, 1:04 pm

My only issue with this is that denying a reality creates a different reality. It's something only to be done with improvisers you really trust and only sparingly as a device, otherwise it's just fucking with each other... which happens.

Jastroch · Post by **Jastroch** » July 20th, 2007, 1:35 pm

Roy Janik wrote:I hate to say it, but I agree with Justin. There's not enough detail in the article. But I think he's talking about the fact that people often confuse the mantra of never denying the reality already established with the idea that your character should never deny or disagree with anything said to him or her. If you do the latter, you block out a whole realm of possibilities and emotions. Which is what's hinted at a few sentences later:

I think that's what he meant too. I also tend to agree with him--the whole idea of offers(or gifts) and blocking seems, to me at least, to get misinterpreted. I've seen a lot of improv, not in Austin, where people completely drop their character, mtivation, point of view or whatever and derail the scene just to be more "agreeable." Not in the sense of coming to a mutually agreed upon reality, but just to be nice.

Here's a shitty example that never happened:

Improvisor 1: I hate TV.
Improvisor 2: I love TV.
Imp 1: I mean... Uh, well if you like TV I guess I changed my mind and I do to.
Imp 2: Great!

This is usually followed by a long pause, and then one of the performers notices a butterfly and starts talking about it.

I don't like the term block. I think people "block" in real life so why not on stage? It's not automatically a bad thing.

I think a lot of beginning improvisors, when told not to block, interpret it to mean to accept absolutely everything and like it, when that's not really what we're talking about.

This post was brought to you by another convoluted explanaition by Jastroch.

sara farr · Post by **sara farr** » July 20th, 2007, 1:48 pm

York99 wrote:My biggest problem is that less savvy audience members don't understand that to use a suggestion doesn't mean that the improvisers will use it literally or even to a point where they recognize that it was used.

This is why **I** feel like if you are going to take a suggestion, you SHOULD use it literally in the first scene. Once you've done that the audience is satisfied that you are improvising and you can draw future inspiration from anything and everything else -- characters, relationships, themes, settings, mimed props, stuff that's happening in the sidelines, things you have been thinking about all week, cues from the lighting and sound booth, "mistakes" on stage, etc.

Why else take a suggestion?

AND if you are going to take a suggestion, recognize that there is an art in taking suggestions. It takes practice to:

- inspire the audience to offer suggestions that, in turn, inspire the players.

- select one suggestion and insure both the audience and all the players know which one you will be using.

- make it obvious to the audience that what they about to see on stage is something they have never seen before, nor will ever see again -- which in turn raises the stakes and makes the audience more forgiving of the players if they "screw up", and more appreciative when it seems flawless.

- do it quickly so you can get to the show.

York99 · Post by **York99** » July 20th, 2007, 2:36 pm

sara_anm8r wrote:This is why **I** feel like if you are going to take a suggestion, you SHOULD use it literally in the first scene.

...

Why else take a suggestion?

The answer is that a suggestion is (or can be) simply a jumping off point. Otherwise it wouldn't allow the improvisers to expand on other ideas that they can come up with from the suggestion.

Unless the idea is something like a location for that first scene, I often cringe when the suggestion is used literally... at least in long form.

HerrHerr · Post by **HerrHerr** » July 20th, 2007, 2:39 pm

Blocking. My understanding is to not block the reality of the situation or not to do it out of fear for a laugh.

"Check out my new Pat Benatar album."
"That's a toaster, not an album."

Being negative alone isn't blocking.

I think it's important to be inspired by the audience. Suggestion taking is often droll. I think I saw a Well-Hung Jury show where they did some math equasion with the audience using their birtday or age as a starting point and then at the end said something like, "Who came up with 27 as your final answer?" Then they asked that person a couple of questions and found something from that person's responses for their suggestion. They executed this really quickly.

York99 · Post by **York99** » July 20th, 2007, 2:44 pm

HerrHerr wrote:They executed this really quickly.

That's pretty impressive.

Jastroch · Post by **Jastroch** » July 20th, 2007, 2:46 pm

HerrHerr wrote:"Check out my new Pat Benatar album."
"That's a toaster, not an album."

I would classify that as an outright denial. A block, as people define it, is more

"Let's go to the store."
"Naw, I don't feel like doing that."

Aden · Post by **Aden** » July 20th, 2007, 2:51 pm

Jastroch wrote:
HerrHerr wrote:"Check out my new Pat Benatar album."
"That's a toaster, not an album."
I would classify that as an outright denial. A block, as people define it, is more

"Let's go to the store."
"Naw, I don't feel like doing that."

I always thought of blocking as more of Ceej's explanation. Saying no to something can just be conversational or a jumping off point for a scene.