Austin Improv

I've laughed the hardest in my entire life at longform shows.
Seriously.



And...I like those uniforms. Polo shirts with an embroidered logo and little colored shorts? Pretty neat.

I think long form can induce the same level of laughter and enjoyment, it just doesn't do it with the same frequency or predictability as short form. Short form is designed to have high audience involvement and to get the laughs.

Going back to the original post, I think long form can be engaging to an audience, but not necessarily have high audience interaction or participation. Maybe it's semantics, but I consider being engaged in a show to mean interested and paying attention, not necessarily giving suggestions.

In general, I enjoy watching and performing long form shows much more. It seems like more of a payoff when you see/do a good show.

audience during shortform
Joe: HawHaw!
Jane: YukYuk!
Joe: Laugh and laugh!
Jane: Applause!!

audience after shortform
Joe: That was fun!
Jane: I'm never going to remember this.


audience during longform
Joe: Hmmmm
Jane: quiet chuckle
Joe: Tentative applause
Jane: (whispered) wow!

audience after longform
Joe: I'm going to go out on a limb and say that was really funny.
Jane: It was very funny.
(beat)
Joe: You still thinking about this?
Jane: Yes. This has in a small way changed my outlook and life.

LuBu McJonhson wrote:Gigglepants . . . we did have an audience of about 100 last Friday

Big ups. That's a great crowd. When we gonna get us some Gigglepants in the Threefer?

kbadr wrote:"Micetro: Yeah, it's short form, but at least we don't have to wear goddamn uniforms"

They just came in.

Dave wrote:

penelope butterbean wrote: I wish every 3fer opened with a games set. The newer audience members would laugh harder earlier and the long form will be much more easily digestible.

That would be fantastic. Let's make it happen.

Mixtures can work.... at Improv Olympic, I saw many a longform show with a audience member "nightmare" game wedged in the middle and a game of freeze tag at the end.

acrouch wrote:

Dave wrote:

penelope butterbean wrote: I wish every 3fer opened with a games set. The newer audience members would laugh harder earlier and the long form will be much more easily digestible.

That would be fantastic. Let's make it happen.

Sorry for the bevy of posts. I came late to the party.

Bad short form is shallow. Bad long form is boring. Terrible short form and long form are both excruciating, but at least the short form is over sooner. Which is why I recommend that young improvisers build up from games to scenes to long form. Bypassing this process makes for unnecessarily rough shows for audience members. I'm not saying we shouldn't take risks or reach beyond our grasp, but we should be smart about it.

acrouch wrote:I recommend that young improvisers build up from games to scenes to long form. Bypassing this process makes for unnecessarily rough shows for audience members. I'm not saying we shouldn't take risks or reach beyond our grasp, but we should be smart about it.

I know many improvisers who started with Improv Olympic and never once played an improv game. Many of them are incredible improvisers and it didn't take them long to get over the beginner humps.

I'm not saying that starting with short-form is bad (I started with short form and appreciate that beginning), but it's worth noting that it is by no means a pre-requisite.

I agree. There are some short-form setups that develop character and narrative and general scenic skills (touch-talk, the musical eye-contact game, 30 seconds of silence, Spoon River, mousetrap) but there are many more that don't.

Presentational games like 183, Beastie Rhymes, hesitation debate, sit-stand-kneel, category-die, stunt double, Lounge Singer, most genre & naive games, alphabet game, freeze tag, etc. can be real crowd pleasers but don't advance a player's scenic skill set as much as they hone speed and wit.

Then there are the therapeutic games that somehow made their way out of workshop and onto the stage, such as speak-in-one-voice, word-at-a-time story/expert, moving bodies, demon voice, hell dub, typewriter, scene in reverse, Boris, that machine game, He Said/She Said, laugh exit. They help train players off bad habits (moving & talking too much, listening too little, not making things happen) but I think they're more valuable in a workshop setting than in a short form show unless you need to adjust the shape of show.

To me, identifying and illustrating themes or trying to build a narrative are much more difficult, useful, and satisfying skills to learn. Most short form games don't build those skills as fast as long form performances do. Besides, some of the winning tactics in short form are utterly deadly in long form ("teh funny".) So I agree with Justin - while short form may attract a lot of people to the art, I don't think short form training is by any means necessary unless you want to play short form.

That and $2.95 will get you a mocha grande.

People like different things. Forcing improvisors up a certain path is like grade school where I had to take lessons in things that I don't remember now. This is art, not science.... can we all use different paths?

One thing I will say for the games that Bob listed is that, when taught well, they do a very good job of reinforcing fearlessness and risk-taking. We take that for granted now, but that's a very important part of early improv training. Becoming comfortable with the idea of having no f'ing clue what's going to happen next. Andy does a great job of using the games to teach that. I think we lose that a little in Micetro sometimes, but when the cast remembers and embraces that, the games can be very powerful.

I'll voice the same concern that was voiced before with "making this happen" as it applies to games in the 3fer...How do you do this fairly when not everyone wants to play games. If we all had unlimited shows it would be easy, but when a troupe may only have 2 or 3 shows in a two month block, how do you say "You have to burn one of them playing games, even if you don't want to." And will this apply to all or only the newbies? Will the Frank Mills and Knuckleball and Girls Girls Girls ever be wedged into those games slots or only the lesser experienced troupes?

That said, I love games and think all of them have amazing training potential. It's why I still do Maestro and jams when I can and gamey stuff at Carousel.
I also think that it would definitely be good show form to have games, montagy-ness, and then long-form story arc in the three slots of the 3fer.

But we've discussed this before and while it is easy to just say "let's make this happen," I don't know how to realistically do it without irking people who don't want to be forced to play games. Is there someone in charge of the 3fer slot besides the scheduling committee?

Why not just get a listing of troupes that would willingly play games.

I know You Me & Greg would gladly open a three-fer with shortform, and make it as fun and interesting as possible.

Also, like Andy points out, it would be a great place for new troupes (when they appear) to create their own presence in the community.

That's what Comedic Amoeba did when we performed 3 shows well over a year ago, when it was still a two-fer. We did 2 shows that were full sets of games, and if that hadn't have happened, Doug Greg Me & Kaci might not be where we are at now in the community.

I agree with everyone who's posted here (for the most part).

There is no right or wrong way, only the way you choose to do things. I think games are as equally respectable as long-form just depending on the troupe performing them and the context. Besides, games don't always have to be boring, or repetitive. It only requires a bit of creativity.

Wesley wrote:But we've discussed this before and while it is easy to just say "let's make this happen," I don't know how to realistically do it without irking people who don't want to be forced to play games. Is there someone in charge of the 3fer slot besides the scheduling committee?

Don't forget the jarring effect on the audience. Showing them a few game sets and then showing long form sets burns stage time for the players and sets the wrong expectation for the audience. It preps them for a short form experience (high interactivity, high energy, immediate gratification) and I can see them wondering where the sit-stand-kneel went when the long form starts. If all the troupes want to do it during a night, that's fine, but I don't think it should be a requirement, especially if a short form set doesn't fit the character of the troupes playing.

I'm willing to manage the 3fer if nobody else wants it.