Austin Improv

I think the thing that gets left out of almost every discussion the Harold I've seen is the socio-economic forces at play at the key moment of its development. It's not sexy to talk about art this way, but as a person who produces shows more frequently now than I appear in them, this way of looking at art is interesting to me.

So what am I saying about the economics of the Harold? This is a gross oversimplification, but here's the jist as I see it. The Harold gets developed, refined, implemented shall we say, at iO by Del and Charna after some rough draft attempts by Del elsewhere. Teams are not genereated from within, but are assembled from the outside. It's not like forming a rock band with your buddies (PGraph, Well Hung Jury) with whom you share a certain affinity, it's a bunch of strangers who get cast to be put together into a group (like a sports draft?) and coached by someone external to the players to help fulfill the artistic mission of the venue. It's as if Emo's got to pick the members of the bands who play the club and could tell them when they had to stop being a band. In fact, iO veterans tell me if I'm wrong, but this very much is still the case, yes?

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this approach--Gnap! does this with our member troupes, at least the formation part--but these kind of economic decisions have repercussions on the art side. We all like to think that art bursts Athena-like and pure into the world untainted by this kind of stuff, but practical decisions and situational condit ions play a role in how art develops. I could write a book on how the leadership drift at the Hideout in 2003--2005 makes the Austin improv scene in 2010 as multi-faceted as it is, but that's a different tale. Anyway, I'm not talking Harold as is approached today, or in Austin, or whatever. I'm talking early on, things bred into the DNA of the format or sensibility or whatever you want to call it.

I think all of us no matter our improv philosophies and tastes would agree that group mind is essential to good improv, or at the least that absence of group mind makes for mediocre to shitty improv. If you get to select your own improv partners, presumably you already have some kind of personal affinity, as I mentioned before, that translates into a decent chance of good stage chemistry, group mind, cohesion, etc. But if you're put together by somebody else? Chances are not as great that this will be the case. Put together eight to ten folks with possibly little in common (such a number in part to maximize the number of friends that can be roped into going out to fill the seats of the venue that put said stangers together) and the chances of NOT GROUP MIND go way up, into possible clusterfuck territory. To head that off, you might want to come up with a show/format/sensibility that places a primacy on getting some group mind going, stat. In fact, getting to that group mind state, maybe that should be part of the onstage activities of the performers. Boom, there you go, chances for a successful show go way up. I'm not saying that these considerations were the only ones at play as the Harold gets birthed, or that they are the only decisions that could have been made, but they're certainly there in the mix.

That the onstage group mind building can lead to fun, exciting, artistically rich shows is awesome. I can even see how one might think this is the best thing ever and the way things should be. And when things are awesome, they get passed on, even if the economic situations of their inception no longer apply. It's 2010 and people still learn to play the blues, you know what I'm saying? The awesomeness of decisions that at one point had some real practical weight behind them can become a rallying point and a defining artistic characteristic.

As a side note, I think that onstage group mind building rules out one option for how a show might look, which is story. By this I mean if you're actively building group mind on stage, it's not going to look like a narrative, and if you're trying to do a narrative and you're not already in a good group mind place, your story is going to look flat or convoluted or trivial or all three.

Anyhow, thanks for listening to my thoughts on a topic--the Harold--that I thought I was done thinking about. My reluctance to revisit this got trumped by a topic that I am thinking about a great deal right now, namely how these kinds of workaday decisions influence the way art gets made and looks.

And let a thousand flowers bloom. If it works, I'm for whatever style you wanna rock.

Shannon, I agree completely with your assessment of the iO Harold team system. Obviously, I haven't been a part of it, but to an outsider it looks ridiculous, especially once you're privy to some of the petty politics that get played out in the Harold Committee. (That's right, people, there's a COMMITTEE.)

I've confronted my teachers there with it directly, and while for obvious reasons nobody wants to criticize it, I have never gotten anyone to say anything good about it. It's a mathematical improbablity that teams as good as the Reckoning come out of it.

I do view the Harold as separate from that system, partly because (I think) Del started working on it before iO existed and partly because it continued to develop in less-commercial, not more-commercial directions. If you were just trying to create something that put asses in seats I don't think you would have made the changes that Del did to the form while he was alive. But who knows?

My sense is that the current system is less about economics and more about the tendency for people to want to feel like they're in control, which I am more and more convinced is the single greatest threat to any kind of genuine improv.

It is totally a 'Studio System' as far as the Harold Committee and getting on a team. But in a way it is setup like the Disney Channel with all the crap it does for it's child performers. You go there learn, if you are liked, you get placed, if not, well.....

mcnichol wrote:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQzzLmR93o8[/youtube]

Brian Stack just wrote on his Facebook page: "Thanks to the kind soul who posted this on YouTube. I'm proud to say I shot this "interview" the summer I first started taking improv classes at IO back in '86. I was an intern at a local public access cable company that summer. Due to my technical incompetence, I had the camera set on "monitor" so it came out in B&W. I also cringe when I hear my dorky voice-over. I'm glad people enjoy seeing it anyway, and I'll always be grateful to Del for doing it."

shando wrote:I think the thing that gets left out of almost every discussion the Harold I've seen is the socio-economic forces at play at the key moment of its development.

It's an interesting point you've made.

I know these are issues we started having when we opened ColdTowne. Namely, how do we maintain some artistic and quality control while at the same time fostering community and ensemble and creative freedom. (If you recall the predominant qualifier for stage time in 2005 in Austin was a willingness to get on stage.)

That effects some of the casting decisions you make, and the necessities of keeping an arts business afloat sometimes creates tension and compromise.

HOWEVER, I would point out that it's a mistake to infer causality in any case. You can certainly find correlation, but it does not logically hold that there is an intent behind those decisions. There were a lot of other things swirling around the 1960s ether that effected the development of the "Harold" and Del Close's methods and approach to improv.

I would guess that casting decisions are made based on a desire to control the creative product.

This has been an awesome discussion. I'm glad folks got over any reticence to partake!

shando wrote: As a side note, I think that onstage group mind building rules out one option for how a show might look, which is story. By this I mean if you're actively building group mind on stage, it's not going to look like a narrative, and if you're trying to do a narrative and you're not already in a good group mind place, your story is going to look flat or convoluted or trivial or all three.

I guess I don't think that group mind necessarily precludes story. I think that narrative-based improv, obviously, draws from traditional (or at least familiar) narratives and utilizes those narrative arcs.

In contrast: When I think of story or narrative as it relates to Harold, I kind of think of Harold as creating, exploring and experimenting with narrative, even if we don't necessarily perform with narrative in mind. That, to me, is where the group mind is helpful in helping funnel patterns, connection, callbacks, themes and such into something cohesive and more than just a collection of scenes.

To me, it's akin to a film like Koyaanisqatsi; The film tells a story even if it's doesn't use traditional narrative arcs or techniques.

shando wrote: As a side note, I think that onstage group mind building rules out one option for how a show might look, which is story. By this I mean if you're actively building group mind on stage, it's not going to look like a narrative, and if you're trying to do a narrative and you're not already in a good group mind place, your story is going to look flat or convoluted or trivial or all three.

I just wanna add to what Jose said!

I think you could onstage group mind build, but make it into the beginning of a narrative. I have seen plenty of narrative Harold openings (actually so many I'm sick of em, haha) because the mind naturally makes story and sense out of things, so it's a natural way to go. That's obviously different, but I think there is a way to do it where you're building the beginning of a narrative. It'd actually be a cool thing I'd like to see.

There are so many ways to do an organic opening (uh...an infinite number of ways), there's no way there's not a way to do the beginning of a narrative.

Uh, sorry my response is not super, uh, thorough, but kind of glossy. But it's cos I'm sitting here at my desk saying to myself, "I bet I could do it...let's see, how would it work...yeah, do this" but it's totally not explainable. I'd have to do it and stand up and do improv and then write down what I just did here, and that's not gonna happen.

I did a bit of narrative with some of my older troupes and we found the best way to success was to never drive to a specific ending, or event. That if we created somewhat grounded characters and established strong relationships, that a narrative would evolve.

As far as the Harold, the training wheels one, it is a construct no different than 'Yes and....' the basic elements are to continually explore the suggestion with games and callback concepts and characters. The biggest thing is for the group to work well within the structure until they develop enough to venture out, deciding when and how to break the construct. Just the same as knowing when to say No or asking questions instead of making statements (if you have those parameters for your improv)

Steph Rules!


I liked in that del video where he talked about making scenes rhyme with one another...

mcnichol wrote:I agree with everybody in this thread. I also agree with whoever said that different people relate to and understand improv in different ways, whether it's through the Harold, Johnstone/story based improv, music/movement-based improv, or through rounds of 185 and conducted story. Or whatever, since we are all working towards a common goal. The best stuff takes from all of it.

Here's a video I just converted from vhs of Del talking about this stuff in 1986. I guess it's changed a bit since then.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQzzLmR93o8[/youtube]

Does anyone have a copy of "How to Speak Hip"? I'd love to rip it.

Sully wrote:

mcnichol wrote:I agree with everybody in this thread. I also agree with whoever said that different people relate to and understand improv in different ways, whether it's through the Harold, Johnstone/story based improv, music/movement-based improv, or through rounds of 185 and conducted story. Or whatever, since we are all working towards a common goal. The best stuff takes from all of it.

Here's a video I just converted from vhs of Del talking about this stuff in 1986. I guess it's changed a bit since then.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQzzLmR93o8[/youtube]

Does anyone have a copy of "How to Speak Hip"? I'd love to rip it.

I do. I'll burn you a copy. It's great.

Follow up to Bob's query--does anyone have a copy of Severn Darden's album The Sound of My Own Voice and Other Noises?

Hey Mike, here's two places you can grab it off the internet. It's been out of print for years and has never been officially released on cd so I think this is ok.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/08/h ... ak-hi.html
http://audio.skeyelab.com/howtospeakhip/

Shannon, I've been looking for that for awhile too and have never found mp3s of it. I've bid on it on eBay but always get outbid.

Harold was developed in the mid-late 1960's, far earlier than IO existed. I like thinking of how art and commerce are forced to intersect and co-mingle, but I don't think Harold was developed with an eye towards how IO would manage the Harold teams years and years later. In the video I'd posted, Del mentions having developed it in 1967 as a way to get all of the improvisors in The Committee in a single show together.

Far be it from me to defend the way IO runs it's theater, but as someone who went through classes there and was on a Harold team for years I can at least explain some of it. I think the way the Harold teams are managed on an ongoing basis has to do with their decision on how to handle the 40 or 50 students that graduate every 2 months, and ultimately how to manage the growth and quality of the 25 to 30 Harold teams that perform there at any given time. The Harold Commission isn't very different than what the Faculty at Coldtowne do: we discuss the students who want to be on a student troupe based on their performance and commitment in classes, shows, etc. The only difference is that this discussion is ongoing at IO so that they can make sure the shows are of a certain quality or standard. The number of students and performers, as well as their overhead (their building is a literal stones throw from Wrigley), simply necessitate that they have a bankable product, and this is how they've determined to do that. I don't know what the ideal alternative would be given their size, but I don't envy the position they are in.

And on a Harold team, it's not really a bunch of strangers being thrown together. If you all go through the same classes and all want to be on a Harold team, then it is a self-selecting group of folks working toward a common goal: performing Harold. I think it made me ultimately a stronger performer to have to work with anyone working towards that goal -- people of all different perspectives and backgrounds -- rather than just choosing to work with my friends. It's that diversity of folks on the team that makes the group I was on that much stronger. I don't think groups like the Reckoning are a mathematical improbability -- there have been tons of amazing groups doing Harold at IO, but the Reckoning is the most visible and current (in the past: People of Earth, Valhalla, Prefontaine, Carl & The Passions, The Family, Baron's Barracadas, and tons more before and since my time there). Group mind is there and attainable as long as you all want it.

All that said, there are many other shows at IO besides Harold (I think there's far more non-Harold show slots than Harold ones) and you can get a run there by putting together a team and proposing a show idea -- not very different from theaters do it here. It's just the Harold shows and teams that are managed by the theater itself.

I really like what Jose and Steph had to say. Jose said "When I think of story or narrative as it relates to Harold, I kind of think of Harold as creating, exploring and experimenting with narrative, even if we don't necessarily perform with narrative in mind." I think that relates not just to Harold but any of the improv I was trained in via IO and Annoyance: that narrative or story develops if the show is successful, but not in the traditional way a story is told and it's not done with narrative or story in the front of the mind.

Thanks, Bob, for the links.
Thanks, Bob, for dropping the knowledge.