Austin Improv

There's NO doubt in my mind that I'm the best I've ever been at doing improv. I also believe that, if I keep practicing, that previous sentence will remain true for the rest of my life. There IS doubt in my mind, however, about the quality of the shows that I am in as of late. I'm NOT worried that they are bad shows. I know they're at least pretty good, if only for the fact that I'm in them and I'm super great to watch. I AM worried about where the shows I'm doing here in Chicago rank (as far as general greatness) amongst the rest of the shows I've done throughout my "storied" "career".

I think the shows I'm doing here are all very similar and bland. They are similar to each other and similar to the shows that everyone else is doing here. It's safe and boring. Boring for me, not for the audience (because they think I'm way great to see). Don't get me wrong, I think that performing in a regular, crowd-pleasing improv show is important and good for everyone involved. But because of the way I learned to do improv (at the school of hard knocks), I'm just not complete without some experimentation and boundary-testing. Nobody here seems to have time to experiment.

When I look at old improv pictures I think "Man, what a cool/great show/run-of-shows that was." So, am I romanticizing? Maybe. But when I was in Austin, Curtis quoted me a line I said from a show I did 8 years ago. I wish I had some of those shows on tape so that I could objectively compare. I just think the scope of the shows I used to be a part of outweighs the scope of the stuff I'm doing now.

Is it all just fond memories made legendary in my mind? Or is the work I'm doing now way better but suffering from Big Pond Syndrome? I don't think so... I can't get anyone here do a show on a bus.

I was just wondering, "When is Dollar Bill moving back to Austin??" and "When will Bill be done with Chicago??" I think if you aren't finding the kind of shows you want in your city, MOVE. I'd love it if you'd move back here and do shows with and for ME!! (I'll do an improv show on the street or in a bus with you). But really, you should find a place that is doing what YOU want. Maybe that's LA, or NYC, or San Fran, or Canada, or London.. have you tried those places yet?

Or better yet... here's a little story.

I was REALLY inspired by some of the improv I saw in Europe. The Slovanians and Turks, especially. They are doing THEIR kind of improv... improv that doesn't really fit into any mold - and they encouraged that in me.

So, don't cramp your improv-style trying to jam it into a mold. Make your own way. Be yourself. Do what inspires you... and others will come to it and be entertained. Perhaps you can start this in Chicago. They may be ready for a change, and don't know it yet.

That is all.

As much as I love Austin... and I know I'll end up there again. There are still a couple goals I haven't met yet in Chicago. And I'm also finally achieving enough success here, and making enough connections, to where I can start doing the kind of improv I'd like to do. I'm pretty sure I could do whatever I wanted here. It just takes more initiative to go against the grain a little.
Q's:
I guess I'm just wondering how "objective" we can be with our memories of past shows. Is my standard of what is a good show higher now? So my memories of good shows from a long time ago are true for my old standard, but not up to today's? Are my recollections spot on? Are they clouded by my natural tendencies to remember the "good ol dayz"? Andy, do you remember the ooooold school Heros shows? Do you remember them more fondly than theater sports style shows of the present day?

i'd been thinking about what you wrote in the first post this morning and now saw this one and you hit on the head what i was thinking in your second paragraph: the difficultly with being objective about these experiences, and how your standards are always readjusting (ie. your bar for "good" raises all the time).

i've always likened it to the newness of it all though. the first months/years of shows i saw and the shows/classes/rehearsals i was in are imprinted on my mind and seemed to exciting i think because it was all so new at the time. i imagined it like my brain was mapping these new neural pathways to understand this stuff. i still remember shows i saw 10 years ago and scenes i was in from rehearsals, but objectively i have to think it's probably not because they were the best shows ever, but just because i'd never seen anything like it before. and performing wise, i remember these crazy shows, but i think it was just the heightened senses going the brain trying to figure it all out.

and the "good show" thing -- the first few months/years of shows were all over the map: totally awesome to royally shitty trainwrecks. so when you had a good one, it felt like you won the lottery or landed on the moon. it's easier, in a sense, to have a good show now, so your standards readjust and where you might have a show now that feels "meh", it would have been one of those memory-imprinting ones from years ago.

i've heard people liken it to a drug -- the first few times it's intense, and then you need to keep upping the dose. It's never as good as the first time.

is liken a word? it looks like an obscure insect if you type it enough times.

this is something i've struggled with constantly in my "career" as well. i think putting improv aside and looking at the general effects of nostalgia and romanticizing the past you'll find that there are plenty of other things you think fondly on and wish to return to. the beginning of a new relationship, hanging out with friends in high school, riding a bike for the first time, setting up a new apartment, a first day of school. in the grand scheme, these are just things that happened to you and the reasons we put so much emphasis on the past may have to do with a heightened degree emotional attachment and memory building.
i've read that nostalgia is a way the brain keeps itself healthy. its in our best interest to remain happy and feel the endorphins associated with good things. well, the brain is like a big file cabinet and it tends to remember the good memories and tint other memories with a silver lining. there are exceptions of course and the mind also files things like "don't touch fire" and "don't scream 'hello, everyone' from the audience in the middle of Hamlet" as things that weren't good. at the same time, in remembering these two events, you still might reflect positively on them as "man those were stupid things to do, huh?" with a chuckle. bottom line, we tend to remember things fondly because its not productive for us to remember that things were bad.

i dont necessarily agree that if you arent digging a place or scene you should just move. i may have agreed with that in the past but theres also something to be said for participating in a sweeping change for the way things are done in a place. to be the catalyst for change and social evolution is a noble pursuit and the unspoken job of the artist in any community. you'll need cohorts, of course. no elephant has been taken down and built back up by one improviser.
theres also something to be said for your place in the scene. being the underdog and an outlier can be an advantageous position. ask anyone touring with second city how much artistic fulfillment they receive from doing 40 year old sketches followed by party quirks. every scene is not just the sum of its majority. bill stern is as important a part of the chicago improv scene as charna when you look at what a scene is. each individual moving part is just as important when talking about an engine. what i mean is, a comprehensive summary of the scene should include every aspect of it, no matter how influential, terrible, or poorly attended. thinking back on the week of weird places we did in chicago, the attendance of the first 4 shows stunk, but the one on saturday at Daley Plaza had a good audience and we had a great show. jon ended up in the fountain, of course. i honestly feel like we publicized that show the best way we knew how and did the best and most interesting shows we could and changed some perspectives of how and when you could do improv. VAN SAFARI! in a compendium of events from 2005, it would have to be included alongside iO's 25th anniversary show or whatever it was with mike myers and all those famous iO cats attending.

you should also make sure your goals will result in something you truly want. for a long time ive wanted this amorphous thing so many actors and comedians want, fame and wealth. well, looking at people i know who've achieved some of my goals and even talking with them about it, i've learned that they're not necessarily happy about it all. reaching your goals can be fulfilling but it can also create other problems, some of them more troubling. the negative feelings you're feeling right now about where you are may not be fixed by the conquering of your remaining goals. we all need goals and its very healthy to pursue them, the trouble comes when we load them with too much expectation and are subsequently let down by the results, or even worse, make foolish sacrifices to attain them.

i find too that in the improv world, people have the most reverence for the style they learned first. a perfect example of this would be, for the most part, the roster of johnstone workshop attendees, most of whom were from the johnstone school. not sure why, but people seem to defend the merits of what they were taught first. the same goes for religion. people tend to stay in whatever mindset they're already in because it keeps us safe. ironically for improvisers, it means we don't have to be vulnerable. this may be why you have so much reverence for the early days of doing shows on buses. and its why an improv scene can get itself stuck in a rut. everyone is afraid to experiment because the people who reached goals they want to reach ie fame and wealth, did it by playing along.

think about how the improv scene in chicago or anywhere evolves. big group, gets too big, one person with drive and a few of their friends agree that it can be done differently, and therefore better. they break off and start their own thing. in new york it was UCB, spins off into The PIT, spins off into The Magnet. Chicago it was Second City spins off into iO, and second city spins off into Annoyance, and i'm sure Playground cats came from one of those institutions begrudging how they were treated or underutilized. that's putting it very simply and disregarding subtleties of the whole thing. my point is, things change and if you're feeling a certain way, the odds are that others are feeling the same and willing to break away. you just need to find them. and yeah its a bigger pond, making them harder to find.

ok i have to stop writing now.

I once saw a video tape of the famous Giant Elmo scene that we did in like 1999 that I remembered as the most brilliant thing everrrr...and thought "Oh." Memory can cast a rosy glow, and experience adds an ability to distinguish good from bad.

But if it all seems bland and similar now compared to the past, I bet that's an accurate assessment. I trust Young Bill of History to have a good eye for variety, don't you?

i've felt much the same way for a lot of the last few years in L.A. part of the difficulty for me was less the "little fish in a big pond" mentality, and more feeling like i was a freshwater fish dumped into a salt water environment. the attitude towards improv, on the part of the audience and the performers alike, is so different out there...there are some truly amazing performers and troupes i've witnessed who really embrace the form and the medium, but so many others who view it as just a skill set to put on a resume when you're going into a commercial audition, and an audience who views it as such a disposable art form that if they don't know someone in the show it's not worth going to (hell, it's hard enough getting people to go see scripted theatre out there...then again, it's even harder to find good enough scripted theatre worth people going to...).

this was well epitomized a couple of weeks ago, after being back in L.A. for a week and going out to celebrate a friend booking a national spot. a mutual acquaintance and "director" (he made a couple of films years ago and now spends most of his time hosting live Rock Band in bars) went on a skreed about how awful 99% of all improv is and how it's really just a tool for actors and writers and sketch comedians to use than a worthwhile medium of its own. and what was worse was how, even though i was vehemently disagreeing with him (when he allowed me to get a word in...yeah, someone was out talking ME!), he would precede every point with "and as you know," as though i were actually in full accord with him. it made me realize, for a lot of the people in Hollywood, this is the prevalent attitude towards improv...which is why you see so little experimentation out there (some VERY noteable troupes excluded), because you're having to struggle against this air of disdain and condescension to make it as palatable as possible. and in the end, that's the boulder we're pushing up the hill in L.A., the notion that however else you paint it, art and entertainment are a means of commerce out there. and the commercial tends to eschew the experimental. it may be different in Chicago, more a mindset of "we've been doing it this way for decades and we're certainly not going to deviate now" perhaps...but it is very frustrating to say "hey, i want to try this!" only to be met with "no, let's play another Harold."

to be fair, i have noticed the L.A. scene starting to become less fragmented and cliquey and more willing to branch out, experiment, collaborate, etc. and that gives me hope to be able to do the kind of improv I want to do out there with people other than Jeff and Mikey. but it's a long road, and when you're focused more on your own personal development, growth and training, it's hard to get gung ho about "let's start a movement!" but it doesn't have to be a movement, at least not at first. just start doing it, as best you can. try to find like minded people to work with, and do the kinds of things YOU want to do, that excite YOU. eventually, if you can connect with an audience and keep going long enough, what you're doing and creating will become as much a part of that scene as anything that's been around for years. i get tired and worn down with how little of the kind of improv i like to do is out in L.A., and i get weary and broken hearted when i have the kinds of conversations i did in that bar that night, and all i want to do is come back to Austin and create great art and tell stories for their own sake without worrying about what it'll do for my "career." but then the very next day, i went to a dinner with a few friends who had come to see Jeff, Mike and i do a 710 Split show and they just raved about how great it was and how they'd never seen anything like it, and it kind of occurred to me...maybe it's not the function of L.A. (or Chicago for you) to provide ME with the kind of improv i want to do and have some pocket of "Austin style" for me to wrap myself in. maybe it's part of my function out there to help create that and show people "no, it can be THIS too!" as much as we're students of the styles and schools and formats of our adopted cities, we're also missionaries and ambassadors and apostles of the styles and ideas we've seen and created in our own home in Austin. it's not easy. but nothing worth doing ever is.

i think back on the Jury days with the same fondness you do, Bill. we did some incredible things and had an amazing time and i know it's probably the biggest single influence on me to this day as an actor, writer and improviser. but when i think about us back then as cocky punk ass teenagers who didn't know any better, it reminds me of the Phantom Tollbooth, where the hero is told at the beginning that there's a piece of information he needs to know about his quest, but can't know until the end. and at the end, after he's gone through it all and come out successful he's told that information: "what you've just done is impossible." it's the FACT that we didn't know any better back then that let us do those things. if we'd ever stopped to think about it, we'd never have tried. now that we're older, we've seen things, done things, had our hearts broken and our faces punched in a bit more, the jaded cynicism that comes with experience (wisdom's evil bitch twin) says "well, there's no way we can do that." but if you look back on those shows on buses and in rivers, along nature trails and in a separate room from the audience, dropping Ace from the ceiling and building our own puppets out of garbage, old clothes and school supplies...look on them less as memories of our "glory days" gone by and more as potential for what can STILL be done, let nostalgia fuel your imagination, all the bullshit memories of our past serving as nourishment and fertilizer for what we can do now and in the future...maybe we can realize that we've already DONE the impossible, and that makes us mighty. what, other than ourselves, is keeping us from doing it again?

rant over.

YES

most inspirational, jordan. i feel juiced.

This gets into the debate about what is "good" improv and I know there is disagreement about that. Experienced improvisers can consistently provide "good" shows - ones that are audience-pleasing, funny, smooth-flowing, and interesting to some extent, but for me, who watches a lot of improv, it's not always inspired. I think what makes improv really good or viable as an art form is the edginess of it and the aspect of creativity-in-progress. When people continue to take risks, stumble and fall.

Like Bob said with the drugs, it's harder to do that as an experienced improviser because you have to work a lot harder to get to a point where you're taking chances or on the edge. And in some ways I think it's harder to fail because there's farther to fall. And if you're doing shows several times a week, a person can't be always on edge and challenging him/herself.

I really like seeing an improviser do something different that represents a subtle change in their personality or how they express themselves. (Like representing a different emotion or characteristic than I have seen them do before.) That comes, I think, from slow work over time and/or a life change, but it is closely connected with the creative process.

beardedlamb wrote:YES

most inspirational, jordan. i feel juiced.

always happy to be of service, o captain my captain.

Dollar Bill, you somehow compelled me to take my miniscule amount of daily free time and use some of it for a forum post. Bob, you're partially guilty too for your compelling line of reason, and the use of "liken" but not "lichen."

Having personally explored a wide variety of pursuits in a broad sampling of fields, with improv being just one of them, I believe that one of the biggest emotional rushes for anybody involves meeting a challenge and then conquering it. What that means varies in different circumstance.

In improv, the novelty and lack of control for new improvisors brings about that rush of a challenge. When you have a show that goes well, you're partially amazed at yourself and that you and your troupe somehow created something bigger than all of you. When you get more experience, and you know you can do good scenework on a regular basis, the challege lessens and so does the rush. And so does the perceived value of the payoff.

This isn't just true in improv. I can vouch for it in several other arenas:
sports, writing, music, socializing, carpentry, and more. Early on, little challenges felt huge, and my perception of even a mnor success was that it was awesome. As I gained experience and skills, the challenge lessened, and my particular cravings sharpened, and the thrill diminished. (Liken this to Bob's drug use analogy.)

To ramble: Back in the day, I played basketball three hours a day, six or seven days a week. There was always a new challenge: make the team; get playing time; outplay the opponent; help the team win; play an error-free game. Eventually, I got to the point where I could not tolerate playing with any players other than those who really challenged me, both opponents and teammates alike. I felt compelled to play in games where I was required to be at the peak of my skills just to not get embarrased off the court. So now, since the city leagues here are kinda lame, I don't get that challenge. And thus I often reminisce back to games from 15 or 20 years ago and think, "God, what a fantastic game that was!" Yet I know that about 10 years or 5 years ago, I was a far better player than 20 years ago, but the games now almost seem dull, like an amusing diversion. </ramble>

What is one to do? Seek out the new challenge, obviously. For you, Bill, it's pushing the limits of improv. Improv on a bus? Hell, go for a duck boat. Add water to the mix! And if you have trouble finding anybody who wants to challenge themselves alongside you, then keep hunting. They're out there. Take that hunt as a challenge, too.

But your old shows were probably not as good as you remember them to be, and your new shows are probably not as tepid as you're feeling. Your high school pranks probably weren't as astouding as you remember them, either--but it's still damn fun to think back and laugh about them.