Austin Improv

How often do you play yourself in a scene?

Is it a good thing (because it's honest and natural and it shows and will connect with the audience on that level) or bad (it's limiting and you're not that interesting on stage)?

I rarely play myself in a scene, because I think I'm pretty bland as a character. Though, after taking the diagnostic with Jeremy Lamb, I've been thinking maybe I should play myself a little more often.

The advantages of playing yourself is that you know you better than any character you try to develop, and you can focus more on acting, as you mentioned.

The only disadvantage of playing yourself is that it's only one character out of a wide array you could play.

Edit: Now that I think about it, as Roy mentioned, I do play myself whenever I'm doing an Armando-like situation where I speak to the audience, like (as Roy mentioned) Gradual Lie, or Spoon River, Sermon (maybe, with exaggerations), Play all the characters, etc.. I guess I just find playing myself easier whenever I'm not in a scene with other people.

I never play myself on stage, unless it's a Maestro game like Gradual Lie that calls for it. It just doesn't really interest me. That being said, I bet I play Roy-like characters a lot... whenever I've failed to inspire myself for a character choice, I think I wind up playing a Roy-like character who's a little less bottled up, emotion-wise. This usually disappoints me though. One of the things I love about improv is being able to really crawl inside the headspace of someone other than myself.

I play versions of myself all the time. I think it makes the character more grounded, predictable, honest, and realistic and less off-the-wall or goofy.

However, I rarely play "100% myself," instead grabbing a piece of myself--like an emotion, a character trait, a hobby, a recent life event--and amping that up, playing it to a degree it never really achieved so that it becomes a dominating personality.

If I've been behind at work, I'll grab frantic and how I express franticness and then rachet it up to a character who is jittery and jumpy. If I just had my car fixed and I'm broke, I'll heighten that to a character who is depressed about money and feels like he'll never catch up in life.

There is no one true answer to this question. But also i have heard it said that you should wear your characters like they are a thin vale. or something. so like it's you peeking through. or whatever.

Myself is the default character and sometimes I strive to go away from that default as far as I can. Because I have fun with throwing logic out the window and really embracing the possibility of anything happening in a scene. Playing myself sometimes locks me into reality and the confining logic inherent to it too much.

The last conspiracy butter show, Chris and I both played ourselves in a scene. Not only ourselves in a scene - but ourselves, as improv comedians, trying to be funny onstage, in the scene we were in.

Amazingly, it worked. But it's something you can really only do once...

I think going meta is a different conversation entirely

Everything I say and do comes from natural reactions and instincts, so even with a character veil, as Bill put it, it's going to be me or at least partly me. So yeah, I guess I play myself.

Arthur Simone only ever plays exaggerated versions of himself on stage

the real Arthur Simone would probably never go on stage, just hide in a cabinet