Your College Improv Adviser

It is usually around this time of year that college improv and sketch groups put their applications in to come to the various Spring semester comedy festivals. As improv has blown up in the last fifteen years there are more and more festivals to apply to.  Except more and more of them are being scheduled for the exact same weekend. 

Right now in Spring 2016 four big college improv festivals are being scheduled for the same two days: February 12th-February 13th: Skidmore, Harvard, Ohio State and Georgetown.   

Are groups purposely scheduling their festivals in competition with each other? And why would you do that?  Most of these schools have traveled to the other’s festivals in the past. 

Is it for some reason easier to book space at colleges Valentine’s day weekend?

Is it just a weird coincidence? If you’re in a college group and can explain the rational please message me.

It seems like an odd choice to me since mid February is also a terrible time for teams trying to travel to festivals.  I’ve been to more than one on this weekend in the past and more than once been informed that one or more college groups couldn’t make it because of blizzards.  One big festival that wouldn’t have to worry about the weather, FRACAS at USC, isn’t having their festival till March 24th. 

Diversity has been a much talked about subject at UCB over the past few days. One veteran student’s blog post about their frustration with the lack of diversity at the theater (https://medium.com/@britajames/why-i-m-quitting-ucb-and-its-problem-with-diversity-961f1195a790 ) struck a chord with a lot of people. 

Similar to my post on race and racism in improv scenework I know that as a straight white male I can never completely understand what it feels like to be discriminated against or to not see myself represented in the art form that I love. I will say though that as a teacher who regularly gets to choose students for my Advanced Study classes and practice groups that diversity is always on my mind.  I think that my more diverse classes and practice groups, both by gender, sexual orientation and by race/ethnicity are better and benefit from the plurality of viewpoints and experiences.  I would like to have classes with more diverse ages, economic backgrounds and physical abilities as well.  

As someone who has been a voice in the room when UCB has had auditions for Lloyd and Harold teams I will also say that the importance of diversity is something that I think everyone there was aware of and was a factor in the decision making process.  I think that’s a good and necessary thing both to to improve the quality of our shows and as an example for the next generation of diverse performers who understandably want to see themselves represented on stage.  I also understand that there is such a thing as a subconscious bias that can exist towards people that are similar to yourself.  I understand that shared experiences and culture can make someone’s comedy more relatable and maybe even more funny or “correct.”  (I do think that one advantage of UCB’s focus on improv fundamentals and the Game of the Scene in auditions is that regardless of how I am relating to a performers choices I feel like I am able to see if they are listening, yes-anding and playing Game.)

I think a related issue to racial diversity at UCB is socioeconomic diversity.  The vast majority of students I teach seem to come from middle class or upper-middle class backgrounds.  Almost everybody went to college.  This isn’t super surprising when you consider that classes are $400.  That’s a lot for most people but for some people is impossible.  One of the things the UCB Diversity Program has done by giving class scholarships is to try to make classes more accessible for people who might not have otherwise been able to afford them. This isn’t only for people of color, but because of the racism built into our national problem of economic inequality, it’s disproportionally people of color.   

I truly think that UCB is moving in the right direction as far as diversity and that it is important to the people making decisions there.  I also understand the frustration of students and performers who don’t see the diversity of house teams changing fast enough.  Hopefully this awareness of the need for diversity will lead to big steps towards improving it.  The dialogue has been great.

Now if you are on a college improv or sketch team and you are reading this post now would be a good time to ask yourself how diverse your team is and what steps the group have done to try to make it more diverse.  Remember that the reason for making your team more diverse isn’t PR.  You’re not just trying to avoid getting criticized. The reason is that it will make your team BETTER. More life experiences and points of view will make your shows FUNNIER and SMARTER and attract a LARGER AUDIENCE. Plus, it’s you know, the right thing to do. 

 Acknowledge that racial bias is a real thing and factor that in when you’re watching auditions.  Don’t just go with the person that you feel the most comfortable with.  Don’t just go with the person who shares “the group’s sense of humor.” Don’t worry if the person isn’t a perfect improviser.  Nobody knows what they’re doing in a college improv audition.  Everybody has to learn and get better.  Nothing bad can happen from you adding to the diversity of your team. 

If you say, ‘We’d like to add diversity to our team but hardly any diverse people audition” then consider they aren’t auditioning for your team because they don’t see anyone like them on your team.  Reach out to people to personally invite them.  Your team might be a bunch of friendly goof balls but realize that to some people you don’t look welcoming or inclusive.  The UCB Theater is the biggest improv institution in the country and this is important to them.  It should be important to you too!

It might depend on what you eventually want to do in comedy.  If you want to eventually write or produce for a TV show I know a lot of people that were able to work up from internships to writer’s assistant jobs to writing jobs.  I’m pretty sure those internships are incredibly competitive but they’re worth applying for. 

Most people interested in comedy coming out of college end up having to take a job unrelated to comedy to get started. I’ve known people at UCB with an incredible range of day jobs.   Ideally you’re going to get a job that will give you enough money to live and afford classes and practice groups but that isn’t so demanding that you won’t have the time and energy you need to take those classes and have those practice groups. Sometimes people look for entertainment industry specific jobs like being a PA but that doesn’t always matter. 

The people that I have seen shoot to success are not only talented but have all worked really hard and invested in their career.  They are the people who right away were putting sketches and webseries online, writing and performing standup or characters or sketches live and just generally grinding away while they get better and get noticed.  

It sounds like you’re on the right track with UCB improv and sketch classes. UCB and other theaters are a great way to hone your comedic voice and to meet people you want to collaborate with.  Many people pursue getting on to improv or sketch teams as a way of continuing to get better and possibly eventually attract agents and managers that could lead to comedy jobs.  You should also be looking to start your own indy improv and sketch teams to find as much opportunity to perform as possible.  

Recently I read about a white performer at UCB who had a black audience member come up to them after a show and accuse them of being racist.  In their blog the performer described a Harold in which a racial theme came up in the opening, related to the idea of “white flight” when white home owners leave a neighborhood that has an influx of minorities.  Later in the show the performer did a scene with a teammate playing a “racist neighbor.”  I didn’t see the show and can’t tell someone they shouldn’t be offended but I’m confidant that the performer is not racist and was not intending to be offensive.  

Race is a tricky subject though and one that I thought of as probably particularly tricky for college improv and sketch groups to deal with.   While as a straight white male I’m aware that I’m not an ideal authority on what is or isn’t offensive I have taught hundreds of improv classes and have tried to be conscious of it and guide the class in a way that allows everyone to feel comfortable as they learn.  

What I try to explain to UCB 201 students is that every subject should be able to be intelligently explored with comedy.  The key there though is intelligently.  The comedy should not be coming from the sheer shock value of the subject matter.  There needs to be a take on it.  In 201 students are working towards being able to reflect real life honestly and then look for the first unusual thing, the funny or interesting idea that they can build a Game from.  That means that you can portray a racist person because there are racist people in real life, but that alone can’t be the unusual thing.  The perfect example of this idea is Dave Chappelle’s Black White Supremacist sketch in which he plays a black white supremacist who doesn’t realize he’s black because he’s blind. Chappelle took something ugly from real life, like racism, and found a comedic take on it.  You can watch it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u__W0Qa8v0k   

Slavery is the United States’ great original sin and it’s horrific history extends into racial injustices that continue today.  It would be natural to think of it as a subject that would best be avoided when trying to do comedy.  And just depicting it for shock value should be avoided.  But Key and Peele, who have routinely found fresh, funny takes on race, even found a smart and hilarious way of dealing with the horror of a slave auction by having the experience begin to mirror being picked last on the playground.  You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB7MichlL1k

Notice with these examples that we are not laughing WITH the racism.  This isn’t a 1950s comic making ethnic jokes.  Improv scenes that are trying to be funny by depicting stereotypes ARE racist.  But a scene with a white casting director character who plays on these stereotypes could work as a comedy scene if the improvisers find what’s funny about that. Maybe it’s funny the lengths casting directors go to avoid seeming racist while simultaneously perpetuating racist stereotypes,- saying things like  “more urban” or “could you be more sassy on this next take?”  Is that a take on racism that’s absurdity could be heightened and explored as a Game?  Are you we laughing at the stereotype or are we laughing at the absurdity of people who perpetuate them?

This idea of making sure you’re dealing with a serious subject intelligently isn’t only related to race.  It could be related to gender or sexuality.  Are we laughing with the sexism and homophobia or did we find a smart take on it?  It should be obvious but being gay isn’t an unusual or comedic thing.  Watch Amy Schumer’s brilliant take on sexism in this 12 Angry Men sketch:  http://www.cc.com/episodes/d6vl24/inside-amy-schumer-12-angry-men-inside-amy-schumer-season-3-ep-303

If not race or sexuality it might be a subject like rape or abortion or the Holocaust.  Are we getting laughs off being shocking or are we dealing with the subject intelligently? If there were someone in the audience who’s had an abortion (and statistically there almost definitely is) would you feel okay with your comedy scene? 

I’ve also heard the note that the racist, sexist or in whatever other way hateful character shouldn’t win.  That’s good to remember.  The audience does not want to watch that.  Sometimes it’s good to have a straightman to address what’s wrong and it’s rewarding to watch a victim speak up for themselves and/or get the upper hand.  

Comedy is a great way of dealing with things that people are uncomfortable talking about.  These subjects shouldn’t be avoided but they should be handled intelligently, the way we’re hopefully treating all of our improv.  You may have noticed that the examples I’ve given regarding race we’re written and performed by black comedians and the one I gave regarding sexism was written by a woman.  It’s not that those people are the only ones allowed to deal with issues of injustice, it might just be that they are more likely to notice them.  It’s one reason why college comedy groups should be trying to bring in as diverse a group of individuals as possible.  If someone on your team does something you find racist or offensive it’s okay to talk to them about it.  Try not to lead with “You’re racist.” Explain to them why it bothered you in a way that they can understand without making them feel like they’re being attacked. They probably didn’t realize what they were doing and will learn from it. 

Good question.  I think that longform and shortform are different enough that if they’re similar quality people will gravitate to the form they prefer.  I would recommend not scheduling shows that compete directly with the other group’s performances and to be creative with how you advertise.  It might require patience but people enjoying the shows and talking about them is always the best advertising.  

Sasheer Zamata and Natasha Vaynblat had a similar situation that I wrote about in an earlier post:

Natasha Vaynblat and Sasheer Zamata started their own improv group “Amuse-Bouche” at the University of Virginia in the spring of 2007 after they had both unsuccessfully auditioned for the short form group.  Natasha says, “the fact that we were already considered outsiders encouraged us to be daring. That’s how we came to the conclusion that we wanted to do long form improv … which was not being done on our campus.”

The group was inspired by a set that Death by Roo Roo did at the North Carolina Performing Arts Festival and when the UCB TourCo came to UVA later that year it solidified the group’s goal to do long-form.  They started with a just copy of Truth in Comedy that they passed around and structured their rehearsals around Natasha’s experience doing ComedySportz in high school.  

Georgetown University has had a long-form improv group at their school since 1995.  They are regulars at festivals around the country and their star-studded alumni include Mike Birbiglia, Nick Kroll, John Mulaney and Alison Becker.  Earlier this year I asked Emlyn Crenshaw, the Georgetown Improv Associations’s Excutive Producer and Director some questions about her group.

“It's my second year as Executive Producer and Director of the team,” said Crenshaw. “That means that I handle all administrative duties, as well as run practice twice a week. I have a co-director this year (Thomas Moakley), and he works with me to give feedback/make practices run smoothly.”

Crenshaw joined the group her freshman year.  She knew she wanted to perform at college but when she got into a theater department show within her first few weeks at school and saw the rehearsal schedule  she didn’t think she’d have time to do anything else.  “It was something insane, like five hours of rehearsal every day,” Crenshaw recalls.  She decided to audition for the improv group on a whim the next day.  “I'm so, so lucky that it's been a part of my Georgetown experience -- at a school that's so notoriously serious and businesslike, Improv is my little zany haven. I'd have weekly breakdowns without it.”

Georgetown Improv is fortunate to have a blackbox theater called Bulldog Alley as a regular campus performance space.  They consistently sell out the 165 seats in their monthly shows.  Crenshaw describes the group’s style as “super bizarre,” adding, “we'd rather put way too much out there and talk afterwards about scaling back than do timid, uninteresting scenes.”

The group starts rehearsals in September with more structured forms like the Harold, and the “Alan Thicke” which I hadn’t heard of but Crenshaw describes as a sort of structured monoscene/la ronde where all the scenes take place in one location and one character exits so another character can enter.  As the year progresses the group moves into more fluid forms like montages and starts to experiment with different openings.

The group doesn’t have an outside adviser but they’ve reference Truth in Comedy and The UCB Improvisation Training Manual and bring alumni back for workshops and outside notes.  Mike Birbiglia has taught a workshop during Crenshaw’s time with the group and they and regularly work with group alum Murphy McHugh who runs Dojo Comedy in DC.  Most of the time the group rehearses without an outside eye and the exercises and feedback sessions are run by Crenshaw and co-director Moakley. Crenshaw describes rehearsals as collaborative.  “Everyone is encouraged to contribute,” she says. “Notes sort of feel like a big focus group.”

I was at the UCB Theater in New York last Tuesday watching Harold night.   I was hired a couple of months ago to watch the teams and pass on my notes to the artistic director so that in addition to her own observations she has some consistent feedback on how all the teams are doing and what they need to work on.  

I first started watching Harold night as a student in 2005 and performed on it with a team called Bastian from 2007-2009.  Since then the increased popularity of UCB, increased enrollment in the school and increased number of people auditioning for teams every year has led to Harold night expanding to have more teams and more performance slots.  Lloyd night was created to give even more performance opportunities for young teams to develop their Harold skills.  

The result has been that there really isn’t any bad Harold teams anymore. There are teams that might have an off-night or are under-performing for the talent they have but in the last few months that I’ve been watching there really hasn’t been a bad show like I might have occasionally seen eight or nine years ago. It’s probably a combination of the increased competition, the existence of Lloyd night for extra development time and the maybe even the development of the training center curriculum.  

The challenge then for the current Harold teams is how to set themselves apart as great.  There were bad teams ten years ago but there were also GREAT teams.  For my generation it was teams like The Shoves, Creep, Fwand and 1985 that did Harolds that blew people’s minds and made the very challenging form seem effortlessly perfect.  Each team had their own identity but they were all capable of great scene work with clear Games, incredible group trust and support, and legendary show-wide moves.  

Being a great Harold team is very difficult.  The Harold is a challenging form that’s structure demands more than a weekend team’s montage.  It requires good individual improvisers but more importantly it requires everyone to commit to the idea of putting the team and the show ahead of themselves so that everyone’s individual strengths and weaknesses disappear and the product miraculously turns into something better than the sum of it’s parts.  It requires risk-taking, which comes from mutual respect and trust, which in turn comes from lots and lots of practicing together. It requires a good coach who can be consistent and honest and push the team past “pretty good.”  Some teams have tried to jump immediately to great by attempting flashy thematic shows that have fallen flat from lack of quality scene work and clear Game or tried to get by on the strength of their individual funniness. Other teams have been solid with their fundamentals but never had the comic power or inventive fearlessness that makes teams memorable.  It isn’t easy. 

Having taught a lot of college improvisers that have gone on to take classes at UCB and having made that transition myself I’ve found that there a few fairly common college improv habits that can make transitioning to an improv training program more difficult.

One of the bad habits is jokes. Or more importantly, telling jokes that undermine the reality of the scene.  Many college improvisers are very witty and clever and dazzled their college audiences with puns and wordplay.  Because most college groups don’t have a clear grasp of The Game of the Scene, (playing a clear pattern of funny/unusual behavior)  funny improvisers rely on this wordplay to get laughs.  Once they are in class though this habit can be a tough crutch to let go of and can prevent them from learning how to commit to their scenes and find the Game of the Scene, where the laughs or “jokes” come from the character doing the funny behavior.   That doesn’t mean you will never see an amazing improviser you love tell a joke that is pure wordplay or silliness but if they’re really great, they will be able to justify it and commit hard enough that the scene will still work.  When you are starting out in classes there is no reason to give yourself challenges like this.  

Connected to the idea of jokes is the other bad habit of playing very broad, over-the-top characters.  These are clownish characters that look and talk like no one you’ve ever seen in real life and most importantly have nothing specifically unusual about them.  They’re just a “wacky _____ .”  A generally wacky mom/doctor/detective etc.  These characters are usually rewarded by college audiences.  They laugh at how insane your character is and admire your confidence in acting so out of the norm.  In reality, crazy characters like this often cover a lack of confidence, a lack of trust that you and your partner will be able to find a comedic idea together.  Like telling jokes, when you are learning improv at a professional improv school, playing big generally unusual characters will make having successful scenes more difficult.  At UCB we want our characters to have logic and point of view -they shouldn’t think of themselves as unusual.  We don’t want a generally wacky detective, we want a very specifically unusual detective, for example one that believes that every crime, even very small crimes, are part of vast conspiracies.  Maybe the reason she believes that is she used to work for the FBI but now works in a small town. Suddenly she’s more specific and has some logic and even though she’s unusual, she’s not a generally insane person with a crazy voice and crazy way of walking.  Because the character is specific it is easier for us to explore and heighten her character’s Game and think “if this is true, what else is true?” Think about your favorite comedy characters, are they generally insane or do they have a consistent and specific point of view and pattern of behavior?  

The thing you can practice now that will help with both of these concepts is to start from a grounded place and  then to commit to the reality you and your partner create.   We use the term “top of your intelligence” at UCB which means to play to the top of your own social intelligence.  From either real life experience or books, TV and movies you know what situations are supposed to look like.  You know how people are supposed to behave on dates, or job interviews or even a fantastical situation like addressing a magic genie.  Start scenes by acting the way that people are expected to behave in that situation.  If anything unusual comes up you will be able to recognize it, justify it, and commit to the new reality of the scene.  If you are addressing a genie and one of your wishes is for something simple like new socks, that could just be a joke that undermines the reality of the scene or, if both improvisers commit to that choice, it could become the first step towards finding the Game. If that wish is the first unusual thing for that situation, the genie would react to it being unusual and the person would have a logical reason why he made it.  Now the scene has a strong central comedic idea to anchor it and no longer requires wordplay or general wackiness to keep getting laughs.  

Brown University's only long-form improv group attended Skidmore's National College Comedy festival last month.  The group was formed in 2006 and has been going to Skidmore since 2008. When I went to Skidmore with UCB TourCo for the 2011 festival everyone at the after party was talking about the incredible sci- fi monoscene Brown did on the deck of the Enterprise.  Having everyone at the Skidmore afterparty rave about your set is about as good as it gets.

I talked to team member Emma Miller about the group which currently consists of herself, Jay Mamana, Felipe Di Poi, Patrick Madden, and Sam Lanier.  The group has no President, Director or outside coach or adviser.  "We decide as a group what we want to work on and all give notes collectively during rehearsal," says Miller.  They rehearse for two-hours three times a week.  Some of the members have taken classes at UCB and the group also draws from Truth in Comedy, The UCB Training Manual and Will Hines' Improv Nonsense blog.  

The group's signature form is "The Starla" which Miller describes as "a monoscene (which Starla calls a “cube”) into a montage."  A monsocene can be a challenging form for new improvisers.  "The two big things we focused on in our monoscenes were exploring the space and finding different elements (whether that was rats living in the wall, a bookshelf, a closet, etc.) so that the space felt full and varied and complex" says founding member Chris Duffy. "Along those same lines, we were very comfortable with characters entering and exiting the scene. Just like a normal room in real life, people didn't have to stay in there the whole time."

The group has more recently started to also use the Harold, developing something they call The Starla 2.0,  which Miller describes as "a monoscene into an opening into a Harold."

Miller describes the group as a mixture of theater people and comedy writers. Alumni have gone on do a variety of things.  Caroline Martin performs at UCB and the PIT and was the winner of the 2014 NBC & UCB Diversity Scholarship.  Chris Duffy is a stand-up, improviser and host of the WBUR radio program You're The Expert.  Starla Founder Will Guzzardi is a member of the Illinois House of Representatives.

Here's a post all about starting a group in college:

 http://collegeimprovadviser.tumblr.com/post/76538094443/taking-advantage-of-college-part-1-starting-your

I never started a group from scratch but talking to other people it seems like the first thing to do is get other members.  This might be like-minded friends that you already know or if you want to branch out it seems your best bet is putting up fliers advertising a general interest meeting.  You might discover other people with some improv background or people that are brand new to it but enthusiastic about trying it out.  

It's always good with things like this to start in a circle and go around having everyone who showed up introduce themselves.  You can start and tell whoever shows up what your own improv background is and what you'd like to accomplish with the group.  

After everyone has introduced themselves you could start off talking about a couple of improv basics like listening and agreement.  I would keep it short and put people at ease by saying that you're not an expert, you're just getting this from the improv books you've read.  I think starting with a game like Freeze is good way to get people doing scenework and having fun without putting too much pressure on it.  

I'd keep the first meeting pretty short, (under 2 hours) and put something at the end for interested people to put their contact info down.  See if a core group of people wants to continue with it and go from there.  

This year's National College Comedy festival took place two weeks ago at Skidmore College.  This year they had 16 college sketch and improv teams attend as well as professional groups Gentlemen's Party and Baby Wants Candy and stand-up star Tig Notaro.  I e-mailed this year's producers, Rebecca Baruc and Adam Fisher-Cox about planning such a big event.  

Baruc and Fisher-Cox started by meeting the previous year's producers last spring.  They began their own preparation during the summer in hopes of booking a great headliner. "We began making lists of stand-ups immediately," says Baruc.  "At the top was Tig Notaro, and since we figured she'd be the hardest to get, we went for her first."  "She made the process very easy by saying yes!" says Fisher-Cox.  

For the professional sketch and improv groups they got recommendations and scoured the internet. "Budget was a helpful parameter" says Baruc, "Adam and I did our graveling at the Student Government Association and Departmental co-sponsorships, but we can't just drop bills on anyone." The pair looked for people both on the "upswing of their career" and "more established names." They had locked down their dream headliner in Notaro. "A professional improv group was a little harder," says Baruc. " UCB is always fantastic and reliable, but we like to change it up every once in a while to let the audience know we're searching for all kinds of talent."  Adam came across Baby Wants Candy.  "We knew the improvised musical was something that would resonate with a lot of our audience," he says.  Sketch groups were the hardest to find. Eventually they landed on Gentleman Party, a group of all NYU graduates, some of whom had recently been to the festival as students.  "Once I saw Gentlemen Party’s videos online, I knew they would be a good fit for the festival," says Fisher-Cox.  Baruc summarizes their approach to booking as "a balance between respecting our budget, pleasing our taste, anticipating Skidmore's taste, and making sure to show different stages of professional work."

For selecting the college teams the pair started by inviting long-time participants with a record of quality shows and then had an open application for new groups.  "This year we had sixteen slots available," says Fisher-Cox. "Eight of which were invited back, and eight of which were open applications." They had 38 sketch and improv applicants. To select among them Baruc and Fisher-Cox watched 15 minute sample videos and ranked them. "We basically are going off intuition - what made us laugh," says Baruc.  "We want people who seem like they're having fun and putting forth their best!"

Fischer-Cox describes the most stressful part of organizing the festival as "just making sure that I was continually aware of all deadlines and not letting things slip through the cracks. Individually, no one task was very difficult, but getting them to all come together could get tricky at times."  Baruc also mentions all the tasks. "There's no respite until the weekend is over, and even then there's still tasks left over. The tasks multiply and get finer and finer as we got closer to the festival weekend itself and that was hard to upkeep along with being a full time student."  The producers also had to deal with the last minute crisis of two groups canceling last minute because of weather and illnesses. "But that was more of a bummer than any logistical issue," says Fisher-Cox.  

Fisher-Cox advises anyone looking to organize a comedy festival to get organized. "The most important thing to do is to get things down on paper, keep notes, and keep a calendar of deadlines for yourself," he says. "If you plan as much as possible out at the beginning of the year when things are not stressful, then you can just follow your schedule when everything starts happening and keep working towards whatever’s next on the list." At Skidmore, next year's producers worked closely with Baruc and Fisher-Cox as assistant producers. "And just as we did last spring, we will have a debrief with them to pass on wisdom," says Baruc.  She has a long list of helpful tips: "think ahead, anticipate every task, people are dumb and don't read things so repeat yourself patiently, people are really willing to help so ask for help where you can, don't do online ticketing ever again, it's a lot of organizing but it's also about maintaining a spirit and desire for a community, so don't forget to exude love and excitement for what you are accomplishing."

Although they were both busy running around with their countless tasks, Baruc and Fisher-Cox mentioned a few performances as stand-outs.  Sketches from Yale's Red Hot Poker, one of which involved a guy shaving his head backstage, and a sketch from Cornell's Skits-O-Phrenics that involved an increasingly intimate Ben and Jerry were both talked about at the after parties. "Scatterbomb, a new face from Manhattan College, really wowed with a 15-minute monoscene" says Fisher-Cox. "They got thirteen people on stage at once and successfully passed the focus and avoided complete chaos!"

Having taught workshops to college improv groups all over the country over the past six or so years I have encountered a lot of group presidents, or directors or, as my college group referred to the title, "Grand Poobahs."  If I were to slap together some unofficial statistics I would say that 95% of the time they are juniors or seniors, 80% percent of the time they are male, and 50% of the time they are are assholes.  The other half are usually pretty great: positive and charismatic people with a combination of organizational skills and a contagious enthusiasm for improv. A lot of them have helped me with this site.  And the assholes don't mean to be assholes.  I'm sure they don't think of themselves that way.  But 20 minutes in a room with them and their group and you can see a status/control dynamic that always makes me uncomfortable. 

As I start a workshop I first notice a potential asshole when I ask a group questions about their style or show-form and only the president answers, usually somewhat defensively.  A true sign that I have an asshole president on my hands is when I start the group doing a warm-up and they let someone in the group know they're doing it wrong, in warm-ups, at a time when we're trying to all get in a present and supportive mind-set, and there's an outside teacher there organizing it.  It gets worse if when I start warm-up scenes the president's body language changes depending on wether or not they approve of what's happening in the scene.  

Full disclosure: From 2002-2005 I was a college improv group's president (or Grand Poobah in my case) and looking back I was probably at least a little bit of an asshole too.  I definitely took it very seriously.  I scheduled a lot of practices and I probably gave people a hard time if they were late or were goofing around. And I think that stuff is okay to a point.  Sometimes in a room of funny people you need someone willing to be the unhip organized one.   What is definitely not okay is when a leader of an improv group makes people feel bad about themselves and their improv. 

I think I was unintentionally sometimes guilty of this too.  Maybe it was just a facial expression or body language or a general scene note but I don't think I did a good enough job of making everyone on my team feel valued.  I recognize it more now as a teacher who regularly has to manage a room full of fragile improv egos.  As a teacher I need to make everyone in the class feel supported and willing to take risks.  I need to balance critical notes with notes of praise and I've generally found that pointing out why scenes worked helps a lot more than pointing out why scenes didn't work.  This is not an easy thing for an untrained 20-year old to do, especially when they are part of the ensemble themselves, which is why I always encourage college groups to either find an outside coach or have the person giving notes sit out that semester from performing.  

I had a great conversation with Louis Kornfeld for the Magnet Theater Podcast (which you can listen to here) and he had noticed a similar thing with college groups.  He had recently watched the semifinals of the College Improv Tournament and described one terrible set where a few guys on a team (unsurprisingly men) treated their partners as inferior and were trying to take over and "save" the show themselves.  But Louis also described a set with a group that he loved and had had seen the past three years.  The first year there was a female improviser on the team who had seemed terrified and said almost nothing. The second year she seamed a little more comfortable but said only slightly more. Both years her team played well around her without disrespecting her or pushing her to the side. This year she again said very little in the show, but now she did it from confidence, her subtle play was killing with the audience and everyone on her team recognized and supported it.  

I love that story.  Here was a college group that rather than trampling a quite, nervous new member of the group supported her as she developed her own incredible style.  She didn't have to become a loud aggressive player to be noticed because her team supported what was unique and great about her. This is something every group president should think about.  How can you keep the group focused while embracing what's unique about everyone on your team? They might not be quiet.  They might be loud and crass.  They might be silly weirdos.  But as long as what they're doing isn't destructive it's your job to foster an environment where they feel confident and supported in being themselves.  Your group will be better for it.  

Change is never easy. It's scary to go away from what you are used to. People stay in comfortable jobs they don't like and comfortable relationships they know they're not happy in all the time. When you're a college improv group that's been pretty successful doing short-form improv transitioning to doing long-form can be daunting. Long-form is much harder. The reason I encourage college groups to try it is mainly that I think that in the end long-form is also much more rewarding. This is a subject I've covered several times in this blog, most directly in an early post where I complained that my old college improv group, Binghamton University's Pappy Parker Players still hadn't made the switch. (You can read that here ) It probably wasn't fair or necessary for a 32 year-old to criticize the extra curricular activities of college students but as an alumnus who had been performing and teaching long-form the past ten years I found their reluctance a little annoying.

So I was pleased to hear this fall from Ben Moosher, the group's current president, that the Pappys were finally going to give long-form a shot. Talking to Ben recently he said that doing long-form had been in the back of their minds for awhile. More and more of their practices started mainly consisting of playing Freeze. Freeze isn't quite long-form but it gave the players the freedom of finding what was funny in the scenes themselves rather than relying on the gimmick of the short-form game's restrictions. Ben also mentioned the harsh reactions to short-form the group would get from the outside improv world (including my critical post). The group performed in the first round regionals of the College Improv Tournament last winter and although they felt good about their short-form set, they didn't place against three long-form teams. "It seemed like an adapt or die situation and we decided it was time to live in this new world instead of die in our old one," says Ben.

The group was unanimous about moving in a "long-form direction" but they still had to deal with a fan-base that knew and loved their short-form. "Our first big show we planned to do a twenty minute montage, and after five minutes of floppy long form we scrapped it and went back into short form," recalls Ben. "While it was still a successful show, it was still upsetting to hear friends come up to me and go 'hey what was that weird thing you guys did at the beginning?'"

Ben says another challenge with long-form is that a lot of practices turn into "the blind leading the blind." Although Ben has taken through 301 at UCB he describes himself as "far from qualified from giving particularly insightful comments on scenes, unless I get a chance to regurgitate something from the [UCB Training] Manual."

Despite these challenges the group has started to feel more confident about long-form. They have taken workshops with alumni, a few of whom have taken classes and performed at UCB, and they had a strong long-form set at the end of last semester. "That stands as one of the prouder times in my Pappys career," says Ben.

I had the opportunity to do a workshop with some of them here in New York City a few weeks ago during their winter break. I had taught several workshops for the Pappys over the past six or seven years where I had tried to cram as much of an intro to UCB-style long form as I could in three hours and I think I left the group feeling more intimidated than inspired. This time I tried a different approach. I contacted a few UCB house team performers, Lauren Besser, James Smith III, Pat Regan and fellow Pappy alumnus Andrew Yurman-Glaser, and they graciously agreed to come to the workshop and improvise with the college group. I thought if nothing else this should be a fun experience for them. They warm-ed up together and did a montage and then a Harold.

I was excited about the experiment but the quality of the scenes exceeded even my hopeful expectations. I didn't bother with giving detailed notes for each scene, I just pointed out all the successes they were having. "We were intimidated initially by the UCB performers that were there, however the performers treated us with loads of respect and seemed to have a lot of fun playing with us, which made us feel like we could "hang,"' recalls Ben. "Playing with them helped us gain quite a bit of confidence that has since carried with us."