Short Mike Short

In scripted work where you have the benefit of time, you can research your subject for both accuracy and familiarity. Accuracy, to make sure you get the joke right, and familiarity, so that you can make sure it has wide appeal and comprehension among the general audience. Also, in scripted work, you are able to build the audience’s understanding piece by piece, leading them through the things they need to know in order to enjoy it.

In an Improv scene you don’t have those luxuries. Thus, no Improv scene’s success should ever hinge on knowledge of pop culture. There, I said it, we’re done.

Okay, why? Otherwise this is a short chapter. To answer that, I need to talk about Darkseid.

Darkseid is a major villain in DC Comics. He’s fought Superman a ton of times, and he rules an entire hellish planet as a space despot. He’s probably gonna show up in one the DC movies sooner or later. A long time ago, at a late night jam, I named my scene partner “Darkseid,” hoping that he would play this comic book villain. He did not, and the scene tanked. It wasn’t pop culture that tanked the scene, it was my insistence on my scene partner responding in a specific way, and my inflexibility to roll the scene in the direction it did take.

This was in the days of MySpace, which dates me, and I wrote an essay there the next day detailing how I think my scene partner should have reacted. Hubris, I know. I’m sorry, I was in my twenties and very full of myself. In reality, every scene has two sides, and we’ll get to how I should have reacted in a moment. Unfortunately, the essay has, with all of our MySpace profiles, been lost to history, scrubbed from the Internet. But I do recall the gist of what I had written.

I remember writing that we actually do know enough to get through any pop culture reference. Through context clues, we can surmise that we’ve been labelled something within a broader category that we do have entry to. If I initiate, make a strong choice, and I cower at your feet and sing your praises while calling you “Darkseid,” you can confidently assume that you’re an evil king. You may not know that you’re from Apokolips and can shoot Omega Beams  out of your eyes, but evil space king is plenty to work with. You know what evil is, you know what space is, and you know what kings are.

Now I may go even further and front load some of that information for you (we still haven’t actually gotten to what I should have done yet) in order to give you plenty of gifts to play with. But whatever information we do start with, do not let a lack of information paralyze you. It is still pertinent that you play your part of the scene confidently. Do not be afraid of judgment for getting this mote of pop culture wrong—No one except the most ardent of fans know all of the ins and outs of the fictional character’s biography, and only the worst of those fans will care about any inaccuracies. The rest of us will enjoy, for different reasons, what you get right and what you get wrong. So play what you get wrong gleefully.

Speaking of front-loading information, if you as an MC accept an item of pop culture as a suggestion, then take a moment to footnote the suggestion for the benefit of anyone not in the know. “Ah, yes, I heard Darkseid,” you might say, then clarifying “The evil comic book villain that rules an entire planet.” This gives us a lot to fuel our scene and act on it with serviceability. (Sometimes, serviceability is the best we can ask for.) This is a note for taste: avoid that awkward moment of the cast whispering to each other “Who is that? I don’t know what that is.” I believe the room will forgive the extra 15 seconds it takes for elaboration, plus that whispering may lead to the cast being distracted and missing something important.

Tangent aside, you should be emboldened to play whatever it is you want to play, whether it hits the mark or not. If you happen to know who Darkseid is and want to play your best version of him, great, go for it. If you don’t know, then make a choice of what you can and do want to play and commit to that.

All right, so what should I have done?

I don’t actually suggest the ham-handed approach, as it can read as incredibly unnatural on the part of the character and a touch arrogant on the part of the actor. “I know this all about this and you don’t so now I get to make you look foolish.” This will make us very unpopular improvisors to play with.

I would now generally advise against the reference in the first place. The danger of references is letting them stand in place of actual humor. But the scene should not be a series of winks and nods. Saying “Darkseid” on its own as though that should elicit a response is not enough. Our pop culture reference is merely a detail to pepper the scene. It’s a bit of world-building that speaks to the existence of a larger universe our characters are inhabiting. But it is not the core focus of our scene.

Think of it more as establishing a Who and a Where for our improv scene. Calling you “Darkseid” is the same as calling you “Senator Barnes” or “Rebecca.” I’ve given you a name, nothing more. I’ve maybe established that our scene takes place on another planet. But what the scene is actually about is something else entirely that you and I will discover.  

How much more fun is it to play a scene with the brand-new Darkseid that gets created here and now? I am free to continue treating him as a great and terrible tyrant, a powerful demigod, a high-status character, no matter what characterization my scene partner chooses. What if my scene partner has decided, for whatever reason, to be a nebbish dork? And I’m bowing down in fear to that? That’s a fun scene.

That is what I really should have done: I should have let my scene partner make his choice, and I should have accepted and built off of that. We could have discovered a much more interesting scene with an exciting, unpredictable dynamic that would never have happened if we attempted to abide strictly to the source material. We could have found ourselves in a fun parody, a farce, or a wild parallel world. The audience didn’t come to see us reenact a movie or show, they want to see our hot take on it.

That flexibility is at the core of doing great improv, and even more so when confronting a situation where there seems to be a “correct” answer. The idea is that we let go of any notion of a correct answer and instead embrace the unknown.

The other thing I shouldn’t have done is write a Myspace blog about the whole thing, for obvious reasons.

Now, pop culture can’t be avoided. It’ll pop up as a suggestion or in a scene because it’s on people’s minds. Or perhaps we’re playing a show that leans heavily on genre, like the Movie long form or a game of TV/Film/Theater styles. So we have to learn how, both individually and as a cast, to approach these scenes from a place of strength.

Here, we should do our homework. I believe that we should always challenge ourselves to absorb the world around us much as possible. After all, more interesting stuff comes out of our heads with the more interesting stuff we put in. A tactic I find useful is to read reviews of movies, shows, and books I might not have the time or budget to get into. I can at least claim an awareness of their existence and a passing familiarity with their subject matter. Every improvisor must become a student of the world.

As a cast, go and watch a show together and talk about what you all noticed. Focus should be placed on less on content and more on stylistic choices. For example, instead of noting that the Western you watched had a shootout (content), comment on the mood and how it gets established. Also, share with your teammates things you’re excited about and interested in, and let them share back. You should know that Alex knows everything there is to know about Sonic the Hedgehog, and Beth has been seriously digging Game of Thrones recently. Let them tell you all about the thing they love! Establish within your group a common knowledge base, so that we are free to really play with each other. We’re empowered to push and pull and tease and commit to pop culture scenes because we know where the edges are. At this point, we may encounter an exposition-heavy scene, but now it’s wonderful because we’re playing with shared information.

Below is the first draft of the intro to a project I’m tackling this year. Feedback appreciated.

I struggled with this book for a long time.

It’s hard to write a book about improv. The art itself is so here-and-gone, and encompasses so much possibility, that trying to concretize any of it into a book is a daunting, paralyzing task.

See, I really wanted to add something new to the conversation. I wanted to develop some amazing new technique or format or style that unlocks the next level of improv. I wanted to craft some perfect little philosophy that sums up the answer to every improv problem. Here’s the one single thing everyone’s been missing and I’ve figured out and now no one will ever have a bad scene ever again, until they do.

And that’s the real trick. The longer I do improv, the more I believe that there is no individual shortcut, not really, to doing successful scenes. There is no 100%, all-the-time way to play that keeps you from creating the dreaded “bad scene.”

Well, there is, but it’s a simple truth that’s hard to confront. Sexy names for methods and rules are easier to sell and allow the beginner to think they’re making real progress. But the real method requires almost Buddha-like Enlightenment. Plus, improv is highly contextual. I just can’t give you one easy trick to do a good scene because I’ve never seen you, dear reader, play. I didn’t see that scene that you’ve been retreading in your mind. I don’t know what you need. But more on that later.

Not to mention how conflicted I get. Improv is a joy. It’s supposed to be fun. And very often you’ll see blogs and books touting the wonderful effect improv has on your life. What magic this performance art has! What amazing things it imparts! And they’re right, the values and techniques of improv can help you in every day life. Openness, vulnerability, ownership of your feelings, playfulness, and mindfulness—all of these things make us better people. It’s also true that the art form itself is a joy, but it can be surrounded by terrible things. Marketing your show, dealing with gatekeepers and office politics, playing with oddballs off the street, dropping thousands of dollars to follow a theater’s program (and starting over at level 1!) before you can perform for them… the list goes on. Sometimes I don’t like Improv. It’s a real downer how much stuff is in between you and just doing a show.

And we have to face the truth. The biggest downer of all. There is something about improv that assaults people’s egos. Perhaps it’s because it seems like it is so easy. Unlike painting or music, there are no additional tools save the body you have to learning improv. You just get up there and talk to the other person, and say some funny stuff in between. So when we fail, when we do a scene that is hard to watch, when our hardest efforts get only a forced grunt of a laugh, we can’t help but take it personally.

A finished product in art and music and writing can be refined. It can be painted over, tuned, edited. Every critique by a viewer or a listener can be taken into account, and the work can be adjusted to the effect the creator desires. There’s no going back on an improv scene. By its very nature, it must be left behind. If you desired funny and you didn’t get it, no redress can be made. It’s like the dreadful, blood-draining feeling one gets during an awkward date or stilted job interview. That dread can stick.

Of course, the difference is that there are no lasting consequences to a bad improv scene. We forget that, but it’s true. (The worst consequence is that someone in the audience, having never seen improv before, will think it is all bad and will walk out never to return to another improv show ever. But even that can be managed, and dare I say if any audience member is so open-and-shut about an entire thing based on a single experience, then they were probably not going to be the type of person to enjoy any improv anyway.)

This book laid in the back of my mind and across dozens of half-started essays for years. I couldn’t find the one thing you can always say about improv. You see, Improv traffics in dichotomies. There is a craft, and there is also an art. You must be bold but also bend to your scene partner. You must act but also write. You must discover but also invent. You shouldn’t ask questions until you do, and you shouldn’t say no until you find that’s exactly the thing you should say right now.

It is amazing, it is awful. It is meaningful and immaterial. It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever devoted my time to, and it’s the least important thing I’ll ever do in my life. How do you write one book about any of this?

What I decided upon was this: I had to write a love letter.

And the thing about love is that you want all of the thing you love. The pretty parts and the ugly parts. The parts that make you jump for joy and the parts that make you shake your head. Love grows with and love accepts. I love improv, even though sometimes it’s a bit of a slog and I fall out of love now and then, and there’s nothing shameful in saying that.

I’m not the most well-known of performers or most experienced of teachers. I’m just one person who has a passion for the art form and is a deep thinker about the craft. What I want to do is use what I’ve learned to help you get better, revisit my mistakes so that you don’t make them, and share my thoughts to get your brain working too.

At my job, I've written jacket copy for a series of coffee table books dedicated to various states. Here's my rejected entry for Pennsylvania:

Driving through Pennsylvania you might be lead to believe it's simply a series of winding forest-lined highways.

Or one might think it's trapped in the past, its glory days long gone, not being much of a focal point of American history after signing the Declaration of Independence and fighting at Gettysburg.

Perhaps, if one thinks hard enough, one might remember that it's the home of a really good cheesesteak, but not much else.