Attention Optimized

 

How is your attention? How is your focus?

Doing improv brings people to their full attentiveness, because without that you're lost. As Paul Sills taught me, that attentiveness and that improv work best when you get out of your head, when you "stop playwriting" and give the moment all you've got.

It's powerful. It's wonderful. It's ever so real. 

Great improv keeps us in the present. The past is too boring to play and the future is up for grabs so we must live every present moment tuned in, generating ideas, and sharing responsibility. Improv is life’s attentiveness optimized.

— doug smith

Bold!

Get bold or get forgotten!

Who's your favorite actor?

What performer grabs your attention?

When you are on stage where is YOUR focus?

There is a place for nuance. There is a time for subtlety. And, there is a time for drama!

Get bold or get forgotten!

-- doug smith

 

Practice!

We do best what we do most.

Practice. It's the best way (maybe the only way) to get better.

-- doug smith

Everything We Do

When we learn to improvise we dramatically increase and improve our possibilities -- not just in improv, but also in everything we do.

-- doug smith

 

What will you do?

The more random things become the more likely that an order will emerge. From the broadest possible view everything is organized.

What can you do with that?

-- doug smith

Now

Focus on the moment and it will hold you in awe.

-- doug smith

 

Make It Easier

 

Learn to improvise and a thousand other important things suddenly become much easier to learn.

-- doug smith

Make It Appear Real

The trouble with bad improv is that it looks fake. Maybe the actors are having fun -- they're certainly getting bigger and bigger with their broad attempts at humor -- but it makes me squirm when I see someone acting. Obviously, acting in ways that say "isn't this funny?" and "aren't we all cool?"

No, it's not funny. And, no, it's not cool. Improv is bigger than that, better than that, much harder than that.

Real improv looks real. Characters are developed. Plots evolve instead of becoming fabricated. Dialogue sounds like overheard conversations with built in subtle yet compelling drama.

That's asking a lot from improv, which is why it's so rare. But what if you delivered at that level? What if we each took our improv to a level that is even with the best acting available?

What if no one could tell that you were improvising?

Wouldn't that be amazing?

-- doug smith

Improv as Reality

Done right, done real, improv adds reality to a scene and to a performance. Responding in time by building on the ideas of the other performers, rather than trying to steal the show with an impressive show of your own skills - can turn even the most preposterous of pretexts into great texts, great moments, real-feeling moments of artistic joy.

Improvising in collaboration, egos aside, serving the scene.

Improv can add just the touch of reality that any fantasy needs.

-- doug smith

Practice

Improv, while spontaneous, is also a discipline. It takes practice. Going for the obvious jokes is so common because people don't practice enough to get beyond them. It reminds me of a technique one improv company used to do in their warm up - they'd say all the cuss words they could think of just to get it out of their system. It's not an easy laugh, it's a tedious gratuitous string of cuss words unless it is all attached to character.

To get to character in improv takes practice. To build trust -- in your own skills and in the skills of your company of actors -- takes practice.

Just because we make it up on the spot doesn't mean we don't have to practice.

Practice!

-- doug smith

At Our Strongest

We are strongest when we allow our creativity to shine every day.
-- doug smith

Catching You

Improv is the high wire act of theatre and the audience is your only net. Convince them, and they will catch you if you fall.

-- doug smith

The Best Improv

The best improv feels more real than a written script, risks more for the sake of discovery, and touches more with a direct path to the heart.
-- doug smith

Improv Makes You Better

You don't have to be a star. You don't have to be famous. You might even stay happier if you avoid those two possibilities. Still, practicing improv will improve your world. It will improve your communication skills, help your self image, build team work, make it far easier to think on your feet, take the fear out of the unknown...and hundreds of more benefits.

That's why I like this quote:

"More of me comes out when I improvise."
-- Edward Hopper

And mostly, more good stuff!

-- doug smith

Creativity Generator:

Think about a time when you had to improvise during an unexpected occurrence. Wild, eh? Now for two minutes list all the good that came of that improvising situation.

See?

Stop Trying To Be Funny

You can always tell someone who is still new to improv: they try desperately to be funny. They go for the laugh. They do outrageous things. They try to tell jokes.

The trouble with doing all that, besides it NOT being funny, is that it's really hard to do that and listen to what your fellow performers are also doing. To build on the work of others you've got to listen, to pay attention, to accept and build on what they're doing. Involving yourself by writing an elaborate script will feel more like a wall between you and the audience, leaving nothing but cheap gags to try to rescue it. Cheap gags will not rescue you.

The funniest people are those trying desperately NOT to be funny. They live thru stuff that would aggravate us but on someone else it seems oddly funny. Every act, every nuance, every pause and every word works to avoid the situation that strikes us as funny. Not to be funny, but to escape the humor. And that is funny.

The next time you catch yourself trying to be funny, convert that to a reaction of what your character would really do in an attempt to avoid the absurdity. That will be much funnier, and feel better, too.

-- doug smith

Improv is LIfe's Attentiveness Optimized

Great improv keeps us in the present. The past is too boring to play and the future is up for grabs so we must live every present moment tuned in, generating ideas, and sharing responsibility. Improv is life's attentiveness optimized.

-- doug smith

Improvise A Better Life

You can improvise yourself right into a more exciting, more fulfilling life.
-- doug smith

Listen and Respond

People leave open offers out there dangling unanswered every day. Improv is all about putting all offers to use. If you want to live and act more spontaneously, listen for those offers and respond.
-- doug smith

The Fast Path

Improv is your fastest path to creativity.
-- doug smith

Learn to Improvise

Learn to improvise and a thousand other important things suddenly become much easier to learn.
-- doug smith