You love it; I love it; but, does everyone love it? My buds, those infamous pros, impart their ideas on if/why improv is popular . . .
Error 404 - Cult of the Stage Monkey
Why is improv so popular? Well, I can give you the reasons I found for becoming addicted to watching improv, and eventually decided to become an improv comic myself. It's like this, TV sucks. There's too many commercials, and the plotlines are cheezy. Every sitcom on Earth has the same plot line for every show repeatedly (everything's cool, kid goofs up, says something cute, laugh track, kid tries to cover up pathetically, laugh track, parent finds out, laugh track, parent talks to child, violin sentimental music, everything's fine and cheery, the end). Movies usually aren't very good either. I mean, there are some good movies out there, but a lot of movies are really bad. A lot of movie-makers recycle plots again and again and again (She's All That). Also, I hate the way that Hollywood feels the need to portray people in my age group (I'm 18) as brain-dead, obnoxious clone-beings that can be summed up with catch-phrases like "my bad" and "I'm outie" and "Sheeyah, as if" (Clueless). So, let's get back to why I love improv. It's not a really hard concept to grasp. I, as a college student who is not brain dead, but certainly low on cash, have decisions to make regarding entertainment. I can't just go do everything on a tight budget, can I? So, I can either stare at sitcoms until my brain turns to mush and I don't have enough cortex left to control my bowel functions, or I can spend $6.50 to go see a recycled movie which calls me a complete moron from beginning to end, or I can spend $5.00 to go see a good improv show that lasts for two hours (instead of 30 mins or 1 and a half hours) where the scene constantly evolves, and I'm involved in the direction that this show takes. I can jump up and participate in a freeze tag game....I mean, is it not obvious now why I like improv?
Anita - Comedy Helper
I don't know that improv is popular. I think it is fun to watch, but I'm not sure the general public knows that. Those who know like it, I think, because improv is really one long Freudian slip uttered by a group. The depths of performers hearts and minds accidentally show up on stage, and bizarre and amazing things can happen. I think that's a lot of fun to watch.
Because we performers are such together, well adjusted, ego-less people. Oh wait, I'm thinking of someone else.
The same reason it isn't as funny on video as it is live. Improv has the most incredible energy. We take our energy from the audience, process it, and give it back. This cycle of energy sharing builds and binds the audience and the performers into one group, and we all make the magic happen.
I have always looked at improv as the theater form where the audience believes anything can happen. Anything at all! If I decide to play a talking monkey, by God, I am a talking monkey. The audience believes it, buys into it, and enjoys it. I don't have to be dressed like a monkey, act like a monkey, or sound like a monkey. I can stand straight up, and speak with a snooty British accent, and the audience thinks of me as a snooty British talking monkey. What other theater form does this work in? Would you go see a movie about talking monkeys, where they didn't look like monkeys? Or if they had bad makeup? Probably not, but in improv, it works. I love that part of it.
Then, of course, there is the "how did they do that" factor. People are amazed when Funny Outfit did a one act musical with no pre-planning. It really impresses them that we can do funny things without pre-scripting it.
R. Kevin Doyle - Loose Screws (Honolulu, HI)
Popular in the sense of there suddenly being a TV show about improv? Well, to paraphrase David Letterman, American TV executives are basically rabid monkeys. Having virtually no ability to come up with creative ideas for shows on their own, they look to England for sources for shows. Seeing as how there's virtually nothing new on TV, and there were no improv shows on American TV, and WLiiA? (the British version) was doing pretty well on Comedy Central, they figured "What the heck? Let's see if it flies!"
Fortunately, they got some talented, funny improvisers, or the show would have been gone like that.
I also believe that improv's profile would be considerably lower if Drew Carey hadn't taken a personal interest in the form. He was the initial draw to the show for a lot of people.
On the other hand, improv must have been the first theatre form (at some point, somebody pretended to be somebody else without planning it, whether that person was a shaman, a village idiot, a sarcastic hunter-gatherer, who knows, a temple virgin, who knows?). Anyone can do it. Kids do it innately (though they are prone to saying no to the offers of others). We all improvise every day of our lives. Plus, its super funny sometimes.
I think it's popular in the sense of "lots of people want to do it" because when it's done well, it looks as easy as playing "Cowboys and Indians" or "Cop and Robbers" or anything else you played when you were kids growing up. And it might be that easy...if we remembered how to play by the same "rules" we took for granted when we were five. Relearning those rules (take turns, play nice, call dibs, pretend) is the hard part.
I think it's popular in the sense of "on the increasingly less rare occasions people see it, they like it" because it's real, funny, smart, reflective of society's foibles, and sometimes there are fart jokes.
Unless you live in Chicago or a place where there is a Second City school, I don't believe it is. Improv has always been the "B*stard Art" of theatre. A lot of "legit" actors turn up their noses at improv, as does a lot of society. In a community, all it takes is a group of people who want to do theatre and see improv as being a simple form of theatre and putting up a bunch of bad shows or even just one bad show, to make life hard on any real improvisers who try to put a show up in that town. It is the duty of any troupe to keep growing in the art and to always be expanding what they do so that what audience they do have is never bored or tired of the format they put up.
Bob Kennedy
I'm not sure "popular" is the right word. More of a cult following. Since the potential for gruesome failure is always at hand, we get a lot of the people who otherwise would go to stock car racing and hope for a really good crash. Also, unlike most other types of theater, improv actually encourages the audience to believe that they, too, could be on-stage with maybe a couple of lessons and a few shots of Wild Turkey in them.
"Popular" to whom? The audience or the people who do it? I do not agree with the term "cult following." I think improvisation, like country music, goes in and out of style every two to four years. It's riding high the way it used to in the mid eighties. (And that is partly due to things like Whose Line Is It Anyway?).
But I do agree with Bob in the car wreck theory. People love improv for the win/lose aspect of it all. When they crash and burn its as though you can't turn away...and you have to sit and watch the actor suffer and die on stage. And see if a medic (another actor) can revive them.
When you get across the finish line in one piece there is literally cheering coming from an improv house.
That's why I think its so popular: Will there be cheering...or are they going to carry the corpses out?
Right now, due to TV programs. Improv scares many people off, especially those who have no real idea what improv is, or think that improv is only for a young drunk audience. "An educated consumer is our best customer." The wider appeal will come in time.
I don't; it's not popular at all. It's more of a niche thing. What grows out of improv is popular (comedy movies, shows like Saturday Night Live and Mad TV) and now Whose Line is it Anyway?is on in the USA, so its popularity is growing.
Roger Winn - Comedy Helper (Denver, Colorado)
I'm not sure if improv is really popular. It seems to be in a few cities, but if it were really that popular, would so many good groups be playing in coffee houses? Wouldn't some tavern/pub have a place for them where the potential income would be higher? This was a discussion I remember in Kansas City: Does improv have an audience that consists of mostly "regular" people or mostly other improvisers? Food for thought. Other interactive theatre (to push the term Jeff Wirth talked about in KC) does well--murder mysteries, Tony and Tina's Wedding-type shows--in bringing in the average citizen, but does improv?
Paul Killam
I don't think it's that popular. I think people like watching improvisation because: it's live; it's immediate; it's surprising; it's smart; it's funny (generally); it's cheap (generally); and it's over.
I'm off my high horse now--I think improv is popular because there is a familiarity in the performances. We (the improvisers) tend to perform what we know, which, coincidentally, is what the audience knows.
I think improv is popular on TV right now because producers, too lazy to come up with their own ideas, have finally noticed the wonders of improv. For years, the standard line has been "improv doesn't work on TV". That's changed, thanks to Whose Line.
. . . It's unpredictable. With some sitcoms you can tell the punchline before the actor says it. (in improv) The audience is rarely talked down to. There's something for everyone: physical comedy, verbal comedy, parody, satire, music, zaniness. There is the excitement of a sporting event: Will they complete the game successfully? How will they deal with a difficult suggestion? Etc. I think the bottom line is that it is funny.
Wayne Brady
(right, with fellow improviser Greg Proops) - Whose Line is it Anyway?
Because it's so unlike (anything else). People like to see other people challeneged.
Mucho thanks to all of the great people from the improv newsgroup who took the time to answer my question. Answers were presented as received with only minor grammatical editing. Also, a big thank you to Mr. Brady and Mr. Mochrie for their massive help. Thank you to Vanessa Emlich for use of her picture (Wayne and Greg). To those who I quoted or anyone else for that matter, please send any corrections/complaints to me.
