The Most Spectacular Implosion of My Entire Acting Career (Improv Debriefing)

One of the main focuses (foci?) of my trip out here was taking improv lessons with The Groundlings. As I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, I have learned so much about improv…does that mean that I’m good at it? No. It means that I’ve “learned” about it, and now I’m more knowledgeable about it than I was before the summer began. When I got started out here I realized that I had additional time that I could fill with other learning opportunities, and I checked out Second City. They had a set of classes that fit my timeframe for being out here, which I thought was fantastic. I signed up that night on the spot. I also check Upright Citizens Brigade, but their schedules didn’t jive with mine, so it was Second City.

 

I used to think that since I was quick at coming up with what to say on stage that it was improv, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a whole different way of thinking, and in fact, there were so many little principles that one can take from the classes and apply it to their everyday lives, not just when they’re performing. I’ve always known that acting is mostly listening and then reacting thanks to my early theatrical performances at First Presbyterian with Thom Hofrichter. Listening is so important. And now that I’ve done some shows, and I’ve seen several more, it is obvious when you see someone on stage that isn’t listening to the other actors. They’re speaking when they’re supposed to, but you can see them not reacting honestly. It’s pretty easy to spot at times, and that’s one of the biggest acting tips that I ever got as an actor…LISTEN to the other actors. Don’t just “hear” them…but “listen” to them.

What else did I learn from these two very good, and very different, schools/institutions of improv? One of the biggest things that I had to go through and will continue to battle…improv is NOT about trying to be funny. It’s about living in the moment. It’s about being the best group that you can be…not the best individual.  The people that say the crazy stuff, and come up with the most detailed/developed content when performing improv are generally those individuals that already had something planned and they want to shake things up.  For example, they’ll throw in alien abductions or other outlandish things when the scene is supposed to be a couple unpacking groceries while gossiping about the neighbors next door. While the alien premise might be interesting, it doesn’t go with the scenario that the other actors are working on and developing. It might be something that would work better in a scripted sketch situation/scenario, but not improve. There’s usually a place for everything in comedy in some form, but one must find the write form/medium that will do the content justice and get the bigger honest reaction from the audience.

My time with Second City was outstanding. I felt very comfortable and free to make choices, and free to fail as well. Not everything worked, and the rebounding quickly from failure with a positive attitude is something that I admire. The other participants were much younger than my Groundlings group. I don’t know if that had an impact. The setting was vastly different than Groundlings. At Second City, we were on the second floor, and we had a ton of natural light coming through the windows, and we were on a busy street (Hollywood Blvd. – a few blocks east of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre). There were about 15 people in the class, which was similar in size to The Groundlings classes, but in Second City’s there was a group of four friends that did it together, and two other duos that knew each other before hand. So, roughly half the class already had connections when they walked in the door, and it felt a little more comfortable off the bat based on all of the chatting/bantering going on.

 

I honestly had more confidence going into Second City. Perhaps I am building confidence in my improv abilities, or perhaps I was just more comfortable in that particular setting, I’m not sure. The teachers for both schools were kind, talented, and both very knowledgeable…but as a teacher myself, I found myself critiquing their time management and classroom management. I couldn’t shut off that part of my brain, and I felt like Second City could’ve been a little tighter with the scheduling, but I felt like I grew more in my time with them than I did with Groundlings. Maybe it’s just that I had already blown off my comedy cobwebs with Groundlings, and now I was ready to play/work/refine with Second City.

With both institutions, we played a number of games geared at getting your brain to think in a different way, and as I mentioned before, it’s important to not try to be funny necessarily. In fact, we did an activity at Second City where we were to respond to a situation/scenario and dialogue directed at us, and right before we were to speak, he wanted us to stop/pause. Whatever the emotion we were going to play when we opened our mouth, he told us to do a different emotion. This was to train us that sometimes our first reaction/emotion isn’t the only one to play. Sometimes it’s easy to jump into rage/anger, but what if you reacted to your underage daughter’s pregnancy as a concerned parent with excitement instead of rage…it would probably make a much more interesting improv scene.

I completed my Second City experience prior to wrapping up at The Groundlings, and when I went back to Groundlings for the last time, I had the best class that I had all summer. I had an uber-amount of confidence. I don’t think I necessarily was the best in the class or anything, but I had no nerves, and I made choices without fear of failure. That was a HUGE transformation from the beginning of the summer, heck, from a few weeks ago.  I’m pretty confident that my additional workshopping with Second City helped to refine my focus for improv prior to wrapping up down the road.

As I said previously, the instructors were both good/talented teachers. The Second City instructor was much more personable and approachable. That’s not a slight against Groundlings, but it was a noticeable difference. In fact, upon completing Second City, the instructor had a little one-on-one chat with me about my experience.  He was beyond complimentary, and he made me blush. I had to miss a portion of the course so that I could do the Star Wars tour (blog post to come shortly), and when I returned to Second City both he and three classmates said that I was missed. I sheepishly said, “Yeah, right. Thanks though.” And they all defended their statements, “No, really. You could sense such a different dynamic without you here.” I thought that was pretty flattering. 

When I had my conference with Mike (Second City), he reiterated what he said previously about missing me. He said, “There are three of you in the class that whenever you’re performing you can just ‘see’ something special…you more so than them. Your poise, your confidence, how you hold yourself when you’re on stage, the way you look at them in the eye all the time and you’re not fidgety. It’s a bright, shining light that everyone notices and it gives them something to strive for.”

He made me blush. I couldn’t believe it. I at no time ever felt like “a bright, shining light” when I was up there. I was always working on what the objective was for that particular activity, and I kept building on the principles of improv (listening, agreeing with what’s been said to me, helping the group not yourself, etc.). That’s all I was thinking of…that and not falling flat on my face. I always work really hard at my acting, or in this case improv, and it’s always nice to hear positive things….but from a relative stranger(s) to go out of their way to make me feel good. It worked, I blushed, and I don’t embarrass very easily, but they succeeded.

Finally, my biggest fail of my very limited improv experience(s). The last hour and a half of Second City dealt with singing. I have no problem with singing in front of people, but this was Whose Line is it Anyway? singing.  I was petrified. I have NEVER been petrified to perform, and I rarely get even an elevated heartbeat when I’m getting ready to perform on stage. My brain was screaming at me to excuse myself from the class for a restroom break and sneak away. You know, the coward approach. But as I’ve said since before I came out here I want to experience everything that I can. I’m here to learn. I’ve gone out of my comfort zone so many times this summer, and now I was going to plunge even further down that path. As Robert California said, “Fear plays an interesting role in our lives…how dare we let it into our decision-making, into our livelihoods, into our relationships?” Well, I wasn’t going to be scared of performing. That’s why I’m here.

A new/guest instructor that has 20+ years of musical improv experience at Chicago’s Second City is a recent LA transplant and he’s working on developing a musical improv curriculum at the LA training center. He walked us through the two types of responses…now, everyone, think of Whose Line? and you’ll know what I’m talking about. When they start playing the keyboard on that show, the audience gives a scenario, and then BOOM, then the actors start singing. They start with either a blues riff (“Sweet Home Chicago,” for example) or they do a hoe down. It’s usually one of those two. For our purposes, we did “Sweet Home Chicago”…we did the blues route.

He broke it down much like I break down sonnets/poems in class…with a rhyme scheme. So, he asked for volunteers…and I was petrified, but I literally threw myself out of my chair and I was the second one in line before I could think anything of it. I’m here to combat any nerves/fear and go for broke.  To express my nervousness let’s just say that I was zero nervous when I jumped out of my first plane, and I was plenty nervous now.  Crazy, I know, but it’s the truth. I was completely foreign to this concept, and I was always in awe of how they did it on the fly. He taught us a few tricks, or rather, he gave us some advice…mostly involving rhyming (single syllable words at the end because it’s easier to rhyme, etc.) and then we were off.

The first type of response from us needed an AAB rhyme scheme. And really, the first two lines are simply repeated…think of a blues song you know, and how they wail the same line over and over at times, that’s how it starts. In essence, we had to come up with one line (which repeated) and being able to rhyme a third line to the first two…and obviously, it has to make sense too…all on the fly.

My turn came and someone threw out GUN as my topic. They could say anything they wanted, and I wish I could remember what I sang, but it was something similar to this:

 

“I just came out of Walmart with a shiny new gun.

I just came out of Walmart with a shiny new gun.

Can’t think what to do, let’s go have me some fun.”

BOOM! Did it, nailed it, sounded good as I took on a raspy, bluesy voice just for fun. Actually, I was hoping my character voice would earn me points for my inevitable BOMBING of my first attempt. The guy before me unfortunately did bomb, but we were told to push through it, and who cares, we’re just learning. So, we all cheered for him anyway, and he smiled. But when I actually made it through and hit the objectives, all of them (timing, phrasing, RHYMING) they went nuts. It was a pretty good feeling.

Now, the second time we went through this exercise it was much more developed in our responses to the topics. In all honesty, I NEVER grasped what I was really supposed to do. I knew I was going to fail, I tried my best, but I bombed…spectacularly. If someone had nightvision goggles on and watched me, it would’ve looked like one of those missile strikes we saw back in Desert Storm in the early nineties…for those alive at the time.  Or that video of that one smart bomb dropping with a camera on it, and we see the building get closer, and closer, and then BOOM! That was me. I don’t think I’ve ever failed so magnificently, but I knew that I would, maybe that was the problem. I am used to having confidence, and I had already determined that I was going to fail. So, I failed.

The rhyme scheme was something like ABCBDD. Something like that. I couldn’t visualize the actual lines ahead of time. I was too busy trying to simple THINK of lines to fill the stanza, and then I have to rhyme 2 and 4? Oh, and set up 5 and 6 to rhyme too? I thought to myself, “Give me one minute and some paper and a pencil and I could do it.” But that’s the trick, isn’t it? Doing it off the top of your head. I was so inexperienced…or petrified…that I couldn’t clear my mind. It’s like if you’re on stage and you completely blank. Like the Actor’s Nightmare. I had it that day at Second City.

 

 

I’m was so grateful for the opportunity to do the musical improv, and I think it would be something that I could do better if I could study it a bit more…in all honestly, a lot more, oh, and actually find out what the rhyme scheme was before hand and practice. It would really be a great addition to any improv comedian’s bag, and not everyone can do it the instructor said. I can see why. It was so challenging. It was exhilarating, and when I walked out at the end, I was proud of myself for not backing down. I was proud of myself for my little success even though I blew up the second time.  Maybe it was this massive failure that gave me the added confidence going into my last Groundlings lesson.

I really had a different mindset or something when I walked into that last Groundlings. It must’ve been a compilation of all of my lessons/activities over the last six weeks all rolled into this last day. Or I knew that there was NO way that I could bomb as amazingly as I had just done with the song, so I was golden.

I went all out at Groundlings, more so than I had done in the past, and ironically, we did “four line poems.” Four people stood in a line, one person steps out and does one line, the second does a different line with a non-rhyming ending, and then the trick comes, the third person has to rhyme to the first line, and then the fourth has to rhyme to the second. ABAB is the rhyme scheme, and all four lines have to be complimentary to each other and build from each other in substance, not just rhyming.  There was no singing required, and I had zero nerves. I was the first one to jump up again, and I nailed it. We did it 5-6 times, and I was very confident. More confident than I typically was at Groundlings, so I was pleased with that. I was able to make bolder choices than I had previously, and I wasn’t playing it so safe.

In conclusion, it was a very eye opening summer for me as a performer as I’ve stated above and in previous posts. I’m beyond grateful to have had this opportunity to play in these imaginary worlds and learn from two of the most well-respected comedy troupes in the world. It truly was an experience that I hope to not soon forget, and I’m excited for future acting opportunities where I’ll be able to tap into and apply some of the principles that I’ve learned this summer.