Charna Halpern - 6/4/07 - Part 2

JF: What would you say the role of IO has been in the development of the improv community?


CH: Oh, it's totally responsible. I mean there was no improv community before Improv Olympic. Before I started Improv Olympic and I was leaving Players Workshop, we would go to night clubs that had bands and beg them to let us have the stage for 10 minutes. They'd say 'You've got to ask the front man, because there's equipment on the stage.' And the front man would say 'Yeah, maybe 5 minutes, but you've got to put me in the scene or something.' That's it. That's how we did it. Dan Castanelleta would get little gigs for his group at a restaurant, the Firehouse, in Evanston. We'd do lights for him. There was no opportunity. There was nowhere to go.

Then when Improv Olympic started I started producing teams and the teams would try to get spots at little bars to try and rehearse the nights that I didn't have shows. I only had shows one night a week. I had like 6 teams at the time. I remember early on there was a story in The [Chicago] Reader that suddenly there were all these little troupes popping up. I blame Improv Olympic. [laughs] Yeah, it got bigger and bigger.

Then what happened there were some people that got cut from IO along with Doug Deffenbach and they just decided 'We're just going to start our own place, The Playground.' I was like 'Good, that's what you should do.' Then people who weren't getting on teams here were going there and getting good at their stuff. The people would come back and go we're getting good. So, I thought it was a great thing.


JF: What makes a good improv teacher?


CH: Someone who clearly knows the work. A really good teacher doesn't just give notes. A really good teacher gets involved right away from the first step. If you've had enough experience, you can see the scene going wrong right away. You can stop it, make the correction and put them on the right track and have them do a successful scene. So, someone who's involved with the side-coaching can make something work. I think that is the most important thing about a good teacher. To sit there at the end and tell them why it sucked can be very frustrating to them. They will learn more by succeeding, by seeing 'Oh, I see how that felt. Now that you're telling me to do this now I see what's going on,' or 'I see what's going on. He said something and I didn't listen. I just grabbed that idea and now that I did that we're moving forward.'


JF: Do you have any advice for people to make them good side-coacher, because I imagine that could be frustrating to people as well if it's done poorly?


CH: Again, you have to really know your stuff. Too many times I find people who aren't finding the right thing that's wrong with the scene then they're giving them the wrong information. That's very frustrating. That's the hardest thing for me. I make potential teachers sit-in with me and watch them give notes. That makes my decision on whether or not I let them be a teacher. I'll look at them and go 'There's a problem here. Fix it.' Then they'll stop the scene and won't fix the right thing. [laughs] I go 'Oh my God, that's way off.' They're just stopping it because I told them to, because they're saying something like 'That wasn't honest.' What are you talking about? Then there are new teachers who do the right thing and you go 'Oh, you know what's going on.'

You'd be amazed. There are some brilliant performers who are not teachers. I remember Brian Stack, who is a genius, I don't know if you've interviewed him, he's a writer on Conan O'Brien, and I am going to venture out to say he is one of the 3 funniest men in the world, the other two being Adam McKay and Neil Flynn. He couldn't teach. I begged him to teach a class. He said 'Alright, but come with me.' He goes 'All you do is say something funny, then people laugh.' I go 'No, that's what you do.' He doesn't understand how to break down what he does. He's just a genius. Another person who I tried to teach is Thomas Middleditch. He's a very funny, funny boy. He's one of our top performers here. I'm not sure if he's going to make a good teacher or not, and I'll tell you why actually it's because he's such a good improviser. I had him sitting in with me and there was a scene going wrong and said I 'Tom, what's going wrong with the scene?' And at the point I stopped the scene, he says 'Nothing.' He was like 'They can do this and da da da da, or they can do this, or they can take this. I liked when this happened here.' He can find something out of anything. So, for him, there is no problem with the scene, but he's a great improviser and on stage he doesn't get stuck. But these new kids, they're still getting wet. They don't get why this is stalling. They're not thinking like he is. It's kind of funny. He is so good he finds no problem with it. Ideally, that is how you should be, so it's hard.

I think the reason it's so hard to teach improvisation is because you need to know when you should get in the way and when you shouldn't, because something else could happen. It's very hard to know when you should keep your mouth shut. There have been a lot of times where I'm like 'Hmm, I should stop it, but I'm going to see what happens,' and something great happens and I'm like 'Thank God I didn't stop it.'


JF: In your opinion, what makes a great team? And when you were putting together teams did you look for anything in particular?


CH: Mmhm, I used to look for someone who was very literate, someone who could maybe narrate some kind of historical scene, a mythological scene, so he could keep everyone on track, find the levels. I'd look for a wild card, like Chris Farley, a high-energy crazy person, who was always funny even if he didn't know what was going on. I would look for people with different experiences believe it or not. The more diversity the more fun it was going to be. It was kind of cool for me, because I would see people who would never hang out with each other in their lives become friends. Like Barron's Barracudas, there was this guy who edited my book, Kim Howard Johnson, biggest geek in the world. They would have never been friends with Howard, but they loved him. He's this big comic book guy, SciFi/Fantasy type background. He added everything to that team. Then you have Pasquesi who's this funny genius. John Judd this incredible actor who'd bring emotion to the scene. It was all these wonderful different people.


JF: In your mind, what makes a good initiation?


CH: In my mind, it's not necessarily the initiation. It's usually the second line that makes the scene. [laughs] You can come out with anything and it's what the second person does with it that makes the scene work. Anything makes a good initiation. You can come out and cry. You can come out and give a piece of a information. You can come out and stand there and be a statue. I don't think there's a such a thing as a bad initiation. You can say 'Fuck you. I hate you,' and that's right. What makes it good is somebody get out there, and if somebody's out there, good.


J: In your opinion, what is the 'game of the scene?' What does that term mean and how important is it to good improv?


CH: I think finding the game of the scene is really fun. You're really paying attention to each other and it kind of falls into the relationship, like the Monty Python scene: 'Is this the room for an argument?' 'I already told you so.' 'No, you didn't.' 'Yes, I did.' 'No, you didn't.' It's just a game. It gives you a fun thing to play.

I think there can be any number of games in a scene, and that makes it fun and it helps you develop the relationship even more. I think if it's just a scene where there is no relationship it's going to stall. I think there are some places that will teach the game and not the relationship and how to build a relationship between two people, and they're not doing really good work because of that.


JF: How important is 'the game' in the IO class system?


CH: It's important in level 1, because we're teaching how to listen and hear what the person is asking for. So, a game can be termed as an initiation. If we do an opening and the opening is about child abuse, then I start a scene with you and go 'Father, can I have one piece of bread today?' That's a game room. To answer your question about initiations, am I initiating a good idea? I'm initiating the idea that you're a mean father and that you should abuse me. I think that's important to finding the relationship. That's what we teach right in the beginning.
A lot of people come to me very confused from Second City, and I'll say 'You're always supposed to say yes to everything.' And they get confused because saying yes means not saying yes to the character but to the actor. So, if I say to you 'Father, can I have a piece of bread please. Get back in your cage.' There are many students who will say 'Oh, he denied you,' but no you didn't deny me. You said yes to me. I'm saying to you 'Hey, here's my idea. You're going to be an abusive father who's starving me.' 'I got it.'

That's where slow comedy comes in. 'So, what does she want from me? She wants me to be an abusive father. What's the best response? I'll say no, back in your cage.' That could take a good 15 seconds. That's why we need to play slow comedy, so you can think and hear between the lines of what I'm really asking for, so you can say yes. But people get confused. They think you should go 'Oh, sure, you hungry? You want a steak?' That's what I normally teach people with finding the game. It's listening between the lines, where you and him agree. But you're not agreeing to what the character is asking for, you're agreeing to what the actor is asking for.


JF: In your opinion, what makes a good opening?


CH: I think a good opening helps the team to know what this is about, a thesis statement, like when you're trained in college how to write a paper. What is your thesis statement and what does it set out to prove? That's why the opening is so important. People don't get it. They think it's like warming up and it's not. I want you to be warmed up before you get on stage. This is 'What are the statements that we're going to be proving?' And all the information that comes out of this information we're going to use, so the audience sees the first level of connections. So, if we do an opening about conspiracy theories and we talk about Kennedy and Marylyn Monroe, the Mafia, the C.I.A., Bush, whatever, then someone starts a scene going 'Happy birthday to you,' as Marylyn Monroe you're going to get a laugh right away, because the audience sees 'Ah, they're keeping this Marylyn Monroe/Kennedy thing.' So, that's the first level of connections. That's where you get the laugh. And we know where it's coming from.

One of my best openings, I'll never forget, was The Family. The did a pattern game with monologues. It was Christmas time, and the audience gave us the suggestion of 'Santa.' They did this pattern game with monologues. It was about homelessness, suicide, loneliness, death. All of the wonderful things we have for the holidays, not all of them have to be cheery. And some of them were very funny. Some of them were very poignant. At the end they started a group game to end the piece where they were Christmas caroling. They were going 'Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,' then Miles takes a gun puts it in his mouth, blows off his head and falls on the ground. They closed in the circle a little bit. They started singing 'Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.' Adam takes out a noose, puts it around his neck and hangs himself. They close in the circle again. 'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.' Neil kills himself. They all find incredible ways. You have 6 big guys laying on top of each other in a pile of bodies, and little Rachel Datch is standing alone next to the bodies. She starts singing 'Silent night, holy night.' She points to the bodies. 'Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.' Blackout. The audience is just in shock. That's when the theme was Santa, but that wasn't what they were saying. It wasn't like they were saying 'Hey, America, merry Christmas.' They were saying 'Hey, go out and give the money to a homeless person. Go take care of someone who's sad over the holidays. This is what it's about. It wasn't about Santa.'


JF: So, you think it's important to have a theme for a long-form?


CH: Say that again.


JF: Do you think it's important to have a theme for a long-form? Does that add something?


CH: Sure, you've got to be saying something. You've got to come on different levels. Otherwise what are you doing? You're just up there being funny. You're got to make a thesis statement. And you've got a bunch of statements being made in a piece. There has to be a statement. You have to get off the stage and let the audience know that yeah, we said something to you just now. We have something to say, no matter what it is. You've got to have something to say. Otherwise what are you doing up there? Absolutely, you have a responsibility to say something.


JF: I saw something that you were offering a mask class for improvisers. How important do you think mask work and acting training is for improvisers and how do you think that helps them?


CH: Mask work is a class in possession. It really shows you how to do character. These things transform you. You start to feel. When they take off their mask, they're like 'Holy cow, I was in another world.' Then I can show them you can do that without a mask. Look what happens with your eyes wide. What kind of things happen to you? Look what happens when you flare your nostrils. What kind of person are you? If you walk a certain way, what kind of things come to you? They really get that feeling right away, that they're channeling something. When you do character work, it's like that too. It's like channeling. So, that's just kind of a direct route to another realm. It's incredible. If you wanted to sit in on a mask class sometime, you'd be blown away. I've seen people cry in scenes, characters just down out start crying and the whole group start crying because they're so emotional.

As far as acting training, ...that's what we're doing. This is what we're doing. A lot of people think 'Well, I've taken improv. Now I'll do acting classes.' Well, this is acting. There's nothing more serious than comedy. If you want to be effective in the scene, you have to truly act. You can't be like 'Wink, wink, nod, nod. I'm doing this scene.' The humor comes out of the tension of a scene. In order for us to laugh, in order for us to get that release, we have to see a goddamn serious scene. It's not just comedy. You can make them laugh. You can make them cry. You can make them feel. You can make them feel.

I always tell my students 'It doesn't impress me if you can make me laugh. Anyone can make me laugh, but what will really make me take my hat off to you is if you can make me go 'Oh,' then I think you're good.'


JF: Do you have any pet peeves when watching or teaching improv?


CH: Yeah, I do. Let me think back to what they all are. I hate when people run on stage and say 'We're so and so, Spontaneous Combustion, let me hear you clap. Let's hear it,' when they haven't even done anything yet. I hate when people make an audience clap for them when they haven't done anything. You do something good and we'll clap. Just walk on stage. Be respectful, say 'We're so and so,' and start your piece. Don't beg for claps.

I don't really like when people break on stage. That means they're not really committing. I think a lack of commitment is my biggest pet peeve. Some team is trying to build something really cool, whether it be physical or verbal, and somebody else stands off the stage with their arms folded going 'I'm too cool for that. I'm not going to do that.' Then that's not going to succeed. It's only when everyone's fully committed that something cool will come out of it. I remember giving that lesson for the first time with Blue Velveeta, one of my favorite teams. They're all standing in a straight line. We're talking Kevin Dorff, Susan Messing, really amazing people. 3 on one side started to make a computer where it was a machine, connecting movements and sounds, then Brian Blondell was in the middle, then there were 3 on the other side doing something to make the computer. And it wasn't quite happening. It was just 6 people with somebody in the middle trying to do something. Brian was looking to the left, looking to the right like 'Oh God, this is so dorky.' Finally, he realized 'Oh fuck.' He had to do it. And he did it. He connected the two sides and the audience roared, but it wasn't going to happen until he got involved. We talked about it afterwards. I was like 'Big lesson there, huh?' So, that's the biggest I'll see once in a while with a newer team is less commitment.


JF: Has improv changed your personality at all?


CH: I've always had a good personality. [laughs] You mean me or somebody else?


JF: You specifically. Has it changed your personality at all or what you want from life or anything like that? If it hasn't, it hasn't.


CH: It's helped me realize that this is a philosophy of life. I've had some wonderful things happen to me because of improvisation and because of Del Close. One thing I've learned is this yesand theory works as a philosophy for life, because if you say 'yes,' things will happen to you. If you say 'no,' nothing will happen. And I've had some pretty interesting things happen to me because I said yes.

Another thing I've learned is that life is more interesting than what I planned. I planned to be a High School teacher and look what happened. I'm running this huge empire, having the funniest friends in the world. I've written two books and a movie and I never planned to do any of that. So, that's how improvisation is: it's just more interesting than you planned.


JF: Why do you think improv is becoming more and more popular?


CH: I think because sky diving is dangerous. Bowling is boring.


JF: [laughs] Right. So, it's the best alternative. It's better than those two.


CH: Because look at my shows in L.A. On Tuesday night Madtv plays. I don't pay them. They play every Tuesday night. Saturday night Neil Flynn plays, David Koencher, Andy Ritcher. All these guys play. I don't pay them. I could never afford to pay those people. Why do you think they play? They love to play and hang out with their friends, then drink afterwards and laugh. That's their fun. That's their social life. That's their exercise. Madtv had to jump through hoops to get Fox to do that, because it's the entire cast and the writers playing every Tuesday night. Why are they doing that? I don't know. They're having fun. They're having more fun than they've ever had in their life.


JF: If you had to identify a handful moments that were important in the development of iO, what would they be, if any?


CH: Meeting Del Close. Hands down. Nothing more important than that. I think the second thing would be Del Close and I then meeting people who agreed with the vision and agreed that this idea of taking care of each other, and becoming a family and working to help each other is a really good idea, because those people with like minds have stayed with this theater for ages and ages and ages. [IO] had its 25 anniversary and Mike Myers flew back from Scotland on his own dime. And there's a reason that people do things like that. They believe in what they were taught. They believe in throwing down the gauntlet for the next group, saying 'Hey look, this place is important to me. It should be important to you.' I had like 30 stars come back to IO for the anniversary show, and it wasn't because of me. It's because of each other. I hope some of it was because of me, but it's like Thanksgiving you go home for the family would be upset. And Mike loves it. Mike likes to come home, because this is a place where he can be one of the guys. He wants to be one of the guys. This is a place where can be one of the guys. He's not the big star. It's so funny. When I talked to his people, his people were like 'You have to have a car for Mike to come from the hotel to the show,' which was across the street. We were at the Chicago Theater. But when Mike actually got there, he was like 'I don't want a car. I want to walk over with Timmy. I'm with so-and-so. I'm hanging out here.' He wanted to be with the guys. He didn't want that star treatment. So, it's a family thing, and the people that stuck it out, the people that still stick it out are the people who agree with the vision.


JF: Do you have anything that you would like to say to the improv community that we didn't get out in the interview?


CH: I think it's important to remember, that I didn't mention to you here, was that it was very hard to get started. Improv had the reputation of just being a tool, and not really being an art form that somebody could pay to see in a show. There have been times over the years, when, not the current ComedySportz, but ComedySportz from Milwaukee was at Chow and they were thrown out because it was so bad. And we couldn't even get people when we took over the space. People wouldn't come in, because they saw improv and thought that it was bad.

I think that while we're lucky there are so many places to perform the downside of that is that people think 'Well, I don't have to get good. I can go here. I can go to The Playground. I can go wherever, a bar.' Then people will look at it and say 'Oh, improv isn't good.' We have to be very careful. We have to treat it gently and take care of it. It took a lot of years for me to build this thing, and I'd hate for it to become so homogenized that it's boring and 'Uch, I've seen this.' We have to be careful to want to really want to be good at your craft. That's all I ask. Please want to be good at the craft before you get on stage. I know you want to get on stage. I know it will be fun, but please be good. That's all I ask.