Improv Interviews

Charna Halpern - 6/4/07 - Part 2

2007-06-04T11:51:00.000-05:00

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.

Charna Halpern - 6/4/07 - Part 1

2007-06-04T11:30:00.001-05:00

Charna Halpern is easily one of the people most responsible for the growth of long-form improv community. Along with Del Close, she is the co-founder of iO and its current owner. iO now operates theaters and training centers in Chicago, Los Angeles and North Carolina, and has trained thousands of improvisers. Charna studied at Second City and with Del Close, and has been teaching at iO since its inception. She recently released the book 'Art by Committee,' a follow-up to the classic book 'Truth in Comedy' which she co-authored.

JF: Where were you born?

CH: Chicago.

JF: What were some early influences on your sense of humor?

CH: My parents were the earliest. They were very funny people. Diner was very fun. My dad was kind of like a Don Rickles. We had to defend ourselves and take it.

JF: Did you look for any of that in the humor that you found fun later on in your life?

CH: I think it was an influence on my sarcasm, then later, watching tv I was influenced by the Smothers Brothers.

JF: When did you know that you wanted to get involved with show business and performing?

CH: Not until I started taking improv classes. It was in college, upper college. Even when I was in college I was studying to be a teacher, and I even taught for a couple years in a school for juvenile deliquents. I had a minor of theater in college. If you were a Speech major, you had to take a second major. I actually had Speech and English as a double major, then I was a minor in theater. So, they made me do a few plays, and my plays always turned into comedies. I would resort to comedy and the directors would tear their hair out. I was in an Ionesco play called 'No Exit.' It's a short play where these two people realize this is their hell, to be together forever in this same room. To prove that the girl is lying to me, I'm supposed to pick up this knife and stab her. So, we're on stage and I picked up the knife. The prop department made the knife. [laughs] And I picked it up and it fell apart. So, I had to strangle her. I guess I had a funny reaction on my face. I was surprised and I started strangling her and the whole audience was in hysterics. There was my first foraye into comedy.

JF: So, how did you get involved with improv comedy?

CH: I was actually at a party and I met Tim Kazarinski. I remember fooling around, doing bits and he said that I should be on stage. He set me up with an audition for Second City, which of course I failed miserably because I didn't even know what it was. They had you do cold readings and I was like 'What the hell is going on here?' Then I wanted to find out what it was that I just lost. Then I started to watch shows. I thought 'You can do this? This is great.' So, I started taking classes at Players Workshop, which is now something totally different, so I don't recommend it. Yeah, I was hooked.

JF: And about what year was that if you don't mind saying?

CH: I'm going to say that was about 80. Maybe 1979.

JF: So, what were those early classes like in Players Workshop?

CH: They were pretty bad now that I look back on it. [laughs] Now that I realize how to do it I realize how much was wrong that I was taught. I was taught that if you give someone what we call now-a-days 'a gift,' like if I say to you 'Bob, I'm so sorry you've become a parapelegic and [inaudible]' you kind of know what I'm expecting from you, they would call that a 'lay-on.' Every time you'd give someone information they'd say 'You're laying-on information. Don't lay-on information.' It wasn't until I met Del that I learned no, you're telling him something, that's a gift. I was totally taught not to give that gift. [laughs] So, now that I look back. I'm like 'Wow, that's terrible.'

JF: So, were people doing actual improv scenes in those classes?

CH: Oh yeah, they were teaching Second City stuff, like the warm-up and [shift [?]]. You know if you do something I do it bigger then bigger. More structured scenes than relationship scenes that were really improvised, that's what I remember doing more.

JF: How did you get involved with the kind of improv that you would come to identify as long-form improv?

CH: Well, that didn't even exist when I was a student. I read about David Shepard coming to town. David, I had read in 'Something Wonderful Right Away,' had created this game competition called Improv Olympic in Canada, but it didn't go over well. I know now that's because David was a little scattered to say the least. So, when he came to town I saw him and thought to myself 'Well, heck, I can do that Improv Olympic thing here if he'll give me a crack at it. I have an improv group. Dan Castellanetta has an improv group.' There were so many of us who graduated the Players Workshop who didn't have a place to play, because there wasn't Improv Olympic. There was only Second City, and if you weren't on the Main Stage of Second City you weren't playing. There wasn't even an ETC.

So, I approached him and he said 'Yeah, if you think you can pull it off, do it.' So, I got my group, Dan Castellanetta's group, a guy named Frank Farrell had a group called 'Free Shakespeare,' and we started to perform. We were doing games and were very successful. I even got a team of improvisers that were Rabbis called 'The God Squad.' [laughs] I started doing things to get press by making identity teams. It was successful. We were packing CrossCurrents, but after a few months the work was really bad. It was game-y and commercial. We were resorting to the same tricks. It was always the same ending. It started to get boring, and I knew something was wrong if we started getting bored.

I had heard about Del Close over the past year and that he hated me, because he hated David Shepard. He hated anyone that worked with David Shepard. I was mad about that. He didn't know me. He hadn't seen my shows. So, I just thought 'This guy's a real asshole.' I met him in an art gallery, and we had a very bad first meeting because he was doing something called the Innovacation and I thought he was invoking demons. I went up to him and told him he had a lot of nerve to invoke demons. He was like 'Um, I protected the building.' I was like 'You can't do that,' and walked away. Now if he didn't hate me before, he definitely hated me now, but I figured he didn't know who I was.

So, at the time again, back when I'm bored at CrossCurrents, I saw him sitting in the cafe one day at CrossCurrents, which was a bar and a lobby and a theater. So, I went up to him and asked him if he wanted to teach a class for Improv Olympic. He goes 'Can I do anything I want?' I was like 'Yeah.' He goes 'Can I invoke demons?' I was like 'Yeah.'

He taught an amazing class. He showed what the Innvocation really was. Afterwards I took him for coffee and I said 'There has to be something more to improvisation than these games.' He said 'Oh, you're not a twit after all.' I said 'Thanks, I guess.' He said 'Well, I've been working on something in the 60's called the Harold, which will change the face of improvisational comedy, but Ruby won't let me work on it, because he's making no ends and he doesn't want to change anything.' He said 'If you want to close down your little game theater and work with me we can change the face of improvisational comedy together.' I was like 'Yes, please.' That's what we did and after long-form was born.

He taught me everything he knew and together we actually came up with this form. He didn't have all the stuff together. It was just like scene after scene after scene. It just went on forever. I told him about one of my favorite games at the Improv Olympic, which was the Time Dash where you had a beginning middle and end. Then he thought 'Well, if we tied that together.' It was the only game at Improv Olympic that I really loved, because it was improv. We didn't know if it was a form or not. Before, during and after the excersize is over. Before, during and after the first meeting. Things progressed. It was real art to me. So, we decided together 'If we take three of those, and one of your opening games and some intersepersed, we can combine both our work.'

JF: I was talking to Dave Pasquesi about the beginning of the Harold and he said there was a lot of experimentation, that people would try a lot of new things to see what worked and what didn't.

CH: Well sure, we went in there with that training wheels plan. It was always an opening with monologues and information, but sometimes we were just wandering around looking at the floor. It was about a year until we figured 'Ok, let's not do that. [laughs] Let's stand there and really focus.' There were a lot of things that slowly changed, but we were all kind of inventing the wheel together. We did have a little bit of the structure. We knew that the scenes were going to come back. We knew that there'd be some monologues. We didn't know what the games were going to be. The games were always improvised. It was really cool. They would go for about 45 minutes back then. After Barron's Barracudas I think Del and I pretty much got it down.

JF: You mentioned that first workshop where Del did the Innvocation with you and some other people. What was it like being in those early workshops and how did it change what you viewed improv as?

CH: It was mind-boggling. We were really learning everything right for the first time. That's the first time we heard 'Say yes to each other. Make each other look good. Why are you pimping each other?' 'We got a laugh.' 'Oh really? You think that's more important?' We were like 'Wow.' We would leave there thinking that he had just given us the secrets to the universe. Think of all the things that we take for granted: the idea of getting a laugh because something was called back, seeing how patterns work. That was mind-blowing to us. 'Oh, we don't have get up there and be funny?' No, it's about call-backs, and if you call-back three times you're going to get huge laughs. We were like 'Holy shit.' This was mind-blowing.

J: So, how did Improv Olympic begin to change and grow as time went on?

C: Basically, we kept getting better and better at long-form. It was about the time that Blue Velveeta came that they got the Harold down. They were doing fast, furious Harolds. It wasn't like Barron's Barracudas anymore, who were doing 45 minutes. There's were like 30 minutes. They knew exactly what was happening and everything would tie up. The opening would connect to the closer. Everything would have levels.

The Barrons were great. They were the pioneers, but they weren't the best team that we ever had. It just got better and better. Blue Velveeta was the best team then, then The Family with Adam McKay the UCB guys. Del described them as 'Watching 6 men fall down the stairs at the same time land on their feet.' Through the years they just hit it, then Del and I decided 'Ok, that's the training wheels Harold. Now we can get it to the point where we don't worry about the form anymore.' We know that now we do a bunch of different scenes. They can take place at different times. It doesn't have to be in order. You can intersperes it with other games. You get it to be different levels of meaning. It was like free-falling now. It wasn't 1, 2, 3, scene, 1, 2, 3, game, 1, 2, 3.

JF: Have you noticed a change in improv over the years? Has it become faster and more condensed, like from Barron's Barracudas to Blue Velveeta? And if so, do you like that? Do you think it's a good step?

CH: Del used to say that we were doing comedy. The reason we were doing slow comedy is because we need time to think, and if we think we'll be more intelligent and the show will be more satisfying. He used to say 'Access your third thought.' Your first thought is your knee-jerk reaction. It's going to be a little jokey. Your second thought is a little better. The third thought is going to be the best. So, our Harolds were all very slow in the old days because they were doing it, then as they started getting better and better at it we started getting better at accessing that third thought. Now it's fast and it's still smart, and that's what we need. If we have some teams that are fast and not smart, then no, I don't like it. If we have a team like The Family was that is smart and could just access that third thought faster, then I like it.

And people are doing it better. Del used to talk about morphogenetic fields. It's kind of like this theory where you put rats in a maze and they can't do the maze, then as soon as a rat does it, then the other rats can do it right away. So, it's kind of like those ideas are trapped in that knowesphere. That's what's been happening here. People are getting better and better at it. And people are coming into classes better. I can see there are certain concepts that the world just has already.

JF: So are you happy with the state of improv? And if it could change in any way how would you like to see it change?

CH: The hard part for me is to keep it as good as it has always been in the past. There are new coaches. They weren't here when Del was teaching, so sometimes I see things being taught wrong. There are wrong values being taught. It's hard for me, because I can't be everywhere. I'm kind of a victim of my own success. I can't be teaching every team. So, I'll see teams on stage and go 'Oh God, they're doing this wrong, or they're not thinking or they don't understand why the opening is so important.' That concerns me. So, I'm not always totally happy, no. Even with some of my best teams I'm never happy. I think that's a director's job though to never be satisfied.

Do I think improv has gotten better over the years? Absolutely. I remember seeing a documentary about the old Second City days with Elaine May and Severn Darden, and oh what's the name. My name just went blank. I'll come up with it in a minute. Do you know the name of the pioneers of Second City?

JF: A couple people. I know Paul Sills.

CH: I know her name. Anyway, Severn and this woman who I'm trying to think of, she walked out on stage, Severn was on his knees and he was planting. He said 'How do you like my garden?' She said 'That's not a garden, that's garbage.' The audience cracked up. She was fantastic. She'd get thrown out of a level 1 class now. But these were the pioneers. This was funny stuff. That's why Del came up with these things, because he was there. He was like 'We shouldn't do that to each other. We can't screw each other over for a joke.' That's what Joan Rivers used to do to him. He did a scene with her, this is the famous story, where she initiated the scene and said 'I want a divorce.' From her initiation he understood that she wanted him to play the distraught husband, so he said 'But honey, what about the children?' She said 'We don't have any.' It got a huge laugh, but he looked like an idiot. What man doesn't know if he has children or not? She would get a laugh at the expense of her fellow players, as a result people didn't trust her on stage. She became a stand-up, but she's not an improviser. It's a different animal, because an improviser should take care of their partners. You're taking a risk to be out there every night. You have to make sure that your partner has your back.

Those are the things he developed with Elaine May. They called them 'The Kitchen Rules.' They'd do a show, he and Elaine and Severn and Mike Nichols, and they'd go back to her apartment and go 'What the hell went wrong tonight? Why was it so bad?' Well, Del said 'When someone said 'We've got a flat tire,' I said 'Ok, I'll fix it. Give me the jack.' Someone said 'No, I don't have a jack. No, there's no jack.' If you had just given me the jack, we could have fixed it, been on our way and seen what the scene was about instead of saying no to each other.' So, they decided 'Ok, we'll say yes to each other. That will be one of the rules.' So, Del was coming up with these rules with Elaine a long time ago.

Susan Messing - 6/4/07 - Part 3

2007-06-04T11:22:00.000-05:00

JF: Do you think that’s in conflict with the idea of being in the moment?

SM: That is being in the moment. Being in the moment is smelling, touching, tasting now. What else is being in the moment? You know what I mean? Do something. Wash dishes in real life and I don’t give a shit. Wash them onstage and it’s fascinating. You can’t make a discovery unless you do something. Otherwise it’s a tiresome invention. When you’re onstage, let’s say I’m staring at myself in the reflection of the plate that I’m washing. I might discover that I’m a vain little bitch. I discover how good my face lift looks. I’m also probably going to end up putting them down to my boobs and deciding what next operation I’m going to have. You will also find me beaming at myself in a spoon. I’m going to look for more opportunities to rape whatever I’ve discovered, and rape my friend and rape my world and myself. Exploit doesn’t work anymore.

JF: Yeah, you have to go bigger.

SM: Well, onstage try it on. Offstage get some therapy. I think it really comes down to people being afraid to fuck it up, and I’m saying you can’t fuck it up. It’s impossible to fuck it up. There are ways to get off better. You can touch my knee for 14 hours. It’s never going to be my clit. I’m going to say ‘Hey, if you go over here you might get back on the joy ride and cum.’ Ever almost cum and your mom calls? You’re like ‘Uch, I’ve got to start all over again.’

JF: Right.

SM: Josh is like ‘Uh, no, but …yeah …ok.’ It just doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. You see, I’m not going to do it anymore if it doesn’t bring me joy. I’m not going to teach it if people don’t get why it’s joyful. That’s my responsibility: to bring in joy every single time.
Group mind, we act like it’s such an ethereal gift. You hear of group mind, right?

JF: Yeah.

SM: Yeah, how do you achieve it?

JF: Uh, …trust.

SM: Really? How about this? Match each other’s fucking energy! I don’t care if you trust him or not. Get over yourself. [laughs] You just match each other’s energy. If you’re the kind of person who likes to sit back and slowly figure things out while everyone else is doing something, then fucking rise to the occasion asshole and pick up your energy. If you’re a person like me who’s a little too pushy, I’ve got to relax my crack and join the predominant energy. That’s being on the same page. Then all the sudden we’re on the same page, and you know what I discover? I trust them.

JF: How do you decide what the predominant energy is? Can simply be observed? Or is it whoever is in the minority doesn’t have the predominant energy?

SM: I know what you’re saying about that. Well, this is it. There’s got to be a central, middle energy for that. Like I said, people who are too pushy need to relax. People who are always being tentative and quite need to pull it up. This is a personal responsibility. I can’t manipulate people’s spines. Everyone has to be responsible for saying ‘fuck.’ I’m not saying you have to give up what makes you beautiful and relaxed and all that good stuff, and I don’t think a high energy person should have to give that up for themselves. But like I said a leader can be a follower, and a follower can be a leader easily. It really is just changing up your energy. When you turn around and realize that everybody is doing what we’re doing, it’s an awesome feeling, isn’t it? We judge ourselves more harshly than anybody else, but then when we paralyze ourselves we’re screwed. That’s a self-paralysis. Frankly, there’s bad table manners in improv, but I can teach people escapes and defenses from that. And frankly, if I’m getting off, I don’t care about someone’s bad table manners. I remember women used to say in Chicago, but they don’t anymore ‘Women follow the rules, and men just play.’ Well, who’s getting off? The playful ones. You realize that it’s because they don’t care about being right or wrong. They don’t can about looking stupid.

JF: Do you think that’s [changed]?

SM: Sure. Yeah, women in Chicago are very grounded now. They don’t blame men for their misfortune. I do a show now called ‘Messing with a Friend’ and the one rule I have is ‘If you don’t have fun, you’re the asshole.’ So that means [laughs] you will find me backstage before the show curled up in a little fetal ball going ‘Oh no, I’m going to be the asshole. The asshole’s my fucking role in my show. Oh my God, I’m going to be the asshole.’ Then my desire to create supersedes whatever weirdness I have to go through in order to create, then the joy ride starts.

JF: How do you balance that desire to have fun or be free onstage with doing work that you consider to be artistic, or artistically valuable?

SM: I think they’re one in the same. You put it onstage and people judge it. I got a review from Chris Jones a couple weeks ago that blew my wad. He put some absolute, esoteric, delightful …I can’t even remember the adjectives that he used to describe me. I’ve got a pre-paid commission for this man to write my obit. It’s redunk. Because you put it onstage, people judge it. People come up to me and ask me about the sociological and economic and political ramifications of Coed Prison Sluts. I would say ‘Did ya laugh?’ I think that when you put it onstage it gets judge. I think that’s when it becomes art. I think art begins when you express yourself and maybe somebody watches it. I guess I could make up art in my bathtub too. I don’t think there’s a balance there. If we decide that we’re always artists, instead of we’re just jacking off on a stage and running, everything will come back together if we trust everything comes back together. Then it will be pretty.

It’s interesting I also teach at DePaul University, Loyola University, and University of Chicago and actors don’t care if it looks stupid. It seems like half of improvising recently is talking people into improvising. ‘There’s no pee in the baby pool. Come right in.’ But people also use improv for different reasons. Not everybody wants to be an improviser. A lot of people want to get along with people better. A lot of people want to come out of their shell. A lot of people want to work in a corporate environment. I don’t think you have to be talented even to be an improviser. I think you have to learn cooperation. Talent I can always pull up in a class. Talent I think in improv comes from self-permission. If there are things that feel funky, like your body feels self-conscious, go to a fucking movement class, or it’s time to take that way gay yoga class. There’s always a cure for that. There’s always something that will put you back in the proactive seat.

JF: How important do you think acting training is to being a good improviser?

SM: Well, I was going to say my actors are willing to do absolutely anything at 9:40 in the morning. My improvisers have to be prodded into it. I do believe that actors do have a better idea of stage picture and taking care of their bodies at the top of the scene and all that good stuff, but I find them to be humorless little people with a perfection problem. [laughs] And they have an attitude problem that can be really hard to get through sometimes. Sometimes they’re wonderful at scene work. I’ve heard people say ‘Oh, he’s such an asshole, but he’s such a good actor.’ I’m thinking ‘That don’t fly with me.’ I’m going to deal with the people who are easiest to get along with. I don’t have time to fuck around with that noise. In class, I have all the patience in the in the world, but in directing I don’t. If you’re a diva, you don’t last long in improv.

JF: You directed Second City shows.

SM: I directed Tour Co. for about a year. That was one of the few jobs I ever quit.

JF: Oh really?

SM: It was more babysitting and the dramedy of the day. It wasn’t pursuing joy. I think a lot of the actors were jaded. There was a lot of entitlement. There was a lot of fussing. I understand when you tour around the country and maybe you feel you’re not getting recognized by your theater, which they really do recognize, but it’s also part of your training. When I was on Main Stage at Second City, it felt like my Phd. in comedy. The Annoyance felt like my Masters and iO felt like my Bachelors. We have to understand that if we do something onstage and later feel crappy that those are growing pains, and be patient with ourselves. They’re pains, but we’re growing. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s only when someone stops you, like Keith Johnstone, and says ‘No, that’s not good enough. Do it over again.’ I’ve seen him do that. I end up going ‘Wait. I thought that every suggestion was great and that we can make flowers out of shit. That’s how I was taught.’ To hear that it’s not good enough means that there’s something better. I always thought that anything could be turned into art and beauty.

JF: When you were at Second City did you ever re-improvise scenes?

SM: Yeah, you have to understand through during my time at Second City I was censored. Like Rich Talarico said ‘They hired you because you were Susan Messing, then told you not to be.’ I think they worried about the fact that I was uncensored and that I’d be a loose cannon on Main Stage. I didn’t worry about that. They put this condition on my being hired that there was a possibility I couldn’t go… They were worried that I would go ‘blue.’ I wasn’t, but they were. In the first show, I didn’t.

What would happen was you would come into the rehearsal, and you could come in with written shit if you wanted. Mostly someone would come in with an idea, and not a very fleshed out idea either. We would improvise it. If we liked it, we would improvise it more and throw it in the set. If we didn’t like it, we’d probably promptly drop it or maybe Mick would see a gem in it that we could left-brain it somewhere else. That second time blues though, re-improvising something, is not always fun. It feels kind of creepy, but you have to do it sometimes. Then finally you beat it out and set it and the script naturally grows out of that, or you sit down and write something funny which I think is more difficult to do.

JF: I was reading something and it mentioned how important Del Close thought improv being a ‘theater of the heart’ was. Do you think that’s prevalent in the improv community or do you think people just do it more for comedy?

SM: I think that sometimes theories sound beautiful, but sometimes the reality is a little more difficult to pursue. But isn’t that a great goal? It really is. I really believe that we have to honor each other and take care of each other no matter where we play, no matter who we play with. The minute you come onstage with judgment is the minute you’re fucked before you start. Self-judgment like I said is the worst, but judgment of our peers is unconscionable. That’s where teamwork comes in, and that’s why it’s so difficult for some people to become a good team player, and that’s when I invite them to become just an actor.

My whole struggle my whole life is to become a good team player. That’s not easy for me. We all have our own agendas. I love that it’s difficult for me. I love that this is the kind of art where the day I stop growing is the day I start dying. You can’t rest on your petty little laurels at this stage of the game. I’ve been improvising over 19 years now and now I’m not going to stop. What? Stop growing? Did the earth stop?

In my evolution or de-evolution as it were, my life experiences change up who I am and how I play. Because if I go back to some tiresome piece of shit I did, trying to be funny, the audience will sense that. This is the thing: the only way to heighten something funny is to say something funnier. I love truth in comedy. I do. I also like changing up status. I love changing up everything. Comedy is a great learning tool. It really is for everybody.

JF: In your opinion, what makes a good initiation and how do you initiate typically?

SM: I guess I initiate with a person in a world and see what happens. I never initiate with plot with nothing else, because if I initiate with plot and my friend beats me to the chase, I’ve got nothing other than Susan Messing standing onstage in defense. [laughs] Because you’re thinking in your head ‘What about my idea?’ That’s why if somebody initiates I can always respond as a human being, even if I take care of myself in the first 3 seconds of the scene. Say I jut out my hips and I look defiant. Well, you can stick me anywhere. I can be your bride. I can be your lawyer. I can be anything. So, I just put a person in a world and see what happens. Or I do something at the top of the scene at the top of the scene and see how I feel about it. Or, if I have jack shit for myself, I match my friend’s energy and we’re already protected.

There was a time I think Emily Wilson once sat down in a chair and kind of straddled it. I had nothing, so I sat in a chair and straddled it as well. My show is that I’m totally inspired by other people’s body positions, like freeze tag where you have to be inspired by that. Emily sat down and said ‘Momma, I have to talk to you.’ I said ‘Sure honey, I can talk to you, but you’re going to have to put 25 cents in the machine. Mommy’s working now.’ Because it reminded me of that bad Madonna video from the 80’s, where she’s dancing for the man. So, she got to have a momma daughter talk with me while momma was in a spoog filled room. [laughs] That gets me off. I love specificity. I totally kills ambiguity.

JF: Why do you think there are so few great improv troupes?

SM: I don’t know why. I think there are so many improv troupes in Chicago that I assume there’s bound to be a good chunk of mediocrity. I’m trying to think about this. I think everybody deserves that time to grow and to be willing to fail. A lot of people have a lot going on. It’s one of several things that they do, so maybe they don’t have the time and energy to it. It’s a luxury. I don’t want to say that their work ethic is any worse of better than anything else. I don’t know how many improv troupes there are in New York, and that you go ‘Oh, that one’s a great one and that one’s not.’ I would assume that it’s their willingness to invest in each other. Maybe other people just don’t have the time or energy to do that. Just because people aren’t that great now doesn’t mean they can’t be in the future. I think anybody can be wonderful. If I can do this, anybody can.

JF: How have you seen improv change over the years?

SM: I just think a lot more people. I think that everybody thinks that they’re creating new forms. They’ve become a bit more sophisticated. It’s certainly more accepted as an art form on its own. It’s reaching far more people. It’s not just people going ‘Is that that thing that you do on ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’’ People don’t ask as many stupid questions. [laughs] Obviously, if they’re taking me into their theater programs to teach their students, the academics are taking it more seriously, which makes me happy because I think I would have been a much better actor sooner had I taken improv in college.

JF: What advice would you have for improvisers starting out now?

SM: For what?

JF: In general. To be successful in this.

SM: Be yourself. Celebrate that you got up today. Enjoy sharing time with other people. Enjoy that people are honoring your choices, and think you’re great until you tell me you’re not. People are their own worse enemy in improv. It’s not that bully on your team, although the bully should go away. [laughs] Go away. There’s no time for that.

JF: Do you have any advice for people who are 8 years into improv or something like that?

SM: They’re losing their minds. Get a life. For a while. Because improv is not going away. After 11 years of improvising, the last thing I wanted to do was mime a cup of coffee. I wanted to make a cup of coffee. And that break gave me enough life-experience again to recommit to the art. Sometimes people fell like they’ve fallen down the rabbit hole with improv, like ‘Oh my God, this is the most amazing thing.’ They make their whole life around this art. And I’m saying it’s your life that will support your art, and your art will support your life. You’ve got to find a balance.

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

SM: Where? Who is? [laughs] Who is disseminating this information?

JF: Right now I’m posting them on the improvresourcecenter.com.

SM: Oh dear God. Forward that to me. I’ll be bored with myself. [laughs] What was the question?

JF: [laughs] Do you have anything that you would like to say to the improv community that we didn’t get out?

SM: Yeah, thank you for being part of the community. I hope you have a wonderful time, and I look forward to meeting you.

Susan Messing - 6/4/07 - Part 2

2007-06-04T11:15:00.000-05:00

JF: What do you think the impact The Annoyance has been on the Chicago comedy and theater scene and even broader?

SM: I think it was a real start off point for people to have permission to say whatever you wanted to say on stage, and now everybody does. I think you have to look at the history of it to see ‘Oh, maybe we were the precursors of all that.’ After us, Torso Theater came out and did ‘Campbell Cheerleaders on Crack.’ I could see people mimicking certain styles of shows we were doing. Or creating whole shows through improv, which is what Cardiff Giant ended up doing, but I think that was based off of what they had done with The Annoyance Theater.

JF: They did Urinetown, right?

SM: That’s Greg Codis. He’s out of Cardiff Giant. But when my mom saw Urinetown on Broadway she said ‘It reminded me a lot of an Annoyance show.’ That was her first comment. I didn’t ask her if it reminded her of an Annoyance show. It felt very loose. Part of the joke of the Annoyance was you can’t say you’re the star of our next musical. It really didn’t matter how good you were. It certainly was an attitude as well. We didn’t have auditions. There was this guy Ken Mancy who saw Coed Prison Sluts 72 times. You can imagine he needed a hobby, then the 73rd time he was on stage as the warden. Then we would do holiday shows and Ken would get dressed up. He was like [does a voice] ‘Ken Mancy, already in his forties. He just kind of had a very basic life, and he worked for Buena Vista film.’ A very boring man with a very monotone voice. He reminded me of Larry ‘Bud’ Melman. We’d stick him in a unitard with skulls and cross bones all over it. He’d be ‘Ken, as a skeleton.’ After a while, everything was game. I think we loosened people up. I think people saw us and thought that it was ok to go there. [Mick] is a big fan of lack of censorship. When I play at iO, I’m careful to acknowledge the integrity of the stage, same thing with Second City. I don’t want to alienate the audience or my peer group. By walking in the door, it doesn’t matter what time slot I’m in, I’m protected. I can say whatever I want to say and that’s nice. It’s nice not to have to catch yourself.

JF: Do you think that the training center there is unique? Do you think that the Annoyance has a unique approach to improv?

SM: It totally comes out of Mick, the whole premise of taking care of yourself at the top of the scene, whereas someone like Charna at Improv Olympic says ‘Take care of your partner.’ Mick says ‘Yes, you should take care of your partner, but the best way to take care of your partner is to take care of yourself for the scene.’ So, if your partner looks at you and you’re not panicking, that’s a pleasant place to be. You can’t take care of someone in lieu of yourself, like saying ‘You make me whole.’ You know what I mean? Now, granted, I can’t do it without my friend. I cannot do it without my friend, but the only thing I own in the scene is me. I don’t own your plot. I don’t own anything, but I can always put a person in your plot.

I created the level 2 curriculum at iO. When I teach it at iO, I’m bringing an Annoyance idea with me. It makes a powerful improviser. I don’t think it makes a selfish, bad improviser. I think it makes a solid improviser. Have you read Mick’s book?

JF: Yeah.

SM: I like his book. When you see Annoyance members improvising, I’m not saying it’s always good, but they don’t look scared. They don’t look scared as an improviser, so you disconnect and go ‘Ew. Yuck. I’m scared of them. I’m worried for them.’ That will make you disconnected and not enjoy the joy ride.

JF: What were you doing after Blue Velveeta?

SM: At one point Mitch [Rouse] and Jay [Leggett] sat Tommy Booker and I down and said ‘You can’t do this and The Annoyance. You have to make a choice.’ They didn’t want to go up first, because they were the headliners, the top dog team. They decided that they always had to go up second. It was more important for us to keep this status spot on the roster than for us to all play together. I thought ‘Well, I’m going to go where they don’t make me choose,’ because The Annoyance didn’t care what else I did. So, I left Blue Velveeta for a while, then they wanted to do this ‘Southern Comfort Comedy Team Challenge’ thing that Charna set up with a liquor company, where the winnings would be that we would tour military based with Southern Comfort in hand. You can only imagine how fun that would be. We were so stupid. Charna asked me if I would come back to Blue Velveeta for that, so I did. And we won. And we went to military bases. And I was the only woman. We would ask for a suggestion and the men would say ‘Show me your tits.’ Then we’d all drink Southern Comfort. It was warm and sticky like syrup, and invariably someone would throw up. [laughs]

I left iO for a while, and started doing only Annoyance stuff, then I was doing only Annoyance and wanted to teach for iO. I don’t know why. Oh, I was teaching for Mick. I was teaching a ‘Ladies Class,’ which I fucking hated. I didn’t want to teach ‘ladies.’ I wanted to teach people. I did realize there was a need for it at the time. Women were very victim-y in this work. It was rare that you got the Amy [Poehler]s and the Tina [Fey]s. Women were still blaming men for their misfortune, and I wasn’t. I was just thrilled to play with them. So, Mick had Jodi Lennon and I teach a class together, then I went to Charna and said ‘I want to teach for you.’ She said ‘If you want to teach, you have to coach.’ I’m thinking ‘Miles Stroth started like 6 years after me, and you’re making me coach instead of teach?’ I said fine and went and coached 3 teams for a year and a half, and I coached them fucking hard. Every day I’d go home and make up exercises, high in my tub. Finally, I came to her a year and a half later with a full curriculum. I said ‘You need this and this is why. You have a bunch of people standing around and talking about it and you’re boring me. It’s a character, environment and teamwork class.’ That’s how that started and she’s made a bajillion dollars off me since.

JF: I’ve heard you make up a lot of exercises. Not a lot of coaches do that. Why do you think that is and do you think that’s a shortcoming of theirs?

SM: I don’t know if it’s a shortcoming of theirs. I can’t comment on anywhere I’m not. I think every team is unique and every coach is unique. You have to balance how much of this is teaching and how much of this is getting your team to be a cohesive unit and ready for a show. I’ve always felt creative [with making new exercises], like this is an exercise I’d do, or this hits my gay zone really tight, so let’s cross it. And if they were willing to do it, I was willing to show them. Actually, everybody who has ever committed fully to anything I’ve made them to do has looked great doing it. The worst thing that’s going to happen is maybe somebody laughs at them and we’re doing comedy, fuck you. [laughs] The failure rate is incredibly low in comedy if you pursue it with joy. Even a glorious failure is a huge success, don’t you think?

JF: It’s interesting.

SM: I don’t know. That’s just me. You improvise a lot Josh?

JF: Yeah.

SM: Yeah? You like that shit?

JF: Failing? I’m kind of tentative about making mistakes, or what I feel are mistakes.

SM: Isn’t that interesting? You’re tentative about making mistakes in an imperfect art form where there are no mistakes. Not only that, you’re greatest mistakes will become your greatest joys. I did a show a couple weeks ago with Alex Fendrich and Rachel Mason and I’m like the Yogi Berra of improv. I say bullshit all the time that just vomits out of my mouth, and I immediately of course want to take it back, but you can’t. It’s in nature now. I said ‘Starboooks,’ instead of Starbucks. Alex says ‘Ahhh, yes, Starboooks, almost as good as Starbucks.’ Rachel said ‘Yes, yes, it’s with an umlaut.’ I thought to myself ‘How fucking awesome that Starbucks has a bastard cousin, Starboooks. It’s kind of like the Avis of coffee shops.’ And I’m so fucking gullible I’ll buy into it the more I hear about it. The day that I realize ‘Fuck it. People don’t judge my mistakes unless I telegraph that I’m an idiot.’

I think The Annoyance is great at protecting the freak, that’s what I call it. If I walk around in circles for four hours at iO, I’m retarded or crazy Jenny. If I walk around in circles for four hours at The Annoyance, I’m just Jenny. You know what I’m saying? When I’m playing anywhere except The Annoyance, I’m making sure that I relax what might appear as a stereotype unless somebody joins me in that energy, so we’re protected by style, I relax my crack a little bit, so I can play with someone who’s as grounded as a Dorff or a Peter Gwinn or anybody.

JF: Do you teach differently in different training centers?

SM: Yes, here’s my curriculum at iO: I teach what I created for other teachers to teach what I teach as well. It’s funny to watch them teach Doublemint Twins get fucked up the ass, but they do it so I’m not going to complain. At The Annoyance, the level 3 class usually has a big case of F.I.D.S., which is frustrated improviser disease, which I’m trying to eradicate from the planet, although it can never really be cured only managed. Nice improvisers disease will turn into F.I.D.S. too, that’s the tentative, quiet improviser who holds up the back wall and says ‘Oh, I’m just a support player,’ one of those. I’ll tell you this: you will ultimately get so frustrated not sharing who you are and saying ‘fuck it,’ which is really where Mick comes from, ‘Fuck it. I’m great.’ You will jump through that, because you’ll get too frustrated with it. There is no right or wrong way to express yourself, and those aren’t rules. They’re suggestions that might get you there faster. They might put you in the power ride faster. Even Mick’s book, just suggestions. Everything is just a suggestion. Ultimately, I studied everywhere and became the improviser that I wanted to be. The way that I teach is, this is just my opinion from going in the trenches the other week, I don’t want anybody to go to hell. So, I really come from a very empathetic space.

JF: How do you encourage people to get off the backline? It is just a matter of time sometimes?

SM: Either you are going to have a breaking point or you are finally jump in there and realize that it doesn’t hurt. You come out and you’re proud of yourself afterwards. Followers have to turn into leaders. Leaders have to turn into followers. I was one of those frustrated leaders, one of those ‘Come on you guys,’ then I relaxed my crack and joined in the predominant energy. This is not about me. I’m an integral part of a whole. That also means that an improviser who has nice improvisers disease who says ‘This is nice.’ If we don’t know what it is, it sure as hell isn’t nice. Start getting specific, because I love your brain. There’s only two kind of improvisers I hate, that’s an improviser who telegraphs ‘I suck’ or who telegraphs ‘you suck.’ Everybody is on the exact same level playing field. I don’t believe that your college degrees are what make you intelligent. I believe your life experience pulls you out there. You’re only limited by your lack of imagination and fear of appearing stupid. Now I’m quite sure you have a vivid imagination, which is why you watched the show one day you said ‘I want to do this,’ or ‘I know I can do this one day.’ Well, you were right, so start being right. You understand what I’m saying?

JF: Yeah.

SM: I say to people ‘I can’t push you. I can’t manipulate your spine. The only thing you own in the scene is yourself. So, why don’t you try something on and see what the fuck happens? And if you don’t like it, do it more.’ [laughs] That’s the whole weirdness of improv. It goes against human nature, which is if you don’t like it, you’re prerogative as an adult is you don’t have to do it. I’m an adult. In improv, if you don’t like it, you have to do it more, because it’s your commitment to something that’s going to pull out the comedy, not hanging around saying wacky, clever shit. That’s hard to do. I don’t work that way anymore, because that’s too hard for me to do. I just work uncensored and trust that everything I put out there will be added to the stew, and by the end we have stew. Now it’s our choice whether we want to make stew or broth with water in a pot or a rich, aromatic stew. It’s up to us. We don’t know what the stew is until the scene over. Why are we all giving up on our shit?

I’ll let you know another little secret too. If you ever see me hugging the back wall, definitely I’m feeling insecure that night. I’ll tell you this: the power place on the stage is downstage, because our audience is on our side. You want to feel the fucking love, and you want to recognize that what you’re doing is important, you hang out downstage and you’ll discover that what you’re doing is important to the scene. It’s not just object work, not the coffee-stall-until-the-argument-in-your-apartment-scene anymore. It’s going to be that you’re drinking coffee. Now throw out a reason. ‘I was up with the baby all last night.’ Boom. Or ‘If I don’t I have a migraine.’ Now you have something in your arsenal to work with. Mick always says ‘Do something. Anything.’ One of the things about the UCB, you know how fast they play?

JF: Yeah.

SM: Yeah, because their whole gig is ‘finding the game.’ To them, I think it means the first weird or goofy thing that happens in the scene, but the game in the scene is your creation. It’s anything that you do more than once. If my contact lenses are bugging me at the top of my scene, if I wear them, which I don’t, but let’s say my contact lenses bug me and I’m blinking my eyes within the first three seconds of my scene your audience thinks you’re blinking. Then if your contact lenses stop bugging you and you stop blinking they go ‘Where did blinky go!? Come back!?’ That’s when they get mad. They don’t get mad when you make a choice. They get mad when you drop it. Your first 30 seconds of your scene is your promise to the audience about who you will be. We will discover where you are and what’s up, because scenes definitely aren’t about plot and it’s definitely not about your funny. It’s about people. I don’t care where you play. It’s got to be about people. So, ringing a bell could be a game. It doesn’t have to be wacky, but if I get lost in a scene and dropping it and go on to something that I perceive would be better, i.e. I suck, and recommit to the choice I made at the top of the scene and heighten them I will discover a new plot or at the very least the reason why I was doing this. I share that and something happens. Or somebody else comes up with a reason for it.

Susan Messing - 6/4/07 - Part 1

2007-06-04T11:09:00.000-05:00

Susan Messing is a veteran improviser and actor. She studied with Del Close and Charna Halpern and has taught at iO, Second City and The Annoyance Theater. She performed with Blue Velveeta and is a founding member of The Annoyance Theater, where she has appeared in many productions. She currently performs in 'Messing with a Friend' at The Annoyance Theater.

JF: Where were you born?

SM: Perth Amboy General Hospital, Perth Amboy, NJ.

JF: What were some early influences on your sense of humor?

SM: My father and ‘I Love Lucy.’ My father was the smartest and driest man I’ve ever met. My mother was humorless at the time. That was probably a good thing. And I just watched a lot of ‘I Love Lucy.’

JF: How did they influence you? Do you see their influence at all now-a-days?

SM: Sometimes. Charna will say that I make a stupid face, and it probably looks a little like Lucy. [laughs] I think it appeals to the five year old in me more than anything else. Now when I watch it it’s hard to watch. I still respect it, but I think it appealed to the five year old in me more than anything else.

JF: When did you know that you wanted to be a performer?

SM: My whole life probably. I was either going to be an actor, a hockey goalie or a swimming coach, and I thought the acting thing would probably fit best.

JF: Were you interested in sports growing up?

SM: Just the New York Rangers. [laughs]

JF: So, were you involved with theater in high school and stuff like that?

SM: I was a cheerleader, ironically. I couldn’t do anything, but I smiled like I had gas, so people overlooked my lack of talent. And yeah, I was doing plays forever. I went to a camp in the summer called Belmore Terrace in Lennox, Massachusetts. It was a Fine Arts camp, so I was doing that kind of shit from an early age.

JF: How did you get involved with improv?

SM: I went to Northwestern. I was a mediocre actress. After I graduated, I started taking classes at iO and went ‘Oh, I don’t have to memorize shit. I can just make up crap. This is fun.’

JF: How did you hear about iO? Did you have any training in improv during your acting training?

SM: I did a thing at Northwestern called ‘The Me-ow Show.’ It’s a comedy thing. I guess there’s some improv, some sketch, improv games probably. I just never thought of myself as a comedienne necessarily. Every time I was in a play it just happened to be a comedy for the most part, but I didn’t go ‘Oh, that’s what I want to do.’

I think my junior year at Northwester I heard there was an audition downtown for an improv group, and that was Improv Olympic. I didn’t really know it at the time, so when I took classes I didn’t put two and two together.

JF: What was your experience like when you started at Improv Olympic?

SM: There were very few teams. It was tiny, tiny, tiny. There were really just three teachers. [disconnected] …I just went home crying every night, but I had little voice inside my head that said ‘I can do this shit one day.’ And Charna was really, really mean to the few women who were around. She was one of those women who hated men. [laughs] Or women. She liked men, a lot. Then one day I had a class where you do musical improv, and that was like breathing to me. She said ‘ [inaudible]. One day you’re going to be invaluable to me. ’ Apparently, I became that, so God bless. …I think the masochist in me stayed.

JF: What were the other levels like? You said there were three teachers.

SM: It was Charna, then you had this guy named John Harisol, who was terrific, then you would take Del. I had John twice because Del was kind of M.I.A. for a while. Maybe he was in a play or something. And you would just take Del to infinity. You would just take his class until you stopped taking classes, and that was really your choice after a while, I guess. Although I think she threatened you that if you didn’t take classes, you weren’t on a team or something like that. There were very few teams, no more than maybe five when I started. And every time there was a new team it was called ‘Blind Faith.’ I was on about 11 ‘Blind Faiths.’ She decided then to get even worse and only gave names to what she perceived to be the great teams. Everybody else was on the ‘D Team’ or the ‘F Team’ or whatever.

I was on the D Team. It had Jay Leggett, Mitch Rouse, Brian Blondel, later [Brian] McCann joined, Brendan Sullivan, Kevin Dorff and myself. I was ‘the girl.’ They just looked at me and said ‘Oh, ok, you’re the girl,’ and they didn’t yell at me or tell me I sucked, so within a day I was a million times more brilliant than the day before. Our coach was Mick [Napier], who I guess hadn’t really coached before but he was fucking brilliant, and we became a really good team called ‘Blue Velveeta.’

JF: Why were you more brilliant the day after you joined than the day before?

SM: Self-permission is probably one, but I think acceptance. In it, I heard I was fine. I was. You can only take so much negative reinforcement. Some people need to be kicked and some people need to be stroked. At the time, Charna had kicked me so many times to look at me and not kick me was considered a real soft touch. [laughs]

JF: Was that ever a turn off for some people?

SM: Yes, women left in droves. Women would leave in droves and became actors. There were maybe two women at the time that I started who were consistently still there, that was Madeline Long and Honor Finnegan. Honor was not a very good improviser but she was a brilliant singer, the kind of singer that would make your hair stand on end. They put [Madeline Long] and Honor Finnegan in The Brain Galaxy that Del created with a bunch of people.

JF: Blue Velveeta wasn’t expected to be a great team at first?

SM: Nooo, not at all. We were rug rats. Nobody respected us. They all laughed. Mick didn’t judge it, and we had an incredible work ethic, an amazing desire to get better. By shear work ethic and ultimately self-permission, we started flying.

JF: How long did that take?

SM: Because we took ourselves really seriously, we just got infinitely better. I don’t think it took us too long of a time. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe if you asked Dorff how long it took he’d say ‘Oh, at least it took at least 7 months or something.’ I just remember having such a good time. The consequence of joy is a good show. I think we got what would be perceived as good pretty quickly. We were also working really, really hard. Those guys were real tough nuts about succeeding, whatever that means to you. I was just happy to play, to be a fly on the wall in the boys club.

JF: So, you guys were doing it more than once a week?

SM: Oh definitely. I’m not sure how many shows we had, but we were definitely working with Mick at least once a week, then whatever shows we had as well.

JF: So, what were those early days at iO like? Were they competitive?

SM: They were. It was only because Improv Olympics was a competitive sport. A team would be pit against a team. What are they called now? When they have those competitions?

JF: Cagematch?

SM: Cagematch. Every night was a cage match. It wasn’t just your friends voting per se. There were four criteria. I think they were ‘Theme,’ how closely did you hit the theme on the head, ‘Originality,’ and two other tiresome things. It was stupid. Even at the earliest stage I knew that it was a stupid move to make. It’s like saying ‘This apple is better than this orange.’ So, it was kind of silly to try to pit people against each other. I don’t think we bought into it too much. I don’t think we got off stage and said ‘We lost today.’ However, once she phased that out, which happened a year or two after I started improv, she would have these semi-annual, or annual competitions, where she would pit us against each other. There would be a final on the Main Stage of Second City. But I remember they would say it was a ‘Just because you performed at Second City doesn’t mean you’re in Second City’ type of thing.

JF: How did your experience with improv start to change you or change what you wanted? It seems like it became a really big part of your life suddenly.

SM: Yeah, well, first of all, it becomes a huge part of your social life. It’s always in a bar-like situation, so it didn’t feel as heady I had to deal with in undergraduate in Northwestern. So, I liked the loose structure. I liked that I didn’t have to memorize anything. I liked that I could show up, do it, then leave. So, socially, it became your world, because everybody was friends with everybody else. A lot of partying. A lot of insane partying. A lot of ooo… a lot of debauchery. So, that changed immediately. Then I started realizing that this make-believe crap I had done all my life actually had a name. It just gave it validity, even in its nascent years. The only game in town was Second City and improv really wasn’t really what it was about. It was used as a creating device or used to do a set and let off a little steam and call it a day. So, it became something like ‘Oh my gosh, we’re onto something artistically pretty here,’ especially later on with Del when he would push us to do new forms and stuff, which really didn’t interest me as much as an opportunity to be around Del, but he was pushing the agenda that way.

JF: How did you become involved with The Annoyance Theater?

SM: Once I started with iO, that’s where I met Mick. He was one of the first three improvisers I met: Richard Label, Dave Razowski and Mick. You can imagine what my life was after that. [laughs] And I was young. Mick was hateful, but delicious. They used to have a group called Metraform. They were a bunch of people out of the University of Indiana. They did a show called ‘Splatter Theater,’ which was brilliant. It was a lot of fun. They also had something called ‘Nimbus,’ new forms night. You would get together and rehearse, but not really. A bunch of people would get together and someone would direct, like Pete Gardner or whatever. They would say ‘Your show is called ‘Clown.’’ It’s like ‘What’s that?’ They’re like ‘Figure it out.’ Then you perform it. [laughs] It was experimental. Then I got involved in Splatter Theater 2, which was a horrible show. There were too many people. Financially, it was taking blood out of us. Then Mick took 9 people who he tolerated out of this experience and that’s how we created ‘Coed Prison Sluts,’ and that’s how Metraform ultimately turned into The Annoyance.

JF: So, what was Coed Prison Sluts, and why was it such a big deal for The Annoyance?

SM: First of all, it was our first show. It was our flagship show under the Annoyance banner. Secondly, it was the way it was created. People really didn’t create musicals this way. All Mick said to us was, he sat us down, and said ‘I to do a musical. I want my dog to be in it. I want a fight between a clown and a drag queen, and I want there to be tap dancing, and I want it to be called ‘Coed Prison Sluts.’’ We just went ‘…Ok.’ [laughs] You know what I mean? We made it up and two nights before it went up, the last dress rehearsal, I think we invited people in. And I had just passed a kidney stone that night. So, I had gone to the hospital and crawled back. It went horribly. It was just like crickets chirping in the Hollywood Bowl. It was miserable. So, Mick and Mark Howard left-brained it for a whole night. The next night it was opening night and it was perfect from then on. It was very sweet and cheerful and happy and smart. It doesn’t sound like it, but even my mother who is a New York Times culture vulture would sing ‘Shit Motherfucker’ gaily along with the rest of the crowd. It was happy.

I think Mick started Metraform and The Annoyance because he was pissed at Charna. A lot of people start theaters because they’re angry at Charna. That’s certainly possible. Or at least they go ‘This ride is over for me.’ I think it was really important to be uncensored for Mick, to be able to say everything he wanted to say, but in a way that people would be willing to watch. I think Mick said in The Second City Almanac ‘If you want to alienate your audience, you might as well stand on stage and say ‘Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you,’ until everybody leaves. The heart of The Annoyance was that it just doesn’t mean anything anymore, like when 5th graders learn the words ‘fuck’ and ‘fart’ and they’re so delighted with themselves. If they needed an adverb for a madlib it’d be ‘fuckingly’ and ‘fartingly.’ That kind of tickled us, and I think that’s how it started out. I think a lot of people think The Annoyance is about saying ‘Cunty cunty, titty titty.’ It really isn’t. It’s about saying whatever you want to say and understanding that it will be protected by the very nature of you playing in that space.

Gary Austin - Part 3 - 2/19/07

2007-02-19T21:48:00.000-05:00

JF: So, what was it like directing The Groundlings during the time that you were there? Did the emphasis change from mixing it up with Moliere or whatever to purely sketch or improv?

GA: We did all original material in the shows. We didn’t do any Moliere once we opened The Groundlings, and it was called The Groundling Show. Our very first show was a rave review in the L.A. Times. We never got a bad review the entire time I was there. I was there 7 years, if you count 72 when I started teaching, until 79. We were in a 30 seat theater in a very bad part of town, East Hollywood, and packed the place, not always, but we started to pack the place. Major heavy weights from the industry started coming in. Lilly Tomlin was coming in to watch us. Lorne Michaels, we didn’t even know who he was yet, was watching us. This is before Saturday Night Live, just before. Producers, directors, television stars, film stars were coming to see shows in this 30 seat theater. There were 25 people in the cast. 30 people in the audience when we packed it. Some times there would be 10 or 12 people in audience and we outnumbered the audience.

We did lots of improv, lots of music, and lots of material that came out of improv, like The Committee. We did scenes that were the same every night that had been derived from improvisation. We did musical improv and lots of music. I would say 1/5th or 1/6th of the time of a show was musical. The women outnumbered the men 2 to 1, the entire time I was there. This is almost unheard of in improvisational theater. It’s usually the men way out number the women in an improv company. The women outnumbered the men. Why? Because the women’s material was better than the men’s. [laughs] That’s not true. What I meant was …ok, I said the best stuff goes onstage, but I didn’t say it had to be mostly men’s. So, it turned out that when I put what in my opinion was the best stuff onstage the women outnumbered the men.

JF: How did the growing success of The Groundlings affect the culture there?

GA: It affected it in a very negative way in my opinion, which is one of the reasons I left. Let me compare it to today. I sincerely believe, and have friends at The Groundlings who tell me this is true, the main reason people join The Groundlings is to get on Saturday Night Live. The second main reason people join The Groundlings is to become a star, whether they get on Saturday Night Live or not. Lisa Kudrow became a star out of The Groundlings. Paul Ruebens, Pee Wee Herman, became a star out of The Groundlings without being invited to do Saturday Night Live. That’s true of many stars who came to The Groundlings. It’s the number one showcase in Los Angeles. Everybody in the industry goes to The Groundlings to get talent. That’s the main reason why people join.

That was not the case when I was there. Why did people join The Groundlings when I was there? Well, before we were successful, before we were well-known, before people were getting taken to do big jobs, it wasn’t successful in that way. People just wanted to do that work. I was running workshops 6 or 7 days a week, where all 90 of those students got private lessons from me. Half an hour each. I had a schedule that was unbelievable. I started at 8 or 9 in the morning, work all day, teach private classes. Some of the daytime classes were actual classes, not just private classes. Then at night I would teach classes.

I eventually trained two other teachers, Tracy Newman and Tom Maxwell, and eventually Phyllis Kaz. But at the beginning it was just me. I was the only teacher. People wanted to be there. So, when we built the theater in 1975 on Melrose where The Groundlings still exists with our own hands, and people donated their own money and people gave us no interest loans. It was out of the love of being at The Groundlings, the love of doing that work, the love of hanging out together. We would go on field trips together. We would do all kind of things together. It was an amazing, huge group of people. It was a gigantic family. That was why people were there. That’s not why people are there now.

I went back in 1990. I left in 79. They brought me back 11 years after I left to direct for 2 months. It was a whole different thing then, a whole different feeling. There were some people in the cast I loved working with: Andy Sterling, Lisa Kudrow, Patrick Bristow, amazing people, Julia Sweeny, who I loved working with. They were terrific, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t what it was before. It was very competitive. It was very cut-throat. It was the first time I ever ran the trust exercise where people couldn’t play it.

JF: What is the trust exercise?

GA: Everybody’s in a group in a circle, standing up. You put one person in the middle, have them close their eyes. You turn them around a few times to disorient them, then you have them walk in a straight line until they come to the edge of the circle. We turn them and send them back across the circle with their eyes closed. The Groundlings could not play that game. I have done that game since 1968. That’s the only time in my life where I’ve seen people who could not play that game. Why? They didn’t trust each other. They were afraid they’d get hurt. They’d fall of off the edge of the stage, because somebody wouldn’t catch them.

JF: So, why did you leave The Groundlings in 79?

GA: I don’t know. I’m going to write a book about it. Part of what I’m talking about had to do with it. It started to become a thing where people were in it for selfish reasons. And I’ve always said to everybody, and I have it on paper, it’s documented: we can get careers out of this. We’re here to learn, to grow, to develop our craft, and we’re here to get careers out of this. Terrific. And when you get a career, you can come back and work with us some more. It’s always a home for you to come back to. And that’s true. It’s still that way. I still go back there and do my solo shows and I direct shows. As an alumnus, I go back there all the time and do stuff. I was there just a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not a member of it and I don’t make decisions.

There was a big split that happened. There were two groups, sort of like in Iraq now between the Sunni and the Shiites. It was a big battle between these groups. They saw things differently. A lot of things happened between me and other people. It became an intolerable, intolerable place for me. I hated being there. There came I point where I just snapped one day, gave them 2 weeks notice and just split. And I built the company. It was like a father walking away from his own kids and wife and house that he built. I walked away from what I created.

JF: It’s a shame.

GA: I guess. I went on and did better things. I look at that as my high school days. My work is far better now than it was then, as an actor, as a director and as a writer.

JF: So what are some things that you’ve been proud of since The Groundlings?

GA: The work that I’ve created, the people who I’ve taught, the work that I’ve done as a director and actor since then. Many of my students have become gigantic stars who were not Groundlings, people I’ve taught since I’ve left the Groundlings. I do work in my classes now that far surpasses anything I did with The Groundlings, that far surpasses anything that’s being done at The Groundlings. I develop shows with people. I direct the shows. I’ve worked all over the country. I work mainly right now in Washington D.C., Seattle, New York City and L.A. I worked a lot in Fort Collins, Colorado in a really cool theater there. Also, at Colorado State University. With the work that I do I’m breaking new ground in the same way that Del Close broke new ground. I’m creating work that’s never been done before, new styles, new forms of improvisation. Help people create incredible characters. And I do my own solo shows and so forth. And I’m a singer-songwriter. I’m involved in so many things with so many great people, and not just people who are improvisers and want to do comedy, but people who are actors or writers or producers, directors, or people who are not show business at all, who just want to do the work. And that’s always been the case even in The Groundlings day. Phil Hartman wasn’t an actor when he came to me. I was his first teacher. I taught him for five years. He was a graphic artist. He did album covers. So, we’ve always had to this day people from all walks of life, not just actors. I think there’s nothing more boring than a room full of actors. If they’re mixed in with other people, they’re cool, but just actors? Uch, pretty boring. [laughs]

JF: So has your approach changed at all?

GA: Yes, it’s changed in huge ways.

JF: And what’s allowing you to make this progress?

GA: Freedom. I have no bosses. I do what I want. I take risks. I take the same risks I took then. The Groundlings were created because of the risks we took. Nobody had done the kind of theater we were doing. It was different from The Committee and Second City and all that, not only because we had more women and did music, but also because we created wild and bizarre characters that went far beyond what most characters were at those other companies and full make-up and costumes. Because I’m a theater person. At The Committee or Second City, you put on a hat or a sport coat or a pair of glasses, very minimal costume. You’re wearing basically the same pants and shirt throughout the show. You would just change your coat or a hat or something to play a different character. But in The Groundlings, think of Pee Wee Herman. That’s my grey suit by the way, Pee Wee Herman’s suit.

JF: Oh yeah?

GA: Yeah, I gave that to him. That used to be my own personal suit, that I wore.

JF: That’s like, I don’t know, like a mixed compliment or something.

GA: [Laughs] Well, Paul’s bigger than me. He’s taller than me. That’s why it didn’t fit him. He had about 20 copies made, exact fabric, the exact cut, everything. The original he wore holes in both elbows and knees and had to put patches on it.

JF: So, how does this freedom show itself in your workshops? What are some signs that you’re allowing yourself to be more free?

GA: Because it informs the things we do. We make discoveries. And I go ‘Look what we did. We’re creating new forms and ways of working.’ People are having breakthroughs that are incredible, both in their craft and in the material we’re creating and the forms of improv that we’re creating. Del Close created the Harold. I was one of the actors in it. I was one of the people who was there when he created it. I was one of the improvisers. Well, that was new then. Now it’s done all over the world. I’m creating the same thing. I’m creating other forms that are catching on. You need to come to my workshops to see what I’m talking about. It’s really hard to explain what it is I do.

JF: How do you encourage students to make these breakthroughs in class?

GA: By creating an atmosphere of support and trust so that they’re willing to take risks without thinking that they’re going to be ridiculed. There’s got to be no negative fallout if they fail. It’s all support and trust. You do the work. It’s valid. If you do the tasks of the exercise, if you do the craft of improvisation, you do what those things are to make the work work, then whether it succeeds or not and whether you make mistakes or not is not important. What is important is that you commit 100% to doing your best possible work. There’s no failing in my class. You can’t fail. It’s impossible. Because if you do something that doesn’t work then you learn from it, so how is that failure?

JF: In New York, one of the big things in the improv community is ‘the game,’ creating patterns and stuff. Do you ever encounter students who mention ‘the game’ to you?

GA: I don’t know what they mean by ‘the game.’ We used to do a thing in The Committee called the game, but I don’t think that’s what they’re talking about. What are you talking about?

JF: Um, repeating patterns within a scene.

GA: Repeating patterns is a technique. That’s nothing new. That’s from the beginning.

JF: Is that something that you encourage in your work?

GA: If a pattern emerges, we go ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ Del Close said in Guru ‘All this bullshit about patterns. Screw it. I’m interested in relationships.’ Well, he went back and forth. Sometimes he would be interested in patterns, but you can’t be interested in one thing forever. It’s like ‘Ok, now I’m emphasizing patterns. Now I’m emphasizing breaking patterns. Now I’m breaking both breaking patterns and doing patterns.’ That’s what an artist does. People who get stuck in one way of doing things, to me, aren’t artists and they don’t do valid work. You keep changing your work.

Del Close and I became very close toward the end of his life. We talked about shit like that. He would disavow things that he’d done before. I’d mention something he’d done years ago and he said ‘I don’t do that anymore.’ And I feel the same way. I don’t do The Groundlings anymore. If they invited me back to direct there, I’d say ‘No, don’t want to do that anymore. I’ve already done that. I want to do something different now.’

JF: In your opinion, what makes a good improv team?

GA: Supporting each other’s work. Listening to each other onstage. Taking giant risks. A willingness to fail, not a desire to fail, but a willingness to fail while trying to succeed. Love, L-O-V-E for each other. That doesn’t mean you don’t fight. Families fight. It’s a family. You get angry. Fine, but you know you stick it out together. You’re not out for yourself. You’re out for the work. It’s about the work. It’s about making something work. It’s about entertaining an audience. It’s about getting an audience to come and see you. [laughs]

JF: Where would you like to see improv go in the future both artistically and commercially?

GA: I care that it’s theater. Period. If improvisation isn’t theater, I hate it. I hate to watch it and I won’t do it. What’s theater? Theater is putting the truth onstage period. As Shakespeare said, holding the mirror up to nature. Also, I add to that holding the mirror up to the audience. When you do anything in the theater, when I say theater I’m also talking about songs and movies and plays and television, good television that is, there ain’t a lot of it, basically you’re holding a mirror up to the audience and saying ‘This is what you look like you guys. And we’re all the same in so many ways. And we’re doing you. We’re doing us. We’re all the same. We’re showing you the truth about humanity and the truth about the truth about the world we live in. The truth about who we are inside and the truth who we are on the outside, the truth about our environment, the truth about global warming, the truth about relationships.’ That’s theater to me. And that’s what we do. And that’s where I want to see improv go.

My opinion of improv in this country and I’ve seen a lot of it is that 90% of the improv in this country is bullshit. 90% of the improv in this country has always been bullshit. 90% of the improv in this country is not theater. It’s people going up and talking and trying to come up with funny lines. And that’s bullshit. Del Close said the same thing.

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

GA: [laughs] Yeah, do good work, because most of you aren’t.

JF: [laughs] Oh, the gauntlet has been laid down.

GA: Yeah, if somebody says back to me ‘Who are you to say that?’ I’d say ‘I’m Gary Austin. Who are you?’ [laughs] If you have a different opinion, fine. Go have it. If you want to join my theater join it. If you want to join my workshop, join it. If not, go somewhere else.