There is a very easy way to sabotage your show in the first two minutes. Until you’ve been in the game for a while, it manifests itself as a vaguely uneasy feeling that you don’t want to watch this particular group. This is a particular pet peeve of mine that may not apply to everyone, but I imagine a good segment of the population feels the same way. The key to alienating your audience is a lack of confidence. Your lack of confidence will betray your ability to be entertaining.
It’s hard to quantify and hard to articulate. But much like incels on the internet complaining about giving girls the ick, and the girls themselves who get the ick, we innately know a lack of confidence when we see it. In my head this is shaping up to be an addendum to the “hosting rules” post, and with good reason. An improv set is filled with so much uncertainty throughout, we have to project an air of confidence at the very top to put the audience at ease.
First things first: you need to run onstage. Maybe you want to do a stupid little jump up and down, maybe you want to do a stupid clapping thing. When you go onstage you need to pretend like you’re walking up into someone’s birthday party fashionably late. Sort of a “hey gang, what did I miss?” kinda vibe. “I brought a charcuterie board!” Too many times have I seen performers take the stage timidly, almost hesitantly. Like they know they don’t deserve to be on that stage.
Have a designated person-who-addresses-the-audience! And in a perfect world, all the members of your group should be adept at addressing the audience. I see a lot of groups make their way onstage and then start doing the “you? me? you? all of us? nobody?” act that completely sucks the energy out of the show. Some of your show needs to be preplanned!
“Whats up every one, we’re Bigfoot Zeitgeist and we’re here to do the such-and-such and what that is is a rejected form created by the Swarm in 1994—” nobody cares. Also redundant: “Hey guys we’re Bigfoot Zeitgeist and we’re going to do some improv for you, that means everything you see is made up—” yes we know, we were not gifted mystery tickets to an anything-goes performance art extravaganza. By all means if your format requires explanation, then explain away! I know I get deep into it, as a way of stalling for time so the tech person can make sure Spotify works. But if you think an audience could reasonably glean the structure of your show without an explanation, then I think it would be in your best interest to leave it out of your intro.
Another significant obstacle to a good show: getting the suggestion. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen a group come out and ask for a suggestion of “anything” or a “one-word suggestion.” I don’t know what the reason is for this, but I think it’s an overcorrection to deter audiences from shouting “dildo.” A lot of the time I hear “can we get a suggestion of a historical period that is not the civil war” or “what is a place that a lot of people would gather” or “who has a childhood memory they would like to relive in great detail?” I’ve been noticing an uptick of interview-style suggestions. “Who has a story they’d like to share?” This can be fun but it certainly eats a lot of time out of a 15-minute set. I personally like a more open-ended suggestion, and if someone wants to see me do a dildo set then so be it.
Sometimes you get more than one good suggestion. I’ve watched this unfold many times:
“Vigilante justice!”
”Burnt hotdogs!”
”Classroom.”
”The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!”
”The Lusitania!”
“Alright I heard classroom.” As a seasoned vet I hate this. It feels… I don’t know, safe. Almost cowardly. I’ve never seen a Buckaroo Banzai set or a Lusitania set but I have seen approximately 17,000 Classroom sets. And I know for a fact that we all heard Lusitania because it was the last thing said. And maybe you don’t know what the Lusitania was or why it’s important to know about. That’s a great way to get the audience more engaged! Ask them what they know, collectively, about the second most famous British passenger ship after the Titanic. This is probably only grievance held by a curmudgeon like me, but dammit this is my blog where I express my opinions which are wholly my own!
And then there’s the opening. You’ve made it all this way, you’ve maintained your goodwill with the audience, and now you’re slogging through the pattern game and everything just came to a screeching halt. I don’t have any concrete advice except to be dynamic and interesting. I am a huge advocate for focused practice, especially if your format has an element that is unique to you. If your group opens with the pattern game, set aside one whole rehearsal just for running the pattern game. Yes you’re using it for premise generation, but it also has to be entertaining to an audience. We’re training with weights on and learning how to multitask. This is why so many teachers stress the importance of listening 100% of the time. The audience can’t sit there and wait for you to take in the external stimuli and process it silently within yourself.
This is where some groups embrace the double edged sword of the sound-and-motion opening. Now it’s dynamic and interesting, but you run the risk of turning… *artsy* (derogatory). I am not well versed in the sound-and-motion so I have no tips or tricks on how to make it more palatable to an audience but I can feel in my soul when a group is rhythmically grasping at straws in unison.
And lastly here’s a personal pet peeve that I have from my many years as a tech person: don’t make fun of the tech or the host(s). You wouldn’t want the host(s) to make fun of you, and you don’t want the tech to click “ASSORTED WET FARTS SOUND FX - 1 HR” the next time you’re about to come onstage. Be courteous with your facilitators. If the energy is flagging, it is the duty of a host to try their best to raise that flagging energy, but it is also your duties as entertainers and artists to keep up that momentum. Many hands make light work but too many cooks spoil the broth. We can all be victorious together or we can all come crashing down together and your best bet at getting invited back for a better slot is to be courteous with your facilitators.
Also don’t make fun of the audience unless someone out there’s being a heinous asshole.