If you're a beginner you need stage time, and you need to watch improv. You have to get comfortable out there, and that comes from flight time. Take every opportunity to play. Watch the more experienced actors, see how they react to tough situations. Note how they play and when they follow "the rules" or break "the rules" and how they do it. Be a sponge! Also meet people, get familiar with the scene. The best way into joining or forming a troupe is to play with people.
If you're a journeyman you need stage time, and you need to watch improv. Jams are perfect for stretching yourself and trying new techniques. You'll hopefully get equal measures of playing with more and less experienced people. When with newbies, you'll exercise support in difficult situations, dealing with denial (god bless them) and making your scene partner look great. With more experienced players you'll hopefully get the support to play more adventurously than you would normally, or get pushed into doing something you've never had the opportunity to before.
If you're an established player you need stage time, and you need to watch improv. It's really easy to get into bubbles when you're more established, playing with the same people or the same types of forms over and over again. Jams will shake you the hell up, force you off balance and out of your comfort zone. Playing with a bunch of people you'd never normally share the stage with can help break you out of your go-to rhythms. Plus, watching new people play is fascinating, and often inspiring. Nothing is better at cracking up your calcified notions of improv than seeing a new person rock a scene doing things you never would have considered. Nothing energizes like seeing developing talent.
And, for everyone, go to jams because they are fun and support the community.
JUST GO.
I am not 100% convinced about beginning improvisers participating in jams. I firmly believe and encourage my Level 1 students to go, support, watch. And for some, I think participation is worthwhile. But some feel they are not ready, or don't feel good afterward, I want them to trust that feeling.
ReplyDeleteWhen beginning, I personally think the best thing you can do is to always be the worst improviser on a team you put together. Try to play with people who will elevate your work. What you talk about is a difficult skill for anyone: being able to support challenging players. Let alone a beginner.
Just some thoughts -- interested to hear your opinion.
Good points! Let me clarify things.
ReplyDeleteBeing able to support challenging players is a skill for intermediate and advanced players, and I wrote as much above. I stand by saying that beginners should get as much time doing scenes as possible and that jams are a great way to do that. However, if a beginner just wants to watch, just watch. If they have the gumption to go try and play, go for it. The only person who can really say whether or not participation is worthwhile is the person participating.
But to your point, at jams you will have those scenes where a difficult beginner gets paired with a difficult beginner, and it might not be pleasant for either of them. I don’t exactly known what “trust that feeling” means... but I don’t consider that sting a bad thing. Clunker scenes happen at all levels. If you’ve stuck your neck out enough to come out to a jam and get on stage, hopefully you also have the tenacity to dust yourself off and get back out there. Leaving scenes in your rearview is an indispensable skill. Get back on the horse. Especially at a low-stakes situation like a jam.
On another note: hopefully the jam is being run in such a way that people are matched appropriately as much as possible.
As for always being the “worst” improviser on a team... I think I agree with you
Not every beginner is going to get that opportunity to play with someone that much better than them outside of classes or jams. That’s why they can be great experiences.
But I don’t think that a group that is mostly seasoned but has one beginner is necessarily good for the beginner, nor the inverse.
I think beginners should get with groups of their peers and an experienced coach. At that stage there’s much more variance of skill and rate of improvement... I think the focus should just be on people you like to play with.
Now with more experienced people...that "worst" is hard term to nail down, especially with groups of people of similar experience levels. Is the big character expert Ken Yelly worse that quieter Joe Supportsalot? Is the super quick Louie Wit worse than Debra Emotinalcommitment...stein? I think the best teams are ones where everyone thinks they’re the worst person.
Which brings us to chemistry.
Which is exactly “Try to play with people who will elevate your work.” And that is critical for every team ever. We definitely agree on that.