I Love/I Hate

I love working in a factory.

or

I hate ice cream.

This line is usually spoken right out of the gate, after a moment of confused silence, and is a desperate attempt to justify a suggestion by an audience. It also often sounds sophomoric, almost child or caveman-like.

This Is The Best _____ Ever

This is the best Groundhog Day ever.

Usually spoken in the middle of a troubled scene and used in order to justify half-hearted good-feeling prior behavior.

Is Fun

Flying kites is tun.

Things that are confusing to improvisers often become "fun" for them.

It is almost a plea for the audience to have fun while they are watching the improviser not have fun saying something is fun.

Listen.

"Raking leaves is fun!" (Said with no character and little emotion other than the improviser's desperate attempt to act like he/she is having fun.)

"Working in a factory is fun!" (Said after a long silence that fol­lows the suggestion of "Factory!" as a location.)

"Flying kites is fun!"

No. It really isn't.

What I'm hoping you don't read into my spewing about justifica­tion is that you'd better not say the words and phrases I've listed above. What I do hope you get is that these words and phrases are my observations of the patterns created through justifying in improvisation. By being on the lookout for them when you impro­vise or observe improvisation, you will learn to avoid them.

Pausing

Two improvisers who haven't taken care of themselves at the top of the scene will often get into a measured, "pause before you say a line" kind of scene with the following pace:

Improviser A: What's up? (pause, pause, pause, pause, two, three, four)

Improviser B: Not much. (Pause, pause, pause, pause, two, three, four)

Improviser A: So ... (Pause, pause, pause, pause, two, three, four)

This goes on forever. The funny (but unfortunately not) thing about it is that most of the time the improvisers are not even aware of the tremendous silence between their lines. That's because they are thinking so hard.

So hard.

Thinking about what to do and say and what not to say and do and—you know.

If you find yourself in this mode, or are fortunate enough to have someone tell you, or if you just notice that your scenes are unfunny and drag on a lot, then do this:

Make a game out of not letting yourself have any pauses when you improvise.

Know, going into class or rehearsal or a show, that in your scene you will make a game out of responding immediately after your partner has said a line. This game will throw you out of your head in a good way and remind you that it is more important that you say something now than what you say.

Remember that the good scenes you have done, the scenes that were magical, probably didn't have a pause quality going on; rather, they had a feeling of rapid fire, even if they were slow scenes.

"Is this to say that I should never have pauses between any of my lines, then?"

No, again. If a powerful improviser makes a choice of pausing before lines at the top or very near the top of a scene, then that becomes that improviser's deal and it's fine. It's pauses as a consequence of fear, when an improviser is thinking, that this condition plies to.