9 Advice and Guidelines for Improvisers Talent

Why are some more talented than others? What does it take to pre­vail in improvisation? Should improvisation be pursued as a career?

What do you want from improvisation?

My first piece of advice is to be brutally honest with yourself about what you want. Ask yourself why you are improvising.

If you want to work in the cast of a professional improv theater company, say that, to yourself and others. If you want to be a film star, declare that. If you would like to improvise as a hobby, then have it be that. Too many people shroud themselves with false inten­tions when it comes to improvisation.

Improvisation has an artistic presumption that makes people think that it is wrong to use it as a tool for writing, acting, or to fur­ther a career. While in it, people think they should hold it purely as an artistic endeavor, when really, in the back of their minds, they are thinking of having a big career in professional theater, film, or televi­sion. Improvisers would get there quicker (whatever "there" is for them) if they would just be honest with what they want. Not only is that sort of falsity annoying and tacky, it is also a practical inhibitor.

Integrity is living up to what you declare, in an improv scene and in a life. Declare what you honestly want, and live that vision fearlessly.

If you do decide to improvise as a professional endeavor, know that it is just that: a professional endeavor. And like all professions, it takes time. Improvisation has tangible skill sets and indicators of progress.

It takes time to attain these skills and the amount of time it takes is different for everybody. But it at least takes years—years of experi­ence, either on stage or training or preferably both.

You may be the funniest thing on the block, but if you don't have the technical skill set to improvise with another person, that talent will be forever locked inside, held prisoner by the common improv­isation behavioral pitfalls that reside in every beginning improviser. Just one of those moves where you lose power could get you in your head and ruin your scene.

The Concept of Training

There's such a thing as too much training. If you move to a city like Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles and enter into the lovely world of improvisation, check yourself to make sure you are balancing practical performing experience with classes.

It is very easy to get swept up into the social and academic arenas and convince yourself that you're making progress. Time on stage is paramount, and if you don't have it there's only so far you will evolve as an improvisational actor. If you find yourself enrolling in your second year of improvisation class and have had limited per­forming experience, my suggestion is to not enroll in that class.

Take time off to assess your station in the improv arena. You will discover much and observe those around you in your situation with a more powerful, objective eye. Then your decision to take another workshop will be just that, a decision, as opposed to a weak reaction to your perception that taking another class is what you are sup­posed to do.

Taking time off will also help you absorb what you've learned. The improvisation training world is saturated with varying points of view and different theories, including my own. I believe that none are wrong and none are right: Every approach has helped someone at some time improve their work. That's the beauty of paying for the service of being taught information about improvisation: You get to choose what works for you. What doesn't work, assuredly, is attempting to absorb and execute all of those contradictory influ­ences in one fell swoop. It takes being selective and using only that which helps you. And often, determining what works for you is best achieved with an absence of any influence.