Just as our art form adapted by going online, online shows have adapted with the technology. As people realise that online improv is going to stay with us in some form how is technology is being used and adapted by teams to make the experience better for performers and audiences and the improv community as a whole?

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This episode features:

Stephanie Rae from The Black Improv Alliance: https://blackimprovalliance.com

Chris Griswold from Pineappl: https://pineappl.studio/
Experience Pineappl for yourself in a free drop-in workshop with Chris: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-monday-improv-comedy-drop-in-on-pineappl-registration-133052127495

Chris Mead and Katy Schutte from The Improv Place: https://theimprov.place/

The Improv Chronicle Podcast is produced and hosted by Nottingham improviser Lloydie James Lloyd
Theme music - Sam Plummer
Logo design - Hélène Dollie

Episode transcript:
This… is the Improv Chronicle podcast. I'm Lloydie.

Lloydie James Lloyd: It's Tuesday, 26th January, 2021. No one expected us to still be sheltering at home and not be back in theatres by the time we got to this point in time. But here we are. And just as our art form has adapted by going online, online shows, improv theatres and improv communities have adapted by using technology in different ways and sometimes, even inventing their own technology. 

As people realize that online improv isn't going away, we look at how technology is being used and adapted by teams to make the experience better for performers and audiences and the improv community as a whole.

Chris Griswold: So, yeah, this is Pineapple. Like I said, we wanted this to be a little bit gentler than Zoom, so I opted for something that looks like Polaroid frames, because it's something that you've held at some point in your life. I wanted to some feeling of tactile remembrance on the screen. So, that's why the things look like Polaroids right now. 

And just using your keyboard keys, your arrow keys, you can move around on the stage. 

Lloydie: Pineapple is a new online platform for performing and teaching improv. It's cocreator showed me around the platform the other day and told me how it came about.

Griswold: I'm Chris Griswold, I've been teaching and performing improv for over 20 years. I started in Pittsburgh, I moved to New York City and was there for 10 years. I worked for the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. I was a performer at the Annoyance. And then about six months before the pandemic, I packed up everything that I had in New York and I moved to San Francisco to start teaching my own classes there with my company, Thunderbolt Comedy. And I don't know if you know this. There was a worldwide pandemic. So, those plans didn't quite come to fruition. 

So, instead, my friend and student, Michael Parlato, approached me, and we figured it out May 12th, and we started talking; what can we build? What can we build to make this all easier? And he and I had different ideas that became Pineappl.

Lloydie: It's a huge undertaking, particularly in May when we didn't really know how long the pandemic was going to go on for, let alone that we'd be spending such huge quantities in our homes and not being able to be in theatres.

So, why did you do this? I mean, seriously, it's a lot.

Griswold: We've approached everything from an improv point of view. We've just {indistinct 2:53 – 54} the pandemic and recognized that it was not going to go away immediately. And then it was not something that we could ignore. It was something that we needed to acknowledge and address. And not just that, we've {indistinct 3:07} each other every step of the way. 

When Michael jokingly said Pineappl should be the name, because that is a suggestion that apparently a lot of people get in their improv, I said, “Yes, that's the name of the app”, and we have built it in that way. 

And it's been amazing. It started off early on. We just had a lot of roundtable discussions with improvisors; what's missing? What do you miss from the stage? What do you wish you could do on the screen? And we had a lot of those for a while, just so we could figure out what does this need to look like? What does this need to feel like? Even more importantly, what does it need to feel like? And then we just did so many rounds of play testing; just had people try it and play with it and evolve it into what it is now. 

This is a video performance app. This is not video teleconferencing app that you're bastardising into being what you need it to be. This is built for collaborative performance so that on the fly, anybody can take care of anybody else and have their back. So, I can edit you very quickly out of a scene. If you're doing a scene and it's not clear who you are, where you are, I can throw a background image behind you and now you have a better idea of where you are. We've created a hybrid of stage and screen and it's spontaneous and reactive.

Lloydie: What's also interesting to me about this is the audience functionality, because unlike Zoom, where very often you take Zoom and then you broadcast it to your Facebook channel, this, I'm looking at the screen here and like at the moment, it says, “Empty house.” So, no audience for us, Chris, right now. But you can invite audience to be here, too, right?

Griswold: Yes, we can fit up to 50 people in this room. We've reserved 40 spots for audiences at any given time, but you can adjust that. So, again, you can fit up to 50 people in here and there's no lag in terms of how much time you're taking to communicate with the audience. 

What's amazing is when I've done shows, you can tell when I'm looking at the chat box, you can tell what people's sight lines are. So, I'm looking at you right now and the audience knows, “Oh, Chris is looking at Lloydie” and vice versa, whereas in Zoom, everybody's just staring you down. And that is confronting to an audience. 

That was one of the big things is I didn't want performers to be just looking in at their audiences in the eye because an audience doesn't want that. You know, we really have to think about film acting, screen acting, not just bringing improv to a screen. And so, that was important. 

But it's funny. I would say this; there was a huge reluctance to get into virtual improv at all. And then Zoom in particular, I think people had a hard time learning Zoom; I still have panic attacks using Zoom. And so, it's sometimes tough to sell people on come try Pineappl because they think it's going to be the same learning curve. And we've gone out of our way to make sure that it is not difficult like that. We want this to be simple. 

And I think we have adapted so much to so many technologies, whether it's using Teleparty for Netflix, viewing with somebody else or Jack Box game. So, many people use Jack Box games. People have flocked to Discord for their chat rooms and things like that.

But I think Pineappl's something people should really give a shot because a lot of the stress people have about online improv goes away in this app. Pineappl really does simplify, and I feel connected to the other performers and to the audience. People really feel supported in Pineappl. And that's what I really want is a feeling of support and agency. 

Lloydie: Online spaces for shows is one very handy tool. But how about a new social media platform for improvisors to connect, network and form community? That's what two UK improvisors have created. 

Chris Mead: Hi there. My name is Chris Mead. I am an improviser, a teacher and a performer; performing mostly in the UK, but, you know, what does that mean nowadays?

Katie Schutte: Hello, I'm Katie Schutte. I'm co-founder director of The Improv Place.

Lloydie: So, why did you set it up? First of all, I think that's the first thing I need to know.

Mead: Oh, there are many origins on that, Katie. 

Katie: Yeah. 

Mead: I think it's important to say, first of all, that it was a pre-pandemic thing. We were always going to create a global digital community. And I think, I mean, one of the main reasons was that we were traveling around and meeting all these fascinating improvisors from all around the world as we went to festivals and things. And we didn't want to rely on Facebook as the sole way to keep in touch with them. We wanted to sort of bring them together somehow on a different platform.

Katie: It's interesting later that some of the feedback that we've had from many improv places; people going, “It’s like an improv festival. But it's a digital community” and we're like, “Yes, good. That's what we want.” 

But yeah, I think it was an answer to partly an untapped place. Not completely untapped; nothing's totally new. But there was a lot of live stuff. Yes, you can travel around to reach it. And of course, that's quite exclusionary for some people as well, depending on their money and their lives and what holiday is available to them and loads of different circumstances. 

This felt like it might be more accessible for people. And we would like to be nice, not in the rubbish sense, but like, “Wouldn't it be cool to have everyone who wants to improv to get together?” 

And we also felt like it might be a nice way of not treading on the toes of other companies that we work with because it was something different; having online classes and community and ways of chatting. So, yes, a few reasons it came about, but none of them, at the beginning, were anything to do with the pandemic. 

Lloydie: Although, of course you did launch during the pandemic. And what you seem to have provided is a real sense of community at a time when I think a lot of improvisors kind of don't feel the closeness that they would normally feel.

Mead: Right. So, yeah, you can still get classes and performing shows pretty easily all over the place. What The Improv Place provides, I think, is those other things that being part of an improv community gives to an individual. 

So, every week, we will have social meet ups of one kind or another where we just hang out and talk about improv and that will happen every week. We’ll have jams, which is slightly different to dropping into a jam because you've got this community and you'll see the same people and build up some kind of, I don't know, you know, a bond with those people – with that group – as well as having discussions every day – text-based discussions – on different aspects of improv. It’s just somewhere you can go and just let your geek flag fly and everyone else is like you and wants to do that; which I think is really nice.

Katie: It feels a little safer or less overwhelming than a lot of other platforms that are not built specifically for people like improv teams. So, I know that I'm someone who has anxiety and I just – the more time I spend on Facebook – and this is not a revelation to anyone – but it can feel a bit much. 

So, it's been really easy to find a platform more built to someone that wants, you know, like Chris is saying, people that can already start to get to know each other a little bit. Like you can actually just have a chat with someone you don't really know. So, it's only sort of 300 people there at the moment. We're probably going to cap it at some point rather than just trying to grow and grow as well, so that it does become more like a town or village where you can know people.

Mead: I think for me, you're never putting the toothpaste back in the tube of we're never going to go back to our own local sandboxes and just play there knowing there's this huge, diverse, incredible world of improv out there. We're never going to sort of just turn our faces away from it and forget that everyone else is there. 

So, whatever happens after this pandemic, this new way of communicating and collaborating is going to continue. 

Lloydie: As well as help performers do shows and improvise form community, the online world has also amplified underrepresented groups in improv. And there's one organization that's made a huge impact around the world.

Stephanie Rae: Hi, I'm Stephanie Rae, director of The Black Improv Alliance, an organization committed to creating community and amplifying the voices of black improvisors. 

We existed before the pandemic, but we really expanded quite a bit after things went online; that's when our reach really became international, because we were able to reach people virtually in a way that was possible before, but people just were not in these online spaces with the same frequency that they are right now. 

We actually began as a performance group of four black improvisors in South Florida, but always with the intention of expanding, of creating a larger community. And when improv pretty much completely moved online, we realized, “Hey, now we can play with other black improvisors from all over the country, even all over the world.” 

And so, we created a second team, which is called the International Players Club, and we're all over America. One of our members, Velvet, is Canadian. So, we call ourselves international. But that's been really exciting.

Lloydie: How would you describe kind of the aims and objectives now that you have become international?

Stephanie: So, we seek to be a place where black improvisors can connect with and find each other. I joke that every time someone comes to play with us and they say, “Oh, my gosh, that's the first time I've played with a group that was entirely black people”, that a black angel gets their wings; that makes me really happy when that happens. 

The other big thing that we've been very, very focused on, really probably the last six, seven months, is our scholarship program, The One Hundred Black Improvisors Partnership. We've partnered with, I think at this point, 52 theatres around the world to offer scholarships to their programs for black students to come try an improv class without having to pay for it. And more importantly, the scholarships have to be offered in groups of five. So, there's always an opportunity for students to have a built-in community of other improvisors who look like them. 

Now, we haven't always been able to find five students for each class, but we're able to say to them, “Hey, you're the only person who signed up for this class, but you can bring friends, you can bring people with you. So, you're not walking into a situation where you have to be the only black person in the room”, which unfortunately is the story in a lot of places. 

We always seek to match people with a theatre that is physically close to them because ideally, we want them to be a part of that community once the world opens up again. But having the freedom to have someone in, I don't know, Kansas taking an improv class in Chicago has been beautiful. Because everyone doesn't live near an improv theatre or with their schedule, they might not be able to take a class at the local theatre. 

So, being able to match people all around the world with theatres in other places has been really convenient and also very exciting because theatres are getting opened up to communities that otherwise probably would not have been familiar with them.

Lloydie: I would imagine you kind of have two messages. I presume there is something that you want to say to black improvisors, but equally, there is something that you probably want to say to what improvisors who predominantly run theatres, who, schedule classes, et cetera. Would they be two different messages?

Stephanie: Yes, very much. To black improvisors, I would say we want you in this art form. There is space for you. We want you to show up unapologetically. We are here to support you and to welcome you into this community and to help you create a community locally. 

So, no matter what show you might have gone to, what class you might have taken before, if you did not feel like that was a welcoming or safe space for you, we want you to come back because we are working very hard to change that.

To white improvisors, I would say you probably don't have any idea what it is like to be the only person who looks like you, constantly. And with the understanding that that can be a very unpleasant experience, if you truly want diversity in your theatres and in your spaces – And you should, because it's going to be good for your business, it's going to be good for your performers, is going to be good for you as a person – you have to be willing to put your money where your mouth is and really make a conscious effort. 

Because diversified spaces do not happen by accident and people will see that effort and see that work. If you build the space, people will want to be a part of it, but it's not it's not something that happens because you try to offer one scholarship one time or because you are a good person and you are not racist, and so, people should just feel safe. That's not how it works. 

You really have to put in some legwork to make it actively known that you want a diverse community and you're willing to do the work to make sure that it's a safe space for everyone.

If you are thinking about forming a community, that's a great time to embrace the improv principle of “Don't overthink it.” Start with what you've got. When I started this scholarship program, it was just kind of an idea and I thought, “Okay, I will commit to teaching five classes with 10 students each myself.” So, that was the thought; I'd teach 50 students and maybe five or six or eight other theatres would commit to teach a small group and we'd get to 100 that way. 

And now we've got 52 theatres and more spaces than I've even been able to find students for. And it really just happened because I had this idea and built the website and sent out some messages and thought, “Okay, maybe, hopefully somebody will respond.” And so many people embraced it and it really grew beyond what I had ever imagined. 

So, I would encourage people to start where they are and also to be unapologetically yourself. There have been people who said to me, “Stephanie, basically, you are so outspokenly and overtly pro-black that you are going to ostracize some people.” 

And I've said, “You know what? That's okay with me. I am here for black people. I am here to create spaces for us and to amplify our voices. And I'm here to work with allies who support that. And anyone who sees that and is offended and says, ‘Well, you should be less focused on black people. You should be more focused on humanity.’ Like if that's how you feel, you should do that. But I am here to be a voice and a resource for black improvisors, and I love and support it when people from other communities want to come alongside me and help and support that work. But that's my focus and that will always be my focus.” 

So, whatever community you're passionate about, I encourage folks to just dive in and know that there will be people who support you. Don't be afraid of having a strong focus.

Lloydie: This episode; you've heard just three examples of things that have become widely known during the pandemic. The online space always used to be a supplementary thing to improv. The pandemic has made it the art form’s mainstage and now improvisors are starting to make it their own.

It's an exciting time for online improv. 

Next time… on the Improv Chronicle podcast.

The words “improv” and “comedy” are so, so regularly used together. But comedy doesn't have to be the goal of improv. Next episode, you're going to hear from improvisors who do specifically dramatic improv. And if you're one of those, get in touch by emailing newsdesk@improvchronicle.com 

The Improv Chronicle podcast is produced and hosted by me Lloydie James Lloyd. You can help the podcast right now. Subscribe and rate on your favorite podcast app. And find out more about previous episodes, including transcripts and our website improvchronicle.com