Have you ever watched an improv scene unfold and felt like you were witnessing a real-life magic trick? That's the power of the 'choose to know' philosophy in improvisation, as taught by the acclaimed actor and improviser Craig Cackowski. In this episode Lloydie sits down with Craig to discuss this transformative approach to improv that has the potential to not only solve common scene issues but also to leave audiences spellbound... and then tries it out with a group of improvisers to see how it differs from a "Yes And" exercise.

Guest:

Craig Cackowski

Take a class with him in LA: https://wgimprovschool.com/teachers/view/34

Check out the two-person show he does with his wife Carla: https://orangetuxedoimprov.com/

Host:

Lloydie James Lloyd

Podcast Theme:

Composed by Chris Stevens at Studio Dragonfly

Support The Improv Chronicle Podcast by donating or sponsoring an episode. Your contribution helps us continue to share the stories and wisdom of improvisers from around the globe. https://ko-fi.com/improvchronicle

episode transcript

Lloydie: Improvisers should choose to know

Craig Cackowski: We, the improvisers, have to figure it out moment by moment through context clues. But if you have the mentality that the character knows everything already, you will stay ahead of the audience about 5 seconds. And that 5 seconds is long enough to look like a magic trick.

Lloydie James Lloyd: This is the improv chronicle. I'm Lloydie. At the end of last week, I had the pleasure of chatting with an improviser about the central tenet of their improv philosophy, which is choosing to know. Then after we chatted, I decided to take the exercise that they gave me and compare it to a standard. Yes, and exercise. And compare and contrast the results. You can hear how that went in just a bit. But first, let's get into the theory.

Craig Cackowski: Choose to know in improv is key to success

Craig Cackowski: Hello, I'm Craig Cackowski. I'm an actor improviser teacher based in Los Angeles.

Lloydie James Lloyd: I'd love to talk about what you mean, by the phrase choose to know in improv.

Craig Cackowski: Well, choose to know is, if anybody who has studied with me for an hour or more knows is one of my improv mantras. It's just something that comes up a lot in my teaching, and it's something I deeply believe in. And I find that it makes most of the common improv issues work, and many of the other improv rules that we have out there, which are all guidelines which come from a, good, thoughtful, helpful place in theory. but all the ways that a scene could potentially go wrong, I find, are, assuaged by choosing to know. And what I mean by that is, when new information comes up in a scene, your character could either know it or not know it. And I'm here to say it's always going to benefit the scene more for your character to already know what the other person is talking about. So, as improvisers, we are constantly discovering moment to moment, the reality that we're in. But the character knows where they are, the character knows why they are where they are, the character knows who they're with, the character knows why they're with who they're with. The character knows what they're doing. The character knows why they're doing what they're doing. We, the improvisers, have to figure it out moment by moment through context clues. But if you have the mentality that the character knows everything already, you will stay ahead of the audience about 5 seconds. And that 5 seconds is long enough to look like a magic trick.

Lloydie James Lloyd: I mean, I agree on all of this, but I am going to be devil's advocate for a second. please what about Coyness in improv? what about characters discovering things in improv? What about those things?

Craig Cackowski: You know, because I teach in Los Angeles, I get a lot of actory types sometimes who feel like, I feel like my character wouldn't know that. And, you can always find a justification for that, and I would always, believe that. I'm here to say two things. The audience likes it more when you choose to know. It's one of the number one ways you can impress an audience while improvising, because they know you're making it all up. but if you can magically weave in anything that is unfamiliar to you as if everything is meant to happen, the audience loves that. And also, for whatever reason, it's just funnier. So if comedy is your goal, choosing to know always rings out as funny funnier. But I also understand that there are times when a character has to deliver a revelation or a surprise to another character. Honey, I gotta tell you something. I'm pregnant. I thought so. You've been throwing up every night for a week, so I didn't know that you were pregnant. But now that you tell me that, I have information that can corroborate that. So there might be times where your character is, deliver information is completely new to them, but you, the improviser, should still react with new information that can further the scene and not just be in a fully reactive mode where the burden of creativity, the burden of information is on your partner. You want to be able to share that burden of information together. So I think if each person is nudging the scene slightly forward with every line, you know, incremental growth is fine. I think people either tend to be in fully reactive mode where it's like, I know he's going somewhere with this. I'm going to say something safe and non committal and nonspecific until I get more information so I can do the scene correctly. So either people are in that mode, or they are shoving the scene forward with a boatload of new information, more than the other person can possibly handle, at a time. So I just like that feeling of a slow, light nudge, you know, something, a new little bit of specificity on every line.

Lloydie James Lloyd: That's really interesting.

I think improv works best when the scene is completely undefined

I want to take you back to something that you said a few seconds ago. You said, the audience likes it more. Now, taking aside the funny thing at the moment, which I know lots of people will latch onto and go, oh, wait, this makes me funny. I am m 100% on board with it. I mean, personally, I'm the weird sadist who loves to make an audience cry, but, we'll park that. yes. What is it that an audience, do you think, instinctively loves more about characters that choose to know?

Craig Cackowski: I think when you begin a scene, you have infinite possibility and complete ambiguity. And then as soon as anybody says or does anything, things start to come into focus. So I think improv works best when the scene that is in my head is also the scene that is in my partner's head, which is also the scene that is in every audience member's head. And, you know, from receiving notes and giving notes, that often the scene that the improviser thought they were doing is not the scene that everybody else in the room was seeing. So you have to constantly communicate with your partner and with the audience through specific nonverbal choices, subtextual choices, and specificity in the dialogue as well, to erase that ambiguity. And for some reason, when something that was undefined gets defined, the audience enjoys that. And it doesn't have to be intrinsically witty or clever. It just, you know, from nothing, we suddenly discover that we're in a 711 or we're in a church. You know, let's assume that the location was not given, as a suggestion, but, especially sometimes with locale, when a scene is in a very vague, undefined place, and suddenly the location comes into focus. Now, the audience can picture that 711. And when you go over to the slurpee machine and make yourself a slurpee, the audience is like, I see that slurpee. And they enjoy that as well. So I just want to take the pressure off of cleverness and wit, which I think is such, actually, a small percentage of the laughs that we earn. I won't say it's not an element, but I think it's like, 5% of the time it's based on verbal cleverness, as opposed to the 95% of time that people attempt it and swing and miss.

Lloydie James Lloyd: Do you think it is a, sense of comfort sometimes that the audience gets like, it's, oh, I know what's going on. Okay, this is cool. Or do you think sometimes it is maybe almost an easing of the tension of. Well, I know I'm watching two things here. I'm watching the show, but I'm also watching the process of improvisation. Is some of it like, kind of like a relief as well as a comfort?

Craig Cackowski: Yeah, I think that's a nice way of putting it. I think the audience enjoys the process of improv as much as they enjoy the results. And some improvisers like to play into that a little too much by constantly calling out their own confusion or self referential or meta jokes about the fact that we're making this all up. And that has its time and place, depending on what type of show and what type of form you're doing, you know, I will allow some slight meta and slight winks to the audience, and I will say, I'm just as guilty of it as other people are sometimes. But my best experiences as an audience member and as a performer have been completely losing myself in a completely fictional reality that did not exist, you know, a half hour ago. And somehow we've created this wonderful tapestry from. From nothingness that everyone will remember. I consider the highest compliment that I can get from an audience member is after the show, when they'll come up to me and said, when, Teddy got fired from his job, that was heartbreaking, you know, like, they'll start talking to me about my fictional character as if he was real, and I'd be like, yeah, I know, that was crazy, right? As if we were talking about an episode of succession or something, you know? And I like that kind of compliment better than, like, hey, man, that was funny. You know, I want to lose themselves and think that the person that I created who didn't exist a half hour ago was completely real and vivid to them.

Lloydie James Lloyd: Oh, me too. I love it when we get to buy into the reality together. I love it when I get to go home, like, just before I drop off to sleep, I'm like, oh, God, I really hope those guys are okay. Those moments are great, and they're not real. But I still care.

Craig Cackowski: So I do. I know scenes. It's, one of the exercises that I will do, especially on the first day of a class, because I think it's so important. And I do believe that in breaking down different muscles into an improv class, there's writing muscles and there's acting muscles. And I think I know is very much a writing muscle, you know, because it is based on the verbal. And I tell the students, this is not a scene. This is a drill. It will closely resemble a scene, but it really is a drill, because we're just isolating one muscle. And I don't care that you're doing 40 things right in this scene. I just want to work on this one very specific muscle. So, I'll get an opening line. well, when I demonstrate it to the students, I will get an opening line. So give me an opening line, Lloydie.

Lloydie James Lloyd: It's been so great in Nottingham the last few days.

Craig Cackowski: It's been so gray in Nottingham the last few days. I know. I don't think we will ever see the sun again. I, know, I don't remember what it looks like. I know you drew a picture, and it was circular and yellow, but I'm not sure that that is right. I know I'm doubting my own reality. I know I've forgotten my name. so. So I will kind of demonstrate that for the students first. and then they'll get up. The first line can be anything, but every line after that needs to begin with the words. I know. so some things I tell them are the word, but after I know tends to negate it. Yeah, I know, but I'd rather talk about this other, completely different thing. questions don't work so well. Assertive statements of fact work great, assuming that everything is factual, rather than just opinion. So much in improv can be dismissed as like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just what you think. I think this other completely different thing. and that, again, opinion probably has its time and place, but I think for the purposes of this drill, getting an agreement of the basic reality is going to be important. And then I say, it's already a pretty mechanical exercise. Try saying, I know, with whatever your character is feeling, let it come from emotion, let it come from point of view. And trust me that the other words will flow out of that rather than I know.

Yes and I know exercise is central to improv philosophy

Here's where I think of the next thing to say. And you may notice that this is similar to yes and, which, you know, people will do. Yes, and drills as well. And I find that yes, and is, an, important improv concept, but really more of a metaphorical than a literal concept. It's agreeing with the base reality of the scene and furthering the information of the scene, but literally saying yes, and leads to scenes that are like, we need to clean the bathroom. Yes, and we need to clean the kitchen. And you're not really any closer to understanding why you were cleaning the bathroom. You've just doubled your workload, metaphorically and literally. You have to clean two rooms now, and you don't know why. So I found that I know gets a little more into the how and why behind things and makes us care a little more about them.

Lloydie James Lloyd: So, two interesting exercises. Let's try it out with a bunch of Nottingham improvisers. I think we need to eat chips tonight. Yes, and mushy peas. Yes. And possibly some gravy as well. Yes. And let's have candles to make it more romantic.

Craig Cackowski: Yes.

Lloydie James Lloyd: And after that, I think we should have ice cream. Yes. The special kind. Craig's absolutely right. The. Yes. And exercise very much about adding information. But what about. I know. Driving is such a cool experience. I know. And sometimes I close my eyes and do it. I know. There was this one time I fell asleep. I know. And then when you dream literally within two or three lines, every time we did this, there was some emotional information. But not only that, we were able to dwell on the subject matter more and go deeper rather than moving on constantly to the next thing. It felt like we were staying in a world more. How central is this to, like, your improv philosophy? Because it sounds like it's kind of at the heart of it.

Craig Cackowski: This came from my three man group, Dasiriski, which is me, and Bob Dassey and Rich Tallerico. We've been together for about 25 years, dating back to our time in Chicago, and then we had long runs in Los Angeles. we used to tape every show, literally tape. That's how long ago it was. mini dv. I still have cardboard boxes full of the tapes.

Lloydie James Lloyd: I am obviously far too young to remember what a tape is. Yeah, I have definitely not tape. I have never edited audio using a razor blade tape and a china graph pen. That has never happened. And anyone who says so is a liar.

Craig Cackowski: Well, lordy, there used. There used to be this thing called tape.

Lloydie James Lloyd: Okay. thank you for.

Craig Cackowski: We would video every show, and then we would transcribe the ones that we liked because we were trying to turn them into, screenplays or pilot scripts or eventually, we did adapt, a few of our improvised shows into one act plays that mash together some, different shows that we had improvised. and we found that in the transcriptions of shows that we liked, that we felt were working a lot. We noticed we were saying the words I know a lot, within that. So that's how I kind of transferred what would normally be a yes and exercise into an I know exercise. And I saw immediate results, from that. Now, some of the pitfalls that happen in class are people will circle the same information, rephrase what we already know. This is a fun party. I know I'm having a good time. I know parties are fun. I know times are fun when there's a party, but you're not really moving the scene forward. and I've also found that, again, people will overwhelm you with new information. This is a fun party. Yeah. Digging this chocolate fountain over here. Hey, congratulations on winning that gymnastics championship. I wonder if Allison's here. but chocolate fountain was awesome. Stop there. So, I think people have a tendency to create something and then explain the thing that they created, or look at their partner's confusion and feel like they need to clarify. And I think letting things sit a little more and enjoying those. Enjoying those silences and really letting that information steep, until you have something helpful to say, is important, too. So, you can slow down these I know scenes and allow people, to consider their next move, think that improv is like chess, because even the best improvisers cannot and should not be trying to work ten moves ahead like a grandmaster would. But I do like the rhythm of. I make a move. You respond to that move, I respond to your response. So I do like the back and forth rhythm, particularly in the early moments of a scene, are very important. So you.

The Improv Chronicle podcast depends on people being able to discover it

Yes. Dasiriski kind of discovered. I know, but it's then been. And I've always been a big specificity person in general. And that's typically been my role in a long form group is being the person who is gifting, labeling, adding to the reality. I like to be specific and I know is a philosophy that forces me to.

Lloydie James Lloyd: The Improv Chronicle podcast is produced and hosted by me, Lloydie James Lloyd. Now you can get the world of improv in your inbox every week by subscribing to the Improv Chronicle newsletter. Just go to improvchronicle.com right now to sign up. This podcast depends on people being able to discover it. So if you want to tell your friends about it, that's great. But one thing you can do so that the algorithm takes care of all of that hard work is to follow this podcast on whatever podcast subscriber you use and give it a nice little five star rating. That makes a huge difference. It's possible to sponsor episodes or donate. There's details at the website, which is also where you can find transcripts of previous episodes. Just go to improvchronicle.com.