Getting Suggestive
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Improv Suggestions
This is the improv Chronicle podcast. I'm Lloydie. Probably the majority of improv shows have a standard beginning. Performers walk on stage, and they asked the audience for a suggestion or sometimes multiple suggestions. Some say we do this in order for the audience to believe that it's really made up. Others say it's a useful way of kickstarting scenes or getting people on the same starting page. But what makes a good for useful suggestion? And do we really need them anyway? A friend of mine heard at the end of the last episode of the Improv Chronicle Podcast that we were going to be talking about suggestions this episode and he's got opinions. So he drove around my apartment to give me a slice of his thoughts.
Hey, I'm Jack Cross. I am a Nottingham-based improviser I currently perform with Denise’s 50th, The Improclaimers and Rhymes Against Humanity, the improvised musical.
So your ideal show then. If you were to design that right now, how many or what kind of suggestion would it have, or would it just be you starting.
I think that I think they just isn't acceptance from the audience. If you come in to see something that is improvised, that you trust that what you're about to see is improvised, and Andi is being improvised by the players on stage, right in front of your eyes for you, specifically as an audience, I don't. For example, when I go to a magic show, I know that the magic I know that there's not real magic happening onstage. I can happy to be bamboozled by what's going on. I know that what is happening isn't it is a trick, but I'm happy just to be swept up in the entertainment of that. And I think that's the same for improv. I would rather, as an audience member particular. When I go and see other improv shows, the improv shows that I love. I don't care whether the suggestion has been honoured or not, although most chose that I see take a suggestion. I'm just happy to see players on stage enjoying themselves, going through an organic journey that I'm sharing with them.
What does make a good suggestion that if you're taking them, what makes a good suggestion.
Ah, again, I think it depends on what you wanted. Put your show. I think for if you're taking it as because we're doing improv, right? And we could literally be doing anything in a made up world anywhere, and we could be anything that we want to do. So the suggestion. If you're using it as an inspiration to create as a performer on with your fellow performers on stage, you are using it to define the parameters of what you show is about to bay. I think it can also be helpful for the audience because they trusting you that it could be literally anything. Andi helps them define their parameters or expectations of what the show might be. Um, but I think, as they say, as an audience member who want to be entertained if I'm watching an improv show, I don't care. Really. What, This what the inspiration is if I come out, have paid £5 or whatever is for my ticket, and I come out and I feel like I've got £5 worth of entertainment. I don't care whether the suggestion was was honoured or not, so I think it should be about just having a space for improvises, to get on the same page. To put something to put something on that is interesting and engaging most of our time.
Monday, 24th of February and heading to the Magnet Training Centre in New York to speak to one of their instructors to, get another opinion on the matter of suggestions.
My name is Megan Gray. I am an improviser on improv instructor, a performer director in New York City on it was formally artistic director of the Magnet Theatre in New York City for about seven years.
What do you think makes a good suggestion?
Oh my gosh, this's tricky because you have no control over it. You have no control over the suggestion, so it's a little bit like I can say what I like it. But I also feel like there's no good suggestion. I think you should be able to work with anything, and you can't control it anyway, So I try not to think too much about Is this a good I don't want? Also, I don't want to judge a suggestion. So Teo put a label on a suggestion I think is tricky. And I always tell my students that they should be able to work with anything because it's a suggestion. Is there as just a starting point? And then it makes you think of something else. And so it should be way. Call it a suggestion because it's not in stone. So I would say a good suggestion. Any suggestion is a good suggestion. So is the retype of suggestion that you find more useful. All you find is useful for creating great improv like location. Just a single word, that kind of thing. What I tell you what I don't like and I know that like I know I said, No vet, no suggestions about, but sometimes food. You get a lot of food suggestions, which I find you can food suggestions. They're fine. But when you get so many, I think that they become a little bit limiting of like another restaurant scene or a supermarket scene. I do like I like location suggestions because I like to think about who's there on who the characters who were there. So those ones there are always lovely. I find song lyrics very tricky myself because I start putting a meaning on them and a theme to them. And and sometimes I get a little bit in my head if it's too complicated a suggestion. So I think a simple location is really nice or something that is maybe thematic where it's like a jealousy or technology, or like things that have these, like they, Khun, be pulled apart into bigger themes and structures. So sometimes something thematic or a location is really nice suggestions, then do we need them in improv? I think it's important for suggestions, mayby, to think about what you're using it for. I think there's an improviser. I think we take suggestions for two reasons. One of those reasons is as an inspiration for us to create with our friends on stage, and sometimes we use the inspiration. This suggestion is an inspiration to get the audience on board, and I think it depends on the purpose of you show or what you're trying to do on stage that will determine whether this suggestion is needed or not.
Personally, I am against suggestions. For the most part, Um, I think it's important that we have space as improvisers to create something and share that journey with the audience, I think, improves one of the few art forms where the audience can see things evolving organically, as people are creating on stage right in front of them. On suggestions can sometimes limit that. If you're trying to match your performance or your show to meet a suggestion that the audience have put forward, you feel honour bound to and incorporate that into what you're doing, and sometimes that can inhibit the creativity that's happening on stage. I think beginning students need suggestions. I don't think that there, I think when you're first learning, you need a little bit of you need training wheels on your bike a little bit. I think as you get Aziz, you as you progress. I feel like you do need them less. As long as there's long as you haven't pre rien or pre thought or pre talked about something beforehand, you should be able to just get into the moment, checking with your partner and figure it out from there. So I would say for more advanced performers, I don't think they need suggestions as much. But I would say when you're first learning suggestions are are very nice s are there They're there to get you started and starting to think about things and starting to observe things. So I did.
I don't think everyone needs, um because there is this moment in an improv show, right at the beginning where we break the fourth war in a way that a lot of other theatre doesn't I just wonder the effect that that has on the audience the breaking what?
Breaking the fourth wall?
Because you are essentially going forward as yourself at the very beginning, interacting with the audience and then kind of putting on the show.
Yeah. The act of getting the suggestion. Yes, Yes, it is. Sort of. I always think it's sometimes nice when people have like, a blackout, right? Like the suggestion. Pineapple, Another food one. Thank you. A blackout, like it's come right back up. I think that's always a little nice or some sort of break. I think is always really nice. I also find that a little odd sometimes that we go right into getting a suggestion into a scene. I think sometimes that Khun Beale that could be a little little bit jarring us. I always like a sweep or a blackout or some sort of, like divide into This is our suggestion. Thank you. And then going into the peace. So I agree that it is sort of like this weird. I me getting this word from you that you sputtered out of your mouth, and now I'm going to do a show about it s o It is like a It's a weird thing that no other art form really does. Well, I think it's It is nice in musicals, though, when they do an opening number, I think like that isn't really nice. Like cool. Great. That's a nice transition, But for regular improv, I guess I would like that sort of opening number to lead us into something.
Uh, hi. I’m Shari Hazlett. I am an improviser from New York City, and I am a performer and also a market on producer of improv shows. I guess you see, improved from two perspectives both produce from before, but then also as somebody who who market stuff Do you think suggestions are useful in improv? Okay, so I have my personal perspective on as a marketer, I think. Okay, It depends on the kind of show. I think they can be useful from an audience perspective. It's engaging. It's fun. It's something you could do to connect with the audience. The beginning of the show. I think there's a way you could kind of let people know what to expect. And then once the audience is there, you can kind of carry that experience over into the introduction of the show. I can feel like they're part of it, especially if they maybe don't know that much about improper. Haven't seen an improv shut before, so I think it's definitely useful for more of a general audience show. They really like that. It's rewarding for them. It's fun and that kind of thing personally. So you took him Morrison. Improvising now? Personally? Yes, as an improviser. So as a marketer, Yeah, I think overall, just having you know, more of a comprehensive experience for the audience member of beauty, you could be great as as an improviser. Personally, I prefer to just start. I don't love suggestions, I guess what future is there then, for a kind of improv that doesn't use an audience suggestion at all? Is that a marketable prospect? I think so, because I think audiences they only expect a suggestion. If we tell them to expect it. We tell them to expect a suggestion. I think it's a nice way to draw them in. That's really great as a marketer and as a producer, you let people know what they're going to expect, What kind of experience they could expect. You can tell them. Hey, maybe not gonna take a suggestion from you on then. Don't do that and, you know, do something amazing. And they love it. The audience never come out at the end of the show and say now, Oh, that suggestion, man, that was so good. No one ever says that, right? No, I think the improvisers we're like, Oh, man, that suggestion I hated it was the worst. Or, I mean, I think that happens more than anything I don't know. I usually forget. Forget what it is. At some point, I think more than anything, the audience wants to be entertained, right? Yes, I believe the audience wants to be entertained and the audience wants to feel something, and I don't think that is suggestion dependent.
Next time on the Improv Chronicle podcast, you can sit a bunch of improvises in a bar on. They can have a pretty heated discussion about how to edit scenes. The Improv Chronicle podcast is produced and presented by me, Lloydie James Lloyd. Please subscribe and rate on your favourite podcast app by going to ratethispodcast.com/improvchronicle It really does make a difference when you write a review and if you have an idea for a possible episode, get in touch. improvchronicle.com