How External Factors Influence Our Improv
How much do external factors like the space we play in or the audience have an influence on what we do on stage as improvisers - and how much impact should they have? Three improvisers from three different countries give their thoughts on the impact of the audience, the spaces they play in and how much attention we should pay to that.
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This show features:
Emily Brady:
Check out her podcast, The Improv Treehouse here: https://soundcloud.com/improvtreehouse
Rob Mulligan:
Check out Rob's two podcasts:
Good Stuf with Rob and Nick - https://anchor.fm/good-stuf-podcast
Adventure Incorporated - https://adventureincpod.com/
Rob Norman:
Check out Rob's podcast, The Backline here: https://thesonarnetwork.com/the-backline/
Episode transcript:
This… is the Improv Chronicle Podcast. I'm Lloydie.
Lloydie James Lloyd: How much do external factors, like the space we play in or the audience that we’re having at night have an influence on what we do on stage as improvisers? And how much impact should they have?
As someone who's played to a variety of audiences in a variety of different spaces, I've often wondered just how heavily influenced by improvised by the things around me. And by things, I mean everything that's not another improviser.
I spoke to three different improvisers from three different countries to get their take on it.
Rob Mulligan improvises in Boston, USA at Improv Boston, among other places. And he believes whatever the place, whatever's going on around the stage, good improv wins out.
Rob Mulligan: If you're improv’s good, you can deal with any sort of external stimuli. If there's some sort of weird, crazy noise, you'll incorporate it into your set. We've all been in that show where someone has a weird laugh and then that weird laugh gets incorporated for some reason; it always happens.
But I think that the external factors, like something as big as a noisy room and something as small as a slightly larger stage, change your headspace pretty subtly or significantly, depending.
Lloydie: What do you think space does for the way in which people play?
Mulligan: I guess I can only say for me. But for me, I want to use the whole stage. When I have a big stage, I want to use the whole stage. And there are some more talky improvisors (and I am one of them) but there is something freeing about that ability to step forward and make it more theatrical when it's a very big stage. And then when it's a very tiny little stage, it becomes very like – It has a more intimate feel, but like a less theatrical feel. And it makes me do different characters, I think.
Lloydie: Next stop was Emily Brady, one of my teammates in Rhymes Against Humanity, the improvised musical here in Nottingham, UK.
Emily Brady: The kind of spaces that I perform in are fairly fluid. So, you know; I've performed in tiny little box stages in rooms above pubs. I've performed in 700-seat theaters. I've performed in international improv festivals. I have performed to my mum. And all of these kind of different settings and audiences really, in my case, I think, informed the kind of improv that I do.
The kind of improv that I'm currently doing with various groups like Rhymes Against Humanity and Mind Meld and the Improvised Star Wars show are all quite, I would say, loosely structured. They often have a theme, but within that you're very responsive to the audience and you follow what they're interested in and what they're not.
And I think the shape of the room and the kind of nature of the venue kind of, that directly impacts the kind of audiences that you get and the kind of feedback that you get on stage as an improviser and the kind of decisions that you then make in the show.
I can see why for how some groups that have really, really strong central themes and a strong identity to them, such as Mayday's Happily Never After or Show Stopper, they can sort of transplant that energy and that identity onto pretty much any space and they're still listening and they're still receptive to the audience.
But I think in the kind of improv that I'm doing at the moment, which is based in sort of more smaller communities and in shows that have a more of a theme that you can then respond to throughout, it does become very sort of receptive to what the audience is doing. And, of course, the kind of nature of the space has a huge impact on that.
Lloydie: Over to Canada and Rob Norman, author of Improvising Now: A Practical Guide to Modern Improv, places a lot of weight on acknowledging the space that you're in.
Rob Norman: I think being present in the actual space and acknowledging what's actually happening is super important. And I think if like you have a bigger stage, that's a new opportunity for you. In the same way, if there's two people in the audience, that's a new opportunity for you.
Me and my improv partner, Adam Cawley, we do a lot of tours. So, we travel the world and we'll do workshops and we'll do these shows. And the first thing I want to see when I arrive in a city is not the big landmarks, not the museums; I want to see that theatre I'm performing in. It's like it's the thing I'm most excited about.
You walk into the space and you look at how the chairs are set up. You see if there's a bar, you see what the stage looks like. You look at the green room. You meet some of the other performers. You look at what's on the walls and you go, “What are the opportunities in this space?”
And it's intimidating because you don't know the contours of this theatre. It's not your home base where you know every nook and cranny of the space, but also there's things you're going to be able to do that you've never done before.
Sometimes, like I'll perform at a place and I'll just see, like a bunch of like black blocks; like they're like theatre school black squares. And I think to myself, “What am I supposed to do with these things? Do I sit on them? Do I stack them?”
And that's like really fun and exciting to try and figure out how does this space or how does this unique experience inform the story that we're about to tell?
Lloydie: Back to Emily. And she believes she makes different choices depending on the size of the space
Mulligan: With Rhymes Against Humanity, in particular, there are some gigs that we do at venues such as {indistinct 6:25} performed at Metronome. And for that, it's a very, very long and quite deep stage, but it's a lot more longer than it is deep. And for that show, you're mic’d. And the energy and the choices that I make in a show like that are very different to a show that I would perform at another {indistinct 6:45} regular venue, such as upstairs at the Western, which is a black box above a pub theatre. Which I would say (you can correct me if I'm wrong here), but you can't – If you're standing sort of four people, shoulder to shoulder, you are full on that stage and there's not a lot of room for movement, which is a great opportunity in and of itself. I view being on that stage a bit like being on a lava lamp; like you've got a very narrow scope of movement, but you can do a lot with it.
Lloydie: So, the space has an impact on most of us. But what about the audience? How can they impact our shows? Rob Mulligan again.
Mulligan: If the audience isn't on your side, they're not going to want to laugh as much. So, you have to earn them to be on your side. And sometimes there's just an audience that's just like, “Woo, let's go” and just ready to laugh. They're primed. They're warmed up.
But the audiences that aren't are definitely – you have to earn their trust in laughter more. I think it's okay to feel that way. You're just like, it's okay to say, “We had a good show, but the audience didn't like it.” But also, it's also important not to blame a bad audience on your show, too, right? Like, “Well, I was fine”, because then you're never going to grow either that way.
Lloydie: Emily believes the boundaries you set with the audience are important.
Emily: I've seen some really great like, you know, two handers or whole pieces that go for a more sort of dramatic edge where the audience is willing to sort of go with you and trust you. Because I think improv is fundamentally about trust between the audience and the performers, and the performers and the performers. And I think setting those kind of boundaries with regard to like what is real, what is made up, what is true is important on stage and off.
And in my opinion, I think it's a conversation that should be had with audiences who you suspect may be more unsure. I would, as a personal choice, always rather, if I was ever in doubt, say to an audience, “This is made up. Here are the trappings of what we're doing” rather than launching into something.
Lloydie: While Emily ponders a dialogue with the audience, over in Canada, Rob Noman gets philosophical and wonders if external factors really influence us at all.
Norman: When we talk about external factors impacting the performance, I'm not sure if they can; maybe they can, maybe they can. And here's what I'm thinking about. Really, the only person that can change your performance is you. If you are unaffected by the theater that you're performing in or the situation that you're in or the unexpected thing happening, then your show isn't going to change that much.
I feel like for the most part, the external factors end up changing what we expect to happen. And I think for a lot of performers, that can be a real problem.
Lloydie: Oh, explain that; changing what we expect to happen.
Norman: Yeah.
So, we'll here at Second City, you would do the same material over and over and over again. And I had the benefit of like creating Christmas reviews where we would run the same show every night. And then I also would understudy the main stage cast. So, I would drop into performances and cover someone else's parts.
It was really interesting to watch actors kind of go through this process of doing material that was supposed to do very, very well. And on some nights, it just didn't. It would be a Tuesday night and the House would have 30 audience members and you'd see a performer come back and go, “Oh, terrible audience tonight, Yeah, they're sleepy, huh?” And there would be this like this moment of blame. The idea that it's not me, it's not the material, it's the audience. The audience isn't giving me the thing that I deserve.
But I also just wonder, like, “Why are we entitled to any part of the performance? Why are we entitled to rolling laughs? Why are we entitled to applause?
In Toronto, it's very common for you to go do a show on a Tuesday night and be performing to 10 people. And on those nights, I love those shows. Those are some of my favorite shows. I'm not going to get the response that maybe I would love. It's not the response of a Friday night, packed house at Comedy Bar. It's going to be a different response. But that response also can be very, very satisfying, because it allows you to play slower, have a more intimate show, connect directly with each and every audience member (which you might not be able to do if it's a sold out show).
And so, as long as you aren't caught up in what the show should be, then you can enjoy whatever show that you're in.
Lloydie: So, can we insulate ourselves from external factors? Rob Mulligan again, in Boston.
Mulligan: I think you should be able or I think you should try and insulate yourself from it. And I think I'm pretty bad at that. I definitely, when the audience laughs at something that I didn't think was funny, I start laughing, because it takes me by surprise and it took them by surprise, clearly.
But I think if you can do good improv to silence, you can do good improv to a raucous audience. It's harder to work with no response or little response. But if you can do good improv in that environment, you can do improv when it's easy, which is when the audience is completely on your side.
So, I think that's a long way of saying insulating yourself from it or being prepared to not respond to it is a good way to, like, flex those muscles.
Emily: I think it's one of those things where I think in a perfect world, the art form would be the art form. And you would you'd create what you were going to create, regardless of the external factors going on around you.
But improv, more than any other art form, is based on call and response. And putting things out there and they'll fail, but then something else will catch.
Lloydie: And those moments, the catch, always fantastic. And Rob Norman agrees.
Norman: Every time you perform in a different show that's not your home base, there's different rules, there's different kinds of jokes, there's different crowds, there's different expectations. And so, figuring those things out is a blast. It's so fun trying to navigate the audience and what they want from you and what you want to do in that space.
So, yeah, I think those external factors not only are not an impediment to a good show, that's where the good shows are hiding.
Lloydie: All of the guests you've heard on this episode have podcasts. Two of them have podcast on hiatus at the moment, but that have a rich back catalogue of material that's well worth checking out.
Emily Brady is the host of The Improv Treehouse, and Rob Norman is co-host of the Backline podcast. Links to both are in the show notes. Plus, Rob Mulligan has two podcasts that he produces. I'll let him explain.
Mulligan: The first one is called Good Stuf with Rob and Nick, where me and one of my best friends, Nick Pappas, we review every single Oreo in existence and give it a ranking. And we are slowly driving ourselves to hating Oreos.
But it's fun. We talk about food. We talk about our lives. It started during the pandemic. So, there's a lot of like that color commentary, too. But then we have strong opinions about food. So, give that one a lesson.
Lloydie: It's important to have strong opinions about food. I do not trust anyone who doesn't have a strong opinion about food.
Mulligan: Oh, people who just kind of like eat food and they’re like, “It's fine. I don't care.” Like the people who drank Soylent, like, I don't get them; I don't trust them.
Lloydie: Me neither.
Mulligan: And then the other podcasts that I'm on is a long running Dungeons and Dragons actual play podcast called Adventure Inc. You can find both of these on any Pod Catcher. But that's had a five-year-long story that just wrapped up.
We just started a brand new story that's like it's at 300 years in the future. It's funny. It's touching, it's heartwarming and it's also extremely nerdy.
So, it's a lot of fun. It's like my passion project and we've put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it. So, give it a listen
Next time… on The Improv Chronicle Podcast.
The next episode is Episode 50 (for those that enjoy counting). And we're going to get tips from improvisors to find out the things that they do to save a scene that's just not going the way they'd like.
The Improv Chronicle Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Lloydie James Lloyd. Grab a newsletter to go with this podcast. It comes out on the weeks when we don't release an episode. Sign up and get the world of improv in your inbox when you go to improvchronicle.com