Online improv has become a big thing during the pandemic but not everyone wants to take their improv online or teach online… some people have taken a complete break.

Love this podcast? Help it keep going here: https://supporter.acast.com/the-improv-chronicle-podcast

This episode features:

Atalanti Tzouliadaki from Denise's 50th in Nottingham - https://www.facebook.com/denises50th/

Pete Bergen from Washington Improv Theater in Washington DC - https://witdc.org/

Mara Joy from The Spontaneous Players in Edinburgh - https://www.thespontaneousplayers.com/

Swithun No from The Village Idiots in Rochester NY - http://www.improvvip.com/

John Cremer from The Maydays in Brighton - https://www.themaydays.co.uk/

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

Online improv has become a big thing during the pandemic but not everyone wants to take their improv online or teach online… some people have taken a complete break.

When I mentioned I was doing this subject I received more emails about this subject than I have on any other in the last year. Something about taking a break from improv in the pandemic resonated with people. People wanted to talk about why they were taking a break and the benefits of it - not just for those who are taking a break now or just for those who might take a break in future, but how it might also be helping those who aren’t taking a break.

Before we continue, this week represents the first anniversary of this podcast launching. In that time I’ve spoken to improvisers from more than 15 countries, tackled various subjects and tried to include a variety of voices. Making a documentary every two weeks takes a lot of time - and it also takes money. If you feel the improv chronicle is worth supporting there are two things you can do and the first one is free. If you go to wherever you get your podcasts and leave a rating and a review, that helps the podcast gets discovered. It’s good for algorithms. If you enjoy this podcast, please do take a minute to do that if you feel you can.
If you want to help fund it with a one-off donation, you can click on the link at the top of the show notes. For just £3 (that’s about $4) - less than the price of a coffee - you can help towards the cost of making this podcast possible.
Finally, if you’d like to sponsor an entire episode, that is also possible and affordable. Email newsdesk@improvchronicle.com for more details.

I'm actually doing a face to face interview for the first time in I dunno, four months um, I'm just meeting up with a friend at a coffee shop  to talk about why they're not improvising the moment. 

Hello hi my name is Atalanti. I'm Greek and I live in Nottingham. I perform with Denise's 50th.  In my free time I like cats very much and I work in mental health. 

So for you, taking a break as someone who works in mental health, I would presume you know the benefits of sometimes taking a break from stuff. Yes and I try to do that as often as possible. Why did you decide this is the time to take a break from improv? 

Because I work  online in a digital platform that provides mental health support, so for me improv is something that I do face to face in a room with people I can touch and look at so doing it online doesn't really have any benefits. And so you,  you talk about the need to be in a room have you have you tried online improv or does that just not appeal? Yeah so I tried with a friend of mine who is actually Greek, he runs an improv school in Crete, and we did a little duo thing and it was fun but it just didn't feel like heartwarming kind of you know amazing feeling improv has when you do it with people in the same room. 

And what do you think you're getting from taking a break? What do you think of the benefits for you for taking a break from improv because it's been what four months now?

I suppose it's all about keeping it as this amazing, pure thing that it is in my life but it just makes me I think into a better version of myself and I want to give I want to keep it as I remember it you know I don't want to be soiled. 

Hi my name is Pete Bergen.  I am a comedian, improviser and actor located here in Washington DC I'm also a teacher at Washington Improv Theater here in the district and that's where I trained and also at the UCB in New York City. And you've now taken a break from improv for awhile. Why?  

[HESITATION] there's there's a lot going on in the world, I don't know if it's over there in England? Yeah.  Yeah, er,  the pandemic has changed everything you know the, the the community and the fellowship and the fun that we all get from getting together making stuff up is er, has to be done in a virtual world now. 

And is that just not for you or, or did you just think "oh no this is a good bit timing I'll I'll take five"? 

You know what I had not really I had, I had not fully stepped away from improv I was committing more to stand up prior to this um, but now that I can't do it and don't have the option to do it like I really want to do it. I think it's just that the people connection that you get at an improv show j , more so than a stand-up show, I think my favorite times in life are before a show and after show backstage with cast mates and you don't get that with stand up at all so I'm definitely missing that sort of like er fellowship as, as much as the shows it's just the you know, the hang time with people that you like to play with.  

My name is Mara Joy and I'm an improviser from Edinburgh, a member of the Spontaneous Players and, and a teacher and performer anywhere that'll have me. 

You've taken a break from it all right? 

Yeah that's, that's what I used to say I've not said that for four months. 

Um, what is it that made you decide "do  you know what, this is going to be just a period of time where I, I don't improvise"? 

It's interesting I, when it, when lockdown was first announced there was a huge boom of everyone is online and, and all of my standup friends got on board that like about a day or two before my improv friends and if you remember the beginning of lockdown  like those initial days stretched out for ages and so I was able to watch a bunch of stand-up  stuff and it was um, very um, well intentioned but very odd  and I was like huh, and I started thinking, will this work for improv? And I wasn't sure. I think a lot of us were hesitant.  And I, I watched  an improv stream or rather I watched five minutes of an improv stream, I won't say who it was because I don't want to be disparaging to anyone, and it just really depressed me.  Not because of the quality of the improv really, but just because erm, although I don't think the I think a lot of that, the early stuff was people just figuring things out and it was a lot of people appearing on screens when they weren't meant to and talking over each other, you know that kind of stuff like that the kinks people were ironing out, but that wasn't even the issue for me. The issue for me was I got this really palpable feeling of like dread  almost, like a sort of overwhelming grief that sort of came over me because I was like, 'oh we won't be able to perform on stages in front of audiences for, for a long time' and this is around about the time Spontaneous Players started our first wave of, like, rescheduling shows, because we were just about to go on a like,   go on a tour and I think we were doing eleven or twelve dates that month but then we had to push them all back and it was very, it was very overwhelming um, and like I say this feeling of grief sort of started growing in me where every time I would see, I would try and watch a stream of someone doing improv, it would just make me so desperately sad to watch, like this is fine what you're doing but it's not, is not what I, the thing that's been taken away from me and I know that there's a lot of people have had a lot worse taken away from them but this is, you know, it's my it's my,  it's what I do for a living it's what I do  for life you know.  So it's kind of it's just a very very hard feeling. 

Listening to Mara speak about a feeling of grief when she watched an online show is, is something I know I  felt too. Being in the same room is important to some improvisers. So important that it's meant online improv just isn't an option for them. 

My name's Swithun No, erm, I've been a professional improviser since two thousand five um, I've performed and taught and  short form, long form  musical and  I primarily run under the brand The Village Idiots. 

And you are not performing or teaching right now you've taken a break right? 

I have intentionally taking a break er, because I don't want to die is basically it. I'm afraid of dying. 

I mean, I I I think most of us are and I think that's why a lot of people have gone 'okay I'll do on line improv' but you're not doing that either right? 

Yeah so I if, I have to go back a little bit um when, one of my biggest concerns is auditioning people for an improv group. And me  holding myself out of some kind of, I even though I've been doing for so long, holding myself out of some kind of an expert um and seeing someone within you know, a handful of minutes to make a judgment if they should join my team. I remember doing it a long time ago and thinking man, this person's funny here and this person's right over here and I didn't really have a rubric of 'what is it that makes you good improviser' so I kind of toss out my preconceived notions and start, like, this journey and I started realising that improv is about your intelligences and part of that is I related to your head intelligence, your heart intelligence, your body intelligence and what I call your social intelligence or your breath um, and this is, when I teach improv I really emphasise the idea of a live, in person audience, that we're sharing air, we're sharing... my words are sharing the same air as your laughs  and we're communicating and communioning  together um, and so the idea of an in person show is far more important to me and, and not that I have anything against anyone who's doing an online show. I just see it as very important as having a live audience. 

And I think I know where Swithun is coming from. That's not to say I haven't done online shows and enjoy them, I have it's just, it's just different. I decided to catch up with one of my dear friends and someone who I've been playing shows with  for seven years now. He's not made the leap to online. He's sitting things out until a pandemic's over. 

Hello folks, John Cremer here, one of the Maydays and I am delighted to be talking to my friend Lloydie. I found the shift from er in the room to online  to be quite traumatic and I just decided to kind of check it out a bit and and it just didn't fit for me. There's  something so immediate and compelling about improv that you, I haven't seen anyone capture it outside of the room so I er, I figured I would just step back and let things unfold. I feel good about that decision for a number reasons. One is overall personally I feel like this period is a time to sort of knock the gear stick into neutral and wonder where the gear stick is going to go back in once things move into another phase, so it's personally it's a, it's a time of reflection and contemplation and observation. Also I have been very inspired by watching the partnership between the Maydays and  the Nursery and the astounding shifts, changes, offerings, connections and new horizons that they have opened up and I feel, I feel I'm contributing by doing absolutely nothing other than being on the sidelines and going 'wow that's cool'. Something that I've learned over the years in improv is the importance of, of um, when you look at the, the gestalt of a, of a troupe there are habitual roles that people play. There are spaces that we inhabit and sometimes to step out of that space means that someone else can expand or shift or change and then the, the company itself has a new dynamic and if we don't do that from time to time I think things can get a little bit ridged and a bit gritty, and  people sort of grate up against each other rather than expand and develop as improvises and human beings. 

Back to the coffee shop. Seeing Atalanti was part of the slow creep back to a version of normal that we are having at the moment here in the U. K. I wondered if she thought things would feel different when she gets back to playing with her team. 

I have I don't know I suppose there will be some kind of hesitation for like ten minutes but then because we've missed each other so months will end up just having a lot of scenes with like hugging and touching and probably be some snow game I just can't wait to get back to it I really miss it I miss it so much me too I I was saying to several of my teammates the other day how much I desperately just want to get on the stage for me I don't care whether this notice that we're not I just want to do the thing that we do in the same race right nobody cares about the audience so what are the benefits of improvises spending some time away from improv. 

Back to Swithun No. 

I've had the chance to finally not obsess about what I'm going to teach for this class, what I'm gonna do er, what I'm gonna focus, what do I have to coach, and all the time that I would spent preparing for an improv session or  reflecting on what's happened. I've been able to take that much a lot more YouTube.  So I'm spending a lot more time learning about story structure and ancient mythologies and  history and psychology and religion and er, just understanding the entire human experience in a richer way so hopefully that we go back that I've got more important things to say other than just fart jokes. 

Pete agrees, a break that enriches your life can enrich your improv. 

Improvisers and, and you've taught and I taught for a long time, that that the students that are in class and on two practice teams and maybe on a Harold team or a house team erm, and they're coaching and they're like 'I'm not getting any better' and I think it's because you're not living a full and complete life. Read a book, go for a walk, see a documentary um, I believe it is Alex Berg or somebody was speaking about Alex Berg and that the boys from Convoy, he said 'they're good because they know so much about so much'. 

John's advice to anyone thinking of some time away from improv, pandemic or not, is simple. 

Don't be afraid to take a break. If if if you feel that you're doing things out of obligation or you're doing things out of momentum, unplug for a bit maybe a bit maybe a week maybe a month but just unplug and see what settles and see what  is, what it is that you want to keep and see what it is you may want to drop going forward, that would be my take on it. 

With so many improvisers  taking a break, I asked Mara what she thought shows would be like when improvisers start improvising on stage again for the first time in many months.  

A couple of weeks ago, like one of the first times we were able to meet up with people outside of our household, socially distanced, I met up with Will Naameh, who is the  director of the Spontaneous Players (and I'm one of the players) and we were talking about just this. We were like 'what is, what are the shows going to be like once we get back?' and we both agreed, they were like, the first one will be terrible but  we will be having more fun on stage than we have had maybe ever, so it won't matter,  like this idea that I think it will be sort of  there's be this opening wave of like these delirious shows where everyone's just like so happy to be on stage and all  the audience are so happy to be out and enjoying things, and then we'll hit a point where we're all like, oh  all of our   skills have atrophied um,  and we should work on that. I think improv generally will be a bit more for thoughtful for a while after, after that initial  'we're just going to go mad on stage and like have wild  fun with out friends because they have to be able to'  I genuinely think we're going to see, and I think this is true of all art.  Theatre is going to be big on this, stand up is going to be like, it's going to be hard to go to the Fringe without seeing a show, but next year's Fringe, without  seeing a show that isn't about, you know, 'and who are we and where are we as people after this er traumatic event we all went through' and I think that improv is not immune  to that. We'll be, there will be a lot of thoughtful, I think we will move towards a sort of thoughtful and reflective improv I guess. I could be totally wrong. 

Next Time on the improv chronicle podcast…

More voices and more reflections on what breaks can give improvisers. Hear what improvisers have had the chance to do instead and also if their views about improv as an art form have changed at all - and if so… how do they feel about the art form now?

The improv chronicle podcast is produced and presented by me, Lloydie James Lloyd. YOU can help the podcast right now - Please subscribe and rate us on your favourite podcast app If you have an idea for a possible episode  go to  - www.improvchronicle.com