Improv is an exploratory art, and as such, this is going to be an exploratory blog. I’m going to make declarative statements that I hope are challenged and proven wrong. I’m going to miss the point. I’m going to contradict myself constantly. I’m going to say stupid things. After all (I remind myself), that’s what blogs are for.
Anyway, I’m Tony Beeman. I have no credentials that suggest you should listen to anything I have to say. I do have a degree in writing poetry, which is suprisingly connected to improv: something I’m sure I’ll be exploring. I really into Musicals and storytelling in improv, so I’m sure I’ll be talking about that. And I’m very interested in connecting things that are not normally connected, so I’m sure I’ll be doing that.
Most art involves an initial explosion of creativity followed by a long period of refinement. If the process feels successful to the artist, the art is released to a few. If the few feel it successful, it is released into the world.
In Improv, the explosion happens right in front of the audience. The only refinement is additive: never able to undo anything that has come before, it must explain, add-to, or move on. The successful improviser even learns to turn off the refinement we all do between idea and speech: that thing that Friedrich Schiller (and, later, Keith Johnstone) called the ‘watcher at the gates of the mind’. Regardless, once something lands on the stage, its there for good. The audience has seen it.
There are comparisons to be found, I suppose. Watercolorists destroy the purity of the original paper with each stroke. Sculptors of stone must accept finality with every chip.
Improv, though, thrives on lack of refinement, on the audience discovering the scene at the same time as the improviser. I want to explore what that is. I want to explore what the audience gets out of improv, what the improviser gets out of it, and where they intersect. And I don’t want to do this alone: I hope I can convince others to explore here with me and fill in more sections of the map. There are some other great improv blogs out there, too, and I’m sure I’ll be linking to them from time to time.
Here’s a starting place for me. Call this point one on my empty map. Dave Barry once said, “A sense of humor is a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge.”
In my favorite moments on stage, I’m hurling into that void too quickly to grab on to my anxiety. As often as this place we live has hurt me and hurt the people around me, I can’t help but love the absurdity and unpredictability that makes it a world worth exploring.