Improvisational theatre , often called improvisation or improv , is the form of theatre , often comedy , in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script .
110-587: Happy Happy Good Show was an improvisational comedy revue held at the Victory Gardens Studio Theater in Chicago during the summer of 1988. The cast and writers were largely made up of writers on strike from Saturday Night Live after the 1987–1988 season. The show is most notable for showcasing the performance talents of Bob Odenkirk , Robert Smigel , and Conan O'Brien , as the three had previously only showcased their writing talents. The revue
220-459: A Grammy. After performing their act a number of years in New York's various clubs, and then on Broadway, with most of the shows sold out, Nichols could not believe their success: We were winging it, making it up as we went along. It never even crossed our minds that it had any value beyond the moment. It was great to study and learn and work there. We were stunned when we got to New York... Never for
330-593: A Play . The win made May the second-oldest performer behind Lois Smith to win a Tony Award for acting. In 2022, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences gave May an Honorary Academy Award for her "bold, uncompromising approach to filmmaking, as a writer, director, and actress". Elaine Iva Berlin was born on April 21, 1932, in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania, the daughter of Jewish parents, theater director and actor Jack Berlin and actress Ida (Aaron) Berlin. As
440-450: A child actor in the Yiddish theater, as men hung on her every word. Every guy who knew her was in love with her. You'd have been stupid not to have been. As an integral member of their group, May was open to giving novices a chance, including the hiring of a black actor and generally making the group "more democratic". And by observing her high level of performance creativity, everyone's work
550-535: A child, May performed with her father in his traveling Yiddish theater company, which he took around the country. Her stage debut on the road was at the age of three, and she eventually played the character of a generic little boy named Benny. Because the troupe toured extensively, May had been in over 50 schools by the time she was ten, having spent as little as a few weeks enrolled at any one time. May said she hated school and would spend her free time at home reading fairy tales and mythology. Her father died when she
660-601: A cult classic. Vincent Canby cited the two-reelers of the 1930s and Depression-era screwball comedies when he called it "a beautifully and gently cockeyed movie that recalls at least two different traditions of American film comedy... The entire project is touched by a fine and knowing madness." May received a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of the shy botanist in the project from which she fought studio exec Robert Evans , unsuccessfully, to have her name removed. May quickly followed her debut film with 1972's The Heartbreak Kid . She limited her role to directing, using
770-459: A director's cut in 1980. In 2019, May worked with The Criterion Collection to create the newest director's cut. The film has gained appreciation by many critics and audiences in recent years. In Herbert Ross 's California Suite (1978), written by Neil Simon , she was reunited with A New Leaf co-star Walter Matthau, playing his wife Millie. In addition to writing three of the films she directed, May received an Oscar nomination for updating
880-749: A few. The Open Theatre was founded in New York City by a group of former students of acting teacher Nola Chilton , and joined shortly thereafter by director Joseph Chaikin , formerly of The Living Theatre , and Peter Feldman. This avant-garde theatre group explored political, artistic, and social issues. The company, developing work through an improvisational process drawn from Chilton and Viola Spolin , created well-known exercises, such as "sound and movement" and "transformations", and originated radical forms and techniques that anticipated or were contemporaneous with Jerzy Grotowski 's " poor theater " in Poland. During
990-507: A form of improvised community theatre which is often not comedic and replays stories as shared by members of the audience. The Groundlings is a popular and influential improv theatre and training center in Los Angeles , California. The late Gary Austin , founder of The Groundlings, taught improvisation around the country, focusing especially in Los Angeles. He was widely acclaimed as one of
1100-515: A high school diploma to apply, which she did not have. After finding out that the University of Chicago was one of the few colleges that would accept students without diplomas, she set out with seven dollars and hitchhiked to Chicago. Soon after moving to Chicago in 1950, May began informally taking classes at the university by auditing , sitting in without enrolling. She nevertheless sometimes engaged in discussions with instructors and once started
1210-420: A huge fight after saying that Socrates' apology was a political move. Mike Nichols , who was then an actor in the school's theatrical group, remembers her coming to his philosophy class, making "outrageous" comments, and leaving. They learned about each other from friends, eventually being introduced after one of his stage shows. The director Paul Sills brought May to Nichols and said, "Mike, I want you to meet
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#17330845487001320-505: A level of invention, a depth of reflection, and a tangle of emotions in Ishtar which are reached by few films and few filmmakers." May acted in the film In the Spirit (1990), in which she played a "shopaholic stripped of consumer power"; Robert Pardi has described her portrayal as a "study of fraying equanimity [that] is a classic comic tour de force." She also contributed to the screenplay for
1430-507: A moment did we consider that we would do this for a living. It was just a handy way to make some money until we grew up. His feelings were shared by May, who was also taken aback by their success, especially having some real income after living in near-poverty. She told a Newsweek interviewer, "When we came to New York, we were practically barefoot. And I still can't get used to walking in high heels." The uniqueness of their act made them an immediate success in New York. Their style became
1540-723: A nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay , while the latter won her the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay . May returned to acting in Woody Allen 's Amazon Prime series Crisis in Six Scenes (2016) and on Broadway in the revival of the Kenneth Lonergan play The Waverly Gallery (2018) the latter of which earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in
1650-564: A popular longform improv format known as The Harold . Others include Keith Johnstone , the British teacher and writer–author of Impro , who founded the Theatre Machine and whose teachings form the foundation of the popular shortform Theatresports format, Dick Chudnow , founder of ComedySportz which evolved its family-friendly show format from Johnstone's Theatersports, and Bill Johnson, creator/director of The Magic Meathands, who pioneered
1760-525: A predetermined game , structure, or idea and driven by an audience suggestion. Many shortform exercises were first created by Viola Spolin, who called them theatre games, influenced by her training from recreational games expert Neva Boyd . The shortform improv comedy television series Whose Line Is It Anyway? has familiarized American and British viewers with shortform. Longform improv performers create shows in which short scenes are often interrelated by story, characters, or themes. Longform shows may take
1870-477: A rich improv tradition. In 1984, Dick Chudnow (Kentucky Fried Theater) founded ComedySportz in Milwaukee , WI. Expansion began with the addition of ComedySportz-Madison (WI), in 1985. The first Comedy League of America National Tournament was held in 1988, with 10 teams participating. The league is now known as CSz Worldwide and boasts a roster of 29 international cities. In San Francisco, The Committee theater
1980-522: A screenplay by Neil Simon , based on a story by Bruce Jay Friedman. The film starred Charles Grodin , Cybill Shepherd , Eddie Albert , and May's own daughter, Jeannie Berlin . It was a major critical success, and holds a 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In 2000, it was listed at No. 91 on AFI 's 100 Years... 100 Laughs list. May followed the two comedies by writing and directing the gangster film Mikey and Nicky , starring Peter Falk and John Cassavetes . Budgeted at $ 1.8 million and scheduled for
2090-403: A six-minute-long, mostly improvised, "mother and son" sketch, which they performed later that night. May helped remove the stereotype of women's roles on stage. Producer David Shepherd notes that she accomplished that partly by not choosing traditional 1950s female roles for her characters, which were often housewives or women working at menial jobs. Instead, she often played the character of
2200-477: A sophisticated woman, such as a doctor, a psychiatrist, or an employer. Shepherd notes that "Elaine broke through the psychological restrictions of playing comedy as a woman." May and Nichols had different attitudes toward their improvisations, however. Where Nichols always needed to know where a sketch was going and what its ultimate point would be, May preferred exploring ideas as the scene progressed. May says that even when they repeated their improvisations, it
2310-407: A summer 1975 release, the film cost $ 4.3 million and was not released until December 1976. May ended up in a legal battle with Paramount Pictures over post-production costs, at one point hiding reels of the film in her husband's friend's Connecticut garage and later suing the company for $ 8 million for breach of contract. May worked with Julian Schlossberg to get the rights to the film and released
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#17330845487002420-399: A team, when she wrote the screenplay and he directed The Birdcage . It "was like coming home, like getting a piece of yourself back that you thought you'd lost," he said. He adds that May had been very important to him from the moment he first saw her, adding that for her "improv was innate," and few people have that gift. Director Arthur Penn said of their sudden breakup, "They set
2530-399: A technique by Viola Spolin. As with all improv 'offers', improvisers are encouraged to respect the validity and continuity of the imaginary environment defined by themselves and their fellow performers; this means, for example, taking care not to walk through the table or "miraculously" survive multiple bullet wounds from another improviser's gun. Because improvisers may be required to play
2640-613: A technique or as an effect, but rather in expanding the improv genre so as to incorporate techniques and approaches that have long been a legitimate part of European theatre. The Brave New Workshop Comedy Theater (BNW), is a sketch and improvisational comedy theater based in Minneapolis , Minnesota. Started by Dudley Riggs in 1958, the artists of the BNW have been writing, performing and producing live sketch comedy and improvisation performances for 62 years – longer than any other theater in
2750-611: A tool to gain insight into a person's thoughts, feelings, and relationships. The earliest well-documented use of improvisational theatre in Western history is found in the Atellan Farce of 391 BC. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, commedia dell'arte performers improvised based on a broad outline in the streets of Italy. In the 1890s, theatrical theorists and directors such as the Russian Konstantin Stanislavski and
2860-413: A variety of roles without preparation, they need to be able to construct characters quickly with physicality, gestures , accents , voice changes, or other techniques as demanded by the situation. The improviser may be called upon to play a character of a different age or sex. Character motivations are an important part of successful improv scenes, and improvisers must therefore attempt to act according to
2970-581: A year later. In 1964, May married her psychoanalyst, David L. Rubinfine; they remained married until his death in 1982. May's longtime companion was director Stanley Donen , from 1999 until his death in 2019. Donen said he proposed marriage "about 172 times". After her marriage to Marvin May, she studied acting. She also held odd jobs during that period, such as a roof salesman, and tried to enroll in college. She learned, however, that colleges in California required
3080-412: Is also commonly used to enhance ideation in teams and groups. Many directors have made use of improvisation in the creation of both mainstream and experimental films. Many silent filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton used improvisation in the making of their films, developing their gags while filming and altering the plot to fit. The Marx Brothers were notorious for deviating from
3190-399: Is an American actress, comedian, writer, and director. She first gained fame in the 1950s for her improvisational comedy routines with Mike Nichols before transitioning her career, regularly breaking the mold as a writer and director of several critically acclaimed films. She has received numerous awards , including a BAFTA Award , a Grammy Award , and a Tony Award . She was honored with
3300-616: Is an improvisational game show, much like Whose Line Is It Anyway? The BBC sitcoms Outnumbered and The Thick of It also had some improvised elements in them. In the field of the psychology of consciousness , Eberhard Scheiffele explored the altered state of consciousness experienced by actors and improvisers in his scholarly paper Acting: an altered state of consciousness . According to G. William Farthing in The Psychology of Consciousness comparative study, actors routinely enter into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Acting
3410-566: Is especially performed in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas, Boston, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C., and is building a growing following in Baltimore, Denver, Kansas City, Montreal, Columbus, New Orleans, Omaha, Rochester, NY, and Hawaii. Outside the United States, longform improv has a growing presence in
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3520-419: Is seen as altering most of the 14 dimensions of changed subjective experience which characterize ASCs according to Farthing, namely: attention, perception, imagery and fantasy, inner speech, memory, higher-level thought processes, meaning or significance of experiences, time experience, emotional feeling and expression, level of arousal, self-control, suggestibility, body image, and sense of personal identity. In
3630-550: Is the home of the longest running musical improv show in history at 11 years. In 2012, Lebanese writer and director Lucien Bourjeily used improvisational theater techniques to create a multi-sensory play entitled 66 Minutes in Damascus . This play premiered at the London International Festival of Theater, and is considered one of the most extreme kinds of interactive improvised theater put on stage. The audience play
3740-414: Is well-established on the west coast with companies such as San Francisco's BATS Improv . This format allows for full-length plays and musicals to be created improvisationally. Many people who have studied improv have noted that the guiding principles of improv are useful, not just on stage, but in everyday life. For example, Stephen Colbert in a commencement address said, Well, you are about to start
3850-540: Is willing to. If you don't want her to, she won't. She's a dream. She puts herself in your hands. She's a genius, and I don't use that word casually." Nearly 15 years later, Allen ended up casting her to play his wife, Kay Munsinger, in his Amazon limited series, Crisis in Six Scenes , which was released in 2016. In 2002, Stanley Donen directed her musical play Adult Entertainment with Jeannie Berlin and Danny Aiello at Variety Arts Theater in Manhattan . May wrote
3960-614: The Broadway stage. They also made regular appearances on television and radio broadcasts. They released multiple comedy albums and received four Grammy Award nominations, winning Best Comedy Album for An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May in 1962. Their collaboration was covered in the PBS documentary Nichols and May: Take Two (1996). May infrequently acted in films, including Luv , Enter Laughing (both 1967), California Suite (1978), and Small Time Crooks (2000). She became
4070-653: The Canadian Improv Games . In the United States, the Improv Olympics were later produced by Charna Halpern under the name "ImprovOlympic" and now as "IO"; IO operates training centers and theaters in Chicago and Los Angeles. At IO, Halpern combined Shepherd's "Time Dash" game with Del Close's "Harold" game; the revised format for the Harold became the fundamental structure for the development of modern longform improvisation. In 1975 Jonathan Fox founded Playback Theatre ,
4180-653: The National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013, and an Honorary Academy Award in 2022. In 1955, May moved to Chicago and became a founding member of the Compass Players , an improvisational theater group. She began working alongside Nichols and in 1957, they both quit the group to form their own stage act, Nichols and May . In New York, they performed nightly in clubs in Greenwich Village alongside Joan Rivers and Woody Allen , as well as on
4290-493: The props that might be useful in a scene. Improv companies may have at their disposal some number of readily accessible props that can be called upon at a moment's notice, but many improvisers eschew props in favor of the infinite possibilities available through mime . In improv, this is more commonly known as 'space object work' or 'space work', rather than 'mime', and the props and locations created by this technique, as 'space objects' created out of 'space substance', developed as
4400-401: The "next big thing" in live comedy. Charles H. Joffe , their producer, remembers that sometimes the line to their show went around the block. That partly explains why Milton Berle , a major television comedy star, tried three times without success to see their act. Critic Lawrence Christon recalls his first impression after seeing their act: "You just knew it was a defining moment. They caught
4510-625: The 1941 film Here Comes Mr. Jordan as Heaven Can Wait (1978). May reunited with Nichols for a stage production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in New Haven in 1980. She contributed (uncredited) to the screenplay for the 1982 megahit Tootsie , notably the scenes involving the character played by Bill Murray . Warren Beatty worked with May on the comedy Ishtar (1987), starring Beatty and Dustin Hoffman . Largely shot on location in Morocco ,
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4620-537: The 1998 film Primary Colors . She appeared in Woody Allen 's Small Time Crooks (2000) where she played the character May Sloane, which Allen named after May when he wrote it, and with May being his first choice for the part. For her acting, she won the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Supporting Actress. Allen spoke of her as a genius, and of his ease of working with her: "She shows up on time, she knows her lines, she can ad-lib creatively, and
4730-492: The French Jacques Copeau , founders of two major streams of acting theory, both heavily utilized improvisation in acting training and rehearsal. Modern theatrical improvisation games began as drama exercises for children, which were a staple of drama education in the early 20th century thanks in part to the progressive education movement initiated by John Dewey in 1916. Some people credit American Dudley Riggs as
4840-587: The UK Channel 4 and ABC television series Whose Line Is It Anyway (and its spinoffs Drew Carey's Green Screen Show and Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza ), Nick Cannon's improv comedy show Wild 'N Out , and Thank God You're Here . A very early American improv television program was the weekly half-hour What Happens Now? which premiered on New York's WOR-TV on October 15, 1949, and ran for 22 episodes. "The Improvisers" were six actors (including Larry Blyden , Ross Martin , and Jean Alexander – Jean Pugsley at
4950-687: The United Kingdom , especially in cities such as London, Bristol, Glasgow, and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe . Other forms of improvisational theatre training and performance techniques are experimental and avant-garde in nature and not necessarily intended to be comedic . These include Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed , the Poor Theatre , the Open Theatre , to name only
5060-539: The anthology play Death Defying Acts ), After the Night and the Music , Power Plays , Taller Than A Dwarf , The Way of All Fish , and Adult Entertainment . In 1969, she directed the off-Broadway production of Adaptation/ Next . May made her film writing and directing debut in 1971 with A New Leaf , a black comedy based on a short story which she read in an Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine called The Green Heart which
5170-410: The audience. Improv groups frequently solicit suggestions from the audience as a source of inspiration, a way of getting the audience involved, and as a means of proving that the performance is not scripted. That charge is sometimes aimed at the masters of the art, whose performances can seem so detailed that viewers may suspect the scenes are planned. In order for an improvised scene to be successful,
5280-464: The author Jack Ritchie would later retitle A New Leaf. The unconventional romance with Walter Matthau as a Manhattan bachelor faced with bankruptcy, also starred May herself as the awkward botanist-heiress, Henrietta Lowell, who Matthau cynically woos and marries to salvage an extravagant lifestyle. Director May originally submitted a 180-minute work to Paramount , but the studio cut it back by nearly 80 minutes for release. The film has since become
5390-586: The basis for his own theatre, The Empty Stage, which in turn bred multiple troupes utilizing this style. In the late 1990s, Matt Besser , Amy Poehler , Ian Roberts , and Matt Walsh founded the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York and later they founded one in Los Angeles, each with an accompanying improv/sketch comedy school. In September 2011 the UCB opened a third theatre in New York City's East Village, known as UCBeast. Hoopla Impro are
5500-405: The box office. Her style of humor, in writing or acting, often has more to do with traditional Yiddish theater than traditional Hollywood cinema. Following the break-up, May wrote several plays. Her greatest success was the one-act Adaptation (1969). Other stage plays she has written include Not Enough Rope , Mr Gogol and Mr Preen , Hotline (which was performed off-Broadway in 1995 as part of
5610-449: The concept of "Commun-edy Outreach" by tailoring performances to non-traditional audiences, such as the homeless and foster children. David Shepherd , with Paul Sills, founded The Compass Players in Chicago. Shepherd was intent on developing a true "people's Theatre", and hoped to bring political drama to the stockyards. The Compass went on to play in numerous forms and companies, in a number of cities including New York and Hyannis, after
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#17330845487005720-423: The cornerstone of modern improv training. By the mid-1960s, Viola Spolin's classes were handed over to her protégé, Jo Forsberg , who further developed Spolin's methods into a one-year course, which eventually became The Players Workshop , the first official school of improvisation in the United States. During this time, Forsberg trained many of the performers who went on to star on The Second City stage. Many of
5830-453: The corporate world. In a New York Times article titled "Can Executives Learn to Ignore the Script?" , Stanford professor and author, Patricia Ryan Madson notes, "executives and engineers and people in transition are looking for support in saying yes to their own voice. Often, the systems we put in place to keep us secure are keeping us from our more creative selves." Applying improv principles
5940-503: The demise of the Compass Players, Paul Sills began The Second City. They were the first organized improv troupes in Chicago, and the modern Chicago improvisational comedy movement grew from their success. Many of the current "rules" of comedic improv were first formalized in Chicago in the late 1950s and early 1960s, initially among The Compass Players troupe, which was directed by Paul Sills. From most accounts, David Shepherd provided
6050-409: The drama Dangerous Minds (1995). May reunited with her former comic partner, Mike Nichols , for the 1996 film The Birdcage , an American adaptation of the classic French farce La Cage aux Folles . Their film relocated the story from France to South Beach , Miami. It was a major box office hit. May received her second Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay when she again worked with Nichols on
6160-664: The film. This Is Spinal Tap and other mockumentary films of director Christopher Guest were created with a mix of scripted and unscripted material. Blue in the Face is a 1995 comedy directed by Wayne Wang and Paul Auster created in part by the improvisations during the filming of Smoke . Some of the best known American film directors who used improvisation in their work with actors are John Cassavetes , Robert Altman , Christopher Guest, and Rob Reiner . Improv comedy techniques have also been used in hit television shows such as HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm created by Larry David ,
6270-433: The first vaudevillian to use audience suggestions to create improvised sketches on stage. Improvisation exercises were developed further by Viola Spolin in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, and codified in her book Improvisation For The Theater , the first book that gave specific techniques for learning to do and teach improvisational theater. In 1977, Clive Barker 's book Theatre Games (several translations and editions) spread
6380-543: The first female director with a Hollywood deal since Ida Lupino when she directed the 1971 black screwball comedy A New Leaf . Experimenting with genres, she directed the dark romantic comedy The Heartbreak Kid (1972), the gangster film Mikey and Nicky (1976), and adventure comedy Ishtar (1987). May later earned acclaim writing the screenplays for Warren Beatty 's Heaven Can Wait (1978), and Mike Nichols' The Birdcage (1996) and Primary Colors (1998). Heaven Can Wait and Primary Colors each earned her
6490-410: The form of an existing type of theatre, for example a full-length play or Broadway -style musical such as Spontaneous Broadway . One of the better-known longform structures is the Harold , developed by ImprovOlympic co-founder Del Close . Many such longform structures now exist. Actors such as Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, and Steve Carrell found their start in longform improv. Longform improvisation
6600-630: The founders of the UK and London's first improv theatre. They also run an annual UK improv festival and improv marathon. In 2015, The Free Association opened in London as a counterpart to American improv schools. In 2016, The Glasgow Improv Theatre started putting on shows and teaching classes in Glasgow, growing the improv scene in Scotland. Elaine May Elaine Iva May (née Berlin ; born April 21, 1932)
6710-548: The founding of The Second City. A number of Compass members were also founding members of The Second City. In the 1970s, Shepherd began experimenting with group-created videos. He is the author of That Movie In Your Head , about these efforts. In the 1970s, David Shepherd and Howard Jerome created the Improvisational Olympics, a format for competition based improv. The Improv Olympics were first demonstrated at Toronto's Homemade Theatre in 1976 and have been continued on as
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#17330845487006820-565: The freedom they had during the workshop. May became prominent as a member of the Compass's acting group, a quality others in the group observed. Bobbi Gordon, an actor, remembers that she was often the center of attention: "The first time I met her was at Compass... Elaine was this grande dame of letters. With people sitting around her feet, staring up at her, open-mouthed in awe, waiting for 'The Word'." A similar impression struck Compass actor Bob Smith: May would hold court, discussing her days as
6930-479: The greatest acting teachers in America. His work was grounded in the lessons he learned as an improviser at The Committee with Del Close, as well as in his experiences as founding director of The Groundlings. The Groundlings is often seen as the Los Angeles training ground for the "second generation" of improv performers and troupes. Stan Wells developed the "Clap-In" style of longform improvisation here, later using this as
7040-413: The greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what's going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say "yes." And if you're lucky, you'll find people who will say "yes" back. Tina Fey , in her book Bossypants , lists several rules of improv that apply in the workplace. There has been much interest in bringing lessons from improv into
7150-555: The growing field of Drama Therapy , psychodramatic improvisation, along with other techniques developed for Drama Therapy , are used extensively. The "Yes, and" rule has been compared to Milton Erickson 's utilization process and to a variety of acceptance-based psychotherapies. Improv training has been recommended for couples therapy and therapist training, and it has been speculated that improv training may be helpful in some cases of social anxiety disorder . Improvisational theatre often allows an interactive relationship with
7260-424: The height of their fame, they decided to discontinue their act that year and took their careers in different directions: Nichols became a leading Broadway stage and film director; May became primarily a screenwriter and playwright, with some acting and directing. Among the reasons they decided to call it quits was that keeping their act fresh was becoming more difficult. Nichols explained: Several things happened. One
7370-642: The ideas of improv internationally. British playwright and director Keith Johnstone wrote Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre , a book outlining his ideas on improvisation, and invented Theatresports , which has become a staple of modern improvisational comedy and is the inspiration for the popular television show Whose Line Is It Anyway? Viola Spolin influenced the first generation of modern American improvisers at The Compass Players in Chicago , which led to The Second City . Her son, Paul Sills , along with David Shepherd , started The Compass Players. Following
7480-404: The improvisers involved must work together responsively to define the parameters and action of the scene, in a process of co-creation . With each spoken word or action in the scene, an improviser makes an offer , meaning that he or she defines some element of the reality of the scene. This might include giving another character a name, identifying a relationship, location, or using mime to define
7590-414: The irrational and the subconscious have been part of the stage tradition for centuries. From the 1990s onwards a growing number of European Improv groups have been set up specifically to explore the possibilities offered by the use of the abstract in improvised performance, including dance, movement, sound, music, mask work, lighting, and so on. These groups are not especially interested in comedy, either as
7700-539: The late 1960s, Augusto Boal 's "Forum Theatre" in South America in the early 1970s, and San Francisco's The Diggers ' work in the 1960s. Some of this work led to pure improvisational performance styles, while others simply added to the theatrical vocabulary and were, on the whole, avant-garde experiments. Joan Littlewood , an English actress and director who was active from the 1950s to 1960s, made extensive use of improv in developing plays for performance. However, she
7810-603: The nation. Notable alumni of the BNW include Louie Anderson , Mo Collins , Tom Davis , Al Franken , Penn Jillette , Carl Lumbly , Paul Menzel , Pat Proft , Annie Reirson, Taylor Nikolai, Nancy Steen , Peter Tolan , Linda Wallem , Lizz Winstead , Peter MacNicol , Melissa Peterman , and Cedric Yarbrough . Some key figures in the development of improvisational theatre are Viola Spolin and her son Paul Sills , founder of Chicago's famed Second City troupe and originator of Theater Games , and Del Close , founder of ImprovOlympic (along with Charna Halpern ) and creator of
7920-451: The new intellectual culture which they saw growing around them. They felt that young Americans were taking themselves too seriously, which became the subject of much of their satire. Nichols structured the material for their skits, and May came up with most of their ideas. Improvisation became a fairly simple art for them, as they portrayed the urban couple's "Age of Anxiety" in their sketches, and did so on their feet. According to May, it
8030-416: The objectives that they believe their character seeks. In improv formats with multiple scenes, an agreed-upon signal is used to denote scene changes. Most often, this takes the form of a performer running in front of the scene, known as a "wipe". Tapping a character in or out can also be employed. The performers not currently part of the scene often stand at the side or back of the stage, and can enter or exit
8140-467: The one-act play George is Dead , which starred Marlo Thomas and was performed on Broadway from late 2011 into 2012 as part of the anthology play Relatively Speaking along with two other plays by Woody Allen and Joel Coen , directed by John Turturro . Charles Isherwood of The New York Times praised May's entry describing it as "a delicious study in the bliss of narcissism". David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter concurred describing George
8250-484: The only other person on the campus of the University of Chicago who’s as hostile as you are: Elaine May." Six weeks later, they bumped into each other at a train station in Chicago and soon began spending time together over the following weeks as "dead-broke theatre junkies." In 1955, May joined a new, off-campus improvisational theater group in Chicago, The Compass Players , becoming one of its charter members. The group
8360-673: The original cast of Saturday Night Live came from The Second City, and the franchise has produced such comedy stars as Mike Myers , Tina Fey , Bob Odenkirk , Amy Sedaris , Stephen Colbert , Eugene Levy , Jack McBrayer , Steve Carell , Chris Farley , Dan Aykroyd , and John Belushi . Simultaneously, Keith Johnstone's group The Theatre Machine, which originated in London , was touring Europe. This work gave birth to Theatresports , at first secretly in Johnstone's workshops, and eventually in public when he moved to Canada. Toronto has been home to
8470-572: The part of kidnapped tourists in today's Syria in a hyperreal sensory environment. Rob Wittig and Mark C. Marino have developed a form of improv for online theatrical improvisation called netprov . The form relies on social media to engage audiences in the creation of dynamic fictional scenarios that evolve in real-time. Modern improvisational comedy, as it is practiced in the West, falls generally into two categories: shortform and longform. Shortform improv consists of short scenes usually constructed from
8580-430: The philosophical vision of the Compass Players, while Elaine May was central to the development of the premises for its improvisations. Mike Nichols , Ted Flicker, and Del Close were her most frequent collaborators in this regard. When The Second City opened its doors on December 16, 1959, directed by Paul Sills, his mother Viola Spolin began training new improvisers through a series of classes and exercises which became
8690-436: The physical environment. These activities are also known as endowment . It is the responsibility of the other improvisers to accept the offers that their fellow performers make; to not do so is known as blocking, negation, or denial, which usually prevents the scene from developing. Some performers may deliberately block (or otherwise break out of character) for comedic effect—this is known as gagging —but this generally prevents
8800-473: The production was beset by creative differences among the principals and had cost overruns. Long before the picture was ready for release, the troubled production had become the subject of numerous press stories, including a long cover article in New York magazine . Some of the opposition to the film came from David Puttnam , the studio head, making Ishtar a prime example of studio suicide. The advance publicity
8910-476: The qualities of their act, which according to one writer made them a rarity, was that they used both "snob and mob appeal", which gave them a wide audience. Nachman explains that they presented a new kind of comedy team, unlike previous comedy duos which had an intelligent member alongside a much less intelligent one, as with Laurel and Hardy , Fibber McGee and Molly , Burns and Allen , Abbott and Costello , and Martin and Lewis . What differentiated their style
9020-438: The rehearsal process. However, the skills and processes of improvisation are also used outside the context of performing arts. This practice, known as applied improvisation , is used in classrooms as an educational tool and in businesses as a way to develop communication skills, creative problem solving, and supportive team-work abilities that are used by improvisational, ensemble players. It is sometimes used in psychotherapy as
9130-411: The satirical comedians of their era. When Nichols and May split up, they left no imitators, no descendants, no blueprints or footprints to follow. No one could touch them." Nichols said that for him personally the breakup was "cataclysmic", and he went into a state of depression: "I didn't know what I was or who I was." It was not until 1996, thirty-five years later, that they would work together again as
9240-407: The scene by stepping into or out of the stage center. Many theatre troupes are devoted to staging improvisational performances and growing the improv community through their training centers. In addition to for-profit theatre troupes, there are many college-based improv groups in the United States and around the world. In Europe the special contribution to the theatre of the abstract, the surreal,
9350-400: The scene from advancing and is frowned upon by many improvisers. Accepting an offer is usually accompanied by adding a new offer, often building on the earlier one; this is a process improvisers refer to as Yes, and... and is considered the cornerstone of improvisational technique. Every new piece of information added helps the improvisers to refine their characters and progress the action of
9460-520: The scene. The Yes, and... rule, however, applies to a scene's early stage since it is in this stage that a "base (or shared) reality" is established in order to be later redefined by applying the "if (this is true), then (what else can also be true)" practice progressing the scene into comedy, as explained in the 2013 manual by the Upright Citizens Brigade members. The unscripted nature of improv also implies no predetermined knowledge about
9570-402: The script they were given, their ad libs often becoming part of the standard routine and making their way into their films. Many people, however, make a distinction between ad-libbing and improvising. The British director Mike Leigh makes extensive use of improvisation in the creation of his films, including improvising important moments in the characters' lives that will not even appear in
9680-601: The sixties, Chaikin and the Open Theatre developed full theatrical productions with nothing but the actors, a few chairs, and a bare stage, creating character, time, and place through a series of transformations the actors physicalized and discovered through improvisations. On the west coast, Ruth Zaporah developed Action Theatre , a physically based improvisation form that treats language, movement and voice equally. Action Theatre performances have no scripts, no preplanned ideas and create full-length shows or shorter performances. Longform, dramatic, and narrative-based improvisation
9790-553: The sketches are clear progenitors of sketches in other media worked on by the writers. Improvisational comedy Improvisational theatre exists in performance as a range of styles of improvisational comedy as well as some non-comedic theatrical performances. It is sometimes used in film and television, both to develop characters and scripts and occasionally as part of the final product. Improvisational techniques are often used extensively in drama programs to train actors for stage, film, and television and can be an important part of
9900-669: The standard and then they had to move on." To New York talk show host Dick Cavett , "They were one of the comic meteors in the sky." They reunited for a Madison Square Garden benefit for George McGovern for President in June, 1972. The event, titled "Together Again for McGovern," also featured two musical groups that had recently broken up, Simon and Garfunkel and Peter, Paul and Mary , as well as singer Dionne Warwick . May has also acted in comedy films, including Enter Laughing (1967), directed by Carl Reiner , and Luv (1967), costarring Peter Falk and Jack Lemmon . The latter film
10010-579: The street at the Intersection for the Arts would drop by and sit in. In 1979, Elk brought shortform to England, teaching workshops at Jacksons Lane Theatre, and he was the first American to perform at The Comedy Store, London , above a Soho strip club. Modern political improvisation's roots include Jerzy Grotowski 's work in Poland during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Peter Brook 's "happenings" in England during
10120-426: The time) who improvised skits based on situations suggested by viewers. In Canada, the series Train 48 was improvised from scripts which contained a minimal outline of each scene, and the comedy series This Sitcom Is...Not to Be Repeated incorporated dialogue drawn from a hat during the course of an episode. The American show Reno 911! also contained improvised dialogue based on a plot outline. Fast and Loose
10230-440: The urban tempo, like Woody Allen did." They performed nightly at mostly sold-out shows, in addition to making TV program and commercial appearances and radio broadcasts. Their relatively brief time together as comedy stars led New York talk show host Dick Cavett to call their act "one of the comic meteors in the sky". Woody Allen said, "the two of them came along and elevated comedy to a brand-new level". Technique Among
10340-536: Was "struck by her piercing, dark-eyed, sultry stare. It was really unnerving", he says. Nichols remembers that "everybody wanted Elaine, and the people who got her couldn't keep her." Theater critic John Lahr agrees, noting that "her juicy good looks were a particularly disconcerting contrast to her sharp tongue." "Elaine was too formidable, one of the most intelligent, beautiful, and witty women I had ever met. I hoped I would never see her again." May's sense of humor, including what she found funny about everyday life,
10450-511: Was 11 years old, and then she and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where May later enrolled in Hollywood High School . She dropped out when she was fourteen years old. Two years later, at the age of sixteen, she married Marvin May, an engineer and toy inventor. They had one child, Jeannie Berlin (born 1949), who became an actress and screenwriter. The couple divorced in 1960, and she married lyricist Sheldon Harnick in 1962; they divorced
10560-675: Was active in North Beach during the 1960s. It was founded by alumni of Chicago's Second City, Alan Myerson and his wife Jessica. When The Committee disbanded in 1972, three major companies were formed: The Pitchell Players, The Wing, and Improvisation Inc. The only company that continued to perform Close's Harold was the latter one. Its two former members, Michael Bossier and John Elk, formed Spaghetti Jam in San Francisco's Old Spaghetti Factory in 1976, where shortform improv and Harolds were performed through 1983. Stand-up comedians performing down
10670-632: Was different from others' in the group. Novelist Herbert Gold , who dated May, says that "she treated everything funny that men take seriously... She was never serious. Her life was a narrative." Another ex-boyfriend, James Sacks, says that "Elaine had a genuine beautiful madness." Nevertheless, states Gold, "she was very cute, a lot like Debra Winger , just a pretty Jewish girl." May was considered highly intelligent. "She's about fifty percent more brilliant than she needs to be," says actor Eugene Troobnick. Those outside their theater group sometimes noticed that same quality. British actor Richard Burton , who
10780-459: Was directed by Mark Nutter. Video clips of Happy Happy Good Show were shown on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 2006, when the program was taped for a week in Chicago. A review of the show in the Chicago Tribune was fairly negative, stating that "most of the skits in this show fall flat, underdeveloped and incomplete, little more, really, than blueprint works-in-progress." Several of
10890-418: Was founded by Sills and David Shepherd . Nichols later joined the group, wherein he resumed his friendship with May. At first, he was unable to improvise well on stage, but with inspiration from May, they began developing improvised comedy sketches together. Nichols remembered this period: From then on it became mostly pleasure because of Elaine's generosity. The fact of Elaine—her presence—kept me going. She
11000-414: Was improved. "She was the strongest woman I ever met," adds Compass actor Nancy Ponder. In giving all her attention to acting, however, she neglected her home life. Fellow actress Barbara Harris recalled that May lived in a cellar with only one piece of furniture, a ping-pong table. "She wore basic beatnik black and, like her film characters, was a brilliant disheveled klutz." Group actor Omar Shapli
11110-500: Was largely negative and, despite some positive reviews from the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post , the film was a box office disaster. The film Ishtar has been positively re-evaluated in the 21st century by multiple publications including the Los Angeles Times , Slate , Indiewire , and The Dissolve . Richard Brody of The New Yorker called Ishtar a "wrongly maligned masterwork" and raved, "There's
11220-724: Was married to Elizabeth Taylor at the time, agreed with that impression after he first met May while he was starring in Camelot on Broadway. Nichols was personally asked to leave the Compass Players in 1957 because he and May became too good, which threw the company off balance, noted club manager Jay Landsman. Nichols was told he had too much talent. Nichols then left the group in 1957, with May quitting with him. They next formed their own stand-up comedy team, Nichols and May . After contacting some agents in New York, they were asked to audition for Jack Rollins , who would later become Woody Allen 's manager and executive producer. Rollins said he
11330-476: Was not rote but came from re-creating her original impulse. Such improvisational techniques allowed her to make slight changes during a performance. Although May had a wider improvisational range than Nichols, he was generally the one to shape the pieces and steer them to their end. For their recordings, he also made the decision of what to delete. Team break-up Audiences were still discovering May and Nichols in 1961, four years after they arrived. However, at
11440-468: Was not well received by critics, although Lemmon said he enjoyed working alongside May: "She's the finest actress I've ever worked with," he said. "And I've never expressed an opinion about a leading lady before... I think Elaine is touched with genius. She approaches a scene like a director and a writer." Film scholar Gwendolyn Audrey Foster notes that May is drawn to material that borders on dry Yiddish humor. As such, it has not always been well received at
11550-446: Was simple: "It's nothing more than quickly creating a situation between two people and throwing up some kind of problem for one of them." Nichols noted that after coming up with a sketch idea, they would perform it soon after with little extra rehearsal or writing it down. One example he remembered was inspired simply from a phone call from his mother. I called Elaine and I said, "I've got a really good piece for us tonight." They created
11660-622: Was stunned by how good their act was: Their work was so startling, so new, as fresh as could be. I was stunned by how really good they were, actually as impressed by their acting technique as by their comedy... They were totally adventurous and totally innocent, in a certain sense. That's why it was accepted. They would uncover little dark niches that you felt but had never expressed... I'd never seen this technique before. I thought, My God, these are two people writing hilarious comedy on their feet! By 1960, they made their Broadway debut with An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May , which later won
11770-549: Was successfully prosecuted twice for allowing her actors to improvise in performance. Until 1968, British law required scripts to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain's Office . The department also sent inspectors to some performances to check that the approved script was performed exactly as approved. In 1987, Annoyance Theatre began as a club in Chicago that emphasizes longform improvisation. The Annoyance Theatre has grown into multiple locations in Chicago and New York City. It
11880-407: Was that I, more than Elaine, became more and more afraid of our improvisational material. She was always brave. We never wrote a skit, we just sort of outlined it: I'll try to make you, or we'll fight—whatever it was. We found ourselves doing the same material over and over, especially in our Broadway show. This took a great toll on Elaine. "Nichols and May are perhaps the most ardently missed of all
11990-553: Was the fact that their stage performance created "scenes," a method very unlike the styles of other acting teams. Nor did they rely on fixed gender or comic roles, but instead adapted their own character to fit a sketch idea they came up with. They chose real-life subjects, often from their own life, which were made into satirical and funny vignettes. This was accomplished by using subtle joke references which they correctly expected their audiences to recognize, whether through clichés or character types. They thereby indirectly poked fun at
12100-437: Was the only one who had faith in me. I loved it... We had a similar sense of humor and irony... When I was with her I became something more than I had been before. Actress Geraldine Page recalled they worked together with great efficiency, "like a juggernaut." Thanks in part to Nichols and May, the Compass Players became an enormously popular satirical comedy troupe. They helped the group devise new stage techniques to adapt
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