Don't forget to read the Disclaimers
If you've ever been on stage at FNI and had your scene suddenly just… stop… you might find yourself wondering "what the hell just happened?" or "what did I do wrong??". Well, don't feel too bad. One of the unique things about FNI is that we invite anyone to come up on stage and perform; and experience in improv performance has never been mandatory at FNI. But there are a few very simple guidelines to improv that go real far towards increasing your chances of success on stage; I submit to you my personal Top 5.
(note: if you do any research on improv, especially on the web, you'll probably see these same guidelines come up again and again. There is nothing especially new here, just my personal rehash of a few basic improv "rules".)
1) Don't Deny:
Denial is the number one reason most scenes go bad. Any time you refuse an offer made by your partner your scene will almost instantly come to a grinding halt. Example: Player A) "Hi, my name is Jim. Welcome to my store." Player B) "This isn't a store, it's an airplane. And you're not Jim, you're an antelope."
There are only two things you need to know about denial. One; don't do it. If you need to alter or augment the offer your partner has made, use the "Yes, and…" rule. Two; don't confuse denial with creating conflict. The key difference between denial and creating conflict is the difference between refusing an offer or forestalling an outcome. Example: Player A) "I'm going to shoot you in the head." Player B) "Not if I shoot you first."
2) Don't ask open ended question (ie, Pimping).
Open ended questions (like "Who are you?") are scene killers because they force your partner to stop whatever they are doing and come up with an answer. When you ask your partner and open ended question, you put the burden of coming up with something "interesting" on your partner - so you are no longer doing a scene together but forcing one person has to do more work than you are willing to do.
The general term for making your partner do all the hard work in the scene is called "Pimping", and doesn't refer just to asking questions. Imagine if your partner handed you an imaginary piece of paper and said "This is the funniest joke ever written. Please read it out loud." Suddenly all the weight of the scene would rest on your response.
Just remember that not all questions are bad, just open ended ones. Specific questions or questions that imply their own answer are fine. Rhetorical questions are fine (because they are not really questions at all). But in general, avoid any question that forces your partner to quickly come up with an interesting answer.
3) You don't have to be funny.
The hidden riddle of improv is that the harder you try not to be funny the more funny your scene is going to be. Why? Because it's the very best kind of improv scene you can do is an "interesting" scene, not necessarily a "funny" one. When you do an interesting scene, a very surprising thing happens… the funny comes out all by it's self. And being interesting only comes from playing to the reality of the scene you are in. When you break that reality by going out of your way to make a joke, you make it all the harder for the scene to continue. Watching two farmers planting crops on the moon is practically oozing with funny; watching two farmers planting crops on the moon while arguing over who's going to have gay sex with a cow is not.
The key is to "not go for the joke". As hard as it may seem, when you are in a scene the very last thing you should be thinking about is what funny thing you can possibly say next. Granted, you might actually come up with something that's damm funny; but if you make that joke and it's totally out of context of the scene, then while you might get one laugh, you've just murdered the next three or four minutes of your time on stage.
The best ways to avoid this is to stick to your character, stick to the story that is being told, and to stay within the reality of the scene you are playing. Above all, you don't have to worry just because the audience hasn't erupted with laughter in the last 30 seconds. Just because they're not laughing doesn't mean that you're not doing you job. Your job is to tell the audience and interesting story. And if you can do this, then all the funny you will ever need will fall effortlessly into your lap.
4) You can look good if you make your partner look good.
Let's face it… we make the choice to get on stage because we are all desperately trying to get laid. It's really as simple as that. So when we do get on stage the one of the biggest concerns is "looking good" - we sometimes call this being funny, or entertaining, or interesting, or whatever. But it all comes down to looking good and then, ergo sum, getting laid. Ok, fine. Here is the simplest way to achieve our sexual goals: make your partner look good.
When you are in a scene, the better you make your partner look the better the scene is going to be and, as a direct result, the better you are going to look. All too often, I've seen players enter a scene and I can just tell they have some really great idea about the character they are going to play or an idea they want to do. This is wonderful, but guess what? Your partner probably has absolutely no idea what's cooking in your evil little mind, and so has no idea how to react. And no matter how brilliant your idea might be, it's practically worthless if the scene as a whole goes bad.
The key is to give your partner something that is going to make them look not just good, but great. If you do this, then you've taken the burden off of them and, as a result, they can now work at making you look good. If you've got a really great idea about a scene between a king and a servant, make your partner the king. If you want to have conflict in a scene, make your partner the "good guy" and let them "win". What it comes down to is the easer you make it for your partner, the easer your partner can make it for you. And by the end of the scene, you both end up looking like the superheroes. And who doesn't want to bed down with Superman or Wonderwoman?
5) Tell a story.
This is probably the easiest rule to remember but the hardest to do. The real magic of improv is when we see the players take totally random suggestions (like a plumber and a cab driver selling shoes in a leper colony ) and somehow "make it work". If all these unrelated elements are going to come together then it's going to happen in the course of an interesting tale. So that's just what the players are going to try and do, tell us all a story.
But most of the time several things happen that prevent a story from ever being told: Players get caught up in the suggestions, or begin the scene by completing the task, or get so distracted that the task never gets started, let alone finished.
There are plenty more pitfalls… but the point here is to at least try and tell a story. All good stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And if you can just remember those three simple parts, then telling a story becomes so much easer. When your scene beings, take the time to show the audience how these characters meet; then work toward creating a conflict; finally resolve the conflict and end the story.
I know that the reality
is a lot harder than this simple formula… but the reason
that the formula is so simple is because it can be applied to
just about any situation, relationship, or task. All the players
have to do is plug in the audience suggestions and then let the
story tell it's self. And if you can learn to do this, you increase
your chance of having a "successful" scene by a huge
amount.