CHAPTER 3: AUDIENCE. Historical influences on improv. Why did impro start when it did and why did it grow?

Blog by Steve Roe, co-founder of Hoopla Impro. Hoopla run improv courses, classes and shows in London and across the UK. Twitter: @HooplaImpro. Facebook: HooplaImpro. Website: www.HooplaImpro.com. 
This chapter is part of a series of blogs about my personal opinions on the historical influences on improv, why it started when it started, why it survived and then flourished, and where it fits into the wider scheme of things.

CHAPTER 1: TV
CHAPTER 2: CENSORSHIP
CHAPTER 3: AUDIENCE
CHAPTER 4: EDUCATION
CHAPTER 5: COLLECTIVE JOY
CHAPTER 6: FUTURE   
 
CHAPTER 3: AUDIENCE RELATIONSHIP

I went on an acting course recently and the only thing said about the audience was “you want to pretend they aren’t there.” I thought “No I don’t - they pay us/tell us what shows they want to see/give us a reaction/bring the show to life/are our friends”. Many drama school acting styles seek the actor's isolation from the audience, but then countless plays wonder why there’s eventually no audience.

In his book An Actor Prepares Stanislavski mentions the splendid isolation of an actress brushing her hair in front of the audience as if the audience wasn't there, and this isolation can indeed be a beautiful natural thing, but I believe there has to be a balance.

Following Stanislavski and others at the start of the last century isolation and naturalism was in, and the fourth wall seemed to descend between actors and audience.  Audiences started to become (first with music) passive and watch something, rather than be activate and participate in something. Even theatre design changed, with plays going further and further back behind the proscenium arch and actors feeling safe behind a fourth wall boundary between light and dark. 

But TV does passive entertainment much better than Theatre, it’s got special effects and stunts and everything and way more budget. At some point theatre had to be honest and acknowledge that a huge chunk of the population couldn’t give a damn about plays. Musicals, stand-up, rock concerts, and pantomimes the population seemed to love, but not plays so much. Yes, of course you like plays, you're reading a drama blog. In my opinion the main way Theatre can fight back against TV is by being active and open, not passive and closed. 

In my opinion there has been a rise in impro, stand up, circus and clown as a much needed response to the overwhelming rise in disconnected acting from behind the fourth wall over the last century, and at the end of this there might be a more balanced relationship with the audience. I think this is also changing in drama schools, or has already changed. For instance Adam Meggido who is one of the best impro teachers I have ever met and he is also Head of Foundation at LAMDA.

There is an audience there, fact. You are on stage, fact. They are looking at you, fact. You are human, they are human, you are all in the same room, fact. If you don’t care what they think about you and your show, and can’t adjust to them, then don’t be surprised when there’s eventually no audience. 

Coincidentally while writing this I happened to be having a meeting with Mark Beltzman, a lovely chap who is over from the U.S and was heavily involved with the birth of IO in Chicago and Del Close. We shared opinions on many things, but seemed to especially have the same view on the improviser's relationship with the audience. Mark spoke about three points of focus - you, the other actor and the audience, and the magic happens when all three discover the same thing at the same time. We also talked about the difference between being with the audience (great), performing to the audience, and performing at the audience (not so great).

In plays you can get away with performing to or at the audience, as they know deep down that it's a script and that you are effectively stuck on a linear pathway. The audience suspends disbelief, but the slightest disturbance (phones/sweetwrappers) can shatter this new reality as the actors end up in a different world from what the audience are actually experiencing. 

Even more so in impro you have to deal with the big obvious things in the room so you can come from a place of being with the audience. If they know its improvised, which they do because you told them, and you don't deal with what's actually happening in the room then you actually look slightly mentally ill to the audience. The improviser can loose their humanity and become a performing object blindly spewing up their subconcious or the structure of the show, whereas the audience are thinking "how come you haven't noticed the cat/annoying photographer/phone/cold draft?"

By not connecting to the room, the environment, the emotions of the audience it accidentally sends up a signal that the impro isn't happening for us (the audience), and it ends up looking like the impro is for them (the actors), which is impro's worse criticism. This doesn't mean that all impro has to be facing the audience and constantly asking for directions, just that it's at one and in the moment with them. 

There was a great example of performing with the audience on Tuesday at The Miller, when Grand Theft Impro did an awesome show. Phil Whelans comes on stage and there is something so natural about the way that he gets suggestions, so friendly, its like he's chatting to friends and you think 'it's just a bloke'  and that's great. The audience are immediately giggling and opening up. Then in the very first scene the actors (Ruth Bratt, Briony Redman and Dylan Emery) were starting their scene when there was a sudden massive noise of a pub crawl from outside the room followed by loads of students in fancy dress accidentally walking in asking for the toilet. Rather than ignore it they used the outside noise, justified, and let it influence the scene for the better. The short-term effect was that we all laughed, it was really funny. But longer-term for the show it signalled that we were all in the same place, they were at one with us, they were performing with us not at us, and most of all that instead of objects they were humans. 

Sometimes I think that's all that impro is, being human with other humans so lots of other humans can remember what it's like to be human in that moment. Impro can reflect back the lives of the audience ("Ha ha ha, that happened to me"), the repressed thoughts of the audience ("Ha Ha Ha he just said what I always thought"), the dreams of the audience ("Ha ha ha, I wish I could do that") and things that don't exist in the real world yet ("Ha ha ha that's a great idea, whoahhh.") 

Blog by Steve Roe, co-founder of Hoopla Impro. Hoopla run improv courses, classes and shows in London and across the UK. Twitter: @HooplaImpro. Facebook: HooplaImpro. Website: www.HooplaImpro.com. 
This chapter is part of a series of blogs about my personal opinions on the historical influences on improv, why it started when it started, why it survived and then flourished, and where it fits into the wider scheme of things.

CHAPTER 1: TV
CHAPTER 2: CENSORSHIP
CHAPTER 3: AUDIENCE
CHAPTER 4: EDUCATION
CHAPTER 5: COLLECTIVE JOY
CHAPTER 6: FUTURE   
 

CHAPTER 2: CENSORSHIP. Historical influences on improv. Why did impro start when it did and why did it grow?

Blog by Steve Roe, co-founder of Hoopla Impro. Hoopla run improv courses, classes and shows in London and across the UK. Twitter: @HooplaImpro. Facebook: HooplaImpro. Website: www.HooplaImpro.com.

This chapter is part of a series of blogs about my personal opinions on the historical influences on improv, why it started when it started, why it survived and then flourished, and where it fits into the wider scheme of things.

CHAPTER 1: TV 
CHAPTER 2: CENSORSHIP
CHAPTER 3: AUDIENCE
CHAPTER 4: EDUCATION
CHAPTER 5: COLLECTIVE JOY
CHAPTER 6: FUTURE
 

CHAPTER 2: CENSORSHIP

Until 1968, British law required scripts to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain's Office, a department within the British Royal Household, who then also sent bureaucrats to the performance to ensure the approved script was adhered to (thanks to Theatre Company Cartoon de Salvo for reminding me of this when I was putting everything together). Keith Johnstone encountered problems with this at the start, and had to put on improvisation as ‘open workshops’ rather than ‘shows’ to avoid getting in trouble.

Joan Littlewood, the English actress and director who was active from the 1930s to 1970s, made extensive use of improv in developing plays for performance. However she was successfully prosecuted twice for allowing her actors to improvise in performance. Prosecuted. For Improvising. In a Theatre. 

So in terms of the effect on the growth of impro, which is what this blog was about, it seems that until the 1960s improvisation on the stage wasn't even legal! As far as I can work out this seemed to be mainly a British thing, there may have been an American version of the Lord Chamberlain but not that I know of. 

But looking at history it appears spontaneous theatre will always fight back.

For instance in Shakespeare’s day he put on quite rowdy plays featuring love, death, comedy, tragedy, clowns. He even used many Commedia dell’Arte scenarios and improvisation within performance. The audience would boo, hiss and clap as the show went along. They would talk during the performance (it's only recently that this became unusual), food and drink would be passed around.

However this incredible peak of British Theatre was soon followed by a banning of all public stage performances by the Puritan regime for 18 years. Shakespeare to nothing, just like that. But following the Restoration in 1660 theatre flourished. Theatres re-opened following a whole generation of nothing, and Restoration Comedy was born with its sexual explicitness, intricate plots and general naughtiness. Even when theatre hadn’t been in the national consciousness for so long it still came back with a life of its own, and the pressure cooker effect of extended censorship made it rowdy and naughty.

You can’t repress proper theatre for long, it is a basic human instinct. Theatre isn’t an intellectual political act in my opinion, it’s a human action like feeding, drinking and talking so we’re going to do it whether we have permission or not.

I believe that even if humans were brought up in isolation on some sort of multi-generation space ship trip to a distant galaxy, and even if generation 5 or whatever had been brought up solely on space education, that someone would still end up running a theatre in the basement. Except it wouldn’t be called theatre, because they wouldn’t know what the word was, which would actually make it better because they would be discovering it for themselves. Hopefully it would take the piss out of the Captain and they would laugh their space socks off, good on ya fith generation space dudes!

I actually think theatre is still heavily censored in Britain, but in an accidental way. The way theatres and the entire industry is set up economically means that to put on a major show these days most people need either Arts Council funding or Corporate Funding. So your show now has to be approved by someone in the Arts Council, or someone in a Corporation, both of whom therefore have ultimate power over what shows actually happen. The Arts Council can be a kindly giving father figure, but I worry this leads to seeking of approval and the almost Child/Parent relationship theatre has with mysterious overriding bodies.

Put on what the hell you want to put on, and if people don’t want to come and watch it then try again and put something else on. When you’ve got something good it’ll work, you don’t need someone giving you permission to make stuff up, so just do it now.

That’s why I love theatre in pubs so much, there’s something there that nobody can fuck with. But then again if I don’t bring in people to watch it, the pub would replace me with someone else who does, so I can’t escape censorship either. The Miller is my Arts Council. 

CHAPTER 1: TV
CHAPTER 2: CENSORSHIP
CHAPTER 3: AUDIENCE
CHAPTER 4: EDUCATION
CHAPTER 5: COLLECTIVE JOY
CHAPTER 6: FUTURE
Blog by Steve Roe, co-founder of Hoopla Impro. Hoopla run improv courses, classes and shows in London and across the UK. Twitter: @HooplaImpro. Facebook: HooplaImpro. Website: www.HooplaImpro.com. 

CHAPTER 1: TV. Historical influences on improv. Why did impro start when it did and why did it grow?

Blog by Steve Roe, co-founder of Hoopla Impro. Hoopla run improv courses, classes and shows in London and across the UK. Twitter: @HooplaImpro. Facebook: HooplaImpro. Website: www.HooplaImpro.com. 

This chapter is part of a series of blogs about my personal opinions on the historical influences on improv, why it started when it started, why it survived and then flourished, and where it fits into the wider scheme of things.

CHAPTER 1: TV
CHAPTER 2: CENSORSHIP
CHAPTER 3: AUDIENCE
CHAPTER 4: EDUCATION
CHAPTER 5: COLLECTIVE JOY
CHAPTER 6: FUTURE   
 

This is a work in progress, a blog not a PhD, so feel free to comment and add at the bottom and at some point I’ll re-write a more complete annotated version.

This blog makes the assumption that modern impro/improv in its current form started in the 1940s and 1950s. You could argue that in fact impro has always been around in different forms (Commedia dell’Arte, Carnival, Mask, Oral Storytelling etc) but as a recognisable thing called impro/improv the 1940s and 1950s seem to be the agreed start point.

The Early Days – Viola Spolin, The Compass Players, Second City, Keith Johnstone

Viola Spolin, a pioneer of improv, created improvisation acting exercises in the 1940s and 50s in Chicago, originally as a drama supervisor on the Chicago Works Progress Administration Recreational Project, working primarily with children and inventing improvisation games as a basis for theatre training.

Viola’s influence on her son Paul Sills lead to him founding The Compass Players in 1955 with David Shepherd, originally putting on semi-improvised scenario plays and then a full on improvised show based on audience suggestions. Incidentally I heard that David Shepherd’s original dream was along the lines of a ‘theatre of the people, where secretaries, miners, farmers and construction workers can all get up on stage and perform there and then’ I love and hopefully still support.

When The Compass Players went their separate ways in 1959 some carried on in St. Louis with a new Compass Players group, including Del Close who went on to be hugely influential in the world of improv.

After Paul Sills left The Compass Players he set up The Second City in 1959 with Howard Alk and Bernie Sahlins, which went on to be hugely successful.

Viola Spolin first published her book Improvisation for the Theater in 1963, and it is still hugely relevant today.

Almost simultaneously Keith Johnstone in London was forming something similar. He first worked as a school teacher in Battersea and then in the late 1950s was working at The Royal Court Theatre, as a play-reader and then as Director of their writers’ group. He abandoned their boring discussion meetings in favour of acting out ideas there and then, leading to various improvisation games.

Keith Johnstone’s writer’s group led to improvisation classes as a thing in itself, which lead to him experimenting with performing improvisation games in front of an audience as ‘The Theatre Machine’, touring schools and colleges and then around Europe with support from The British Council throughout the 1960s.

Keith Johnstone’s work seems to have happened in isolation from Viola Spolin, as according to his book Impro he didn’t hear about Viola’s work until an audience member lent him Viola’s book in 1966, hence the subtle differences between the two schools of thought and two words: Impro and Improv. I always feel that taking sides between the two is like deciding to run using only one of your feet, a surprisingly pointless decision that vastly limits your capabilities.

In the 1970s Keith moved to Calgary in Canada to teach at the University of Calgary. He there co-founded the Loose Moose Theatre, inventing Theatresports and various formats. He first published Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre in 1979, a book that’s also still very relevant today.

But why then? Why now? What else influenced the start and ongoing growth of improv?

There are loads of other people involved in the early days of improvisation, and many other steps they took to grow it and support it. But all that is already well documented in various books and websites (e.g. The Art of Chicago Improv by Kozlowski, Keith Johnstone’s books, Viola Spolin’s books etc and the great youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5wgtkgCH3A) so I won’t spend more time writing about it.

What I’m interested in adding to this history is what other factors influenced this growth. Why did improv seem to pop up independently on different sides of the Atlantic, at a similar time, in a similar form? People are always experimenting with theatre, but why did this particular new form of theatre bed in and grow? Why does impro seem to be exploding in growth over the last ten years? What are the historical, social, cultural, environmental and political reasons influences on all this improv stuff?

Questions, questions, questions, there are going to be some answers coming out over this week, with some different ideas each day. Feel free to make your own opinions and add comments at the end.

1. Start of Television and Ongoing Growth of The Screen

The modern television was first demonstrated in London by Scottish inventor John Logie Baird in 1926. Basic public broadcasts were established in the UK and USA by the late 1920s, with modern style broadcasting from the BBC in London by 1936. In the USA it became more familiar with the public due to the 1939 World’s Fair.

But Television didn’t achieve widespread public use over the 1930s and early 1940s due to World War II limiting manufacture. Proper commercial networking programming in the US did not begin until 1948. In Britain TV ownership didn’t become widespread until the build up to the much watched Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

So the birth of widespread television ownership in each country coincides almost exactly with the birth of modern improvisation in each country. Spookily enough countries that were later to the game with improvisation (Canada, Australia and New Zealand) were also later to the game with television ownership.

Of course this could just be a coincidence and me inventing cause & effect, similar to saying that the spread of microwave ovens resulted in man landing on the moon, but I personally think there’s more to it.

Television has been highly destructive in my opinion (read Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander for loads on this). Before TV, entertainment was done with other people. Entertainment was sociable. Entertainment involved dancing, singing, interacting, talking, playing games, playing music. It also involved getting out of the house and into shared spaces. If it was in the house it involved family and friends interacting. Entertainment was active. Even the solo activity of reading is active, as you have to actively create the imaginary world suggested by words.

Before Television people were capable of making their own Entertainment. The Victorians played parlour games (many similar to impro games and even used to great effect by impro group Fat Kitten). In my own South London family the Grandparents from both side would still play the piano at family gatherings, organise songs and go ball room dancing. Parties would involve kids putting on sketches, doing mini-plays and magic. When they got a new pianola they played with the windows open so the neighbours could hear. My Dad’s Father was an accountant by day but pub pianist by night, going into random pubs to play and get people singing. Music Halls would be packed with people chatting, watching acts, interacting. This has actually been a personal drive for me with Hoopla, as it is a part of South London life I thought was worth keeping alive.

When I’m putting shows together I often imagine I’m a Victorian Music Hall proprietor and try to create the same vibe in the modern world, as I see impro as the same ‘type’ of theatre as Music Hall (Rough Theatre, a term from Peter Brook’s book The Empty Space) that we always have a need for.

Then cinema arrived, pretty much killing off Music Hall/Vaudeville overnight. Movie Theatres might have killed off Music Hall Theatre but at least they still got people out of the house, and at first were incredibly sociable places with all of the community together. Also, the originally movies actually featured old Music Hall stars (Charlie Chaplin etc) and were heavily influenced by that performing style.  

But then TV brought people back indoors into segregated houses where they passively stare at an artificial light for hours on end. It’s a passive form of entertainment that keeps people isolated while giving them the impression that they are experiencing the world. Humans evolved to tell each other stories at the end of the day, now the TV does all the storytelling for us so we don’t have to talk to each other.

TV was the first of many media to place an individual screen between us and our view of (and later our interaction with) the world. As the years have gone we now also work through screens (computers), socialize through screens (facebook), play through screens (computer games), seek love through screens (internet dating), talk through screens (text, skype, facetime), and even have sex through screens (internet porn). Then when we want a break from all that we go to IMAX, nice one humans!

Screen interaction has replaced what used to be moments for genuine human connection. And we start it at such a young age, and in such volumes, that eventually the screen is the thing we practice most and human connection and interaction least.

Dr Aric Sigman, of the British Psychological Society, via the BBC:

  

• At age 75, the average British person will have spent more than twelve years of full 24-hour days watching television. 
• The average six-year-old will have already watched television for more than one full year of their lives.
• Children aged 11 to 15 now spend 53 hours a week, seven and a half hours a day watching TV and computers, an increase of 40 per cent in a decade.

As TV has taken over our lives impro (among other things) has maybe survived and developed as an extreme reaction to regain human connection. I often start my workshops with a basic mirroring exercise - two people stood opposite each other, with eye contact, copying each other’s movements. After a whole day of phone, kindle, computer, phone, television this simple exercise is beautifully simple and yet surprisingly powerful. There’s a human, in front of you, now, and there’s nothing in the way.

I think of impro workshops are part of a massive uncoordinated movement of anti-TV/screen activities that seem to particularly thrive among urban dwellers (now almost half the World’s population by the way). This includes things like Bikram Yoga (advertising tagline ‘love your sweat’), Glastonbury (note constant use of mud in PR), adventure obstacle race Tough Mudder (again note use of elemental Fire, Earth, Water in marketing) and loads more.

Ironically the rise of impro also coincided with TV due to performers from the impro stage making it big on TV shows like Saturday Night Live, in fact that might have enabled the birth of more corporate improv companies.

The underlying marketing message is often “Because John Belushi/Dan Akroyd/Bill Murray/Mike Myers/Tina Fey did this course, then if you do this course you will end up doing what John Belushi/Dan Akroyd/Bill Murray/Mike Myers/Tina Fey did”. Quite often this doesn’t make logical sense because the people teaching the original course have moved on, and the reason the people became famous in the first place was because they came up with something new and current and relevant by experimenting in the moment, rather than obeying a set course. But it still seems to be what brings in 1000s of people per year, and each year there seems to be a new improv school that is subtly marketing the ‘Get Famous on TV’ lure.

CHAPTER 1: TV
CHAPTER 2: CENSORSHIP
CHAPTER 3: AUDIENCE
CHAPTER 4: EDUCATION
CHAPTER 5: COLLECTIVE JOY
CHAPTER 6: FUTURE

Blog by Steve Roe, co-founder of Hoopla Impro. Hoopla run improv course, classes and shows in London and across the UK. Twitter: @HooplaImpro. Facebook: HooplaImpro. Website: www.HooplaImpro.com.

Performing tips from some of the finest improvisers around.

We asked some of the best improvisers around what they did building up, just before and during a big show.

All their words are unedited by me, it’s exactly as answered direct from various facebook or email conversations. None of them knew who else was going to be answering questions and were unable to view each other’s answers, so any similarities are purely coincidence. Some have very similar approaches, some the exact opposite.

They were all asked the same questions:

1) What do you tend to do/think during the day in the build up to a show?

2) What do you do/focus on in the hour before a show?

3) What do you do/focus on just before going on the stage?

4) What do you consciously focus on during the show?

The people we asked are below, I’m going to ask another bunch of people the same stuff later:

Cariad Lloyd      

Austentatious: An improvised Jane Austen novel, 13:30, Counting House, Laughing Horse Free Festival, The Edinburgh Fringe, 2^nd – 26^th August.

The Freewheelin' Cariad Lloyd, 16:45, Pleasance Courtyard, The Edinburgh Fringe.
Monkeytoast: The Improvised Chatshow, 23:00, Pleasance Dome, The Edinburgh Fringe.

Dylan Emery

The Showstoppers, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 23:00, The Edinburgh Fringe, 3^rd – 26^th August

The School of Night, 15:05, Pleasance Courtyard, The Edinburgh Fringe, 2^nd – 26^th August

Grand Theft Impro

Maria Peters

Music Box The Improvised Musical, The Camden Fringe, Shaw Theatre, Thursday 2^nd and Sunday 5^th August, www.MusicBoxImprov.com

Pippa Evans

The Showstoppers, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 23:00, The Edinburgh Fringe, 3^rd – 26^th August

Loretta Maine: Bipolar, Just The Tonic at The Caves, 18:00, The Edinburgh Fringe, 2^nd – 26^th August

Steve Roe

Hoopla, Improv Classes, www.HooplaImpro.com

Music Box The Improvised Musical, The Camden Fringe, Shaw Theatre, Thursday 2^nd and Sunday 5^th August, www.MusicBoxImprov.com

Tom Webster

The RH Experience, RH: Live, C Aquila, 15:30, 12^th-27^th August, The Edinburgh Fringe.

Cariad Lloyd, Austentatious, Monkey Toast and Solo Show

1) What do you tend to do/think during the day in the build up to a show?

In the day I’ll think about the show, and worry a bit depending on the gig (i.e. if it's big pressured impro gig or lovely friends type gig). I'll get a bit nervous in the pit of my stomach but mainly I'll just think what time do I need to be there etc. nothing very exciting!

2) What do you do/focus on in the hour before a show?

The hour before I’ll try and relax, stretch do physical warm ups, get into costume if it's Austentatious, so that's quite faffy and you have to do hair and make up, and sometimes I do the other girls hair, and generally try to chat and hang out with the people I’m going to perform with. It's good to talk about your days, get all the niggles out of the way, the moans, and then just make each other laugh for a bit. Do some impro warm ups, I love a bit of word ball, infinity box, 3 line scenes, trying to warm up your brain and get into a group mind and a sense of agreement.

3) What do you do/focus on just before going on the stage?

Just before going on stage, I’ll try and do last minute vocal warm ups or stretches, clear my mind, become present, sense the audience, are they loud? Quiet? What energy would it be helpful to come on with for the room? Sense my fellow performers energy are they nervous? Do they need reassurance or energising? Do you need to talk quickly about a real world thing because you can see it's bugging them or do you need to distract them from panicking about the show. Just try and make sure everyone is ok, in the right place, wearing the right costumes! That's quite a common one for Austentatious, checking the boys shirts and ties are straight and everyone knows what they're doing, generally a slowing down and a focusing of all the nervous energy occurs.

4) What do you consciously focus on during the show?

During the show, I try to stay present, but I’m always looking at story, or trying to. What needs to come next? What type of scene? What character needs to be the focus? What plot loop have we missed? What does the story need to happen? I try and think about it briefly and then just go for whatever I thought and try not to push it if the other players have another idea. But also not worry, sometimes I’ll think at the side of the stage, oh I should come in and tell them this, and a voice will say, ooh no maybe not, and I try to check if that voice is self-doubt or good story telling. If it's doubt I leap in and if it's good story judgement I hang back.

Austentatious: An improvised Jane Austen novel, 13:30, Counting House, Laughing Horse Free Festival, The Edinburgh Fringe, 2^nd – 26^th August.

The Freewheelin' Cariad Lloyd, 16:45, Pleasance Courtyard, The Edinburgh Fringe.
Monkeytoast: The Improvised Chatshow, 23:00, Pleasance Dome, The Edinburgh Fringe.

Dylan Emery, The Showstoppers, GTI and The School of Night

1) What do you tend to do/think during the day in the build up to a show?

Depends on the show. If it's Showstopper, then I remind myself of new musicals or styles that we have been looking at, especially if we've not used them before so they are far harder to remember. For instance, we've been working on Matilda recently, but it's never been called so I must be very clear what the styles of the songs are and when they would work well in the story.
The School of Night is a whole other thing. My preparations the night before (much better to have a night's sleep to allow the memories to embed) and also on the day is to read some Shakespeare, Chaucer and one or two of the authors I'm working on at the moment.
For Grand Theft Impro, again I will generally read the paper in case something crops up from that day's news, as it often does.

2) What do you do/focus on in the hour before a show?

For Showstopper, we do a 10-15 minute vocal warm-up, a 10 minute impro warm up - simple storytelling stuff at high speed. It's about getting flow and reminding everyone that this is fun. Then there is a sound check usually up to the start.
For The School of Night We I'm usually muttering bits of soliloquy to get into the iambic. Another favourite is The Legend of Sam McGee by Robert Service - it's not iambic but it is a strong rhyming structure and a great poem, so it's good to get your bardic tap opened.
For Grand Theft, it's very practical: we make sure we are happy with how the room is set up and then select the games we are going to play in the first half - so we think about balance and variety.

3) What do you do/focus on just before going on the stage?

For Showstopper I look at the audience, see as many faces as possible and to try to get a feel for how they are feeling. What kind of show do they want tonight? What's in the air?
For School of Night I'm just trying to stay calm and focused on what is about to happen - it's the show that makes me most nervous.
For GTI I'm usually thinking about the music and the introduction - how will start the show with an energetic bang?

4) What do you consciously focus on during the show?

The full answer to that would be very long! Here's part of an answer:
In Stopper, the writer character focuses a lot on balancing the unique three-way relationship of writer to audience, writer to cast, and cast to audience that you get in the show.

In recent School of Night shows, we are 'co-goaded'. In other words, any one of the cast can step out and move the story on, introduce some bit of esoteric information, or give an instruction to one of the other cast members (previously we had a separate goader to act as MC). So you have to give full attention to the task at handed while at the same time being able to step out and goad - and vice versa. In a recent show I was introducing the Shakespearean sonnet, keeping an eye on where we were within the sonnet, playing guitar over the sonnet and then also having to do various lines of the sonnet we were improvising. I simply forgot the rhyme scheme. Horrible experience but fortunately in the School of Night way of doing things, we are often trying to do quite difficult things and have ways of dealing with failure...

In GTI the main thing is maintaining what Alan Marriot called 'the happy bubble': the atmosphere of joy bordering on the hysterical that you want to coax the audience into entering. It's like a smoke machine - it takes quite a bit to get the place smokey but once it's there it stays for a while. However, sometimes you are in a drafty room and the smoke never builds - just occasional wafts and that's not the show you want. Seal up the doors and windows. And use a  good quality machine that spurts out lots of smoke with little effort, rather than a cheap one that takes loads of puffs to get the same amount of happiness. This is an analogy that could go on and on...

The Showstoppers, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 23:00, The Edinburgh Fringe, 3^rd – 26^th August

The School of Night, 15:05, Pleasance Courtyard, The Edinburgh Fringe, 2^nd – 26^th August

Grand Theft Impro

Maria Peters, Music Box

1) What do you tend to do/think during the day in the build up to a show?

I become a bit of a voyeur. On show days I'm usually a bit more attuned to the world around me. I’ll focus on stranger’s conversations and what would be fun to use from them as characters or set ups. I’m always looking out for different scenarios that could be used in scenes.
I have a personal goal for my improv to never being samey or predictable so I try to use other people I come across as inspiration.

If I’m particularly nervous before a big musical gig I’ll pick random words as suggestions and rap or sing to myself as I go about my day. I love rap especially because it doesn’t allow you any time to think too much between lines.

On my journey to a gig I often go through a variety of first lines of scenes, characters, or voices. I’ll rarely use the ones I come up with for the show that night, I may never use them but I feel like I’m stocking up my cupboard of options.

2) What do you do/focus on in the hour before a show?

I’m quite into my physical warm ups. I’ll stretch a lot, dance and walk around as much as possible. I know if my body is relaxed I’m a lot more relaxed in my head.

I like to keep connected to my fellow improvisers. If we’re milling around and I can see other players are nervous and looking for distraction we’ll often have conversations in character with them.

I like to see and get amongst the audience and chat to them if at all possible. It helps me to break down the ‘us and them’ environment. I can then feel like the performance is just a bit of dicking around in front of friendly people rather than trying to impress a wall of strangers.

3) What do you do/focus on just before going on the stage?

Again being physically relaxed, I’m always stretching. On top of group warm-ups I also like to have a final check in with my fellow players with a high-five, fist bump, belly rub, back pat, bottom slap, grin or wink. (I’ve only just now realised how gropey I am before a show)

If there’s a chance to clap, whoop and holler in the MC’s warm up I’m all about getting involved in that as it helps dissipate my nerves. When I run on stage I focus on having a bright open face and I hold the word “confident” in my head. A tip I was given years ago for the beginning of shows. It really helps.

4) What do you consciously focus on during the show?

It depends on the show.
If it’s a long form show, offstage I might be thinking about the next beat or the progression of the characters journey onstage and how I can support their objectives, or heighten their problems or just generally help the story.
While I’m on stage I’m focusing on my scene partner and the relationship with them as well as clarifying my own character’s objective.

If it’s a short form gamey show I’m all about variety. Focusing on variety of scenes, characters, emotions and physicality.

In both styles of show I try to sense what the audience is feeling, to check in if they’re on board with us or not and adapt accordingly.
If I get stuck in my head or tense I ‘voice mirror’ what is being said in the scene. I find it’s a fail-proof way of forcing myself to listen.

Music Box The Improvised Musical, The Camden Fringe, Shaw Theatre, Thursday 2^nd and Sunday 5^th August, www.MusicBoxImprov.com

Pippa Evans – The Showstoppers and Solo Show

1) What do you tend to do/think during the day in the build up to a show?

Probably all of the following will go through my mind:
The show, my breakfast, what's on iPlayer, can I justify buying a new pen, put out the washing, write that script, go to the gym, that's a good idea, do a sing song, have a cup of tea, the show, can I have another biscuit?

2) What do you do/focus on in the hour before a show?

I tend to just relax with my fellow cast members. Play some games, talk about some new red/black outfit I have bought/seen/liked. We'll do warm up stuff and also I will probably coat my face with make up to appear fresh and delightful, steal a Vocalzone from Pugsley.

3) What do you do/focus on just before going on the stage?

I tend to just focus on me fellow players. We might do a penguin dance if it is a cold venue.

4) What do you consciously focus on during the show?

I focus on the show and my fellow performers and listening. Oh and having a great time. No one wants to see you perform with a concentration face. Smile!

The Showstoppers, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 23:00, The Edinburgh Fringe, 3^rd – 26^th August

Loretta Maine: Bipolar, Just The Tonic at The Caves, 18:00, The Edinburgh Fringe, 2^nd – 26^th August

Steve Roe, Hoopla and Music Box

1) What do you tend to do/think during the day in the build up to a show?

Cold hard admin is best for me. Anything apart from thinking about the show too much, as the most important thing is to just turn up in a good mood without thinking about it too much. The first show I ever did I attempted to read the whole of Impro For Storytellers in the day building up to it, which was a mistake. Now I tend to do work stuff – emails, website, bank stuff, and then maybe go for a run, have a nice lunch, more work stuff, and then make sure I get to the venue on time with clean clothes. If it’s Music Box I should probably spend the day doing singing exercises but I don’t because I’m lazy.

2) What do you do/focus on in the hour before a show?

At The Miller, which is where I mostly perform, I’m usually running around putting chairs and flyers out and getting the venue ready. I’m quite fanatical about this, it’s bordering on a problem. If anyone moves one of my chairs I tend to glare at them and be a bit passive aggressive. I’ll also fanatically check temperature in the room (24C for comedy). I could easily delegate all this to people, or just get there earlier and do it, but it seems to have developed as some weird subconscious distraction technique.

If it’s a big show though, and I’ve given myself time, I like to lay down on my back and bend my legs from side to side, stretching my spine. I’ll then generally relax, have a quick nap, and put myself in a good mood.

Then with the group I’m performing with I like to do lots of scenes and scenes into songs, really warming up by basically just doing the show a bit beforehand. Favourite group warms ups are stood in a circle, making eye contact, and doing a circle of Yes And and word at a time stories.

3) What do you do/focus on just before going on the stage?

I bend down from the waist, nice and relaxed, with my head hanging heavy. I breathe and relax. I close my eyes and listen to sounds in the room, to become present in the room. I remind myself that we evolved from monkey type creatures, and that we’re now all on top of a big round rock floating through space, and this event is happening right now. I only come up when I fully comprehend how ridiculous this is and what ridiculous thing impro is, and it makes me laugh.

4) What do you consciously focus on during the show?

I try to take only one thing consciously into the show, so I don’t get overwhelmed and so that everything else can happen naturally. Whenever I bring just one simple thing into a show it seems to go well for me. Whenever I try too much it seems to full apart. I vary what I bring into a show to concentrate on from show to show, but the following have worked quite well for me this year, I’d only be doing one of them per show consciously:

-          React to everything that’s said and add something back to it.

-          Yes And the smallest verbal and physical offers you can.

-          Meisner Technique the second you get on stage.

-          Make eye contact with someone at all times.

-          Physically connect to people.

-          Have constant emotional reactions.

Some things I don’t have to concentrate consciously on now because I seem to think about them automatically during the show are:

-          Varying the energy of the show, bringing on characters with contrasting energy to the scene before and other characters.

-          Contrasting the space, putting myself in a gap on stage and opening up the stage rather than clumping together.

-          Keeping track of the important points of the story and making sure they don’t get left behind.

-          Throwing by body/voice into a shape before coming on to generate a character.

-          Embodying a character or concept that someone has just mentioned on stage.

Hoopla, Improv Classes, www.HooplaImpro.com

Music Box The Improvised Musical, The Camden Fringe, Shaw Theatre, Thursday 2^nd and Sunday 5^th August, www.MusicBoxImprov.com

Tom Webster, The RH Experience

1) What do you tend to do/think during the day in the build up to a show?

If I've got nothing to do that day then I'll definitely take a long walk, helps to relax me and free up the mind! I get nervous when I'm inside! It's good to meet up with a friend as a welcome distraction from thinking about the show!

2) What do you do/focus on in the hour before a show?

The hour before the show I tend to think about my body and voice! I don't want to use up too much energy but I want to move around and be loud to free myself up. The hour before the show is usually when good ideas for opening offers and scenes appear in my head. I tend to try and get rid of them because I prefer a blank canvas on stage. However, some are always bound to show through as I've been thinking about them and my subconscious will push them forward. It's not a bad thing I suppose!

3) What do you do/focus on just before going on the stage?

Anything at all not to focus on the audience. I tend to just close my eyes and do rhymes in my head. I want to contain all the nervous energy within me so I can let it out when it's most needed!

4) What do you consciously focus on during the show?

During the show I focus on my group. I like to gauge the energy of the show, so I can respond by maintaining the energy or upping it depending on what's needed. I do think about the audience a lot. What are they finding funny? Shall I do it more? I also think about my position on the stage; If I notice that something isn't going very well, it's becoming stagnant and I'm drifting towards the back of the stage, I'll always make for the front. There's nothing worse for an audience member to see someone nervous and quiet at the back of the stage (unless it's intended within the story you're creating ahahah)! I also think of genres I like to perform and characters I can do (archetypes, accents, emotions). I tend to have them in a pot before I go on. But lastly and most importantly, I consciously try to enjoy a show. I want to have fun! Perhaps if you're having fun, the audience will too?

The RH Experience, RH: Live, C Aquila, 15:30, 12 ^th-27^th August, The Edinburgh Fringe.