Category: Invisible Scripts

A Movement

This life thing is hard.

I don’t know what age that sunk in for you, but for me I knew pretty early on that being alive is hard and that it wasn’t going to ever not be.
But ideas follow each other like dominos falling, and right after that initial realization came a second realization about what would make life beautiful and worth it: We don’t get through this alone.
We’re all in a struggle to love ourselves, to care for each other as best we can, and funnel our energies into making something great. Not famous or successful, but great by virtue of these creative endeavors fitting us well, consoling us, and offering joy to others.

So that’s what I always wanted. Some way to be a part of the wonderful thing.

In school, that is what easily captured my attention; the idea of a time or a place where people worked together to do something joyful and make something with a voice. I studied all kinds of movements- Dada, Lo-fi, Franciscans, Feminists, The Velvet Revolution, Fluxus, Afrocentrism.

It was tempting to wish that I’d been born at some other time or place. I wanted to party with Duchamp, Man Ray, and the Baroness Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven!
Any time I fit in with a group of friends I would yearn for us to all abandon everything else and just create a movement together. In high school my friends and I spent hours planning our commune. Yeah, I went to a weird high school. I was a bit crushed when it became obvious everyone would be moving away after graduation and exploring college and jobs instead of us becoming a creative force as a group. By the time I was in graduate school I was an expert on just how cool the moments in the past were, when groups of artists banded together to live differently, and how distant I was from that kind of community. I began to despair of ever having anything like that in my life. I could live creatively, I could throw some eccentric parties, and I could build a life with my partner – but I had no idea how to find that magical place where the next creative desire was being met, the community of freedom and creation.
I suppose, blog-reader, you might expect me to now proclaim “And then I found Improv!” but it wasn’t that simple. I did go looking for longform improv, and I found it. And I enjoyed myself. I liked doing scenes and I liked meeting funny people. However, that was about all that was going on where I started doing improv; folks having fun and competing to be funny. It wasn’t until nearly a year later when TNM was founded that something about the way I was involved with improv became “movement-like.”

What are the qualities of a movement?
Movements aspire. They are made of people who believe in change and have a deep desire to live or create differently. They are enamored of the present. They value the people within them and empower those people. Movements are unified. A movement can articulate why the people within it are thrilled to be part of it, what they yearn for as a group, and their principals: a movement is comprised of people who are not motivated by self-gratification or personal status. Movements take themselves a bit seriously. Even when they are forcefully absurd and fixated on humor, subversion, tearing down all the idols, movements have some fervor behind them. Movements belong to people. I know that I am defining the word “movement” in such a way that benevolent social and artistic movements are included while other violent movements (Nazis & Futurists, for example) are excluded, that is a bit naïve but totally intentional. Anyway, a real movement is something that fully belongs to the people of which it is comprised. Unlike a cult, a movement is the product, property, and passion of its people. They are exalted and empowered to be more than they would be by themselves and they’re all honored as creators and leaders.
The New Movement was founded with those kinds of ideas in mind. It has expanded and grown as a result of strength of aspiration, a unified creative process and goals, fervor for our shared vision, and above all a constant communal dedication to the elevation and empowerment of all of our people. We are relentless about joy, completely uninterested in drama or status, and forceful in our hustle. Improv will change because of what we’re doing here. Life will change because of what we’re doing.
The New Movement welcomes you.

 

Shyla

 

All the Best Things in Our Short and Precious Lives

Last weekend The New Movement participated in Fun Fun Fun Fest, and it was all the things that we are.
There was the admirable amount of hustle: we were represented in 6 different shows on the comedy stage! The winsomeness, rawness, courage: this could be illustrated by innumerable images of our infinitely silly old-timey western costumes, Mikey DoDo slathered in whip cream and making sweet love to the air, or Christrew.biz pacing the Anarchy wrestling ring. The simple revelry and coolness: I will not lie to you, I love that we get to walk around with an “artist” wristband that, however superficially, affirms my suspicion that we’re all in the exact same genus as Slayer.
However, beyond all this, is what we most are, in the core of our being.

Something that is, to me, nearly ineffable and unmistakably divine.
If I try to express this moment, this quality of our community I fall short of words. Love. That is the only one I really have for it.
You see, when we gather there is a freeing of energy like a force of nature. We are so intent on joy, so passionate about each other, so willing to envelop the moment and risk our full selves in the support and celebration of each other.
It just gushes out and there are moments of playfulness that define the word itself.
In the fields of auditorium shores we exploded in dances, games, acrobatics, purelove.

Oh I get it, you think I’m being overly effusive. Here are some other, better spoken, friends on the topic —

Cris Skelton wrote: In short, The New Movement is one of the best things that’s ever happened on this Earth. I’m ecstatic and humbled to be a part of it. Thanks for this weekend, guys. I will remember it forever.

Rob Gagnon wrote: The people involved in The New Movement have changed my life, I’m happier, I’m more consistently funny in ways that make me proud, I’m performing more and more on bigger stages, depression stays out of the way more often, I don’t worry about being cool, I enjoy spending time with people as much as I enjoy spending time alone… so much of my pride and accomplishments stem from this group of people.

Lisa Friedrich wrote: this weekend served as a reminder of all things accomplished by truth, beauty, freedom and love. the support and love i’ve seen first to ninth hand is incredible.

Chadwick Smith wrote: Maybe even the best weekend ever. But those moments during the M83 show with The New Movement just doing our thing and getting everyone invovled was pure magic and love. UBH all around.

-Shyla

Carnivalesque

It is the day after Halloween, that meditative day where we ask important questions of ourselves like “Is there still candy in the bowl?” or “Why don’t they ever play The Simpson’s Halloween episode ON Halloween?” or “Is comedy about cultural critique and subversion or just random revelry and spectacle?”

I mean it’s kind of an important question, you know what I mean?

If there is candy in the bowl then I should probably eat it now before the holiday candy-amnesty wears off.

But on to this question on the purpose and nature of comedy- Look, I know a lot of comedians are in this for the “not thinking too hard” part. There is a little myth around comedy that says anything can be made fun of, that comedy isn’t difficult, and that a little plucky irreverence can make anyone “funny.” You know better. You’re a student of the absurd, and you know it’s a complicated topic; not just a matter of coming up with a good pun and putting on a hilarious wig.

On the other hand, it’s no forgone conclusion that comedy is supposed to make you think. There are plenty of popular comedians who don’t necessarily foreground our societies’ interior struggles. Comedy is generally seen as escapist.

And it is. And it should be.

And yet…

This is what I mean about Halloween. We have a holiday that is here for the whole culture to put on a masquerade, to feast, to take a sidelong glance at fear and a jab at mortality. It is the comedian’s holiday above all others.

The Carnivalesque is serious.

From ancient, ancient times there has been an idea that society suffers irrevocably if the “rules” aren’t tossed out from time to time. Without an opportunity to revel and bask in a world turned upside down the status-quo becomes stagnant, violent, and unaccountable. So the carnivalesque aspects of culture are there to defuse the bomb. But they do more than that too… they point out that power which can be playfully challenged isn’t immutable.

Participation is magic. When a person *participates* in something (not watches or consumes, but participates) she becomes aware of her own authority.

So Halloween plants a seed. A small seed that says “your rule-breaking is celebrated; tonight your frivolity, sarcasm, sexuality, or social trespassing will be paradoxically appropriate.” Protesters do the same thing; they encourage whoever is not protesting to participate vicariously, to go beyond simple catharsis, to express their latent desires for a different social structure, a different kind of world. Comedians are called to invoke the authority of the absurd and challenge the false solemnity of cultural norms. We are called to imagine a world that is different, playful, permissive, excessive, and in so doing spread an infectious lust for participation and freedom.

-Shyla

Wizard People Dear Improviser

I am certain that someone out there in the genre-prov scene could have a big hit with improvised Harry Potter. “Can we have a suggestion of an adjective? – Great, I heard ‘Golden’ and a noun? – ‘Tarantula’ – Thank you, when the lights come up we’ll present ‘Harry Potter and the Golden Tarantula’!”

That sort of thing is lovely, but not my cup of improv. On the other hand, there are certainly Harry Potter related innovations that I would love to see in more improv scenes!

1)      Potions. Potions make things happen; I’d love to see more potions in improv. Not in magic-related improv, just scenes about cat-sitting or grocery shopping or whatever.

2)      Invisibility. I’ve seen so many scenes start with a lone improviser on stage and then their scene partner(s) arrive moments later for no real reason. It is quite common to hear “Sorry I’m late” as that improviser’s entering line. Yet, I never see anyone emerge from under an invisibility cloak. In fact, people rarely claim to have been invisibly present in a scene the whole time. Why not? I’m just saying: “I heard what you said about me, I was here, invisible, the whole time!”

3)      Friends! So often if you ask improvisers in a rehearsal or class what their relationship was, in a scene that lacked real punch, the answer you’ll get is “Well I guess we were friends.”

The Harry Potter universe is special because its wish-fulfillment aspect most prominently presents itself, not in magical jelly beans or dragon riding, but in friendships that are truly fulfilling and mean something.

By the time most of us reach adulthood we have had to downgrade our expectations of friendship. The “I guess we were friends” answer reflects an understanding that two people with ambivalent attitudes toward each other who habitually talk a buncha bullshit are often known as “friends.” In the Potterworld Harry has had friends who were instantly, constantly, and consistently ready to die for him since he was eleven years old. Harry’s relationships with his friends are easily as complex as those between family members or lovers. This type of friend struggles, through their uninterruptable loyalty, to understand and care for each other with a fierce, high-stakes, passion. I would love to see the next “Bro” or “I want to ask Jason to the dance but I’m scared” initiation answered with the fervent passion of a friendship that assumes deep interpersonal knowledge and investment, rather than ambivalent wish-wash.

4)      I’m just a badass, no big deal. I have a little dude cousin. One summer he started pretend attacking my fella. He would say “I punched you in the face!” or “I am going to spray you with acid.” or “What if you had to fight a transformer that was 50 tons.” And my husband answered the same thing to each question “Dodged it!” He had given himself a superpower that he simply could dodge anything. It didn’t prevent him from reacting, or playing, it just meant that he was too high status to get pummeled by imaginary kid bullets. Likewise, Harry Potter is a fucking wizard. All the time, you know. But he doesn’t have to show it off when he’s just having a cup of coffee or whatever. When he’s threatened Harry always has a big reveal: Boom, I am a wizard. I can do wizard crap.

If you feel powerless in a scene I would love for you to be Jesus. But like, on vacation, so you aren’t making a huge thing of it. Or secretly be a ghost. Or be undercover Justin Timberlake in an oversized hat, take that hat off and get the VIP treatment you deserve. If you don’t enjoy being the cranky customer or the nagging mom, don’t hesitate to give yourself a delightful alter ego.

5)      Objects that matter. Every Harry Potter book is filled to the brim with objects that affect people strongly. They are beautiful, ancient, magical, malevolent, sentimental, or broken. Rarely does J.K. Rowling waste time creating an object that isn’t special and emotionally affecting. In our imaginary worlds we should perhaps do the same.

Well, Harry Potter is a big deal right now. If it isn’t for you, cool, but hopefully these ideas will point you in the direction of a little more whimsy in your comedy: remember that it is an infinite realm we’re populating on that stage.

- Shyla

Status Anxiety for Fun and Profit

Status based comedy is some of my very favorite comedy, and yet I don’t see it played as the primary dynamic in improv all that often. So here are my ideas on main ways status can comprise the driving force for a scene.

1) A race to the top/bottom

2) A comedy of errors

3) Mixed status as character

Ok, the basics of “status” in comedy is the idea that a person can have high or low status: a king or a beggar, the CEO or the cleaning lady. In learning about status we take that further, to note that there are not only 10s (sultan, quarterback, secretary of state) and 1s (urchin, terminally ill hobo) but all shades in between. A high status character may be surprisingly low status when put in a different situation; the intern suddenly has higher status than a senator when she reveals a tape with which to blackmail him.

The point is that there are a variety of factors which control status. Status is also a quality which can exist independently of other characters in a scene. Some high status characters are low-status with regard to objects or parts of themselves: the quarterback has trouble with his computer, the editor is very clumsy, the vicious boss can’t consol her infant son when he is brought in to the boardroom, or the prince has an uncontrollable lisp –which puts him at odds with himself, even as he is in control of others.

With status as the basis for comedy we laugh at two things: unexpected reversals of status or the status pattern of a character that continually heightens the repercussions of their own weaknesses. Put another way; your luck changes relative to someone else’s luck or you keep bringing the same kind of luck upon yourself because of personal flaws like hubris, cowardice, greed, perversion, or stupidity. Yes, we all laugh at these things.

1)      A Race to the Top/Bottom: the competition dynamic

We often caution ourselves against getting caught on stage in an unfunny conflict over who is higher status. This is something we try to avoid because it is rarely done with any intention. If no one understood the underlying joys of a Straight/Absurd dynamic it is easy to imagine that we’d try to avoid going “too crazy” on stage. “Don’t go too crazy!” we’d say “You don’t want to alienate your scene partner by being unfathomably outlandish or weird.” – but, of course, we don’t say these things because we understand that the Absurd character and the Straight character both have responsibilities in heightening the scene intelligently. The same is absolutely true of a scene about the competition to be top dog.

Status reversals are at the heart of the race to the top/bottom type of comedy. A good example of a race to the top is the episode of 30 Rock where Kenneth the page is competing with the head page to get the job with the Olympics, or the episode of Michael and Michael Have Issues where the two Michaels compete with each other to impress their intern. In these scripted sketches it is paramount that one character “win” a point, only to be bested by the next heightening move. The trade off, the reversals, are what keep the dynamic alive and fascinating. This seems simple to say, but if you are in a scene where old-school your mama jokes are being exchanged and neither character is stung by their sparing partner’s insults, you do not have a funny scene. If, on the other hand, each insult completely changes who is top dog – something amusing is likely to be happening. If you are in a scene where two law men want control of this here El Paso outpost, each has to be vulnerable and tough; if one man insists that he is the fastest draw in the west he is. And that is a problem. Good thing you’re the most efficient cup-cake maker in the west, and most importantly, that this is an equally devastating revelation for your competitor.

So what is the race to the bottom? It is the twin of the race to the top: it is always a race toward a valued position of debasement. Two peasants might compete to be servile, two priests to be self-sacrificing, or two girls-gone-wild to be objectified. A wonderful example is this Monty Python sketch

(also, it is a fact that the grandmasters of status comedy are Larry David and the whole of the British people).

2) Comedy of Errors, aka What Fresh New Hell is This?, aka you do it to yourself, you do and that’s what really hurts

This type of comedy is based on providing extreme discomfort. Ricky Gervais’ character will always lose at life. Something very bad, that is over half his fault, will happen to Larry David at least five times every episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Everyone on Pulling will make it worse till it don’t get no worse, then find a new kind of terrible to fall to.

Losers losing makes us laugh when they BRING IT ON THEMSELVES. We normally don’t laugh when a character is just “picked on” by everyone – we laugh when they invite it, or their own error continually brings them down.

However, we also laugh at the comedy of errors that involves those that shouldn’t win, winning anyway. Ron Burgundy, Ricky Bobby, Jack Donaghy are the American flavor of this dynamic. They make us laugh just as hard when they are on top as when they hit bottom. We laugh at winners wining when they inexplicably overcome the obstacles of their own flaws. A king ruling won’t make us laugh; though a foolish king overcoming the (justified) derision of others will make us laugh. Eastbound and Down is proof positive that the only thing funnier than a loser bringing catastrophe onto themselves, is a loser driven to win and his unlikely triumphs. Also see, “Homer Simpson.”

3)Mixed Status as Character

By its self high status isn’t funny. Low status isn’t funny. But, mixed statuses ARE funny.

Outside of the type of scenes enumerated above, scenarios in which status cracks us up are often based on the fact that no one is a 10 or a 1 really in life: all people have high status parts and low status parts. Common types are successful because they pair high and low status in a way that delights us.

Dumb Blonds /Sexually Desirable and Stupid

Joey (friends), Cerie (30 Rock), Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

Absent Minded Professor/ Socially Inept Intellectual

Dr. Zoidburg (Futurama), Dr. Fink (The Simpsons), Moss (The IT Crowd)

Impotent Rich Man/ Wealthy and Powerless

Mr. Burns (The Simpsons), Andy Bernard (The Office),  Helen Harris (Bridesmaids)

Brilliant Child/ Wise or Clever + Naive

Kenneth (30 Rock), Lisa Simpson, Southpark (the whole show)

In Summation: look and be aware if you are in a race to the top or bottom scene. If you are in that scene, remember that the laughs come from reversals, so you have to trade off to make laughs. If you are in a comedy of errors you are either a wining loser or a loosing loser: a winning loser overcomes obstacles (that they brought on themselves) while a losing loser fails gloriously and has himself to blame. If you are just playing status as a character choice, mix it up. Complex status (a 10 status quality + a 1 status quality)  = Comedy. A simple high or low status won’t stand on its own as a driving force for a scene.

-shyla

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