Four contractors sit around a table. They have been hired to create a home together for a family with a new baby. They’ve known each other for years, and they’ve even worked together on several occasions. At the table they talk about the materials they’ll use for the house, the benefits of wood vs. Stone, and their preferred tools.
The next morning, one shows up at the construction site with a bucket of nails. Another comes with a light fixture. Another arrives with a “Welcome” mat. The fourth shows up with some comfortable bedding.
Are they successful in building the home? Probably not.
What does this have to do with improv?
I once asked four people on an improv team I was playing with how they defined “scene.” The answers I got were: “A scene has a beginning, middle and end,” “It has a who, what, and where,” “It’s about the relationship,” and, “I guess I’ve never thought about it.”
This group had been performing together for about two years at this point — doing dozens and dozens of scenes every week — and yet when asked the most fundamental question about the work — essentially “what do you set out to create when you get on stage?”, they gave four different answers. (See also the famous Parable of the Elephant)
This group isn’t alone. In fact, many improvisers of all experience levels do not have a clear definition of scene that works for them.
I had been improvising almost every week for seven years before it finally dawned on me to sit down and clearly define what a “Scene” actually was. None of the people I had ever worked with over the years had brought it up, either. Either I was being left out, or many improvisers just assumed that everyone understood what a scene was and never really bothered to hash it out.
But as improvisers, we live and breathe scenes. We watch, perform in, and analyze them. We talk about the details of scenes, the characters that inhabit them, and the choices that heightened, developed, or derailed them.
If we’re going to be spending so much time with scenes, shouldn’t we have a solid and consistent definition for “scene” as well? The four contractors had four different definitions for what “home” meant to them, and they had never talked about it. They couldn’t possibly succeed because they weren’t in agreement about what they were trying to do. After all, if we don’t have a clear idea of what we’re attempting to create, how can we say anything meaningful about it, let alone expect to produce good ones week after week?
Defining “Scene” as a tool make your improv simpler and more powerful.
I’d like to present a definition of “scene” that has worked for me as a performer, teacher and director: A scene is the exploration of one premise.
Let’s break it down.
One Premise (The hard part.)
The premise is the central theme, the essence of a scene. Because we’re improvising, we can’t decide what a scene is going to be about ahead of time. We can only really say what a scene was about when it is over.
If we start with a mother trying to convince her son to swim for the first time, and end with an argument about what color the living room curtains should be, the scene has probably lost focus and likely won’t have satisfied the performers or the audience.
One key ingredient of good improvisation is simplicity. Staying focused on one premise allows you to spend less time trying to figure out what’s going on, and more time having fun. But wait! If you stick with just one premise the whole time, how can you really have fun with that? Glad you asked.
Exploration (The fun part.)
Exploration implies discovery, fun, and a sense of mystery. Exploration is all about details; this is where we get the who, what, when, where and how.
A scene in which someone gets fired from a job can be explored in an endless number of ways: two cowboys get fired from a ranch and decide to go live in the mountains, or an astronaut gets fired on a space shuttle and must endure an awkward ride back to Earth. Those cowboys could also get fired in a space shuttle. Or maybe they’re thrilled to get fired. These are the details.
Exploration is where you, the improviser, play. It is where you express your personality and say and do things that you enjoy. In your improv career, you’ll likely do hundreds of scenes about someone getting fired. Why have them all take place in an office? (And why have them all begin with, “Johnson, I’ve called you in here today because your work lately has been sub-par…”)
Keeping Scenes Focused
Each move an improviser makes will either maintain a scene’s direction or change it. The direction can be maintained by heightening or committing to what already exists. It can be changed by shifting of conversation topics, abandoning physical or emotional choices, or introducing new elements into the scene.
The more a scenario changes, the harder it becomes for both the audience and the players to understand. Unfocused scenes are difficult to end in a satisfying way.
Focused scenes tend to unfold naturally and will often end in logical and satisfying (but still surprising) ways. Focused scenes can usually be summarized in one simple statement about the desires of the characters and how they relate to one another. This might be “I wanted you to go out with me but you shot me down,” or “I wanted to break up with you but we decided to give it another chance.”
When It’s Over, It’s Over
If the scene is about me wanting peace and quiet, that scene is over when I finally get it (or definitively do not get it). It doesn’t matter if it lasted 30 seconds or 30 minutes. Once the central issue of the scene is addressed in a conclusive way, the scene is over.
Many improvisers run into trouble by either failing to identify a central issue of their scene, or by addressing it too quickly (often through overly-literal Yes And-ing) and then continuing to play by manufacturing new activities or conflict – thus trying to fit many scenes into one.
Keep It Simple
The power of strong scenework is in its simplicity. Focus and explore one theme thoroughly. Make your scenes “an inch wide and a mile deep.”
Of course, we’re improvisers and this isn’t always possible. But it is something to strive for. If nothing else, having a common definition for “scene” (and other common improv vocabulary) will give your performance group a target – something to aim for as you continue to grow together.
FuseBox Theatre is pleased to present an interview with Matthew Falkenberg, Executive Producer of Atlanta’s Black Box Improv Festival.
Now heading into its fifth year, the Black Box festival is quickly becoming one of the biggest comedy festivals in the Mid-South. In the past, Black Box has hosted such incredible acts as Three For All, Upright Citizen’s Brigade Tour Co., and Drum Machine. This year is no exception, with headlining acts including Razowsky & Clifford and An Evening with Dirk & Blane.
We were fortunate to steal a few moments of Matthew’s time for this interview. Enjoy!
- 1. How did you get into improv? What kind of training and performance background do you have?
- It all began with a couple high school acting classes. I transitioned into doing community theatre plays in late high school and early college. During a 2000 production of Charles’s Aunt at Theatre Macon, Donna Lucia D’ Alvadorez (the title character – Charie’s Aunt) made her entrance 5 minutes late. When Lucia didn’t show on cue, Stephen Spettigue (me) and Colonel Sir Francis Chesney stood in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Then we repeat our last couple lines, making sure we were a bit louder the second time around in case they simply hadn’t heard us back stage. She still didn’t come. So the Colonel and I just stared at each. I could see he was desperately trying to mask the same frighten expression I knew was all over my face. I’ll never forget that terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach and the way time seemed to stretch on forever as we stood in front of a packed house with nothing more to say…In an attempt to avoid ever having to suffer like that on stage again, I began to investigate improvisational theatre. I found a makeshift band of improvisers under the direction of Macon State College’s Associate Professor of Theatre, Ms. Sydney Chalfa. Workshops consisted of Ms. Chalfa reading game descriptions to us out of Viola Solin’s Improvisation for the Theatre followed us attempting to play those games based on our limited understanding. We had fun in those workshops, but the thought of performing never even crossed our minds.
- 2. What is your connection with Georgia Tech? What about the “Let’s Try This” improv group?
- I transferred into GA Tech after two years at Macon State College. I didn’t immediately join the GA Tech’s improv group, Let’s Try This!, because it took me a semester to figure out which building they were worshipping in. However when I did finally join, my love affair with improv began in earnest. LTT! has been around since 1989 and they were doing things I never dreamed of while I was at MSC. Under the indirect influence of Robert Low, improv guru and author of Improvisation Inc., LTT! was pushing the limits of spontaneous creativity. These weren’t just fun little exercises to get you thinking on your feet. This was an art form. After my first year with LTT!, I was given the Rookie of the Year award and elected Production Manager.
- 3. What is the history of the Black Box festival?
- When I first joined LTT!, Je77 Rick was the Production Manager. He spearheaded a campaign to get us all to go the Dirty South Improv Festival in North Carolina. The members of LTT! were inspired on many levels by the new ideas the festival exposed them to, including… longform. The following year when I was elected the new Production Manager, I was so inspired by DSIF that I wanted to start an improv festival at Georgia Tech. After winning the support of LTT! and DramaTech Theatre, I contacted Zach Ward, the founder and Executive Producer of DSIF. Zach became a much needed source of guidance as the festival took shape. Finally after much planning and hard work done by countless volunteers, the first annual Black Box Improv Festival took place in September of 2004.
- 4. What do you think makes Black Box different from other festivals? What are the festival’s specific goals?
- Honestly, I don’t think there is a huge difference between BBIF and other festivals besides location. I guess the main thing is that we have been around for five years. If you pay attention to the improv festival scene (yes there is such a thing) over the past few years festivals have been popping up all over the country. Every improv festival has similar goals – to bring the local improv community closer together, to bring in some cool out of town acts, and to have some really awesome workshops that will help train the next generation of improvisers. However, it is a hell’uv a lot of work putting these damn things together and the pay off on an individual level for festival organizers can be relatively small when compared to the workload. Most festival eventually peter out or at least take a hiatus. BBIF has been able to sustain itself because 1) I am crazy 2) people tend to listen to me for some insane reason 3) DramaTech Theatre is ludicrous enough to give me an awesome budget 4) location.Now, #4 is a big one. Atlanta is a the biggest metropolitan area in the Southeast. We’ve got the biggest airport in the world. We are home to the headquarters of 27 Fortune 1,000 companies including United Parcel Service, Coca-Cola Company, Georgia-Pacific, The Home Depot, Delta Air Lines, SunTrust Banks, AT&T and Newell Rubbermaid. Award-winning cable stations CNN, TNT, Headline News, The Weather Channel and The Cartoon Network are based here. BBIF has a great performance space in the center of midtown Atlanta and we don’t have to pay a dime for it. Additionally, we are on a college campus where it’s relatively easy to get a bunch of people to come out and see some grade A comedy for cheap and to find plenty people willing to volunteer in exchange nothing more than free access to shows and workshops. By the way, I owe a great deal of graduated to DramaTech, LTT! and everyone that’s ever volunteered to help put this event together. Without them, I’d just be some crazy guy nobody listens to.
- 5. Have you produced the festival every year? What have you learned about putting on such a large event over the years?
- I founded BBIF in 2004 when I was 22. I’ve learned so much along the way it is hard to know where to begin. We have 150 people performing at BBIF 2008. The Matthew Falkenberg of 5 years ago would have had his head explode trying to run this thing. I guess the main thing I’ve learned is how to market the festival well and how to best guesstimate how many people will be attending each festival event. I run the festival website and I just starting using PHP to interact with mySQL database software. The database has taken a lot of the manual labor out of organizing workshops attendees. Next year I’ll integrate this type of web design into all the online forms – Performance Submission, Instructor Submission, Scholarship Application, Workshop Registration, etc. So all that data will be easy to sift through, we’ll know how many people to expect at each event and be adequately prepared.I’ve also learned never to use the Skiles buildings for workshops like we did the first two years we did BBIF. Each year the notoriously unreliable campus police were supposed to open the Skiles building for us so we could use the classrooms inside for workshop. Each year they didn’t show up to open the building. At the first BBIF, I had a group of volunteers prepping the workshop rooms while I gave an orientation at DramaTech. Since the rooms weren’t opened like they were supposed to be, I ended up having to run back and forth between the Skiles Building and DT. The GA Tech Library parking lot has flat asphalt parking rows separated by grass covered slops. As I was heading back to DT, I came speeding down one of those slopes so fast that I couldn’t stop my downward momentum and crashed right into the asphalt. It was a bloody incident. The palms of my hands were scraped up, my knees were scraped up through my pants, my left hip was scraped up, and the button on the front of my pants had been ripped off. Did I mention I’m crazy? Anyway, luckily I was able to raid DT’s first aid kit for bandages and I had an extra pair of pants in my car. I soldiered on – finished the orientation and the campus police finally opened the Skiles building 30 minutes after the workshops were scheduled to have begun. The moral of the story is that when you are in charge of a big event like this, things will inevitably go wrong and when they do, you need to keep your cool. The worst thing you can do is flip out and start running around like crazy because you will probably only end up causing even worse things to happen.
- 6. What makes the Atlanta improv scene unique?
- In a decade or two Atlanta has the potential to be as synonymous with improv as Chicago is. We have a strong foundation from groups that have been doing improv here since the early 80’s. Dad’s Garage Theatre Co. and Whole World Improv Theatre having been getting packet crowds to see improv every weekend since 1995 and it seems like there’s a new improv group here every couple months. A few years ago Relapse Theatre opened up a few blocks from GA Tech and now has four performance spaces. It has become a place for all the previously unaffiliated improv groups in the city to come and perform. I don’t want to go through the long list of improv groups in this city, but two up and coming dedicated improv venues are the Basement Theatre and Village Theatre. That makes 5 improv theatres in Atlanta – not a small number. The thing about Atlanta is it has grown faster than anyone expected. There are 5 million people in the Metro Atlanta Area. It is a huge market and people want to be entertained. The more improvisers there are in this city the more innovative formats we collectively create. It is true that competition between improv groups can get a little too fierce from time to time, but there is a movement to unite. As the improv talent pool here grows, so will the reputation of the Atlanta improv scene.
- 7. What are your ambitions in the improv world at large? Do you want to continue to produce festivals? Direct? Just play?
- I’ve been directing and producing improv for quite a while now. I’m trying to get back to just playing again. I’m currently workshopping with a couple of different improv groups and I’m doing my best to make sure that I don’t end up producing or directing anything with those guys. I do sometimes think about trying out scripted theatre again, but the rehearsals schedule for plays can be very time consuming and scripted theatre doesn’t give me the creative freedom that improv does. I don’t aspire to film acting or even live television. Improv is my therapy. It helped me evolve from an introverted anti-social nerd with a lot of personal baggage into a well adjusted productive member of society. I believe it can help a lot of other people make similar transitions. That’s why I’d like to continue to do whatever I can to bring improv to the masses. I want to continue to hone my skills as an improviser and eventually find a place where I can teach improv regularly. In the time that I have spend teaching improv at GA Tech and at the Basement Theatre, I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed watching people grow out of their shells using tools of improv. It’s really amazing.
- 8. You and I are both engineers as well as improvisers. How do these disciplines compliment one another in your life?
- When I graduated from GA Tech with my BA in Mechanical Engineering I had to find a job and that meant going to interview after interview trying to convince people I was the guy they wanted to hire. I would get asked a lot of hard questions and it could be pretty nerve racking at times. However I was able to use my improv skills to come up with good answers to those tough questions and it did help me get better job offers.As an engineer, I often find myself working on teams with other engineers. Improv teaches how to work well with others and direct your combined creative potential in the right direction. That is an essential skill for engineers tackling large projects together. I also often have to do presentations and train people on how to use and repair the products I work on. Improv has helped me learn how to better communicate information and made me a lot more comfortable speaking in front of crowds.
- 9. You operate the community website AtlantaImprov.com. Would you like to say anything about your vision or goals for your website?
- AtlantaImprov.com is based on the idea that if the Atlanta improvisers could maintain the sense of camaraderie that exists at the BBIF year round, we could propel ourselves to a whole new level. However, the website quite frankly has a lot of logistical issues. It doesn’t get much traffic, almost no one uses the forum, and it’s a pain in the you know where to update it with new articles. I do have plans to redesign the back end of the website once the festival is over. Once the site is easier to update, there will be several people contributing articles that way there is always interesting new content. Additionally, I have plans to run make the Black Box Improv Tournament an annual event happening every spring. This will help improviser mingle more than once a year and won’t be nearly as much of a headache to put together as BBIF is. Hopefully the combination of those two things will help AtlantaImprov.com really take off.
- 10. Is there anything else you’d like to say?
- Thanks for the interview. I love what you guys are doing up in Nashville. Keep the improv faith.
- Bonus Question: What’s the deal with Black Box Man?
- Ha! Black Box Man is the brainchild of Greg Kinsey, who was an invaluable help in putting the festival together in 2006 and 2007. His idea was to create a logo for the festival that we could reuse in order to create a brand. He didn’t want the logo to just be a bunch of words so he added Black Box Man. That year I went to the Out of Bounds Improv Festival in Austin. During the festival there was a block of shows hosted by a chin puppet. It was pretty awesome. I asked Greg if he had any ideas for having Black Box Man host some of the BBIF show. He took that idea and ran with it. BB-Man was an immediate audience favorite and has continued to host BBIF shows ever since.
FuseBox Theatre’s Daily Spark is bite-sized inspiration for improvisers and sketch comedians. Sometimes you just want to do something small to make your improv better. We’ve got you covered. While you’re at it, check out the first issue of the Daily Spark Digest right here.
Daily Sparks #21-30
- Sensitivity Training. Challenge yourself to play a scene as a character (with integrity) that you wouldn’t respect or get along with in real life.
- You Seem Angry. Try endowing your partner with emotions. They should then accept and amplify these emotions.
- Stuck On You. Improvise a scene in which you are in constant physical contact with your partner. How does it change the context of your scene?
- I Need My Space. Improvise a scene in which you stay as far away from your partner as possible. How does it change the context of your scene?
- Truth In Comedy. Begin a scene with an emotionally charged line of dialogue that you have always wanted to say to someone in real life.
- Instant Gratification. Improvise a scene in which you immediately execute any action (positive or negative) mentioned in the scene.
- Two Face. Improvise a scene in which your actions are always directly opposed to what your character says.
- Reach of Faith. Improvise a scene in which you reach out and grab an object before you know what you are grabbing.
- Lazy Sunday. Improvise a scene in which you are lying down and refuse to get up. Force your partners to pick you up rather than get up yourself.
- Quiet Hour. Improvise a scene in which you never raise your volume above a whisper, no matter what your partners do.
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The Daily Spark from FuseBox Theatre: Making you a better improviser one day at a time!
