Improv Nonsense

A good initiation has “something to unpack.” That’s a phrase that Curtis Retherford came up with in a class I was teaching last weekend, as I tried to find a way to describe what made an initiation good, even if it didn’t have a premise in it.

First of all, I do like initiations that have premises (or funny ideas, or games, or unusual things — say what you want — ones that have a sketch idea in it, in some form):

• “Excuse me, miss? We’ve been in this McDonald’s for ten minutes and no one has waited on us.”
• “Here at this gym we fuck the weight off you.”

Still, I don’t like depending on having an idea. You need to be able to start with nothing. But I don’t mean starting with NOTHING, like these:

• “May I borrow a pen?”
• “Nice day, isn’t it?”
• “I see you’re wearing a tie.”

Yes, they can work but YAWN.

When you don’t have a premise or any kind of idea, you want to start with what Curtis identified as “something to unpack.” Something intriguing, something to figure out, to propel us through the first few lines.

• “I guess I have a lot of guitars here.”
• “So you built this dock yourself?”
• “These obituaries practically write themselves.”

These are small initiations, but there’s something interesting in each one. When I hear them I’m curious to know more. If the other person is a good improviser and will speak to the main points being offered we’re going to have at least an interesting scene.