alexpereira asked: Will, would you kinda touch upon this quote on Mick Napier's Wikipedia page? "He founded The Annoyance with the philosophy that training improvisers to be individually powerful is the best way to support those with whom one improvises, an answer to the Yes, And philosophy, which he found led to weak, polite improvisation more often than powerful, good improvisation, a subject that he elaborates on in his book, Improvise: Scene from the Inside Out." Sorry I don't have a more specific question.
I really like Mick’s book. I think it’s perfect to read after you’ve been doing improv for about a year or so. The idea of being individually powerful rather than meekly responsive is a great one! But I think built into Mick’s book is the assumption that you will listen to and be able to generally understand what the other people in the scene are saying. And when I watch lower level improvisers and in fact when I watch people in regular real life — NO ONE LISTENS, NO ONE UNDERSTANDS. So I think people gotta spend time being “meek and polite” until they can reliably understand what the fuck people are saying. Hello Alex.
