Stop Trying to Be Funny | Second City Improv Week 6

Giovanni: Good morning, you beautiful blueberries, and welcome back to Actor's Notes. I don't know how much I'm gonna be calling you guys blueberries, but this is Stella Actor's' Notes, and it always will be. This is essentially a podcast where I reflect on acting classes, my time on sets, commercials, TV and film feature films that I've booked in the past, and just sharing my notes and thoughts and my opinions and my experience and maybe this. Helps resonate with someone else who feels the same way. Maybe it's a thought that you never expressed, but you're like, huh, I wonder if other people felt this way too. And essentially, this whole series that I'm doing is reflecting on my time at the Second City in Chicago, one of, if not the best, improv sketch comedy schools in the entire country. And so right now I talk about my sixth sixth week at improv. one, which is the class. The second city provides many different classes. And if you are just beginning, improv one is legit the foundation. If you've never done improv, if you've never if you don't have any background experience in acting, whatever it is, just people who want to further their career development, and that could be in sales, entrepreneurship, whatever it may be. And so taking an improv class, this is the way to go. And so we are on the sixth week Uta of eight weeks because the way that I'm my class is structured is that it's four weeks excuse me improv 1A which we already covered now we're going into improv 1b and this is technically improv one or you can take improv one that lasts for seven weeks is straight. This is just excuse me a way that the second city structures it for people who don't really want to commit to seven weeks, maybe it's a financial thing, time thing. For me, it takes me five hours to get there. I live in Kentucky, so Chicago's five hours away, five hours back. It's a three-hour improv class, so I'm like, I think I need a little break in between. So this class structure was perfect for me. Now, improv 1B, this is the sixth week. We played many games, as I'll always I'll always and you'll always do if you're in an improv. class and I won't talk about the games because I don't remember every single one that we play. There are a Fey that are always certain like our warm-ups that we play at the beginning of class and that is our zip zabzop, that is our whoosh. There's certain games, just a little icebreaker games. Get your body loose. And so after that we we hopped right into games. We started to understand more about how to establish a relationship. When you go into an improv scene, asking yourself, okay, who are you? Where are you? What do you want? What's your goal? What's going on? You know, what problem are you trying to solve? Now, these are just the three things that I have to remind myself of every single time I'm an improv scene. and this is just what I want to potentially help you with. Now, during the beginning of class, we kind of went over our struggles of individuals in the class like many of us including myself ask questions so we just went over why don't we ask why don't we ask questions in improv scenes. It's because you're not you're not providing anything, you're taking something away. You want information from your scene partner from the group. You're not giving information. And that's the whole point. You give a gift. You give a s a an assumption you assume something about something and it's almost just like telling them. but don't get confused Or don't get that how do you say it? A natural thing that many people do is tell other scene partners, other groups, or a a scene partner or the group what to do. And this comes naturally to people who come from teaching backgrounds or a leadership role in their actual jobs where they have to tell people what to do. So in scenes you'll see you'll hear and see people just start instructing, you know, like, hey, stop doing that. It's not okay. I'm a police officer. And you just broke the law. You're like, okay, but then you you know the scene continues and they're just telling you what to do. And it just comes from this this teaching, this leadership leadership position. There's nothing at there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, but that comes natural and it's not really, you know, don't just tell them what to do. Give them a gift, a suggestion, but not a question. Because a question takes and we want to give. And the whole point of a good improviser is to say yes. And on top of it, not I not answer your question. But what he says here, Tom, my instructor Tom, I says him, but tall Tom, you can't miss him. He's six seven. and hopefully whenever you are watching this, he's Stella there. He's an amazing teacher. shout Uta to Tom. But he says this listen, if you have a fellow improviser asking many, many questions, no matter if you are Just a beginning or very experience that happens to all of us. And so he says, call Uta the obvious. If they're asking many questions, a cool trick to, you know, stop that and just continue to the scene is call it Uta. Call it how it is. You y you know, they're asking many questions, you can be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're asking a lot of questions right now. This is so like you, Janet. This is so like you. Well, you are my therapist, so maybe maybe you should ask questions. How about How about instead of this, we just take a walk? You know, you always told me after the 30 years we've been together, sometimes we just need to take a walk and see where that walk turns into. So you already, you know, you address the questions, you've given them them a relationship as your therapist, you already ha established a little backstory. now you can go Uta for a walk. And you aren't limited. Here's another thing that's kind of separate from the notes, you aren't limited. By the space you're in. Yeah, you're in a classroom or stage, whatever it may be, as at a certain size, but you're not limited to where you can be. You can be on Mars, you can be on a roller coaster, you can be underwater and Stella talking. There is nothing that is bound by where you are, only your creativity. And as long as your fellow improviser says yes and they'll go with it. That's what I love. You have a hundred percent support. That's what I love about improv. You have a hundred percent support from your fellow scene partner. And if you don't, now listen, we know the rules in order to break them. What I mean by that is It's okay to say no. It's okay to reject a gift. You know, that doesn't mean you're not getting a hundred percent support. It just means that you guys are are just playing around or having fun with the creativity. But you need to learn the foundation. You need to understand why you say yes and and not ask questions and accept the gifts, how to add on top of that. What do you do when you blank? And for me that happens many times, and it's simply just actively listen, put yourself back in the moment. Hear the next thing that they say. So there are different different tools and tactics, but there's a foundation you have to stand on before you start jumping around, otherwise, you're gonna break through. Now, as we continue to play games, we just talked about specificity, relationship, specificity. Who are you? It's just it's is it's easy as this: give them a name. Alright, even if you just began a scene and you're like, okay, Gio, I can I began a scene, but how do I establish in a moment? That this person is my dad or my mom, just say dad or mom. But what if it's you know brother or sister? You don't just say, hey brother, let me tell you something. Maybe at the beginning, if that helps, you can do that, but over time just give them a name. If it's Justin, if it's Dustin, if it's Robert, if it's Sarah, if it's Cindy, just give them a name. Because this starts to establish, okay, they got a name, they can embody a persona. And then you can go into the details of your relationship. Of all right, what's your history? Have you been friends for over fifty years? If you just met, ooh, that's that's another thing too. Don't don't start the scene off as it like like just greeting someone. You know, everything starts off in the messy middle. Think about your favorite TV show, your favorite movie. Well not a movie. Movie kind of starts right off the beginning. Some movies do, but your favorite TV show. It's not always at the beginning. It's always in the middle of something. You're always seeing someone in the middle stage of their life. Not when, you know, things just started. It's not always like that. It's not as entertaining as if you were just, you know, dropped in the middle of something. You're like, because the audience figures it Uta. But the funny thing is, you're figuring it Uta as two. You're figuring it Uta too. Now, yeah, give them a name right off the bat. Hey Mike, it's good to Good to see you. I haven't seen you in Quite some time. Just something like that. So simple. And then, yeah, who are you? Where are you? Ooh, this goes right into our next thing, too. We played a game that we did not we we said nothing. We just did mime work. We established the environment. I believe the game that we played, we were just in our house and we were at the kitchen, and you had to Mime where the Steve was, where the oven was, where the microwave was, where's the sink, where are the dishes, the cabinet, what's in that cabinet, being specific because when you can see the environment, the audience can see the environment. If it's vague, if you don't really know where you are, you're not really actually putting places and seeing things, the audience doesn't either. Even if they're misinterpreting what you see or what you're doing, that's not what matters. What matters is that you believe something is there, and if you believe it, they believe something is there. So they're also thinking, what is it? What are they doing? What's going on? What are they saying? They're looking for these context clues. The audience isn't stupid too. They'll probably know that you just opened up a microwave or cabinet. And if you're in the kitchen, they can probably guess what you're doing. and yeah, we played this game and we said absolutely nothing. This goes to specificity. And if you're like me too, you tend to rush scenes at the start. You know, you have two improvisers and you begin the scene, then bam, you just start talking. Take a beat, take a moment and just start doing some object work. Start just miming. If you are in the kitchen, start cleaning the dishes. Just like this. You know, it already establishes the environment, and not a single word was said. And that really helps. You know? but just make sure you always check in with your scene partner because probably both of you. We I remember doing this silent scene, and both of us were doing object work because the whole point was not to say anything, but we never checked in with each other. And so one person was digging and one person was washing the dishes, and then we reminded ourselves to look at each other, and you're like, you're digging and I'm washing the dishes. Where exactly are we and what are we doing right now? Because it's really hard to make a connection between someone just digging in the ground and someone washing dishes. But you can make it work and you can pretend like, whoa, our open house concept really works. You're in the front yard and I'm in the kitchen. so it's really it's really interesting to see where things go. but make sure if you if you take this approach to an improv scene and you're just Silence, but doing object work, make sure you just look at your scene partner, see what they're doing, and justify it. Ooh, a very key point here is don't talk about what you're doing. Now, this is it sounds almost counterintuitive to how what you just said focus on what I'm doing. Yeah, focus on your object work, establish your environment. That's one thing to just mime it. You don't have to say anything, but don't always talk about what you're doing. If you're washing dishes, you don't have to talk about washing dishes, if you're digging Don't just talking about digging or what you're digging or what you're looking for. Because yes, it's okay, but it's taking away from the relationship from your scene partner. You know, the environment is important to establish, but the environment isn't the whole scene. It's more interesting to talk about your scene partner, about how you feel about them, about the relationship between you two, not just the environment. And vice versa. If you just talk about your scene partner, well what about the environment? I feel like it's more important to talk it it's it would be better to have a improv scene about your scene partner than the environment other rather than the other way around, which is just talk about the environment and not just to your scene partner. Because, you know, i you have two people there. It's not you and the environment. You can have a whole scene with you and just the environment, but this is an improv scene, you and the group. Talk about the person that you're with, how you feel about them. This is something that is pretty common, and I Stella did even up to Improfer Actor's 1 and 2, which is around you know, week 12, all the way up to week 22. We're only on week six. So this is something that you will always continue, even asking questions, even saying yes and this is not just something that you'll be like, next class? Pretty much a professional. Even in conservatory, there's so many improvisers that I've noticed that I'm like, Huh, how did you get in? No, I don't say that. You do have to audition for it and everybody who auditions if submits anybody who steps in an improv class, whether it's professional conservatory, whether that's improv for Actor's, people improv for people with anxiety, whatever it may be, it takes courage to step in a classroom and you deserve to have A show, a performance. You deserve an applause, you deserve to pat yourself on the back 'cause you showed up. Yeah. But don't don't talk just about what you're doing. Talk about the person that you're with. It's much more interesting, much more entertaining. I wrote down some questions here about how to progress, how how to make it funny. And that was almost there is one more point here that I want to get into. But this was a big one. During my improv scenes, I just noticed a lot of my other improvisers, a lot of my other classmates, they would just be so funny. Some of them were just naturally funny to me, and every time I did an improv scene, it was just hard to get a joke. But over time I realized Improv isn't about being funny. Improv is about being true. I'm reading this book. I love this book. I highly recommend this book. It's called Truth in Comedy by Del Close, Charna Halpern, and Kim Howard Johnson. And you'll hear about Viola Davis, not Viola Davis. Sp Spurla? Something Spurla? Viola Spurla? Something. But you'll don't you these are just founders. of improv and Del Close who founded Improv Olympic, which is another amazing school. And he also taught at the Second City as well. But he they have this book called The Truth in Comedy. And one of the chapters is that improv isn't about comedy. Improv is about the truth. Is about the truth of life. And if you think about it, life is pretty funny when you just put it into perspective. I don't know who coined the phrase, who said the qua the phrase, but it's that life is a drama up close and when you pan Uta, it's a comedy. Just because we think about the things that we complain about in our everyday lives, or the things that we take responsibility for, or find our faults, or Del on, or find complete pleasure and joy in. And it's almost funny to be like, Huh, I think differently. Mm, to each their own, every human being is as unique as their signature. And so I was I was asking myself this question, how do I become funnier in the scene? And so a simple way that I kind of resolve this question through this book and through continual practice in a an improv class is that it's not about being funny. The only way to be funny, the only way to progress is just to be true to your improv partner. Is to listen. That's how you s that's how you progress. Just to listen. Say yes and and support. Even if the scene there's no jokes. It's better to be authentic to improv into your scene partner than to just feel like, ooh, this deserves a good joke here, to get a good laugh. Maybe it was at the expense of your partner. Maybe the joke was about your partner, which isn't always bad, but I'd rather have a truthful improv scene than funny one at the expense of your scene partner. What I mean by that is that it hurts trust. Say they give you a gift, you eject that gift. And it was funny to reject that gift. The audience laughed, but you lost trust with your scene partner. It's not worth it. So how do you progress? How do you be funny? Well don't be funny, but to progress is to listen. Just listen to what they say, yes and and see where the scene goes. Then the rest of the time we played, it was all about relationship, relationship, relationship. We were just honing and boning. We were not doing that. I just wanted a rhyme. don't get me started. We did music. So scary. That was really scary. But that was really fun, and I'm glad I did it. That time was halftime time, halftime time, which was an hour and a half in our three-hour class. Then the rest of the class we kind of did the same things. We played more games and wrote things down. And this was another struggle that a lot of my improvisers, including myself in that classroom, faced with not just asking many questions, but going on tangents. You know, we talk about specificity, we talk about relationships, we talk about don't ask questions and We want to be specific and give details, but some of us we give so many details. We give so we give almost like a paragraph of information and just trust that one is enough. Trust that a simple sentence or two. It doesn't have to be long. It could just be a Fey words. That's enough to begin a scene. Like, hey Mike, your shoes untied. It's simple. You're like, you know me, Billy. I'm always clumsy. Mom never taught us how to tie our shoes. Simple. now you're brothers. And now you could talk na maybe you're kids. Maybe you're going on your way to preschool, you know. You're not bound by the environment, you're not bound by your age or what is going on or physical capabilities. You can do anything and be anything and be anyone. that's so cute. I think that's a great place to stop as well, because the rest of the time was just about relationship, relationship, relationship, being specific. who are you? Where are you? What do you want? What's your goal? What are you trying to do? What are you trying to solve? And if you start blanking, like I have many times, just put yourself in that moment and listen. In case no one has told you today. I love you. You matter, you have value, and let me say something I haven't said before. Something I have not said before. I'm reading this book, The Creative Acts, A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin. I've mentioned this one time. I highly recommend this for any Actor's, creative, entrepreneur, anybody who wants to have a different perspective on life. And the sub chapter I read was about seasons. And this is just a beautiful time. as it is October going into fall, we will we are having more, you know, colder mornings, chillier days. I'm a summer guy. I love a hot morning, hot day, hot night. But I love his idea of seasons and knowing what season you're in. And knowing that there is a time to plant a seed. There is a time to take an acting, an improv class, there's a time to just go through the motions of winter and go through the motions of your life. Maybe things just you're just weathering the storm. Maybe things aren't as hot as they used to be. That doesn't mean that it's worse and doesn't mean it's better, it just means that's you are where you are right now. And so I really want you to reflect on the season of life that you're in. Maybe to some maybe to some people you're in summer. Things are just hot for you. Maybe things are you're having a hard winter and just nothing is happening. Maybe you're trying to plant a seed in winter and you're not seeing the fruits of your labor because it's not its time. Maybe that's the work that you're putting in. Or maybe you're just being too impatient. And so reflecting on, okay, maybe this is just a season of my life, and trusting to know that this season isn't gonna last forever. And a better time will come and a slower time will come. Maybe it'll be worse through your perspective, and you know only time will tell. But time will always move on. Thank you for watching. I'll see you the next one. I love you.