A lot of people are hurting now because of the latest round of cuts at iO. There’s lots of good people in this community, and I think when people get cut, they tend to look inward and criticize themselves. Even though there are doubts about how iO is run, no one seems to voice those publicly.

I’m sick of that. I think iO has a lot of negative affects on our community, and I don’t think people should blame themselves for the sick feelings they have when iO does things like this. That institution should be held accountable.

Inspired by Zach Zimmerman’s post earlier this week, here are another ten points to consider, meant to inspire discouraged performers, and one more bonus point.

Never give anyone your power. If someone else’s judgement pushes you, and builds you up, then trust them. But there will always be people and institutions in the arts that try to trick you into mistaking their validation for success.

Stay genuine and open. Friendship and collaboration can be a positive part of any artistic community. And it makes sense that people would want to celebrate their friends. But every time someone with power promotes their friends, it sends a message to everyone else. It pressures new members of the community to be sycophantic and to prioritize impressing established performers over being genuine to each other, and open to outsiders. Ask non-performers about iO parties. No one talks to them, and that’s why.

Beware of vagueness. iO doesn’t have a formal or measurable way to promote a skill set it is seeking nor has it defined what that skill set is. It doesn’t even define it’s artistic mission in any clear way. In the professional world, best case scenario, you get fired after a clear conversation about expectations, what you are doing to meet them, and what you need to work on. iO does not have that conversation with its performers. It doesn’t help performers learn how to shape their own creative expression, it just keeps them scared of not meeting institutional goals that are never clearly expressed.

Beware of losing perspective. iO pressures students and performers to go see shows, effectively, it pressures all members of the community including administrators to spend all their time at iO. That creates an insular environment where people lose perspective. Instead of creating comedy or art that engages all kinds of people, it encourages them to get caught up in impressing their peers. A place that could be the engine of all sorts of new theatrical ideas that engage the city instead becomes a suburban high school.

Because iO is so big, that insularity affects the entire community. Because a lot of performers are caught up in how they stand there, consciously or not, they ignore or de-validate all the other outlets in the city. And they don’t value the things that people make. That robs things that are truly great of energy that would otherwise support them.

Stay focused on your value, and other’s value. At it’s best, iO validates individuals who may never have found a home elsewhere. Here is an exclusive gig, that not everyone gets, it seems to say. You must be great to get this. In reality, you get picked because people with power like you. There’s no need to say more about how that’s partly political, and how people get caught up in that. But anyone who has been around improv for a while realizes that most people have a special point of view that is engaging. That an administrator happens to connect with yours, and not someone else’s, is just a happy accident.

So getting picked doesn’t actually say anything about you as a performer. And the validation and exclusivity come at the expense of all these other people who are actively being discouraged. So, it is a place for validating a few individual voices, but that validation is fueled by an engine of bad karma that comes from all these rejections. Some performers who are involved are wise enough to see that. But others get caught up in the validation and become arrogant and dismissive without realizing it, and are discouraging to be around.

Stay focused on what could be. The best shows there are given a chance to fail and to grow. Usually, that opportunity is afforded to people who have seniority at places like iO. Those shows don’t necessarily start out strong, but grow with time. Why not try to give this kind of opportunity to as many people as possible? Why have auditions or cuts at all? Why not try to give as many people as many opportunities as possible?

Improv is a beautiful and also pretty new art form. A school for improv could be a place where new frontiers of it are discovered, and new tools are devised to push performers to be their very best. Is that what iO does?

Make sure the challenges you are taking on are real challenges not artificial ones. When something is difficult, and you do it, you feel good. You’ve pushed yourself and grown, so it makes sense you’d be proud. But be wary of institutions that artificially make things seem difficult and give you the illusion of accomplishing something. The iO gig is hard to get. You may get rejected in the pursuit of it, and have to be stubborn to keep trying. But if you do get it, what have you actually achieved? Is the coaching really set up to help you grow? Is the style of improv they do really a kind that anyone wants to do?

It’s so much harder to define what you yourself want to be creatively. It’s much harder to drive yourself towards that goal without a structure outside of you pushing you. Most jobs that are careers have a real structure like that. That’s why it’s so easy to get caught up in an institution like this one. It offers things that seem hard to get, and that seem like acheivements. And so you can pursue those things thinking they signify that you’ve grown, and actually wind up distracted from the work you should actually be doing. Of course, a school with a positive impact on its community would help individuals define goals for themselves, and then set up structures to support them in the pursuit of it. Does iO do that?

Make sure the rejections you run the risk of facing are necessary. Yes, sometimes cuts and auditions are necessary. If you want to start a band, you can’t just take everyone. You’d want people who share your vision and skill set. But even if it’s unstated, there’s also always a power trip in being an auditor. There will always be people who like that for its own sake, consciously or not. What purpose do the cuts and auditions at iO actually serve?

What purpose does any of this serve? The rejections, the perceived prestige, the pressure to keep going back to that place. Why are all those things integral to iO? Isn’t each of those things are associated with spending money? Your whole social life is there, so you drink and spend money there. You want to be validated there, so you keep spending money on classes. There’s an awful point in every improvisors life when they realize they are not being taught a skill they can then bring to the market. They themselves are the market.

Find goals that mean something. The implication is that performers in premier spot at iO have competed to get those spots over years and proven that they are the best. It’s supposed to be some improv equivalent of the NBA. But once performers have survived a round or two of cuts, there’s no instrument in place to push them. No member of the Harold comission is going to get cut unless they set something on fire. That’s why the improv of established performers is so complacent. The only way to truly make improv bad is to not try, and that’s exactly what these senior shows are like.

That sets up an ironic problem. The very people who are not pushing themselves as performers, and who are not aware enough to realize it, are also the ones who wind up judging you in auditions.

Be brave and honest. These points are not controversial, and I’m sure many people both on the inside and out agree with some of them, at least. But no one says anything publicly

In fact, everything is sugared over with positive language. That’s the worst because that sort of talk covers over the feelings that people have. People feel pressure to keep their doubts to themselves for fear of being left out, both socially and, since you could see the art as a job, professionally too. So it looks positive but is actually dishonest and comes from fear.

I’ve been honest, but I’m afraid right now. I’m afraid of the dismissive and disdainful jokes and the way everyone plays along with the public consensus, no matter what their doubts are.

Learn the most important lesson. So if you get rejected by a place like iO, yes, take time to evaluate yourself. But don’t just internalize it. Remember a simpler lesson: fuck iO. Fuck them for taking a beautiful art form about spontaneity and turning it into a source of rejection and sadness for many people. Fuck them for turning the spark of inspiration we all feel into power trips and money in a way that leaves everyone feeling exploited. And fuck all the people that benefit from that and keep it that way. You don’t need them.