Rules

The early days of my improv training often felt like a celebration of lawlessness. There are no mistakes in improv, they told us. Don’t worry about making the right choice – just make any choice and build upon it using the concept of yes-and (which Truth in Comedy calls “the only rule”). The goal of this approach is to get novice students out of their heads and to build up their confidence in the midst of improv’s inherent chaos. It all has a zen-like, therapeutic ring to it: "The world out there is dangerous and filled with rules, but in here, anything can happen. You can fail and we’ll still support you. This is a safe place.“

It’s a very empowering feeling for a young improviser. Indeed, the best improvisers calmly embrace the chaos, accepting seemingly random pieces of information as offers and alchemizing tiny interactions into rich patterns of behavior. The only rules great improv teams seem to be bound to are the ones they themselves have created within the show.

I’d bet if you were to ask any professional improv teacher (at the major schools, at least) what their favorite improv maxim is, none of them would tell you, "There are no mistakes in improv.” Because at some point, they’ve all started a class saying that, just to have to backpedal from it within a few weeks when a student turns to his female scene partner and says, “So are you gonna suck my dick, or what?” As helpful as that embrace-the-anarchy mindset can be for beginners, it’s also responsible for that crazy asshole your friends ask you about after your graduation show.

Improv classes have a tendency to attract a few misfit toys who unintentionally exploit the class’s “safe place” environment as some kind of group therapy where they can vent their personal insecurities. They defend notes teachers give them with excuses like, “Well, that’s how I would react,” and “That wasn’t really true for me.” And it’s because at some point, someone told them that there are no mistakes in improv, which gave them a voice in a way that may be beneficial to them in a therapeutic sense but potentially detrimental to everyone else in the class.

Yes, we do have rules in improvisation, and yes, we should call them rules and point out when they aren’t followed. Del preached what he referred to as the “kitchen rules,” which came to me recently by way of Will Hines (which came to him by way of Michael Delaney):

1) A good improviser habitually accepts the offers made to him.

2) A good improviser habitually makes active choices rather than passive ones.

3) A good improviser justifies.

When a player chooses to be bored or emotionally uninterested in a scene, we shouldn’t treat that as a precious choice that needs to be honored. The player violated a rule, and we should restart the scene so they can make a more active choice. Or, if we’re in a show, we need to edit. Similarly, if a player blatantly ignores an offer from his scene partner, that’s not a beautiful little mistake we need to weave into the fabric of the show. That’s like saying when a player physically assaults his scene partner, we must embrace it and turn it into a running game throughout the show. Good lord. It’s thoughts like those that make me fearful of the day the writers at Jezebel start talking about improv the way they do stand-up.

Here’s a rule that I heard recently from Will Hines (who definitely didn’t present it to our class as a firm “rule,” but it probably wouldn’t hurt to treat it like one): Avoid the “mean” game. Yes, we can play sexist pigs and cruel bullies in ways that will be logically on-game and be clear that we’re making a comment on those types of people, rather than suggest that we ourselves are those people and that kind of behavior is OK. But maybe we don’t always have to make that choice. Maybe we just make that choice because it’s easy or obvious. Regardless, we need to acknowledge it when we do play the mean game, so that if it ends up being a choice we make several shows in a row, we can talk about it.

I understand rules can be daunting for entry-level improvisers. But we aren’t entry-level improvisers forever. Parameters are essential if we’re ever going to make real progress. We need rules… for no other reason than to avoid becoming that crazy asshole other classmates’ friends ask them about after graduation shows.