My sister and I have been doing our two person improv show for nearly three years now, and we have found a few things that help maximize the minimum effort for a show. We have developed the following Guide to Working Smart or Energy Efficient or Lazy Improv. However, we don’t really like to use the word lazy, as it gets a bad rap. The image of two talking-head blobs sitting on stage, eating object-worked junk food, and flipping channels with an object-worked remote, comes to mind. Our guide is how to get the most out of the minimum. You might it call the mini-max of improv.
Here are some general guidelines…
Go past the edit- instead of rushing across the stage (which may cause you to break a sweat and definitely uses up a good amount of the allotted energy within a show), stay in the scene and see where it goes. Who wants to establish an entirely new scene when the one you have is just fine?
Silence- remember “silence is golden?” Well, that’s still true in improv. Not only does a rightly timed pause cause the audience to erupt, but it also buys you time to catch up on your beauty rest.
Get a new suggestion- why not? A lot of improv brain energy is spent trying to make connections and expand one suggestion. Sit back and let the audience do the work for you!
Callbacks- you’ve already taken the time to establish it, why not reap the rewards and bring it back? Plus, it takes time and energy to think of something new!*
Use chairs- they’re already on the stage, so its fair game to use them. And, they are the most appropriate rest stop for a breather.
Pass out- please use this sparingly and only out of absolute necessity and only if you really need to pass out. Just add a line like, “I think I’m going to pass out” to brace your scene partner for this bold move.
Take care, big hug, happy improv,
TJ
*If an idea bombed out in the first place, it may not be the right thing to bring back. In this case Traffic Jelly endorses spending the energy to establish something else.