A sharp wit, good object work, the ability to do different accents for whatever characters may come up. All of these would be useful skills to develop for your average improv show, but none are what I would consider the most important skill you should develop to be a great improvised performer.
Instead, I’d recommend the most important skill any improviser needs to work on is their ability to be a good listener. I’d go as far as to say this also extends to general day to day life as well and well beyond just the improv scene.
Being a good listener will lead you to being a better communicator, a better scene partner, and an overall better storyteller.
And being a good listener on stage, in life and especially on the improv stage is a lot harder skill than one may imagine.
Listening on stage is about more than just hearing sound. Listening and hearing are often used interchangeably, but there are differences between the two depending on the context.
People will say that they ‘want to be heard’ as a sense of empowerment, but generally speaking, hearing sound is usually seen as not enough. Anyone can hear sound in their environment, but to actually be listened to, takes a conscious effort on the listener.
On stage, and especially in improv, listening encompasses a lot more than just the act of hearing someone. It’s used to embody not just audibly listening, or even taking in the audio information, but extends to all forms of stage awareness, reading the room and reading the scenario and the body language and facial expressions of your scene partners.
A good listener takes in everything from their environment. You listen to what is said, and you also listen to what isn’t said. The subtext beneath the subtext and the meanings between the lines.
I’d go as far to say that the true art of listening isn’t just about taking in what was just said or done, but building a full picture of the information listened to.
If you listen to your scene partner in the opening of a scene, you may find that there are all the key elements that the entire scene and story can grow out of.
How many improv scenes or longform shows have you seen where the audience give an opening suggestion and this is all but forgotten by the end of the story?
If you listen to the audience when they give you the suggestion for the scene, they are telling you what they want the show to be about. This can just be a starting point, but if it’s quickly lost, and the story goes somewhere else entirely, how are the audience even to know that the show is even being improvised?
Now, I’m not saying that if the audience member suggests ‘a can of baked beans’ that you have to make your sixty-minute longform show all about beans with no development, but as you go through the show, take time to remember what the audience suggested and consider if you have fully explored that idea.
The suggestion of a can of baked beans may start with a scene about breakfast and then lead on to a play about two brothers who were eating those beans being in a love triangle or as business rivals. That may feel like the idea of the baked beans was nothing more than a jumping off point where breakfast was the excuse to develop two characters who the play becomes about. But what if half way through the story, or even towards the end, one of the brothers suddenly remembers that their grandad had left them some money and maybe a note with some important life lesson or advice, and where is this kept? Why, within an old baked bean can of course.
Moments like this will be really appreciated by your audience as it will tell them that you were listening to them. By reincorporating or developing their simple suggestion, you can wow a crowd with your storytelling skill. To be able to make something as innocuous and unassuming as a can of beans suddenly poignant shows real skill.
A lot of improvisers will listen only to hear the last sentence or word that another performer will say. They may do this so they can immediately riff on what their scene partner says, to subvert their dialogue and come back with sharp wit or a pun. This is ok to do in the right circumstances, but if this is your only form of listening, you’re robbing yourself of potential to find much more within what your scene partner said and did.
People will often say that acting is reacting, and I think that is easily misinterpreted to reacting in the moment only. Acting is reacting to not only the moment, but to the context of the moment.
If your best friend says ‘I’m gonna kill you’ and punches you in the arm, you may both laugh it off together. If a stranger says the same words and punches you, the context may mean you should respond as if you are in mortal danger. The context of who says what, where and how you know them will inform you how you should respond. You cannot possibly make the best informed decision by just listening in the moment. You have to listen in that moment and immediately frame it within the context of the full picture. And you can only do this if you were always listening. Listen to your scene partner now, but if you were also listening in the first scene, and the second, and every scene, then and only then can you give your best performance.
You can get loads more improv articles in the improv section of the site, and don’t forget to check out all our Extreme Improv videos on the Extreme Improv Xstreamed YouTube Channel and see Extreme Improv live on stage with all details on the Tickets page
Want to learn improv skills? You should check out the range of improv books from David Pustansky, who is the author of the popular Extreme Improv Big Book of Improv Games series of books. Available worldwide on Amazon and Kindle, you can find links to the books here
