Laugh-Masters Academy is proud to bring you this 3-part series outlining some of the “rules” of improv by Sam Jenkins. His list is a great reference and we look forward to reading his forthcoming book on the subject soon. In the meantime, if you want to learn how to put these rules into practice, or simply polish up your skills, an LMA Workshop is the way!
No single trick makes you a great magician. You need to learn a number of tricks until they are second nature. Then you can play with them, and break them, to your audience’s wonder.
Hello Laugh-Masters!
I’m Sam Jenkins. I’ve been invited to write a guest blog on my Rules of Improv. A list of simple rules that will (on average) make your scenes more enjoyable. The list is the result of my research on what the world’s top improvisers recommend. The list is ever expanding, condensing and rearranging as I do more research.
It’s a long list, so this is going to be a three part post!
- PART 1 will be rules 1-15 in detail
- PART 2 will be rules 16-30 in detail
- PART 3 will be rules 31-100+
PART 1
1) Platform
Start your scenes by platforming. Name who, what, where, preferably in your opening two lines.
“Killbot 3000, the lab’s jar of human eyes is empty again!”
“I’m sorry Doctor X, I just can’t kill anymore children.”
Whatever is missed in the first line is up to the next person to cover.
2) Start Obvious
Shakespeare didn’t start his plays subtle and neither should you. Name everything and everyone right away. Save subtext for later. The sooner you make obvious choices, the easier it is for the audience to understand, and the less work you need to do.
3) Know Them
Playing strangers goes nowhere, and slowly. Know everyone.
“Next please… And who are you?”
“Hi miss, I’m Greg and I’m applying to waste time here at the exposition factory.”
vs
“Next please… Dad!”
“Morning Belinda, I hope you’ve got a job for your hip-cool father!”
4) Be Positive
You like this person, and what you’re both doing.
“No no no, Stacey! That’s not how you dance! This is how to dance.”
“Mum, I don’t want to dance. I want to argue for 2-3 minutes.”
vs
“Amazing, Stacey! You have surpassed even my dancing ability.”
“Mum, then this is goodbye.”
5) Avoid Questions
These make you an information thief, and slow the scene down.
6) Make Statements
These make you an information giver, and speed the scene up.
7) Name It
Even if you don’t know the name, name it, you’re right.
“By god, it’s a gold-toothed yolo crow!”
or
“Everyone knows ‘a vrai dire peu de paroles’ is French for ‘let’s have breakfast’.”
8) If you bring an offer, Name It.
If you bring a gift, you name what it is. Leaving your partner to do it, burdens them.
“I got you something.”
“Thank you. It’s a box of your chores, you shouldn’t have!”
vs
“I got you a brand new Pogo Stick, the same kind Ava Bolt used at the olympics.”
“Thank you. Now I can make you proud and go for Gold!”
9) Be Specific
It’s not just a sword, it’s the king’s jeweled claymore.
10) Don’t Postpone
Don’t talk about the dive. Do the dive.
11) Do It
Do the dive now.
12) Advance
Progress the story. Advancing should be mixed with a healthy amount of extending (see the next heading). If you’re neither advancing nor extending, you’re probably postponing and wasting time.
“Welcome to the bedroom.”
“It’s nice.”
vs
“Welcome to the bedroom.”
(Rips clothing off) “Take me now!”
12) Extend
Add detail to what already exists. E.g. More objects to a room, more features to an object, more meaning to a particular feature, more stakes to the meaning.
“Welcome to the bedroom.”
“It’s nice.”
vs
“Welcome to the bedroom. Here is the bed, and this is the wardrobe. Mahogany, big, big enough to fit four corpses, minor red staining, and over 200 years old. That means it’s passed through 4 generations of Gilderbelts. First owned by my Great Grandfather, Malvolio, who was a gentleman, a mortician, and never successfully convicted of murder. My greatest role model.”
“I just forgot… My wife, who dropped me here, a cop, best in the district at preventing murders, is expecting me back right now.”
This can also be entirely physical, e.g. someone opening a door with multiple locks, eye scanners, hand print, and voice recognition, or e.g., someone attempting to check their reflection in a knife, which is incredibly slippery and sharp, and large.
13) It happens Today
It may have been building up for a long time, but today is the day you or your relationship changes. “It” doesn’t always have to be murder. It can be something positive!
14) Be in the Now
Don’t plan ahead. Everyone has a tendency to plan a scene, or at least a few lines ahead. Don’t! Just listen to the other person. This will reduce your tendency to block offers.
15) Don’t talk Past or Future
Past: Exposition sucks.
Future: Show don’t tell. If you’re going to talk about it, you may as well just do it. Talking about what’s going to happen can also commit you to something you don’t want to do, or disappoint the audience when you make them wait and it doesn’t happen.
“And on that note, next week I’ll cover 15 more rules!”
“But what about Killbot 3000?”
“He becomes a doctor and saves lives!”
vs
“And on that note, thanks for reading the first 15 rules.”
“Thank you, disembodied voice in my head.”
PART 2 coming next week!
– Sam