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Mullaney: Who, what, where... the first three lines

mullaney:

I think that this whole thing about getting the who, what, where out in the first few lines is a scene killer. It may be this necessary building block for newbies, but when two moderately experienced improvisors are worrying about that stuff at the opening moments of a scene, it can be dreadful to…

I’m so glad Kevin brought this up. Obviously the who/what/where in a scene is very important, both for the improvisers and the audience, to specify early in the scene. I’ve definitely been told by teachers and coaches at UCB to try and get them out during the first three lines.

The problem is that this can feel very forced and beginning improvisers might load their initiations with too much information all at once: “Brian - help me put the tire on this car because it went flat in this abandoned alley and as my best friend, I know you’ll help me.” That takes care of the who/what/where, right? Sure, but who am I as the person initiating? What is my deal? Annoyance cares very much about each person establishing a deal at the top of the scene. What is your emotional state? What is your physicality? How do you move? How do you think? What do you want? In answering these questions, or at least choosing one to lead your first moves, Annoyance professes that both players should initiate with something.

I loved this about Annoyance’s philosophy. It empowers both players to build characters, instead of relying on the first person who initiates to set the scene. What if that person makes a weak initiation? According to UCB, as the second person in the scene, it’s your job to respond; drop your idea and respond. But if you follow Annoyance’s style, that second person should respond with their own initiation and then work together with their scene partner to establish the rest.

After all, how can you help build a strong scene if you bring nothing to the table?

I generally avoid improv ‘scussions in this here Tumblr, but I feel compelled to disagree with a couple of the things mentioned above.

As Mullaney says, we teachers hammer getting out the who/what/where in the first three lines to get beginning improvisers in the habit of making specific choices about the scene. We intentionally over-correct in the first few weeks so newbies develop strong decision-making skills.

But we also teach students to make simple, clear choices to build scenes brick-by-brick with their scene partner. So if a person says “Brian - help me put the tire on this car because it went flat in this abandoned alley and as my best friend, I know you’ll help me,” then I’d argue that while they did lay out the who/what/where, they also didn’t trust their scene partner. They gave their scene partner a house rather than a brick.

And picking up emotion, physicality, relationship in the first few moments… well, that’s just actively listening, right? UCB teaches that too. As for making strong emotional/physical/relationship choices on your own — I’d say this essential concept is taught everywhere and not exclusive to Annoyance, UCB, Second City, or any other improv theater.

Improvisers who listen will pick up their scene partner’s choices intuitively and make a strong choice to YesAnd; bad improvisers won’t AND or simply make jokes. Listening doesn’t entail thinking. It simply requires full, focused attention to your scene partner’s behavior, so you can make your own strong choice to go along with theirs.

As for both players initiating with something, I think that can only take you so far, at least if you’re a beginner. Say my scene partner initiates with “Thanks for coming with me to my first AA meeting” and I respond with “We’re about to fulfill our suicide pact!” You could probably build a scene out of that, sure. But have I really listened and supported my scene partner’s idea? Because, to me, that’s what improv is: building a scene with someone else. For experienced improvisers, I think this would be an easy scene to justify. But for beginners, I’d rather have them drop their idea, agree with the person initiating, and add something simple to AND the scene.

As for weak initiations: I’d classify an initiation as “weak” only if the person literally does nothing and just stares at you. (Even then, I bet an improviser with good basic skills could YesAnd the scene into something.) A strong initiation makes a simple choice about who/what/where. And the way you “bring something to the table” with your YesAnd is by making a strong, simple, specific decisions about who/what/where on your own. And the ability to do that is in itself empowering.

Or something.

Source: mullaney