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  • The Elements of Improvisation:Structural Tools for Spontaneous Theatre
  • Nicolas J. Zaunbrecher (bio)

What the hell is improvisation? / Do I take the long road or the short road? / I'll take the short one—who has time? / Improvisation is getting on a stage and making stuff up as you go along.

—Mick Napier, Improvise (2004a)

Please, sit. Relax. Grab a beverage. I know improv usually starts with standing, and that improv is about doing things—building characters, developing narrative, you know—but this is a little different. As students of improvisation, we sometimes forget to wonder exactly what we're doing, so today, instead of practicing it, I'd like to ask: What must we do to make improv happen, and what can we do with it—what are its necessities and possibilities?

After concisely defining improvisational theatre, Mick Napier treats its nature as given and concentrates on method—in other words, how do we get a "better" performance product? Napier's approach is typical of most praxis writings on improv (e.g., Halpern, Close, and Johnson; Hazenfield; Johnstone; Libera; Spolin). In contrast, this article focuses on elaborating his elegant definition and elucidating the structure of improvisational theatre within which particular acts of "improvisation" occur. Via this "long road," I assess improvisational theatre's unique characteristics and analyze both its formally necessary and optionally deployable elements. I hope to offer conceptual tools and a nomenclature for describing rules and performance organization across the spectrum of possible improv shows. By using them, we can better understand the dimensions comprising the predetermined aspects of improv, creating a system for us to invent new exercises, games, and show formats, and to modify existing ones to meet new goals or explore new territory in our work.

The Scope of Improvisational Theatre

Improvisation as a category of actions is different from improvisation as a method for action. Improvisation as a category covers any activity involving "inventiveness within limitations" (Seham xx), including our ever-present need to react to the changing circumstances of life. Improvisational theatre, instead, is a method; performers purposefully choose not to plan aspects of their performance. If actors in a scripted play forget their lines and make up new ones, or decide to ad-lib without warning other actors, this would not be "improvisational theatre," though it certainly is theatre that is invented on the spot! Improv is deliberate and agreed-upon by its performers as a pre-given structure, not a fallback position enacted when a prescribed performance fails.

Improvisational theatre also needs to be distinguished from other forms of artistic improvisation. Two considerations are relevant: first, improvised art, such as expressionistic painting, automatic writing, or dancing to the radio while home alone, does not involve an audience at the time of creation; and second, the performer's body (including voice) is itself the experienced site of performance content. Improvised instrumental performances, while relying on the presence of musicians' bodies to occur, can typically be experienced as being distinct from their performers' bodies; in these cases, [End Page 49] you usually need not give attention to the musicians themselves to fully appreciate their music. Distinguished from these cases, I define improv as the deliberate use of improvisational methods in a performance that manifests in the context of a dual matrix of immanence—that of the audience's gaze to the performers and of the performers' bodies to the audience.

I call practitioners of this craft "improviers" (a term coined by fellow performer Elaine Kibodeaux). The "best" or "correct" terminology for improv performers is a matter of significant contention within the community. A lengthy forum on <yesand.com> from late 2007 (apparently since purged in a site upgrade with the rest of that period's archives) proposes arguments for five terms specific to improv performers: "improviser," "improver," "improvisor," "improvisatore," and "improvisateur," as well as for the primacy of the more general terms "actor" and "player." I have elsewhere encountered "improvist." Given the lack of standardization, I feel it appropriate to use "improvier"—my own preferred terminology for many years. The term is a relatively simple and euphonic word referring specifically to improv performers (instead of, more generally, to "one who engages in...

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