no. What if you got stage fright? What if you forgot your lines?
What if the audience booed? But at least a conventional play
has structure. Every word and movement has been scripted.
Every performer gets to rehearse. There’s a director in charge,
telling everyone what to do. Now suppose that I were to ask
you to perform again before a live audience — only this time
without a script, without any clue as to what part you were
playing or what you were supposed to say, and with the added
requirement that you were expected to be funny. I’m quite sure
you’d rather walk on hot coals. What is terrifying about improv
is the fact that it appears utterly random and chaotic. It seems
as though you have to get up onstage and make everything up,
right there on the spot.
But the truth is that improv isn’t random and chaotic at all.
If you were to sit down with the cast of Mother, for instance,
and talk to them at length, you’d quickly find out that they
aren’t all the sort of zany, impulsive, free-spirited comedians
that you might imagine them to be. Some are quite serious,
even nerdy. Every week they get together for a lengthy
rehearsal. After each show they gather backstage and critique
each other’s performance soberly. Why do they practice so
much? Because improv is an art form governed by a series of