By 
The other day I attended an improv show with a friend of mine who is not an improviser himself.
After the groups performed they called everyone back on stage to play a quick game of Freeze. In Freeze, two people start a scene and go until someone offstage calls freeze. The offstage person tags out one of the people, assumes their exact physical position, and starts a new scene.
I usually hate Freeze when I see or do it, because it leads to a lot of quick jokes (often dirty). They’re funny, but I can get that kind of humor anywhere.
After the show my friend said (my paraphrase from memory here):
I liked that last thing because it go to the point. They justified their humorous situation; and by the time I was done laughing, they had moved on to the next one.
This surprised me for two reasons:
- First, I realized how many tiny lessons are in Freeze that I had ignored before.
- Second, it was a subtle indictment of the scene work, which I thought was solid.
Freeze Tag’s Benefits
Freeze is usually one of my least favorite games, but there are a few things that Freeze forces you to do well and quickly.
- Start in the middle of a scene
- Justify yourself and others quickly
- Prompt editing
Because the relationship of the two bodies in space is all you have to go on when tagging in, most first lines that address that position also inform the relationship (by naming it or providing a very clear status).
The downside of Freeze is that you are almost always talking about exactly what is physically happening, which doesn’t leave much room for play, but knowing how to start mid-scene and be quick about the details of the world are vital skills.
Building Scenes Beyond the Introduction
The second surprise was a rude awakening, because I’ve been watching and doing so much improv lately that I forgot how to watch shows as an audience member. While watching the scenes I checked off the items on my improv scene list: relationship, location, emotion, etc. Every requirement was met, but for whatever reason, the scenes didn’t come alive.
They lacked that indefinable uniqueness factor. The improvisers did everything “right”. They entered, established situations and relationships, etc. What they didn’t do was discover the unique and fun thing in their freshly created scene that would take it somewhere. So in essence, their show was a drawn out version of Freeze. Characters enter, they justify their existence, ruminated on that justification, and then got edited.
I missed it, because I was too busy checking off the necessary items in my head. I knew while watching the show that I wasn’t thrilled and excited, but I just accepted it as “what improv feels like sometimes”. And in truth, sometimes (maybe most times) improv does feel like that.
Making a good scene, let alone a good show, is a rare and magical event. That’s pat of the reason people keep coming back. I will see 99 “improv feels like that” shows just to make sure they don’t miss the 1 unique one. But I digress.
The checklist stuff is supposed to help you find that unique scene and not ruin it. The checklist alone is useless.
To have a show that evolves beyond the extended Freeze trap, you need to listen for the consequence of the universe you’ve created and follow it to whatever new place it leads.
