“Don’t try to do everything at the same time.
And don’t limit yourself to just improv.
Ultimately, you’re stressing out about how good you can pretend and how well you can imagine and make-believe.
So, like, give it – give it the play that it is.
And bring in other life experience to make your play better.”
– Rance Rizzutto
[photo from Episode 193]
The above quote is from Episode 193: Tara DeFrancisco & Rance Rizzutto, an interview by Jimmy Carrane (web, Improv Nerd blog, Facebook) for his Improv Nerd podcast. Carrane asked what advice would Tara and Rance give to new improvisors, and the above is from Rance’s response. I especially enjoyed hearing –
“Ultimately, you’re stressing out about how good you can pretend and how well you can imagine and make-believe.”
– which is the crux of improv – pretending, imagining, make believing. (Bravo!)
It was great hearing Rance’s voice. Rance (iO Chicago, web, Facebook) was one of my instructors at Chicago’s iO Five-Week Summer Intensive.
(actual size. to scale)
Among the five summer intensive improv instructors I had throughout the five weeks, Rance was my (and fifteen other new improv friends) Week 3 improv instructor specifically focused on two-person scenes.
Clockwise starting from top left: Rance, Eric, Chris, Minh-Anh, Will, Ben, Yury, Geoffrey, Ruta, Ginny, Aurelija, Shirley (self), Brittany, Kath, Tim, Simone, Jake
Rance’s closing response to Carrane’s question –
“And bring in other life experience to make your play better.”
– reminded me of one of Rance’s suggestions encouragements, which boiled down to learn and experience new things. He suggested taking advantage of some of the discounted activities offered by providers such as Groupon and LivingSocial. There are conventional, as well as off-the-beaten-path, activities one can learn and experience, and such experiences can further enrich one’s improv play. Good stuff!
And admittedly, one of my several “ah ha” moments last year happened during my week with Rance. He shared –
“Always be ready for a surprise.
Already be ready to surprise.”
(I think of this like an hourglass where scenes are a series of surprises (and discoveries), and each improvisor can turn it [the scene] over and over to evolve the scene and relationship.) This came from one of our scene work exercises, which was described as Inspector Clouseau, from the The Pink Panther series. The exercise was based on the relationship between on Inspector Clouseau and his trustworthy servant, Cato. Cato was tasked to surprise Clouseau. (some clips online). Lucky me, one of my fave scenes (which i lovingly refer to as eyeball) was when I was paired up with the talented Ms. Ginny.
What do you think is the crux of improv? If you listened to Jimmy’s interview of Tara and Rance, what were some of your favorite moments?
an improvised life (dot) me 