Hey everybody and welcome to the Socap Improv Comedy Podcast. My name is Ralph
McLeod. I'm an improv teacher and actor and former located in Toronto. I own and
I'm the artistic director at the Socap Comedy Theatre 154 Danforth Avenue.
That's in Toronto. We have shows, classes, events. I also do a Zoom class on
Wednesdays at 6 o'clock Eastern time and if you want to come be in that class
just send me a note at ralph at socap.ca that's S O C A P as in Peter dot CA and
you can come and study with me. If you live in Toronto you can also come into
semi-dropping classes or my committed classes. I have I teach now sometimes five
six times a week. That's great and crazy because if you told me five years ago I
would teach you know more than two classes a week I'd say you were nuts
because you take so much out of me and but now it gives me so much and fuses me
with so much energy and joy that I love it. I have a few times I've taught back
to back classes and that's fine too although usually after I'm finished the
second class in a day I'm like okay my brain needs like some kind of scrubbing
or something. So today and this podcast is about improv I guess obviously but
it's more it's more dealing with improv as for people who are not really
interested in being performers. I mean I will talk about performance for sure but
most of my students now are people who want to take improv for some of the
things it helps some of the concepts it teaches some attendance how you can take
improv and apply it to your own life. I was in class today and one of my students
had a very beautiful story that happened to her using the power of yes and I've
heard many stories from students who take our yes and apply it to their lives
with quite often great results. In fact I had two students today who had
who had used some of the tenets of what we talked about in their lives and there
were three instances one two very great effect one two somewhat good effect and
better in the future and one we're still waiting on the final determination but
at the end of the day I think it's you know it's it's well I don't know
regretting things you don't do versus regretting things you do. I think it's
easier to regret things you don't do you know because at least you try there's
no sort of respect in trying and airing out things. Anyway today I wanted to talk
about something that comes up a lot and improv has changed tremendously and
like 35 years since I first heard about it and started doing it. I mean change
in Toronto changed for me. I think probably in the world has changed a lot
too although improv is always very regional because you know the fact that
it's not recorded so it doesn't exist in the public consciousness the way you
know great movie actors do or great music or great visual art we or at least
in the Western in North America Canada in the US right maybe Europe is the
English-speaking part of the world we all have similar ideas as to what a
great actor is I mean not worldwide but certainly you know if you run into
somebody you know in the California or someone in Saskatchewan and ask them what
great actors are they're probably gonna mention the same few people and if they
don't they're like oh yes but I know that person but improv is not like that
you know if you ask someone in Saskatchewan and somebody in California to
name an improviser it's probably gonna be very different people unless they
know oh Tina Fey but okay but someone that you've actually watched improvise
not just someone you know who was an improviser or is an improviser I should say
was is an improviser because Tina Fey is known for a lot more than her improvising.
Anyway it has changed tremendously and one of the things that you know used to
be okay to do was mocking a lot of different types of people and we've
cleaned up obviously a lot of that and today it's it's it's um we don't mock
people based on a discrimination thing like we don't we don't mock people based
on their race or their religion or sexual orientation and we're very we're
very sensitive I think in general to differences and that's great that's a
really great thing because I even you know back in the 90s you know there were
it was a lot less loose I guess about those things and a lot of that didn't
sit well with me and now a lot of us got cleaned up however there are still two
areas for some reason that it is still okay to mock people over and and and
that's class and age and I'm I don't get it I'm bewildered as to why that is
continued you know if you are in an improv class and you know there as a
character someone asks for a suggestion and they get oh play a character that's
eight years old it is way more common than not that the first things were the
first some of the first things they'll say they'll make an Alzheimer joke and
they'll wear an adult diaper joke and I'm like hold on what if we you know had
an audience member now was older they'd hate you right now and I wouldn't blame
them I mean sometimes now one of the things that I don't think that's changed
my improv is that it's it's there's a lot more people who are you know 50 60 70
plus doing it until until the pandemic there was a gentleman in his mid 80s
that was improvising on stage in front of audiences and I'm sure in other parts
of the world that's still happening and in Toronto there's well I'm sure there
there's people in their 60s for sure that are still getting up and improvising
and that's great anyway they and I would I suspect they would take a very dim
view of this kind of humor it's slow-hanging fruit it's easy and it's not
funny no one ever laughs at these things but it's one of those things that people
think will be funny and they say it another one this is an example from a
class of mine this is a couple years old but I've heard similar things it was a
scene between two female characters and they were engaged in a kind of a
what-not-in-the-chip a status battle if you will and one character was well yes
well my husband you know the English professor was oh you're still married to
that janitor are you I was like hold on why is that okay and it was it's a real
discussion like you know if there were if there was someone who was a janitor
or a blue-collar person who's watching our show they would hate us so for me
like this this like mocking things like I don't mock anybody you know I don't I
don't even mock like like you know BMW drivers they because for me it's not
about political practice it's it's about I don't want to make my audience upset
but also like I don't want to mock and belittle people even if they have status
like of course you know punching up but to me it's like if we're gonna let's
let's mock if we're gonna mock anybody let's mock everybody let's mock everybody
let's mock nobody and of course yes it's more palatable I guess if you're
punching up but not for the person being punched up at right all they're gonna do
is hate you and I don't blame them I would hate you too so this whole thing
about mocking age in class which I keep cleaning up we talk about it and talk
about it and in my classes it's no we don't do it well okay I shouldn't say
that I just say the truth which is my recommendation to my students is not to
do it but I say like you leave here you do whatever you want you want to get on
stage and mock people who have blue-collar jobs who are over 65 for
whatever reason that's up to you but I'm not gonna do that because it's like I
just don't understand this whole like mocking people and upsetting them like
where's where is that what does that come from I mean understand it like of
course there's we can mock things and we can mock
attitudes and ideas and things but not the people I don't understand mocking
the people and we're very very good now thankfully about not mocking lots of
things about people but but class and age somehow squeezed through and if
anybody can tell me why that they have survived and are still okay to mock
please let me know because I don't get it I honestly don't get it and how you
know you I can have students who or just and actually not just students like
people in the world too who will sit there and say we got to respect everybody
and we shouldn't belittle people and I'm like that is a hundred percent true and
then they'll turn around and say something about someone of a different
political class or different social class or a different age and the irony is
completely lost anyway that's my two cents and and if you ever see me on
stage making fun of somebody you know a group or something let me know because I
like to talk about it and also I'd like to be called out on my stuff all right
that's me for today have a great week everybody my name is Ralph so cap.ca is
the website Wednesdays at 6 I do a class that's open to everybody in the planet
it's Eastern time so if you're joining me from somewhere on the other side of
the world it might be pretty earlier pretty late all right have a great day
everybody ciao