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Hey everybody and welcome to the Socap Improv Comedy Podcast. My name is Ralph

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McLeod. I'm an improv teacher and actor and former located in Toronto. I own and

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I'm the artistic director at the Socap Comedy Theatre 154 Danforth Avenue.

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That's in Toronto. We have shows, classes, events. I also do a Zoom class on

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Wednesdays at 6 o'clock Eastern time and if you want to come be in that class

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just send me a note at ralph at socap.ca that's S O C A P as in Peter dot CA and

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you can come and study with me. If you live in Toronto you can also come into

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semi-dropping classes or my committed classes. I have I teach now sometimes five

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six times a week. That's great and crazy because if you told me five years ago I

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would teach you know more than two classes a week I'd say you were nuts

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because you take so much out of me and but now it gives me so much and fuses me

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with so much energy and joy that I love it. I have a few times I've taught back

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to back classes and that's fine too although usually after I'm finished the

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second class in a day I'm like okay my brain needs like some kind of scrubbing

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or something. So today and this podcast is about improv I guess obviously but

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it's more it's more dealing with improv as for people who are not really

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interested in being performers. I mean I will talk about performance for sure but

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most of my students now are people who want to take improv for some of the

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things it helps some of the concepts it teaches some attendance how you can take

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improv and apply it to your own life. I was in class today and one of my students

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had a very beautiful story that happened to her using the power of yes and I've

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heard many stories from students who take our yes and apply it to their lives

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with quite often great results. In fact I had two students today who had

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who had used some of the tenets of what we talked about in their lives and there

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were three instances one two very great effect one two somewhat good effect and

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better in the future and one we're still waiting on the final determination but

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at the end of the day I think it's you know it's it's well I don't know

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regretting things you don't do versus regretting things you do. I think it's

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easier to regret things you don't do you know because at least you try there's

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no sort of respect in trying and airing out things. Anyway today I wanted to talk

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about something that comes up a lot and improv has changed tremendously and

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like 35 years since I first heard about it and started doing it. I mean change

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in Toronto changed for me. I think probably in the world has changed a lot

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too although improv is always very regional because you know the fact that

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it's not recorded so it doesn't exist in the public consciousness the way you

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know great movie actors do or great music or great visual art we or at least

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in the Western in North America Canada in the US right maybe Europe is the

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English-speaking part of the world we all have similar ideas as to what a

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great actor is I mean not worldwide but certainly you know if you run into

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somebody you know in the California or someone in Saskatchewan and ask them what

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great actors are they're probably gonna mention the same few people and if they

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don't they're like oh yes but I know that person but improv is not like that

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you know if you ask someone in Saskatchewan and somebody in California to

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name an improviser it's probably gonna be very different people unless they

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know oh Tina Fey but okay but someone that you've actually watched improvise

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not just someone you know who was an improviser or is an improviser I should say

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was is an improviser because Tina Fey is known for a lot more than her improvising.

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Anyway it has changed tremendously and one of the things that you know used to

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be okay to do was mocking a lot of different types of people and we've

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cleaned up obviously a lot of that and today it's it's it's um we don't mock

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people based on a discrimination thing like we don't we don't mock people based

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on their race or their religion or sexual orientation and we're very we're

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very sensitive I think in general to differences and that's great that's a

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really great thing because I even you know back in the 90s you know there were

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it was a lot less loose I guess about those things and a lot of that didn't

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sit well with me and now a lot of us got cleaned up however there are still two

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areas for some reason that it is still okay to mock people over and and and

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that's class and age and I'm I don't get it I'm bewildered as to why that is

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continued you know if you are in an improv class and you know there as a

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character someone asks for a suggestion and they get oh play a character that's

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eight years old it is way more common than not that the first things were the

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first some of the first things they'll say they'll make an Alzheimer joke and

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they'll wear an adult diaper joke and I'm like hold on what if we you know had

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an audience member now was older they'd hate you right now and I wouldn't blame

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them I mean sometimes now one of the things that I don't think that's changed

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my improv is that it's it's there's a lot more people who are you know 50 60 70

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plus doing it until until the pandemic there was a gentleman in his mid 80s

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that was improvising on stage in front of audiences and I'm sure in other parts

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of the world that's still happening and in Toronto there's well I'm sure there

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there's people in their 60s for sure that are still getting up and improvising

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and that's great anyway they and I would I suspect they would take a very dim

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view of this kind of humor it's slow-hanging fruit it's easy and it's not

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funny no one ever laughs at these things but it's one of those things that people

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think will be funny and they say it another one this is an example from a

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class of mine this is a couple years old but I've heard similar things it was a

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scene between two female characters and they were engaged in a kind of a

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what-not-in-the-chip a status battle if you will and one character was well yes

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well my husband you know the English professor was oh you're still married to

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that janitor are you I was like hold on why is that okay and it was it's a real

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discussion like you know if there were if there was someone who was a janitor

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or a blue-collar person who's watching our show they would hate us so for me

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like this this like mocking things like I don't mock anybody you know I don't I

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don't even mock like like you know BMW drivers they because for me it's not

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about political practice it's it's about I don't want to make my audience upset

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but also like I don't want to mock and belittle people even if they have status

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like of course you know punching up but to me it's like if we're gonna let's

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let's mock if we're gonna mock anybody let's mock everybody let's mock everybody

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let's mock nobody and of course yes it's more palatable I guess if you're

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punching up but not for the person being punched up at right all they're gonna do

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is hate you and I don't blame them I would hate you too so this whole thing

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about mocking age in class which I keep cleaning up we talk about it and talk

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about it and in my classes it's no we don't do it well okay I shouldn't say

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that I just say the truth which is my recommendation to my students is not to

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do it but I say like you leave here you do whatever you want you want to get on

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stage and mock people who have blue-collar jobs who are over 65 for

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whatever reason that's up to you but I'm not gonna do that because it's like I

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just don't understand this whole like mocking people and upsetting them like

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where's where is that what does that come from I mean understand it like of

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course there's we can mock things and we can mock

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attitudes and ideas and things but not the people I don't understand mocking

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the people and we're very very good now thankfully about not mocking lots of

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things about people but but class and age somehow squeezed through and if

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anybody can tell me why that they have survived and are still okay to mock

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please let me know because I don't get it I honestly don't get it and how you

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know you I can have students who or just and actually not just students like

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people in the world too who will sit there and say we got to respect everybody

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and we shouldn't belittle people and I'm like that is a hundred percent true and

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then they'll turn around and say something about someone of a different

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political class or different social class or a different age and the irony is

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completely lost anyway that's my two cents and and if you ever see me on

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stage making fun of somebody you know a group or something let me know because I

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like to talk about it and also I'd like to be called out on my stuff all right

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that's me for today have a great week everybody my name is Ralph so cap.ca is

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the website Wednesdays at 6 I do a class that's open to everybody in the planet

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it's Eastern time so if you're joining me from somewhere on the other side of

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the world it might be pretty earlier pretty late all right have a great day

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everybody ciao