Hey everybody, welcome to the SOCAP Improv Comedy
Podcast. I'm your host, I'm Ralph McLeod. I am
the owner and artistic director of the SOCAP
Comedy Theatre in Toronto. That's SOCAP .ca,
SOCAP .ca, that's our URL. We do improv classes,
improv classes for performance, improv classes
for self -improvement. We also do shows here,
we do a lot of improv, some stand -up, sketch.
We are available to rent. You can rent us to
put your show on. All this can be found at our
brand new and very much better website, SoCap
.ca. You can meet me at Ralph at SoCap .ca. That's
the best way. Or admin at SoCap .ca. It really
comes to the same place. That's me. Me, the benevolent
dictator. As always, the SoCap Comedy Podcast
is brought to you by a sponsor. Today's sponsor
is Wexler's Beef. Wexler's Beef. Your mouth is
in our hands. So check out the Wexler Beef Company
for any of your meat needs. M -E -A -T, if you're
curious. All right. So in this podcast, we're
going to talk about improv and improv for performance,
improv for life. Why improv? Why take it? What
does it matter? Can it help you? How can it help
you? And anyway, I'll just give you a real...
Quick anecdote about how it's helped me. You
know, one thing that we tend to do as adults
is we like to gaslight our children. Not in a
mean way. I'm sorry, we don't do it out of meanness.
We do it out of care. But we gaslight people
all the time. And one of the things we do with
children is when they say something like, hey,
mom, dad, caregiver, I am going to school and
I want to go because I'm scared. And 99 % of
the time adults say, hey, I'm going to be scared
of. We take away their, we try to tell them that
their concerns aren't founded. We gaslight them.
They say, you're wrong. I know you don't know
what's going on. So more children are supposed
to trust their instincts if we tell them from
a very young age that they're wrong. So here's
what I would do. This happened to me. This literally
happened to me when my dog, about three years
ago, when she was about five. Said, Daddy, I
don't go to school. And I said, what's wrong?
She goes, I'm scared. And I went like, yeah,
of course. It's a scary place. There's adults.
There's that kid that bites. It's a terrifying
place. And I totally understand you're scared.
And she laughed. And she said, Daddy, you're
silly. And I said, get your coat. And she did.
And we went to school. And no problem. So I avoided
the fight. I avoided all of that. And I showed
her that her concerns were legitimate. Because
she wanted to be heard. That's what people want
most, usually, is just to be heard. I just want
someone to take my concerns seriously so I don't
think I'm crazy. So that's how, that's a direct
way of how improv helped me become a better father,
more attentive father. Father that says yes rather
than no. Father who yes -ands what her daughter
says. And that's what I try to do. I mean, obviously,
they're children. We're adults. Sometimes, you
know, I'm not saying indulge everything, but
there's an example of I didn't tell her that
her concerns were unfounded. I recognized them
as legitimate. She felt heard. And that was enough
for her. She was happy to go to school. And that
was kind of the end of it. You know, I mean,
in the three or four years since, you know, she,
like most children, has voiced her displeasure
with going to school, to say the least. And that
I'm also totally on board with. We can have a
conversation about school. Institutions. That's
not just school. That's not just. It's institutions.
It's top -down, top -down central planning. It
doesn't work. It doesn't recognize the people
who are in the lines, to use the war analogy,
who know better what's going on. The people who
day -to -day do the stuff, whether it's teaching
in a class, whether it's policing streets, whether
it's administering to someone's soul. They know
what they need, but central planning tells them
that they're wrong and this is what you really
need. It's a whole other conversation. Anyway,
that's improv, and that's a real way it can help
you. So today, what I was going to talk about
is Ralph's three rules, three rules for improvisation.
Sorry, no, let's back up. Not rules. They're
not rules. If I had one rule about improv, so
an unshakable rule. And I go back and forth.
I'm not really sure if this should be a rule,
but I keep looking for a scene that is successful
that breaks this rule, and I've never seen it.
So in as much as I can say it's a rule, just
because I haven't seen an example when it's not
there and it seems worse, that's agreement. An
agreement that exists on the level of improvisers,
on performers, or if you're playing a game with
someone in the real world, to agree. Oh, are
we flirting? Oh, we're flirting. Oh, that's nice.
That's cute. That's cool. You know, because if
you have disagreement, one person thinks they're
flirting and the other person thinks we're just
hanging out, being friends, right? You can see,
oh, that would lead to some issues. That leads
to some issues. You know, obviously being honest
can straighten those things out, but that's to
do and all that. So that would be my sort of
rule that the improvisers have to agree on what
we're doing. We have to agree that you're my
dad and I'm your son. And we have to agree that
I'm asking for the keys to the car, and we have
to agree that you as my father are very skeptical
because the last time you lent me the keys, the
car betrayed. So we have to agree on all that
stuff. Now, first, we don't know at the beginning.
That's what's going to happen. We only notice
it as it's happening, as it's unfolding, in the
moment. Oh, okay. I am your father, and it's
improv, and it's a... A car that doesn't exist,
so I can give you the keys. You can smash it.
It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. But for some
reason, I'm pushing back on that. I don't want
to give you the keys. And why is that? Oh, because
last time, this happened. And now you've got
a whole story that's unfolding and discovering
in real time. At some point, we'll have a discussion
about discovery versus invention and how discovery
is exhilarating and delightful and invention
is boring and obvious. Terrible. Not to put too
fine a point on it, but in general, discovery
is what we're trying to do. We're trying to discover
our characters and discover what's going on.
Discover all these things about ourselves, our
characters that we didn't know at the beginning.
I like to think that the characters knew all
along and they're just letting us know. Oh, okay.
Turns out I'm a total knob. I'm the bad guy in
this scenario. Okay, great. Or I'm the hero.
Didn't know that at the beginning. Didn't know
I was going to have to be a narcissist and defend
being a narcissist and actually say why being
a narcissist is a great thing and that you're
a knob if you're a stupid head, if you're not.
Anyway, to go back to what I was trying to say,
three best practices, let's call them. And what
I like about them is there's only three of them.
If you do these three things. your scenes will,
by and large, be successful. There's way more
other things to do, but these are the three I
like to really focus in on because if you do
these three, scenes and interactions with people
generally go pretty well. And if you don't, it's
difficult to see successful scenes. Maybe number
two you can get away with not doing. Yeah, you
can definitely get away with not doing number
two if you have a strong game that we're playing.
And we'll talk about games at some point. But
right now, I just want to go back to the three
things that are, there's three of them. And they're
simple to sort of understand. Not so easy to
do, obviously. Well, I shouldn't say obviously.
There are, I mean, if anybody could do them,
if I just told people to do these three things
and they did them right away, you wouldn't need
me. That would be bad for me. Then I'd have to
go find a real job. Don't do that. But if you
do these three things or focus on them. you'll
be successful. So there's three of them. They're
fairly easy to understand what they are about.
It's harder to do in practice. But what's nice
about them is they're things you can control.
I've said before that improv, like stoicism,
likes we like to control what we can control
and not worry about the things we can't control.
So things that are outside our control are, will
the audience like me? It's beyond your control.
You can do some best practices that will give
you a better chance of them liking you. But at
the end of the day, it's beyond your control.
Well, then they find you funny. You can't really
make... Everybody wants to be good, but that's
beyond your control. There's really no way to
be good unless you think about the practices
that will give you a better chance of success.
So we go back to these three things. There's
three of them. They're fairly easy to understand,
at least on paper. And they are... things that
you can control and you can get better at them.
It's a process. So I, as an improv teacher, am
very process -based, very systems -based, not
results. I don't care about results. I mean,
I do, obviously. I shouldn't say obviously. What's
it mean obviously today? I try not to be concerned
with the results because at the end of the day,
whether the audience has a good time or a bad
time, it's beyond my control. Someone might be
having a crappy day when they came to my show.
And they're just going to continue their crappy
day. But what I can control are these three things.
So number one, agreement, also known as yes anding.
I'm going to talk about yes and at some point
a little more in detail. But when I say agreement,
that we as performers or people in the real world,
we're engaging in some kind of interaction. We
agree on what's going on. So on stage, that's
you're my father and I'm your son. And I'm asking
for the keys to the car. And you're not giving
them to me because last time I tore the car up
a tree. We agree on that. You know, I don't think
that you're my father and you think I'm a doctor.
And that can work as long as we both agree on
that. But that's a bad example. You know, we
agree that you're my father and I'm your son.
We don't disagree. I think you're my father and
you think that you're my doctor. Again, you can
be my father and my doctor, but that's a different
thing. This is what I'm trying to say. We're
trying to agree on who we are. We agree on what
we're doing. We agree on the games we want to
play. That level of agreement can go very, very
deep. It can just be at the level of who we are.
But also we can agree on that we don't like each
other. And then we can agree as to why we don't
like each other. Because you were mad that you
were in a van and then I came along and you had
to give that up and come back and take care of
me. That's a rotten thing to do. So we can agree.
And that's what we really want to do. We really
want to agree on what's going on. Who are the
stakes? Who's our main character? Who's the bad
guy? All that stuff. And that might sound daunting.
And it is if you want to try to put in real time,
start making these agreements and check them
off on a list. It just happens. The nice thing
is when you say yes, these things just happen.
And it's time to get out of the way of them a
little bit. The second thing that we can do is
we can make choices. And we make choices based
on how we feel in the moment. What's happening
right now? How do I feel about it? I love it.
I hate it. I like you. I hate you. Right? This
is what we want to do. We want to make choices
about how we feel. They're tied to an emotion.
So when I ask for the keys, your reaction might
be alarm, concern, or like, oh, frustration.
Here we go again. well whatever choice you want
to make or relation oh my god my son wants to
drive a car he's got a date this is exciting
martha get in here the kid's gonna want to date
you can be excited you can be whatever you want
to be whatever and which these means number three
which is we make choices and we do things that
are fun for us to do us as the improviser as
the actor right in the real world i flirt with
somebody because i'm excited by that because
i want to because i'm attracted to somebody right
that's that's what you want to do and that makes
you more fun um And the same thing on stage.
Oh, you know, it'd be fun to do right now. It'd
be fun to die a glorious death. That would be
fun. You know, in the real world, I'm only going
to get to do that once. But on stage, I can do
it multiple and multiple times. Or it might be
fun to talk with an accent. Or it might be fun
to play a narcissist. It might be fun to yell
at somebody. And it's very fun to yell at someone,
you know, in a way that is safe. Because then
when you improvise... it's safe, right? The way
you can yell at your friends and call your friends
all kinds of names. But, you know, since there's
no intent to be really mean, it's fine, right?
And sometimes you get mad at your friends and
you say things that I'm talking like the way
we just goof around, you know, and take the piss
out of people. Um, that kind of thing. That's
fun to do. And that's fun to do on an improv
stage. So those, those are my three rules. Oh,
no, not rules. Sorry. Three best practices, three
guidelines. These are three things I look for
and try to emphasize when I teach. I always come,
I often come back to these three things. Like
I said, there's way more out there to do. But
as a starting point, that's good. And it's always
good to come back and refresh those things if
you've been doing it for a while. Uh, which is
something, you know, we'll talk about. and things
at some point for sure. But for now, just come
back to these three practices. Agree. Yes. This
is the game you want to play? I'll play that
game. Yes. We'll play the infidelity game where
one of us gets caught cheating and we have an
argument about it. Do you want to play the breakup
game? Great. We'll play the breakup game. Do
you want to play the I'm asking for the keys
you're not going to give them to me because I'm
a knob game? Play that game. So agreement. We
agree on what we're doing, what's going on, who
we are, all that stuff. And the more we can agree.
And the more detail that we can agree upon, the
better. But at the beginning, just doing, right?
And then how we feel. Those two things. And really,
it's like, you're my dad, I'm your son, great,
and I need you. You've got a great scene already
because you've gone on number two, which is my
choices. The choice to hate is great. Another
world, but on stage. In fact, on stage, a lot
of what we do, A lot of what I do, anyway, when
I teach people is really how to be garbage people.
Because it's so fun to watch garbage people,
bad examples of parents, bad examples of children,
bad examples of partners and spouses. Like, these
are fun to watch bad people. Not people who are
bad at their job, but just like evil, self -centered,
self -righteous, narcissistic, psychopathic characters.
They're fun to watch. And I think it's like going
to the zoo and seeing a wild animal in the cage.
It's like, it's exciting because it's a kind
of an experience, but it's not real. So it's
safe, right? It's like movies. I love zombie
movies, right? It's my favorite kind of horror
movie. And because it's not real, I don't want
to really be chased by zombies. That would be
terrifying. But to see it and experience it,
you know, in a kind of an airs -ass way, a safe
way, it's very fun. So, agreement, make choices.
Thermistry, do what's fun. But to have fun, you
know, fun, messing around, it's good. Like good
natured misbehavior is very, very exciting and
it's really nice for us. The thing about having
fun, when you have fun on behalf of the group,
it's exciting and fun. When it's all about yourself,
it's not so fun. Then you look like a show off,
like you're showing up people. So it's a way
to have fun and misbehave within the group. It
adds to the experience, doesn't detract from
it, making it about me. Anyway, those are my
three guidelines, not rules. I almost said rules
again, but I caught myself and said guidelines.
Three best practices that will make your scenes
fly. And again, that's where we start. Those
three things. Agreement. Make choices. Do what's
fun. All right. Have a great week. And wherever
you're going, be safe. Be well. Be kind to people.
It's tough out there. Bye.