Part One: Do Something!

For God's sake, do something. Anything. Something. At the top of an improv scene, do something. Please, do it for yourself. Do yourself a favor and just do something.

You see, there's this guy you know, nice enough fellow, and he's always talking about what he's going to do someday. He has big plans, and if he's in The Business, then he talks about a screenplay he's gonna write or a thing he's going to shoot on video or an idea he has for an improv form. If he's not in The Business then he talks about what he's gonna do at work or to his house or some scheme he has for this or that. He talks endlessly in great detail of the necessary steps he will take to someday execute his master plan for whatever he will do and speaks of all of the rewards he will gain once he does this thing.

Maybe you know this guy for two or three years and begin to notice that he doesn't really carry out anything he talks about doing. Perhaps you begin to label him as a "talker" or "full of it." Maybe as he speaks of his next scheme you begin to think to yourself, "I wish this guy would stop talking about it and just do it."

And as time goes by, you see this guy at parties and notice that you are doing a little bit to avoid him. When he catches you and engages you in conversation, you begin to observe that you are bored with his "someday I will do this" tirade. As a matter of fact, you start looking around the room at other people kinda hoping someone will rescue you from this person because you are so bored. There he is again talking about something he's gonna do, and you know that it's never gonna happen and it bores the hell out of you to have to listen to it again.

Two weeks later he catches you walking down the street and now, as he approaches, you actually get a little angry on the inside. You're still nice but you feel as if your time is being wasted. You want nothing more than to release yourself from this guy who never does anything but talks endlessly about what he's going to do someday. You wish he would just do something, anything, and stop talking about it.

This is the way your audience feels when you don't do some­thing in an improv scene. They are bored, distracted, and a little angry that someone who isn't doing anything is wasting their time.

You're not like the guy above, though, who is talking out loud about doing something and then not doing it. No, your conversation is silent; it's all in your head. That's where the talking is going on. For the audience, though, it may as well be out loud. They still have to wait for the conversation to be over. They are still waiting and thinking, "I wish somebody would do something." They don't give a damn what you are thinking about, they just want you to do some­thing. They, the audience, don't even require a specific thing that they want you to do. They just want you to do something— anything. "Please, somebody do something." They don't even know what "do something" means. They only know that nothing is going on and they are bored and have been given the opportunity to think and that the thing they are thinking is, of course, "Do something."

Perhaps, in that scene, you are thinking the same thing.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-08