Irene Woo was a software engineer at Google before she was a comedian. A friend calls her act “Type A comedy”: precise, planned and led by the writing. So she took improv classes, for exactly the reason you would expect.
“I’m naturally an overthinker, so improv is really helpful, because you can’t think.”
Irene Woo
Improv and stand-up look like opposites. One is a team making things up. The other is one person saying lines they have polished for months. But a large share of the comedians we interview trained in both, and nearly all of them say the first made them better at the second. This piece collects what they told us. Read our interview with Irene Woo.
Jump to: It stops you thinking · It teaches you to listen · Crowd work · Being at home on stage · Learning to fail · Finding your people · What improv cannot teach · Five rules · Common questions
It stops you thinking
Aarushi Agni has done stand-up for eleven years. She started with open mics, moved into sketch, and came to improv last. She now thinks that was the wrong order, because nothing else lowered her nerves as much. Her theory is that improv makes worrying impossible. You cannot be anxious about what happens next when nobody knows what happens next.
“Taking these controlled leaps of faith is really good for us, to understand that we don’t have all the answers.”
Aarushi Agni
She was always a careful writer, the kind who looks for the exact word. Improv loosened that. “Sometimes I’ll riff something really good and I won’t even remember it, because I was in a playful mind, not a writing mind.” Read our interview with Aarushi Agni.
Winnie Stack, who built a solo show from her childhood journals, says improv helped her mostly as practice in letting go and enjoying it. Read our interview with Winnie Stack.
It teaches you to listen
Rebecca Wolf has studied improv since high school. In her last year of college she talked her course into giving her credit for going to Los Angeles to study it. She took classes at the Groundlings, the Upright Citizens Brigade and a small theatre in Burbank called LA Connection.
The small one was her favourite, because nobody there was afraid.
“Improvisation is all about following your impulses — you can’t be free to follow them if you’re judging yourself or judging your partner. You can only find that flow when you’re listening.”
Rebecca Wolf
She also corrects the best-known rule in improv. “Yes, and” does not mean you have to agree with your scene partner. “You’re allowed to say no, and you’re allowed to argue.” What you agree on is the world you are both in. A couple arguing about who took the bins out is more fun to watch than a couple being nice. Read our interview with Rebecca Wolf.
Judy Carter, who has taught stand-up for decades, gives new comics two pieces of advice about talking to an audience. The first is to do it at open mics. “The other thing I highly suggest is take an improv class — improv teaches you how to go into characters, how to be present in the moment.” Read our interview with Judy Carter.
It makes crowd work kinder and easier
Crowd work is the nearest thing stand-up has to improv: the comic leaves the script and talks to the room. Woo says listening is what makes a comic better at it. She has a rule that comes straight from improv, where your job is to make your partner look good.
“If I ever do crowd work on you in my show, you really don’t have to be scared. You will come out on top. I’m not here to make fun of you.”
Irene Woo
Stephan Dyer uses improv for the hardest rooms in comedy, which are company events. He sends a questionnaire in advance, writes ten minutes of material about the firm, and then adds improv and audience interaction, sometimes with employees on stage. It keeps the energy up and lowers the risk. Read our interview with Stephan Dyer.
Liz Coin learned the principle at eleven. She was playing a butler in a community theatre production of Annie when the leading man forgot his lines and started calling for more champagne. She walked on with a tray in each hand and the room came apart. The laugh, she realised, came from the real situation. “This isn’t something I wrote before. This is happening today.” Read our interview with Liz Coin.
For the other side of this, see what comedians think of crowd work clips and social media.
It makes the stage feel like home
Jason Salmon took acting classes, then did sketch, then improv, and tried stand-up last. That is the reverse of the usual order, and it gave him one advantage.
“I never had stage fright, because I was always on stage. I was comfortable on stage. I just wasn’t funny on stage. So I had to learn to be funny.”
Jason Salmon
Read our interview with Jason Salmon. CeeKay Brown got her first stand-up spot because a friend knew she had done theatre and improv. Brendon Lemon had two years of improv behind him before he first picked up a microphone in 2002. Stacie Burrows has done theatre, improv, sketch and stand-up, and says she never doubted herself on a comedy stage for a single day. Read our interview with CeeKay Brown, Brendon Lemon and Stacie Burrows.
It teaches you to fail in public
Marina di Marzo joined an improv team in New York after every acting course she applied to turned her down. The team was not good. They rehearsed sure they were funny, then got on stage and forgot what they were doing. “It’s hard to remember the first time, because they all melt together into one big fever dream of bombing.” It went on for about two years, in basements. She counts it as the most useful training she had. Read our interview with Marina di Marzo.
Wolf thinks low stakes are the point. At the big schools she felt “immense pressure to perform well and to be funny”, and everyone was tense. At the cheap class in Burbank, one man threw the students a bucket of hats and people were free to play.
Lauren LoGiudice trained at a clown school in France, which she describes as improv on steroids, built around welcoming failure. “There’s no bomb unless you bomb yourself. If you connect with the audience, you can’t bomb.” Read our interview with LoGiudice and her two co-stars, and see how comedians keep going.
It finds you your people
Stand-up is lonely. Lucy Boisvert moved to New York at eighteen to do it, and signed up for sketch classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade because she wanted friends who liked the same things. In one of those classes, students read their work aloud, and she and Fletcher Michael noticed each other’s writing. They now run a theatre company together. “He’s my creative soulmate, for sure.” Read our interview with Lucy Boisvert.
Tom Johnson and Rob Glenister do improv together in Southend-on-Sea, and Johnson says it is why their two-man show works. “We never have to explain ourselves to each other, which is a lovely attribute.” Read our interview with Tom Johnson.
Britt Anderson moved to Chicago for improv, hoping it would lead to Saturday Night Live. She found clown and physical theatre instead. Read our interview with Whisper Theatre. For more partnerships like these, see comedy duos, couples and ensembles.
What improv cannot teach
Nobody told us improv was enough.
It does not write your jokes. Salmon was at home on stage and still had to learn to be funny alone. Coin’s first stand-up sets were pure act-outs, a character performed like a sketch, until she saw the problem. “I need to actually write punchlines and be myself.” Dyer bombed for two years until a stand-up course at The Second City taught him setups, punchlines and tags. See how 25 comedians write their jokes.
It does not prepare you for being alone. Wolf has done a great deal of improv and says stand-up is by far the hardest and most frightening form she works in. When you improvise, “you show up and you have a whole team, or at least one other person, to rely on.”
It does not make it easy to be yourself. Stacy Price trained at the Groundlings and can improvise freely as a character. Ask her to walk on as herself and she struggles. Read our interview with Stacy Price.
What the classes do give a writer is deadlines. Boisvert was once on a house sketch team at UCB, studying at the Second City Conservatory and writing for her own monthly show, all at once. “You get so overwhelmed that you just have to figure out how to do it.” She calls it learning to turn on the tap.
Five rules stand-ups can take from improv
- Listen before you speak. Wolf’s flow and Woo’s crowd work both start with hearing what the other person actually said.
- Use what is happening tonight. Coin’s tray of champagne got a bigger laugh than any line in the script, because the room could see it was real.
- Make the other person look good. Woo’s promise to her front row. People relax when they know they will not be the target.
- Fail where it is cheap. A hundred-dollar class and a basement are better places to be bad than a paid show.
- Then go and write. Improv gives you ease, presence and friends. The jokes still have to be written down and tested.
Common questions about improv and stand-up
Should stand-up comedians take improv classes?
Most of the comedians we asked say yes. They credit improv with less stage fright, better listening and easier crowd work. Aarushi Agni wishes she had done it first.
Is improv the same as crowd work?
No. Improv is usually a group inventing scenes with no script. Crowd work is one comedian having an unscripted conversation with the audience. The skills overlap, which is why Judy Carter sends new comics to improv classes.
Is improv harder than stand-up?
The performers we spoke to who do both mostly find stand-up harder, because you are alone, the material is personal and there is nobody to save a scene.
Where do comedians study improv?
The schools that came up most in our interviews were the Upright Citizens Brigade, The Second City, the Groundlings and the People’s Improv Theater. Rebecca Wolf’s advice is that a cheap, relaxed class can teach you more than a famous one.
For more conversations like these, see all our comedian interviews.