The Genesis of Improv Infographic

P

perlstein

New Member
#1
#1
I haven't created it. But, I'd like to. And I'd like to reach out to this awesome community for info on where modern improv sort of came from and include some notables in the community and their improv lineage. Maybe include little tidbits on their contribution to improv, Del and the Harold, etc.

Can anyone help me with some history here? I'm doing some research on my own, just thought I'd see what you all have to say. People in Red are going to be on the chart.

Viola Spolin takes some stuff she experienced from from Neva Boyd and creates early short form games. Paul Sills, Spolin's son, along with Bernard Sahlins and Howard Alk found Second City.

From Second City comes a ton of people including Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Bonnie Hunt, Mike Myers, Chris Farely, Stephen Colbert, Adam McKay, Tina Fey, Mick Napier, Craig Cackowski, and of course Del Close.

Del Close and Charna Halpern coupled off and founded Improv Olympic. iO graduates a huge number of people including Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Matt Walsh, and Ian Roberts.

Besser, Poehler, Walsh and Roberts create The Upright Citizens Brigade.

As I was writing this out I realized this is going to be a massive undertaking. Anybody have some thoughts of important parts of the history I'm missing (I'm sure there's a lot).
 
M

mikelibrarian

Lost in the stacks.
#2
#2
Read Something Wonderful Right Away by Jeffrey Sweet and The Second City unscripted : revolution and revelation at the world-famous comedy theater [edited by Mike Thomas].

Jeffrey Sweet has a one man show about the history of improv coming up in 2011 NYC Fringe Festival.
 
M

mikelibrarian

Lost in the stacks.
#3
#3
Meghan Duffy wrote her PhD dissertation on the history of Improv. This is the title. Roots of American Improvisation: Play, Process, and Pedagogy. I think it concentrates on the work of Neva Boyd, Viola Spolin and Josephine Forsberg.

This is her blog

http://www.improvisationnews.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=64:meghan-duffy&Itemid=35

If her dissertation ever becomes available to the public I will post news about it on this site.

Add Josephine Forsberg, Martin de Maat, Gary Austin, Ali Farahnakian and Armando Diaz to your chart.
 
Holmes

Holmes

of the Rare Bird Show
#4
#4
It's a big project. I laid it out once.

I think you'll want to include Dudley Riggs's Brave New Workshop and Keith Johnstone (and maybe Playback Theatre) as, at least, parallel tracks.

You could also put the post-UCB institutions like Magnet, PIT, WIT, PHIT, Improv Boston, Dirty South, Dad's Garage, Jet City, etc.
 
lefty

lefty

unhinged
#11
#11
David Shepard has to be included, but the list here already looks really good.

It also depends how broad you might want to go too. Eric Berne's Games People Play was pretty influential. The first chapter of The Compass by Janet Coleman lays out the idea that the whole atmosphere around the University of Chicago as fostered by Robert Hutchins seems to have helped springboard the ideas around the Compass theater.

I think there is also something to the idea that when vaudeville died (and that was where a comic would go to learn), something had to take it's place and ... well here we are now.
 
D

DanAbrams

Never Wears Cargo Shorts
#12
#12
You have to understand how essential in the formalization Elaine Mae was. She was stuck in the middle of Mike Nichols and Del Close, two of the great comedy minds of all time, and rivals for her attention, but after reading the history a few times, I can't help but feel she was the smartest among all of them.

She wrote the "kitchen rules."
 
G

goldfish boy

Otium cum dignitate
#13
#13
DanAbrams said:
She was stuck in the middle of Mike Nichols and Del Close, two of the great comedy minds of all time, and rivals for her attention, but after reading the history a few times, I can't help but feel she was the smartest among all of them.
Click to expand...
Del readily admitted she was the smartest among all of them. For all his "women aren't funny" bullshit, he always said Elaine May was the best.

From the original post I feel like the concept is sort of, well, teleological, with the history of improv leading to a certain place in a certain city as an endpoint. perlstein, you're going to find out it's not like that at all. It gets reeeeeeally complicated. Add to the list Randy Dixon and Unexpected Productions in Seattle, by the way.
 
El Jefe

El Jefe

latitudinarian
Staff member
#14
#14
Holmes said:
I think you'll want to include Dudley Riggs's Brave New Workshop and Keith Johnstone (and maybe Playback Theatre) as, at least, parallel tracks.
Click to expand...
I was going to say: Keith Johnstone -> Loose Moose -> Theatresports -> Whose Line Is It Anyway?
 
J

Jared

New Member
#15
#15
Some of those people mentioned as coming from Second City, such as Adam McKay, had a lot more to do with iO and we only on a SC stage (performing sketch) for a brief time.

Also, the UCB 4 were not all original members who founded the group, but that's hardly important. It's the four that you mention who moved to New York together that are important for the purposes or flowing all the splits in improvisation.

As for Dudley Riggs, I read somewhere--I think it was Process by MAry Scruggs and Michael Gellman--that Brave New Workshop was not using improvisation to develop scripted material until after someone from Second City did some workshops there. You may want to look into that, as it's a bit different from the normal story.

Also, regarding Second City, the training of performers for years owed a great deal to Josephine Forsberg (branch out from Spolin) at Players Workshop of the Second City and her nephew Martin De Maat.

Kim Johnson's book also attributes the early formation of the "rules" to Elaine May and Theodore J. Flicker (it was his kitchen).
 
proofred

proofred

Son of a Beach
#17
#17
Amen! And of course Martin passed a few years ago.

...and Don DePollo
...and Del Close

Not to mention the many players like Rick Roman that no longer grace the great stages.
 
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