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Improv
I
dunno…wing it.
Improv,
in today’s world, is a tool used by directors in plays, a tool used by actors
to improve (or save) scenes, and an art form all on its own. Improv is usually experienced as comedy, but
genres range across levels of seriousness as well as length and setting.
It is
difficult to define improv as the Agents consider it.
Improvisational
theater dates back to the Commedia del’Arte of sixteenth-century Italy, where
companies of actors would use framework “scenarios” and stock characters to
perform shows without benefit of a script, making up their own dialogue and
stage business as they went along. As its own theatrical form, improvisation
was developed and expanded upon greatly in both America and Europe by such
theatrical directors and theorists as Viola Spolin, Keith Johnstone, and Del
Close. Today, you might find improvisation used as entertainment on television
shows such as Whose Line is it Anyways?, as
an ice-breaker activity in student orientation groups, or as a way for a writer
to “free up” his or her creative energies.
By the
simplest definition, improv is simply “doing things without planning them
beforehand.” According to this definition, everyone is an improviser (for
example, almost every conversation you have ever had was improvised).
Basically, learning to improvise is really just learning to recognize and apply
skills you already have—you just might not know it yet.
The Agents of Improv strive to tackle
improvisation in any and all levels and forms that we can discover, on and off
stage. By exploring this website, you will see some of the different ways we’ve
applied ourselves to the idea of “making stuff up as we go along.”