What is Long-Form Improv?

I’ve found that a lot of my friends and family don’t have a full grasp on what improv is, especially not long-form improv. It’s easy to explain what short-form improv is. (“Have you ever seen Whose Line?”) It’s easy to explain what stand-up comedy is. (“Have you ever seen Seinfeld, or one of the thousands of Netflix/Comedy Central/HBO stand-up specials?”) I’m quite certain that most of my extended family thinks I do stand-up.

Although it’s starting to trickle into the public mind thanks to high-profile improvisers like Ben Schwartz, it’s not so simple to describe long-form improv. For a long time, I tried to describe is as “sort of like a play, but there are no scripts, props, sets, and costumes, so we make everything up as we go.” I guess that’s not a bad definition, but it’s still a bit limiting. It also sounds sort of derogatory to just say we’re “making it up as we go.”

These days, I most often describe improv as “a spontaneous artistic expression usually inspired by audience feedback.” I encourage my students to accept the fact that an improv show can be whatever they say it is. If someone has a great idea for a one-minute improv show, great! As long as they’re sure to set audience expectations and ticket prices correctly, they can create the best damn one-minute improv show in the world.

I’ve seen improv take all sorts of forms, from outdoor short-form sets on 100-degree asphalt to long-form drinking games with the audience, with a million half-steps in between. One of the neat things about improv is its unpredictability. When I watch an improvised show, I don’t want to feel confident that I know what’s going to happen. If I can predict what the beats are for a show, then why am I in the audience, and why are the performers on the stage? Pushing against the boundaries of what constitutes improv is a challenge we welcome wholeheartedly.

The Bit is only 35 miles outside of Chicago, the Capital of Improv. Yet it’s not always easy to convey to an audience what improv is. But that is incumbent on us as a theater and a community to show our audiences the neat, quirky, hilarious art form that improv can be.

Family, if you’re reading this, improv is NOT me standing in front of a brick wall telling jokes into a microphone.

And, no, I can’t use your joke in my act.