How to Start an Improv Group

Rookie Card at the 2009 Philly Improv Festival
a good show, a better picture

In mid-2007 I decided that I would rather commute for an hour everyday—both ways—between a major city and my first post college job than spend another miserable year in Newark, Delaware. The southern Newark may be a less famous scuzz-hole than New York’s ugly little brother but rest assured, it is no less heinous. I have had an otherwise normal friend tell me with a straight face “You can’t live in Newark for six years without trying heroin once.” Nearing the end of my fifth year of residence, I needed to get the hell out of Dodge.

Like most recent immigrants to a new city, once I arrived I didn’t know what to do with my free time. Drinking alone turned out to be more fun in theory than in practice so I took a class at the Philadelphia Improv Theater. It was some of the most fun I’d ever had. Every week I’d look forward to Tuesday night and my class at the Philadelphia Ethical Society Building. It made me feel funny. It made me feel smart. It let me jump around like a lunatic in a socially acceptable setting. After the eight weeks were over there was no question that I would take level two.

A little over a year later I had taken PHIT’s full complement of classes and was still burning to continue. My problem was that I had no place to practice or perform. While I knew of a handful of groups in the city none of them were recruiting new members. Anyway, what are the chances that an unknown novice comedian will be picked ahead of a skilled performer from the tight knit crowd of talented, funny people that compose the Philly Improv community? No, the only way I was going to be in an improv team was if I formed one myself.

My first attempt at starting a team
Do you think the name put anyone off?

A surprisingly large amount of people think that you need to have a theater degree or a great deal of experience in order to form an improv group. Experience? A degree!? The only thing you need to start an improv comedy group is a few funny people and the hubris to put one together! That doesn’t mean it’s easy. It took some doing to get my team off the ground—the first attempt crashed and burned in two months without ever playing a show. But the group that finally coalesced, Rookie Card, has been performing to laugh out loud crowds regularly for almost two years now. I’m not exaggerating when I say I think we’re one of the most successful groups in Philly.

You CAN form an improv group, even if you are virtually unknown amateurs. My experience with Rookie Card proves it. As long as you muscle through and keep trying until you’ve got a regular line up and have played a few shows all the details will eventually work themselves out— whether you follow my advice or not. That said, here are a few things I wish someone had told me two years ago.

Without a doubt the hardest thing about starting a group is finding other members. It’s bizarre how many people pay ridiculous amounts of money to take four levels of improv classes that aren’t willing to show up to weekly practice with a performing group. You need at least three people practicing regularly to have a viable team. Ideally you should have at least five so you can still hold practice even if one or two people can’t make it. A good place to troll for members is Rick Horner’s Improv Incubator which also happens to be a lot of fun. It’s an open invite practice for all of Philadelphia held at 7:00pm every Sunday night at the Community Education Center (3500 Lancaster Avenue – buzz the CEC button to get in). You can also try the Philadelphia Improv Message Boards or proposition comedians in classes and at shows. Again, just keep trying for long enough and you’ll eventually find some group mates.

We actually had auditions in early 2010.
Even bigger surprise: people actually showed up!

Being picky about who you want in your group is a luxury reserved for the official house teams of established theaters. If there’s someone who shows up to practice every week and is competent (not necessarily funny) enough to make it through a Harold you should let them in. The funniest person in the world is useless to you if they’re not committed. Once you have at least three members practicing regularly together there is one an easy trick to finding new recruits. Take a class together and make it clear from the get-go that you are a team. I guarantee you’ll have the pick of the class. For some reason people are far more willing to join a group that already exists, even in its most embryonic form, then they are to start something of their own. But beware of forcing your friends into doing comedy with you unless they’re as in to it as you are. Feelings can wind up being hurt when the work involved over reaches their interest. I found it best to form a group out of strangers whose only common thread was a desire to do comedy. From the very start we shared the same goals and through all the time we spent together practicing and performing we eventually became friends.

An improv group, especially a new group composed of inexperienced improvisers, MUST PRACTICE EVERY WEEK! Once a month is not enough to build group mind and if practice doesn’t become a regular part of the member’s lives people will drift away and the team will fall apart. Your best tool to standardize and stabilize practice is a weekly group email. It should be sent a day or two after the previous practice and include at minimum the time and location of the next meeting. While it’s fine to discuss the details of your next practice in person the official email will make sure that everyone is on the same page. While some things are going to change from week to week a routine is golden. You should try to practice at the same location, at the same time every week. The same person should always send the practice email.

Finding practice space is not a big problem but it is a constant problem. Rookie Card has practiced in the seven by ten foot “living room” of my railroad apartment, a filthy basement with low grade pornography pasted to the walls and underneath the I-95 underpass like a pack of cackling trolls. The ideal practice space (which you won’t find) is easy for the whole group to commute to, large enough to fit everyone comfortably and free. Between all your improvisers someone will probably have an uncle with an empty garage or know a church that will let you use its basement without making you get baptized first. Unless you live in New York you should be able to avoid paying for practice space. If you’re absolutely desperate and out of ideas you’re probably an ass improviser but you might try talking to Yoga studios. They have large open rooms and are normally vacant at some point in the week but they will most likely charge you for the space.

Winter-Summer 2010 Rookie Card line-up
Bigger actually was better!

If you’ve reached the point where your team has two to seven people showing up to practice regularly, congratulations. You have successfully formed an improv group. Time to pick a name. A name that everyone agrees on could come up organically in practice or members could just throw out ideas as they come until something sticks. Don’t kill yourself over your name because it’s really not as important as it seems. To tell the truth “Rookie Card” came out of a compromise and I’ve never been entirely happy with it. Having said that the name has never affected the enjoyment I’ve gotten out of the group or the direction of our comedy. Just pick something short and punchy that no one is hates, then stick to it.

Even before I knew who would wind up being in the group I envisioned Rookie Card as a democracy. Since it was my first group I didn’t think that I was fit to be a dictatorial group leader/coach. I’ve since come to believe that no one is. Much like an improv scene, an improv group will become the type of group it wants to become naturally through the interactions of all those involved. Too strong a hand will only serve to choke it in the same way an improviser with a predetermined plot or joke they’re hell bent on using will ensure a stilted and unnatural scene. That said if you have a power vacuum someone will inevitably try to fill it whether they are suited to the role or not. To prevent this, a group should have an officially recognized leader, which may or may not be the person who convened the group, but that leader shouldn’t exercise very much power. To elaborate, take the example of practice. If everyone has shown up but they sit chatting instead of getting down to business the leader should call for practice to start, possibly by asking what warm-ups/practice people are in the mood for. On the other hand a leader should not specify the entire course of the practice before it starts because it leaves no room to work on things other members of the group want to focus on. Above all, major decisions should be made democratically.

Matt Holmes coaches us once a month.
This dude could make anyone funny - Seriously, he bases a show around it

While a permanent coach will inevitably impose their own ideas about improv on a group, irregular coaches can have a wonderful effect, especially if the group has fallen into a rut or become otherwise stymied. Brining in coaches every few practices will give you an impartial observer who can suggest corrections to on-stage behavior without stifling experimentation. In any city with at least one improv theater coaches should be easy to find and hire. If you’re pioneering a new scene you might consider a group trip to take advantage of any of the regularly offered workshops at a theater in one of the improv Meccas (New York, Chicago, LA). The teachers that the big theaters in these cities offer are very often staggeringly talented and insightful.

Group dynamics cannot be predicted nor controlled. The best you can do is try to ensure an open atmosphere where everyone is free to voice their opinions without personal attacks or anyone’s ego getting bruised. Spending time together outside of practices and performances is a great way to improve on stage interactions. The more you know who someone is the more you will know what they want from you without having to ask.

Over the past year I have been forced to ask someone to leave Rookie Card—and had someone decide to leave that I would have preferred stay. It’s a serious decision to ask someone to leave a group they want to be in and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. It must be a unanimous or nearly unanimous decision and be based on more than a couple of bad shows. Every comedian goes through ruts and hot streaks and if you boot someone because they’ve dragged in the last few performances you’ll soon find yourself with no team. When it comes to having someone leave your group there isn’t very much you can do. Be civil and don’t burn any bridges. There are many reasons to quit a group but they belong to the person who is leaving and you must respect them whether you agree or not. It’s best to take it gracefully.

Show flyer featuring the much beloved Rookie Card Baby

Much like picking a name, a group’s first performance seems like a much larger hurdle than it actually is. After you’ve been practicing for a couple months—don’t wait until you feel comfortable, you will never be perfectly comfortable—start looking for a venue. Finding a venue is shockingly easy. Almost every bar on the planet has at least one slow night a month. As long you don’t mind performing on some random weekday night they don’t care what you do or how many people come to see you so long as each of your members buy a couple of beers. Scout bars in your area, preferably ones that have a stage of some sort, and then contact the owners about doing a show. You shouldn’t have to knock on more than a dozen doors before you’re booked. Try to set up a regular monthly show rather than a one-off performance. There’s the exact same amount of work involved and a regular monthly event makes it easier for potential fans to follow your group.

Once you’ve got a booking nailed down the next steps are advertising and finding a group to open for you. Unless you live in a city with an established improv/comedy scene, flyers aren’t going to attract enough attention to be worth the trouble of putting up. Handbills, on the other hand, are stupendously useful for getting people interested in your group and reminding them to come out. It’s worse than useless to give out handbills blindly to strangers on the street but friends and family, hopefully already intrigued about your new comedy project, are far more likely to remember the time and place of your performance if they have printed notice. It’s good to have a few handbills on your person to give out if the subject of your group comes up when talking to a new acquaintance. Facebook events are another good way to spread the word about your shows. Start a Facebook page for your group and print it on your handbills. After a few performances you should have a nice little fan club, happy to get news on your newest show.

While an opening group isn’t absolutely necessary it’s a good idea for several reasons. Most improv acts tend to last a little less than half an hour—too short to ask people to drag themselves out of the house to see. An opening group makes your show more of an event. Any group who you invite to open for you will also most likely return the favor. Opening for another group is a perfect opportunity to pass out handbills for your next show, especially if you have a good set that night. Beyond that it’s fun and worthwhile to make friends in other groups. It can lead to the genesis of a new and larger improv scene.

The Audience
What else can you say?

Don’t be discouraged if your first show is a disaster. You learn entirely different, and necessary, things from performing in front of a group than you do in class. Whether you kill or get murdered up there the key is to talk about it with your group mates and learn from each show. Get back up on that improvised pony and try again until you learn to ride. In my experience there are few things in life better than a good show high. While it’s never a forgone conclusion, even to the masters of the form, coming off of a stage to a cheering audience is the cheapest, safest and most obtainable drug there is. It’s only cost is the devotion and gumption to chase it.