It's ImproVISer, Not Improver

By Margaret Hicks in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 8, 2006 4:09PM

With the death of Del Close in 1999, the improv community continues the struggle to find its way. New improvisers never got the chance to sit in the Cabaret at IO while Del Close rattled off all the stupid mistakes they were making. They never heard the wheezing advice to play at the height of their intelligence. They never had Del walk out of the building in the middle of a “really funny” scene and wonder why he was so mad. The newbies assume they already know the rules because they’ve seen it on TV, and the rules themselves have been over-analyzed, under-utilized and turned so far inside out, that even the veterans don’t know their “yes ands” from their “no buts”.

Luckily, Jimmy Carrane and Liz Allen have double-handedly saved the art of improvisation from feeding on itself. Their incredibly popular workshop “Top 10 Blindspots for Improvisers” was a salve on a festering sore. Carrane and Allen expanded the blindspots in a new book titled Improvising Better: A Guide for the Working Improviser. Chapters titled “Spreading yourself too thin” and “Anger is Okay” bring back the simple points of improvisation that get lost in the interest of originality.

We personally would like to thank Jimmy Carrane and Liz Allen for going back to the rules, updating them, and making them accessible for an overly-scheduled improv pool.

Hell, they almost make it sound like fun again.

You can see Jimmy Carrane and Liz Allen at their Book Release party on Sunday, Dec. 10, at the Uptown Writer’s Space at 4802 N. Broadway, Suite 200, from 1:00 p.m. till 4:00 p.m.

And … scene.