Improv Techniques Quotes

People think "The Office" was improvised, but it's all on the page. We do that because what we found is that in the early days of "The Office," we went in with it sort of 80 percent scripted and we did some things and then we improv'd and we did - you know, and it gets a laugh on the floor because it's the first time they've heard it.

To me, if people really want to improvise, get into classes and learn.

I know how to have a conversation, but I've never done improv. I've never taken improv classes.

If you're a good improviser, you improvise well enough that people think that you're doing a sketch.

The hardest part about improv is getting the audience to relax and enjoy themselves, because most improv is not very good, and the audience is nervous for the performers the whole time. Not that they don't even like the show, but they feel bad for the performers.

Honestly, my biggest education regarding improv comedy actually came on the job working for 'My Boys.'

When I came to Chicago, I didn't even know what improvisation meant, as far as pertaining to comedy. I knew about Second City, but I didn't know what the word 'improvisation' meant.

The Yale group was doing the Harold. So by our senior year we were trying to do the Harold. Again, we had no idea what we were doing. We had one guy in the group who was pretty experimental; he would kind of push us to do weird things. It was really fun, a great experience.

A lot of times, good improv is when both people, or however many people are in the scene, really have no idea what the next thing you're going to say is.

We use improv in all kinds of fun ways. Sometimes it's to invent or discover new things, sometimes it's to weird out the other actors, and sometimes it's to create a sense of fun, to find new things inside the scripted lines.

The truth of it is that people are not going to want to go to improvisational theater if it's not funny. You can succeed in doing all the things you're supposed to do - be truthful to scene - and if it's not funny, I'm telling you that no one's gonna care.

Generally, I've found that a heckler in an improv audience is just enjoying the show so much that they want to be in it.

I do an improv show on Sunday where we have a class, and then afterwards we go and do a live performance in front of an audience.

Sometimes you have to kind of keep proving that you're improvising. That's the game, or the goal, of long-form TV improv, is that you have to kind of keep reminding and showing people that you're improvising, because they won't believe you really.

Many of the people I've worked with over the years came from a sketch-comedy background or an improv background, and I've learned a lot from them.

I took an improv class in 2005 in Chicago at ComedySportz, which was short-form, more of a games-based improv. I remember it being real fun and helping with my stand-up. If I did an improv class, and then I did stand-up later, I felt looser on stage and more comfortable.

Nothing is better than showing up twice a week, acting like a 12 year-old for two hours, and then going home.

I'm UCB trained - I came up learning about game, which is a really big part of the Upright Citizens Brigade theater. They teach you about game, and game in a scene is what makes the scene funny. And oftentimes, it's the character - this is really improv dorky stuff.

I love doing improv, and I swear by it, and I encourage people to take classes, and blah blah blah. But it's always been interesting how it doesn't necessarily translate to television.

So much of improv can be really long, and that's kind of what makes it funny.

And in Improvisation there is one hard and fast rule, and that rule is known as "Yes And." The term YES AND: to say yes, and not just yes, but to add information. In the adding of information you don't negate the other persons idea - but you build on it.

The improv stuff, that's always surprising so a lot of times that's really funny.

I started doing improv in college, and I really liked it.

A lot of times when you're trying to do improv, everybody's doing a different style.

I love improv so much. Listening. I think that's the key. When you improvise, you put a lot of pressure on yourself to create, and to be generating information, and trying to be funny, but if you just listen to what's being said to you, and then react honestly, you generally get better results.