Improviser !

I’ve grown a lot since then. For one thing I’ve come to feel that maybe we shouldn’t be going to improv shows to watch the performers jump through hoops. Is that what improv is about? An audience comes in to try and stump the performers? It certainly happens here at iO, a usually drunk patron will yell out a weird or lewd suggestion with a subtext of “do something with that, smarty pants!” Here’s something funny. Those stumper suggestions rarely stump the teams that get them. I’d go so far as to say that there are no bad suggestion. For one thing we shouldn’t be giving the suggestion that much power. What kind of players are we if the success or failure of our show teeters on the suggestion? We can be so fast to blame a suggestion for a bad show. So if it has enough power to ruin our shows shouldn’t we be giving it all the credit for our good shows? Secondly, if we want improv to be more than players jumping through the audience’s hoops we’ve got to break their expectations. We have to transcend the suggestion.

From Bill Arnett at iO.

Also, why not take no suggestion at all?