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Improving Your Multi-Person Show
March 2, 2021
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Being on a multi-player show is tough. It's especially difficult when you're just starting out. You're often paired up with someone you barely know -- sometimes a team of complete strangers! You're asked to share interesting and personal stories and observations from your life while making it feel conversational and natural. Oh, and everyone is expecting that you engage the attention of the audience; hopefully make them laugh, or at least smile. It's exhausting just thinking about the challenges multi-person shows face.
How do you prepare teams for this? And how should programmers and producers prepare themselves to guide the team through this? Try looking outside of radio and take an improv class. Seriously, even the definition of Improvisation - "acting, reacting and creating in the moment" - sounds like an apt description of what most successful multi-person shows are trying to do.
You can help your team create more engaging and interesting content by teaching them the basic principles of Improv. Here are some of the things I took away from my last Improv class refresher...
- Energy. You don't go on stage if you don't have energy. You must be ready to go for it. Everything is more entertaining if the performers are trying their hardest. Then audiences can sense the level of commitment from the performer.
- Attention. The story is not written, if you don't listen and watch you will soon miss something. Never let your mind drift ahead to what you may say or do next. The story can change in a second and you'll get caught out.
- Silence. To listen you have to make silences. Don't be scared of silences.
So far, that sounds like good advice for multi-person shows right? Here’s more… Improvisation -- and the building of a scene or story - is based around some basic principles:
- Acceptance. You have to accept what the other performers offer up during the scene. Once the audience has heard it you have no choice but to integrate it into the scene. You say "Yes" to everything that is offered as accepting the ideas of others allows creation to take place and furthers the narrative. The principle is called "Yes and..." If you deny what another person has offered, you immediately stop progression. Answering another performer's suggestion with a "no" or a denial is forbidden. There's nowhere to go once that happens. You've got to support the person you're performing with. "But" is the same as a "no" so if you say "yes, but..." you are also blocking.
- Share responsibility for creation. Listen to what your partners are offering. You're in this together, and it is through collaboration that you will build the story.
- Who, What, Where. It's always important to lay strong foundations to a good story. Early on in the scene you must make sure the audience understands who the story is about, what it is about and where it is happening. This helps the audience build the picture in their mind.
- Eye Contact: Eye Contact is essential when performing. All of the team should be able to see each other and look at each other in the eye when talking. This helps control who is talking to who. Who you are looking at is who the story is directed to.
- Act It Out: The performance is much stronger when not just spoken but acted out by the performers. Don't overlook the power of using your body to help 'act out' the story -- your vocal performance will be better and the team will enjoy the moment you're all sharing more.
- Open vs Close Questions: The role of the reactor is to help the storyteller not to steal the story and be funny. Help them by asking open questions to advance their story.
- Don't Chase The Funny: Listening to someone trying to be funny is never enjoyable. It's cringe worthy. Trying to be funny and get the punchline is often not helpful. Competitiveness kills storytelling. Avoid trying to deliver punchlines at the expense of moving the narrative forward. Interesting always beats funny.
- Trust: Trust is important to successful team performance. You must all trust each other to support you when performing. The goal is not to block or try to be funny but to support the central theme.
You can use these techniques to improve your show today but, you will have more success if you and your team make the commitment to understand these approaches at a deeper level. Go on, take some Improv classes. Your show will be able to create more compelling and interesting content because of it.
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