Teaching Interviews: Chris Gethard, Part 1 of 2
improvnonsense:
This is a series in which I ask great improv teachers to write down their thoughts on teaching improv. We start with Chris Gethard, who was the second person to ever run the UCBT-NY school after Kevin Mullaney.
Gethard wrote the first full curriculum for the school, taught dozens and dozens of very popular classes at all levels and also coached some of the best teams to ever develop at the theater. For a majority of the people who have considered themselves UCB performers in the last 10 years, Chris has been one of their prominent coaches/teachers.
He also has a new book out, A Bad Idea I’m About To Do, which you could check out.
Q: What are common notes you give to students?
Gethard: Here are pretty much all the notes and speeches I give, all the lines I draw in the sand. Honestly, I think if anyone reads all these they don’t even need to take a class with me:
- Chill the fuck out.
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Play It Real? A Police State
improvnonsense:
Watching the Improv Jam two weeks ago, sitting with Neil Casey while a scene started where someone did a tag out that transported characters from a fast food restaurant to a police interrogation room. Neil leaned over and said this to me:
“I’ve noticed that for students under 25 a lot of them walk on or tag out as the police coming to shut things down for being out of line. These kids either live in a world or they think they live in a world where if you step out of line the system comes crashing down on you like a ton of fucking bricks.”
After he said that, it started to stand out. Someone in an improv scene starts cheating on their company, security comes crashing in to ask them questions. Some tag-outs were just people being police. Other were smarmy investigators who came in with a sort of “good cop” attitude: “Hey, we’re just here to ask a few questions.”
Once you start thinking about this, a lot of improv gets really creepy.
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