In the final weeks of our first ever Improv Actor Training programme, we’ve been thinking a ridiculous amount about show structure and all the countless elements that go into creating an improv show. I thought it might be helpful to share my notes on the process in case any of it is useful.

Introduction

When you’re making a new improv show (or form or format or however you want to term it), there’s a thousand different decisions to make. And they all affect each other in a myriad exciting and frustrating ways.

Some useful heuristics:

<aside> 💡

• The things you decide definitely don’t belong in the show will shape it as much as the things you eventually include.
• Hold your ideas lightly, be prepared to throw them out when you recognise they no longer serve you.
• You want the least structure you can possibly manage that still supports the exact show you want to create.
• Not everything has to be improvised - great improv shows have rehearsed elements, it’s how you integrate the prepared and the spontaneous parts that makes a cohesive show.* </aside>

With all this in mind, let’s look at different parts of the show.

NB: You don’t have to attempt any of these in a particular order (or indeed, at all) - this is just the way my mind works.

Vision

What is the overarching vision for your show? What is the elevator pitch that everything else has to feed into? Try to keep this concise, with as few clauses as is humanly possible. Don’t get too granular at this stage.

An improvised science fiction show that explores sub-genres - from Speilbergian wonder to Cosmic Horror.

A Dickensian Christmas show where the Scrooge character is created by the audience.

A vision statement is a great tool, because when you are making other decisions, you can always come back to this initial idea as kind of a North star type deal, to keep you navigating towards your stated destination.

Style

Which I would further break down into Show style and Improv style.

Show

Broadly speaking, your show will be either:

Narrative - following one group of characters, telling a story with a beginning, a middle and an end (although not necessarily in that order).

Associative - scenes linked together by ideas, themes or motifs instead of narrative.

It might also be worth making the following distinction:

• Plot - attempting to play the narrative in such a way that anything introduced at the beginning will have a pay-off at the end (ie. a murder mystery).