Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Improvm* (for Improvem*)

Does doing a lot of improv improve one's acting? I think that most people who got their start on shows like SCTV (an offshoot of Toronto's Second City troupe) would very likely answer "yes" to that question, or at least something else along the same lines. Though I'm a big believer in the importance of good writing when it comes to television and movie scripts, it's also pretty clear that mastering improv techniques can help an actor or comedian seem more "natural" or spontaneous. Some recent TV shows, like Curb Your Enthusiasm and Reno, 911!, were (amazingly) essentially improvised, and had just general plot outlines to follow, while others, such as The Office or Parks and Recreation, were tightly scripted, but allowed their cast members some leeway for deviation, and often some of the show's best lines. And then there's Whose Line Is It Anyway?, where the entire premise of the program is improv. You can make some important improvements to your own catalog today by searching out and correcting this "high probability" typo, which was found 46 times in OhioLINK, and 1194 times in WorldCat. And with such a high hit count, one could probably try improvising some other typos for this word as well.

(Rick Moranis at the 62nd Academy Awards, photo by Alan Light, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

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