IMPROV OLYMPIX HISTORY BY DAVID SHEPHERD

In 2007, David Shepherd's cousin suggested he write up the three most important programs of his life. First one David tackled, was the Improv Olympix (originally called the Improv Olympics, before the Olympic Committee threatened a lawsuit), which David co-created with Howard Jerome. David never got around to writing up the other two programs, having been sidetracked by the creation of a new format in 2008; Life-Play, improv games designed to be played over the phone. I recently found David's chapter on the Improv Olympix and it's a fascinating piece of history from his perspective.

IMPROV OLYMPIX HISTORY BY DAVID SHEPHERD

Beginning in the 1970’s theatre saw a raft of innovations.  In Chicago, Del Close introduced his “Harold” format, for instance, by which a small group creates a coherent piece of 30-40 minutes from one audience suggestion; themes, characters and locations are positioned in improvs for two players or the whole group.  In Calgary, Keith Johnstone introduced Theatre Sports, a collection for two teams of over 50 games, which is now franchised across the world.   The first of these new structures was invented in New York City—the Improv Olympix; family and friends have asked me to describe its origins from memory.

In 1969 my ten-year marriage to Honey Stern unraveled abruptly in NYC.  I moved to 13 W. 89 St: a big second-story room, which I believed would pass for an office.  It was purposefully close to my kids, who visited and played under a wooden door that I fitted flat against one corner and draped with curtains to hide the fact that it was full of blocks, crayons, trucks and other toys.  

Here I committed myself to what  my father would call a “do good” role: to identify root causes of group friction, malfunction and conflict.  I would summon communication and productivity.  I would be a community “maker.” Such ideals had considerable currency in the 60’s and had already won me two jobs at NJ Community Action and at Scientific Resources Institute.  Community was graced by billions from Kennedy.  Under his handsome umbrella I would locate clients and supply training and public relations—delivered by a powerful phalanx of Community Makers.  Thousands of consultants were similarly busy.

“Commerce Business Daily”--plump with listings like “deliver 1000 rats to Lab X by Mar. 1--” provided me with  my first example of what  a Community Maker will do: for instance, he or she will travel to a high-rise in St. Louis.  Find out why  elevators that stop every other floor to serve small, decaying apartments,  somehow  attract violence and social despair  (have done so for years.)  You will then design ways to cure the malaise, staff your proposal, get it approved, tool up and go to work.  In actuality, after years of tinkering, the city declined all bids, moved all tenants out to smaller buildings in other areas, and simply blew the buildings up.  By “imploded” demolition.

One of the first to enroll in my tiny army was Howard Jerome Gomberg—ex football player, wrestler and tab-musical performer, who called himself Jerome.  (I insisted on calling him Gomberg, showing my prejudice for reality and contempt for self-regard.)  Howard quickly ingested my ambitions.

Howard Jerome

Encouraged by other idealists, we decided that a more likely target for our reforms was theatre, which we saw, long after the advent of improv, as mired still in egotism--stardom. Each actor acted in his or her own shell, while the dynamic of each performance was limited to the verbal  pyrotechnics of the playwright.  A play was more a chess game than an occasion to celebrate human emotions and interactions.  Most scripts bored us.

In our plan the playwright would be replaced by the audience, which knows exactly what it wants  and supplies ample ideas for content.  Tonight’s audience knows better than any playwright exactly what  will satisfy it tonight.  Treat the stage like a sports arena. Actors become  players.  Action becomes team play.  Who wins (and how) becomes more absorbing than the often abstruse point of a play written  at another time far away from the audience in these seats.

For a base structure use games, of which there are hundreds floating around.  But for our sport use only games that give players exposure to the basics of theatre.  Give actors a keener experience in acting than most scripts can.  Immerse them in skills, for instance:

            character  observed  clearly--on the spot

            deep, transforming emotion

            relationship dependent in no way on words

            creation of objects by pantomime only

            close relationship through gibberish

            improvising a song

            improvising a story

            improvising through slices of time

            improvising in different locations at the same time

            treating a subject with maximum negative or positive
            feeling.

We called our sport the “Improvisational Olympic" and later (since the Olympic Committee objected) the “Improv Olympix,” when we began video coverage.

With Howard on board, I changed our name from Community Makers to the less ambitious Group Creativity.  After all, group creativity had inspired COMPASS--with its strolling audience, improvising cast, creative spectators and a network of neighbors writing scenarios.  We moved from our remote Upper West Side location to a large building near Madison Square Garden—the Space for Innovative Development.  Here we were within reach of national dance companies and adventurous groups like ourselves.  Here we could rent space in which to perform.  It was 1973.

The Space for Innovative Development

The first teams were composed of staff and old friends.  “Jerome’s Bombers” played “Running Bare,” which included Janet Coleman,  author of “The Compass,” and David Dozer. The match was reviewed  in the press.  The college aged sons of a consultant for whom I shot video offered to play.  We discovered that, depending on life experience and willingness to risk, a new team could be launched in hours.  A correctional facility in Westchester sent a half dozen men plus guards, who were received  at the door by Sydney Johnson.  She asked, “Do you want to play, boys?” and took them through training enough to perform a scene I will never forget: inmates in a cell where a vial of heroin has just be spilled by mistake on the floor. They invested it with humor but also, surprisingly, with pain.

Jerome's Bombers

I formed a Soul team, whose intention was to play big and hard as possible--but lose. Soul’s job was  to model the games and show  how accessible they were.  We drew strangers to take a chance,  do the training, enter the league and win.

One afternoon we were visited by a thin, nervous  teenager from Queens—Michael Golding. He was participating weekly in Responsive Scene, our improv radio show over WRVR, where 35,000 listeners could phone in suggestions, stay on line, direct action and even improvise with the cast.  Michael had had the nerve to record his own improv bits with his own friends and squeeze his tape onto the air via phone calls he made to the station.

We saw Michael was a candidate for the Olympix.  I immediately offered to play whatever group he came up with.  Soul met his team in somebody’s home (so we wouldn’t have to pay rent for space). The location was frumpy: sofa, stuffed chairs, carpets.  No matter.  Soul warmed up casually until we noticed Michael’s group was intense.  An anomaly:  I was developing a new sport that might one day contribute to my income, but I was  laid back.  Michael was one of a vast, to me colorless, lax population that many adults write off as disinterested in culture.  But he was up tight!

Michael Golding (LR) and his team Fool's Paradise

 

Every “event” his teens attempted was a see-saw challenge for them.  Every time they lost their confidence crumpled.  If they won, their triumph galvanized them for the next event.  Essentially the match was  Fun for us but Life for them. I saw that Soul could no longer play to lose, but as our concentration and energy picked up, so did Michael’s.

We lost!  I was flabbergasted, limp, crawling with uncomfortable surprise.  Michael’s team leapt directly into a sports cliché. They crowed, they spurted energy, they slapped five and clapped each other on the back, they ran around the room.  Some jumped on the couch, then mocked our adult superiority and summoned a phony sympathy for us losers.  Still there was more to come: they went over details from their training, their minute-to-minute expectations, the match itself—event by event.  Where they had lagged, where they’d surged ahead.  At that embarrassing moment I realized: we had made converts.  We had in fact invented  a sport.

1974: we were invited to Toronto by Howard’s friends at HomeMade Theater.  A half dozen Canadian directors were invited to sit in on a trial match.  These men and women quarreled for two hours, questioning the names we’d  assigned each event,  rules of play, standards for judging, number of players.  For instance, could two or more players from one team play two or more from another?  What emerged was tighter, more competitive—with  a Canadian sparkle and practicality.

HomeMade Theatre

Home Made Theater  promptly combed Ontario for teams and found about 8 groups willing to play into a tournament.  I was astonished at their diversity.  On one hand was the national theatre school, composed of affluent giants who treated the Olympix as they would life after graduation: it was  something to overcome,  to win--from finding lodging to locating auditions, from making friends of agents to winning jobs in all media. Their play was boisterous. 

On the other hand was a team of Mummers, who circle Lake Huron by whatever  transportation they can find, inquiring as they go if some family would like a show mounted in their living room or barn.  They adapt what they carry in their back packs to the tastes of the family—much like the players that Hamlet uses to “catch the conscience of a king.” Where do they eat and sleep?  with the family for which they play, so their material better not disappoint.

That summer Howard  and I were hired to behave like Mummers in the northern ski area—with  amateur ski workers  willing to face rough competition,  at a Lions Club gala, from dentist teams we trained.  The event I remember best was a match between 16 year olds who welcomed  interruptions during training at their posh club and 13 year olds who met in a meager barn and paid attention--for days.  Much to the surprise of the swank team the younger set won  easily.  The match revealed social status—upset.

Next came the search—city by city-- for funds to pay for the sustenance of a program whose participants  could claim it produced value: it generated skills, brought isolated people together,  fostered teamwork.  It was also cheap, fun, easy to mount, psychologically rewarding and attractive to many ages.

First came New York City,  where we had already identified and pursued a dozen foundations--without success.  Now we broached the school system and were invited to the Bronx.  On my first visit I arrived  8am at a school where the teacher had not yet arrived.
  

I approached  a group of students, told them what I had for them and got them playing. By the time the teacher  started looking for me, she found her kids in full swing.  Eventually 11 schools joined the Bronx league, which was run by a student of Paul Sills—Paul Lazar. Every  year there was intense competition; every year the same school won.

I remember a match  at which  not enough students showed to form one team:  our bottom line was 5, but only two boys were present.  I broke my rule and allowed them to play.  One of our judges, Daren Daly, had traveled miles on his red motor bike to attend; he was dubious.  But surprisingly the team of two managed to pull off all ten events , adapting suggestions to avoid the void of mothers, for instance, or sisters.  Daren and I were amazed.  Their handicap had given the two  double zest, imagination and confidence.  In comparison the big team they played looked limp.

Dealing with the Bronx Board was tough.  It didn’t want to pay Group Creativity the small salaries allotted for coaching.  Eleven coaches got paid, but I got almost nothing of their checks.  I couldn’t invest more of my own  money in phone, mail, transportation, props, xerox, photos.  I gave up N.Y.C.

Next: Chicago, where I visited for several months in 1981.  Jo Forsberg let me teach at her theater school, where a new student, Charna Halpern, implored me to give her a scholarship. Charna had been teaching  disadvantaged  girls and felt improv offered no terrors more difficult to cope with.  In the first weeks of our association, I sensed she was going to take over any Chicago program that came to life.  The first teams played on a spectacular all-metal floor in a local bar.  “The Reader” gave us great press, and soon we had six volunteer coaches to train all the teams that wanted to enter a Chicago league.

David Shepherd and Charna Halpern

Training was often done in six hours—on six packs, in basements.  We started to get what we called “affinity” teams--professional actors, seniors, cops, rabbis, psychiatrists, musicians, lawyers, an all women’s team.  It seemed word of mouth was by lightning.  When I visited New York, I heard at parties that this great game was embracing the Mid-West.  When in Chicago, the thing to do was Improv Olympix.

 

We played Cook County jail, where men were dumbfounded to discover that there was something they could excel at: an improv match  against a middle-class team with white women on it. This is where Charna first tried out her way of announcing scores.  She announces the loser and point number first, giving that team the hope that they won, and then the winner with a greater point number. However the jail had no money for a permanent program giving inmates the experience of winning.

Next I took on the Chicago school system, but I didn’t have the right connections.  I ran into the same attitude that I found in most NYC boros: the schools know what you have and don’t want  it.  The schools know that your program will not succeed.  The schools are sure that your design is wrong for their classes and your curriculum is inadequate, so please don’t send it.  I didn’t have the razzle-dazzle video that Canada was about to produce.

One night on Amtrak, passing the jail with a match in progress, on my way home to my wife Connie and my kids in NYC, I was gripped by sadness.  I was slowly realizing that my best designs for improv formats were never going to earn me much cash, and that I was going to have to support my family on money earned in sales, copy writing, PR, children’s books, personnel, administration—not to mention a few other gigs too demeaning to mention.

Of course, if Lazar and Halpern and Howard and Willie were willing to write proposals not for the Olympix but for autistic children or unemployed girls at risk or psychiatric patients,  if we could afford to turn out a dozen grant applications a year, one of us might have scored.  Once at least.  We might have proved that the Olympix just happened to be the ideal way to benefit this or that population.  If I had to do it again?

The end of the Chicago story is revealing.  We’d played Second City, where Joyce Sloane allowed our annual tournament to take place Monday nights at her main stage.  We’d played a downtown  bank auditorium during a festival in the Loop.  We’d acquired great press--due often to our photographer, Virgil Shrock, who captured  any match we sent him to any time of day or night.

Thousands had enjoyed watching our format or playing into it.  National tournaments had brought teams to Chicago or NYC.  But Charna was not making a living.  Unlike the Canadians she complained our games demanded too much  competition, which made them less commercial.  She and the late Del Close closed shop and went up the street to Wrigley Park,  There they founded a training program for comedians.  Not satisfied with this, they opened a branch in L.A.  Both pack customers in much of the week.

Del Close and Charna Halpern

 In 1984 the International Olympic was held in LA. I decided to attend.  I’d present our new format at a public location.  The timing was perfect.  Competition in performance would meld with competition in sports. My trip began with a triumph: I got permission to use Santa Monica pier, which was thick with  strollers and customers every weekend. Ads and flyers were picked up smartly by the press, and I was welcomed by a large improv community that knew who I was. What did I imagine would happen if I appealed to the city for as many teams as I could imagine—each speaking its own tongue? I suspected we could reveal  a rich cultural mix that was not possible on track,  high board or wrestling mat.

I arranged to meet  a real Russian restaurant owner and get him to allow my brand new Russian assistant to train Russians to improvise.  Carefully I prepared him by speaking of the magic of improv, the discoveries it made possible, its delightful evanescence,  the comic undercurrents in any dramatic situation, the characters uncovered by improv,  its commercial acceptance on TV.  I promised to bring matches onto his stage.

He smiled.  He understood?  He paused. He considered what to say. Then he started to sing.  His his eyes shone but his voice was lead.

I didn’t get his meaning.  Could he be making ponderous love to a style, a carefully crafted anthem,  a musical masterpiece that had exemplified Russian art for centuries?  Was he saying, "Improvisation cannot equal this solidity.  Improvisation is for performers who can’t feel this surge of belief.  Improvisation cannot exist in the Russian heartland.”

But suppose he had said “yes.”  Suppose a dozen cultural groups

asked to be trained.  Where were the Chicago coaches that would

appear magically in basements bearing the six-packs that

guarantee a team is formed in six hours?  

Would the team perform in English?  If not, where would I find

judges who understood the languages used by both teams playing? Who would have trained the Mexican team, the French team, the Indian, Iraqi, Tibetan, Ethiopian, Brazilian, Serbian....teams? What criteria would I use to judge when  a team was  ready to compete?   All such considerations were swept aside by my mania.  And mania is a welcome state of being in the tinsel and celluloid corridors of LA.  

I remember--in  a bout of loneliness--phoning the Coach of the Chicago police team  “Magnum Farce” to get phone numbers of his cast, then inviting them all to fly to LA and appear on the Santa Monica stage.  Leave their jobs for lodgings I would be paying for at a salary unknown.  I wanted them because they had come in second twice at annual tournaments.  They had improvised my favorite Time Dash to the theme of “filing:”  in the first frame a group of officers belittle an unpleasant know-it-all.  In the second this same incompetent is handing out orders that irritate them.  In the last frame the nebbish has graduated to Head of the Department,  and (still filing) his former critics are all in fear of him.

Magnum Farce stayed in Chicago; policemen are seldom manic.

I did run workshops, train teams, set up performance schedules.

Sensing overload,  I did ask Howard to come assist.  He arrived

promptly after my phone call.  I did find video coverage.  More and more local people became involved, until I was overwhelmed  by detail: presentation, sales, training, PR, organization.  My program appeared to be successful, and success was killing me.  The best thing that could happen to me would be the end, toward which I improvised as I went  along.

My best memory: two German tourists were given Silent Wrestling to play.  They improvised a vast silence between “Der auto ist kaput” and “Ach, mein Gott.” Effortless.  Effortlessly Canada won the competition. Something else happened in LA.  Howard discovered an electronic link between  3 widely separated stages, where it was possible for three teams to improvise simultaneously in what I remember was called a “slow scan;”  the listener heard only a portion of what was broadcast.  Ingenious.  Futuristic.  Suggestive of future technologies.  But a reason to visit LA?

The Canadian Olympic Games (CIG) started in New York.  Chicago City Limits, located far west on 42nd St, invited us to hold international matches on their stage.  Only Canada and the USA were involved.  Ottawa  high school students were guided by Willie Wyllie, who later ran the Stage Fright team.  The Canadian kids spent the night of the match at the home of Barbara Caporale’s parents,  where  there was just enough rug and sofa room to accommodate 20 boys and girls. We all discovered that their experience of travel,  comradeship and performance was intoxicating.  These elements propel CIG to this day.  

Michael Golding, referee of teenage match at Chicago City Limits, with Willie Wyllie

Canadian teenagers with Chicago City Limits cast

Stage Fright, producers of the Canadian Improv Games, Willie Wyllie, center.

Willie asked me to give him rights to the games.  I demanded a percentage of his gross as royalties, which he said would be nil (he was right).  We dickered and eventually I avoided  a nasty falling out by my giving in.  Since then he’s been immoderately generous, inviting me, Golding and Jerome to many Ottawa  anniversaries. 

On my 80th birthday, as I peered out of the window of my office near Amherst, I spied what appeared to be Willie.  “Must be someone who looks like him,” I rationalized, “since the real Willie is in Ottawa.  I came to the same conclusion with Golding: “he’s in L.A.”  But Willie, Golding and Howard were all three really in my backyard.  They played into an impromptu show for my guests, and we spent half the night catching up.

Michael Golding, Willie Wyllie, Howard Jerome, David Shepherd

David Shepherd's 80th birthday party

Today in Canada 300 high school teams start matches by chanting an oath originally inspired by Howard:

            We have come together

            in the spirit of loving competition

            to celebrate the (CIG or Improv Olympix).

            We promise to uphold the ideals of improvisation:

            to cooperate with one another, 

            to learn from each other,

            to commit ourselves to the moment

            and above all....

            to have a good time.

The CIG does not celebrate and exercise 10 theatrical skills.  But it gives thousands of kids an alternative to the dreary monotony and isolation they may experience in high school. Self-esteem (and often lives) have been saved by the CIG, which has endured only because thousands of young Canadians have learned over decades how to manage.  For instance, they  have  cut the games down to 5.  In their words:

            Character Event portrays characteristics such as flamboyant or bashful,

            Life Event shows an event perceived to be pivotal--with sincere and realistic emotion,

            Story conveys  a story with beginning, middle and end,

            Style projects a style of film, literature, etc.,  such as children’s book or film noire,

            Theme explores an aspect of a given topic such as “communication” or “choices.”

There are a dozen regional tournaments,  with  winners traveling to Ottawa  for annual finals.  Improvisation has truly demanded to be treated as a sport.  Teams are now allowed  to enter CIG by shooting video of their play and sending it to be judged.

           

What I enjoy most about CIG are,  first, their warmups,  which are held in one room.  Open the door and you are assaulted by many energies in boisterous tumult.  You may predict the approach of each team to the games.  Later when  they play you notice how their warmup  prepared each for competition.  It’s a miracle to see teams suddenly achieve  the seamless interaction of its players. 

Second I enjoy the dead eye concentration  of the coaches who serve as judges.  They take themselves very seriously because they may have coached  one of the teams on stage.  Some coach dozens of teams in one region, such as Toronto—often with  no compensation:  a national program based solidly on love and commitment!

In the future we’ll see CIG branch into other countries—including the USA.  We can expect more matches on TV  and maybe more participation by younger children and adults. After all, there is nothing about the Olympix that restricts it to a teen activity.

Michael Golding is a writer, director and improv teacher.  He can be contacted for workshops, festivals and private consultations at migaluch@yahoo.com. Michael participated in the evolution of the Improv Olympics & Canadian Improv Games. Artistic director of the Comic Strip Improv Group in N.Y. & created the Insight Theatre Company for Planned Parenthood, Ottawa.  He is a faculty member at El Camino College in Los Angeles, working with at-risk teens and traditional students. He wrote and co-produced the documentary "David Shepherd: A Lifetime of Improvisational Theatre" (available for free on YouTube).  His book, Listen Harder, a collection of essays, curriculum and memorabilia on improvisation and educational theatre, is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and CreateSpace. Michael holds a BFA degree in Drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts & an MA degree in Educational Theatre from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education & Human Development.   

 

Interview with Howard Jerome by Michael Golding

Howard Jerome

Howard Jerome is one of improv’s unsung heroes.  With David Shepherd, he co-created the Improv Olympics, which premiered at the Space for Innovative Development in New York in 1972.  Howard and David brought the format to Toronto in 1974, where they participated in Homemade Theatre’s annual Improv Festival.  Larry Mollin, the artistic director of the festival and his company, overhauled the Improv Olympics, making it more theatrical and sports-like, with professional and non-professional leagues.  With Willie Wyllie, who participated in the festival with his high school team Stage Fright (which Howard coached), Howard co-created the Canadian Improv Games in 1977, where he now carries the title of “Old Man Improv.” 

His association with David Shepherd began in 1971 when Howard responded to an ad in the NY Post placed by David looking for "community makers to correct ailing communities." Together, the two collaborated on how to build a community out of improvisation, leading to the formation of their non-profit organization, Community Makers.  As the two explored improv as a peoples theatre, gathering interest from other performers, Community Makers became Group Creativity Projects.  Under the banner of their new organization, the Responsive Scene, the precursor of the Improv Olympics, premiered in 1972 - first as a stage show (with the audience participating as writers, directors and actors) and later as a summer radio series on WRVR-FM in New York.  Howard is also a recognizable character actor, appearing in films such as Barney’s Version, Lucky Number Sleven, Naked Lunch and Canadian TV shows such as Puppets Who Kill, Across the River to Motor City and the animated series Almost Naked Animals. 

Howard Jerome as Octo in Almost Naked Animals.

This interview was conducted in 2004, as part of a proposed book on the history of the Improvisation Olympics.  The project never got off the ground, but I felt that the insights Howard provided here should be shared with the improv community.

  
Michael: How do you see the connection between a sports event and an Improv Olympics match?

Howard:  There’s a spectacle aspect to the match. An unpredictability.  You really didn’t know what was going to happen. Whether it was going to be good or not.  And that was kind of an exciting thing. And there was always the influence of the fans.  In some way or another. Laughing, booing. To urge or to purge. Whatever.  (Howard looks through an original 1972 program for the Improvisation Olympics – a match between his team “Jerome’s Bombers” and David’s “Soul All Stars”)  “The SOULS limited the time on camera of their strongest player, Shepherd, who was not playing to win!” Just re- reading this makes me laugh.

Howard with his Improv Olympics team, 1972.

Michael: I guess the similarity you have with the Homemade Theatre is that in the beginning at the Space For Innovative Development, the matches were played by professional actors.

Howard:  Yeah – the first of us were professional actors, or aspiring actors, in one way or another. All of us.

Michael: It seems to me that what you did at the Space for Innovative Development, was a continuation of the work from the Responsive Scene stage (and later) radio show.

David Shepherd (center) and Howard (far right) in the Responsive Scene stage show, 1972.

Howard:  We were more interested then in human nature than in human creativity.  The games have gone into the realm of creativity for creativity’s sake.  Which is pretty much what happened in Canada.  There isn’t much need for story, story, story.  Although, some wonderful stories do get told.

Michael:  How have you trained for the Improv Olympics?  Was training useful?

Howard:  I’m an ex-jock. So training  for me is wonderful.  In fact, I was always a better player in training than in playing. I really like the discipline of it. The testing of yourself in training.  I love it. So for me, I like working out with improv stuff. Stretch physically and emotionally. If I had to be specific about the exercises – I’ve done so many that I can’t remember which teacher I learned them from. So for me, the training kind of blends into one another.  In warm-ups, I think we did “Sound and Movement” bringing how you feel – a sound of how you feel and adding a movement to it. Then giving it to someone, who transforms it into what they’re feeling and how to move with it. So there were physical things – I remember doing warm-ups where you move energy – pushing energy around. Another warm-up was the transforming thing – where you transform things in space. Objects, scenes.

Michael: I remember warming up with a lot of Spolin games. Like the Orientation game, where one player comes in and starts an activity. Another comes in and adds something to the activity. The third player comes on and says something which establishes where the players are.

Howard: Right.  Building of where games.  Filling the space. Sounds. I think we made sounds together – weird sounds. And gibberish.  I just saw Cirque du Soleil – a lot of gibberish was used there.

Michael:  It was funny that Larry Mollin mentioned using the antiquated quarter inch reel to reel video. That was the first thing that I remembered about the matches at the Space for Innovative Development. Taping the matches, then watching them afterwards.

A 15 year old Michael Golding taping the Improv Olympics at the Space for Innovative Development, 1973.

Howard: It was so exciting because it felt like we had broken the hold of the TV creators. Suddenly we had the cameras. We could say or do anything. We could make our own shows. It was a revolutionary activity. It was so exciting.  I’m gonna be on television, mom!

Michael: The Space for Innovative Development was an exciting place because so much was going on there in all the various rooms. Vivica Lindfors was doing her one woman show.  There was a dance company in another studio.  Musicians.

Howard: The whole place was filled with creative talent. The Nicoli Dancers were there.  The Chicago Project. The Murray Lewis Dance Company.  The Multi Gravitational Dance Company.  The Video Pirates. A building filled with cross creativity.

Michael: I always had the feeling that we weren’t suppose to be there. That a corrupt janitor would let us in when no one was looking.  "Don’t make any noise and clean up after yourselves!"

What’s your favorite event? Describe a scene that it generated.

Howard:  Emotional Hurdles are always interesting, regardless of how you go from emotion to emotion.  There’s a scene I remember that we did in jail – the emotions were in a group scene. Go from anger to joy.  Be genuine with both.  A card game was going on, someone was accused of cheating. A fight breaks out. Things got very serious very fast.  Screaming, yelling.  Then guards come running in with Billy-clubs out ready to stop the impending riot only to discover that we were just role-playing.  And that’s when things switched to joy – the inmates laughing at the guards who thought this was real.  The role-play was so real the guards believed it.  That was wonderful emotion jumping that was influenced by something that happened outside.  It provoked such joy with the inmates. They laughed and laughed.  Free and loose.  Free and loose.  I like emotional stuff.  Jumping through space was always interesting. Physical things.  Continuing a scene or a relationship or dialog through a variety of spaces.  Have a scene develop from a bar to a kitchen to the bedroom. Three locations that influences what happens.  You don’t talk about the space other than what you have to.  

Various kinds of work-outs with sound and movement fascinated me.  One I recall, I can’t remember where it came from, you know how some people are led around by their groins, others by their stomachs, elbow, left foot.  When you put that in your body interesting, bazaar characters emerge.  Strange stuff. Shadowing a mirror with each other was another game I liked.

Training a team of inmates for the Improv Olympics, 1972.

Michael: Propose a new event bringing a new skill.

Howard:  Well, for me it has to do with peace. I don’t care if you want to call it a scene or a story, or something, but each team has got to do something about peace.

Michael: The Peace Event.

Howard: The Peace Event.

Michael: Suggest an affinity group that could be comfortable and do well in the Improv Olympics.  In this case, I think David would add in parenthesis “With the exception of professional actors.”

Howard:  (laughing) Right.  Well, the work we did in industry. When we took improvisational stuff into corporations and having people for various lengths of times,  giving them improvisational skills, learning some games and then exploring issues within the company. Like, “These two managers don’t get along.” or “This guy isn’t pulling his weight.” It had a functional purpose in a corporate setting, exploring relevant issues in a creative way.

 

Michael: Aside from playing and coaching, what other functions matter in tournament play?

Howard:   Well, David taught me really basic kind of stuff.  You should be able to be seen and heard. And we found that out in Washington Square Park where no one could see us or hear us.  We turned over a garbage can, I climbed on top of it, and suddenly people could hear and see us . Lo and behold the show could start.  There was focus.  There’s all the logistical things – you know this.  Does anyone have a three prong adapter?

Michael:  That’s what David taught me. You should always give everyone in your group a job – it keeps them connected. Like, someone is responsible for setting up the space, another to bring refreshments, someone brings in a sound effects tape, stuff like that. Otherwise you’re doing all the administrative stuff yourself and can’t concentrate fully on the play.

Howard: He’s absolutely right. So the co-creativity goes into co-productivity as much as possible. Everybody is a co-producer in whatever way they can.

Michael: Right.

Howard:  It didn’t often happen enough that way, and it still doesn’t happen enough that way.  We always end up schlepping more than we have to.

Howard Jerome, David Shepherd & Michael Golding at the 2002 Canadian Improv Games.

 

Michael: How important is scene-to-scene scoring?

Howard:  Everybody has a different opinion on it. For me, I think the scoring is more like professional wrestling. It’s only there for show.  And, it doesn’t really matter to me who wins or loses. It’s only a show.  As an audience member I didn’t really care about the competitive element, as long as the show was good.  I always felt that was the important thing.  So the element of win/lose was moot.  That being said – I’m a very competitive guy.  I love putting out the best I can. Being inspired to go further than what I’ve just seen on stage.  I’m very highly competitive in that way. It’s like “Damn, Michael. That was good! Now, watch this!”  That’s the attitude I go into my work with.  I want to be on top of my game. I want to be as creative and inventive as I can. Not to vanquish the other players. Just to be in the zone.  Get in the flow. There is that stuff in improv, just as in sports. Being in the flow of the zone you’re in.  I do like the scoring – for Adults.  It might be an adult only thing. I like the round by round scoring. A lot of people don’t. It adds to the thing.  Other people think “No no, don’t do it – because if a team is behind in the match they’ll stop trying.  So, keep everything in suspense until the end.” Other people say the audience needs to be involved in the judging of things. And my response is, you have to check it out with your audience. Why should I make that decision?

I just applied for a job. On the application I wrote “I’m a pretty creative guy. Probably so are you . But, we’re not more creative then everybody else put together.  Therefore, let us harvest and invite the best, the most interesting responses to the needs of the organization.  Why not? Harvest the genius of the people in our company.”

Michael: Does competition lower the quality of play?

Howard prepares to present the Howard Jerome trophy at the Canadian Improv Games.

Howard:  That’s not been my experience. The worse that happens, and it’s a bad thing, people lose their spontaneity in relying on formats and sure-fire things. And that’s the worse thing that can happen.  And it’s happens more than I’d like it to happen.  The real elements of improvisation are so heavily screened through the formats there isn’t a whole lot of room for spontaneity or adventure.  That’s the biggest danger there. What about you?

Michael: I feel pretty much the same way. In my experiences, it happens more with teenagers.  I agree with Larry Mollin about bare-bones improv. Two people on stage building a scene together is more interesting as opposed to five people simultaneously on stage going through the motions of a pre-set format designed for instant gratification. No surprises. No danger. No risks.

Describe an ideal match.

Howard:  I can describe it by going to the very end of things when teenagers are laughing and crying at the same time. And there’s such an enormous outpouring of loving energy and celebration or consolation, appreciation. A magnetic quality where people rush the stage with enthusiasm to embrace one another. The ideal match has that kind of ending.  And they all did during the finals of the Canadian Improv Games in Ottawa. So for me, that’s a successful, ideal match. When you have that kind of ending. Beyond that there are always astounding new bits of creativity. Tremendous individual performance whatever that is, that is memorable. And maybe a piece of content slipping  though sometimes in a creative way.  I don’t think you could hope for more than that on a teenage level.

Michael: What do you think the U.S. Improv Olympics should look like in the future?

Howard:  I think it would be great if it becomes another thing people choose to do.  Do you want to go bowling or do you want to do improv?  Do you want to go to the movies? No, let’s stay home and play these theatre games.  I would like it to be a regular choice that people make, to do, in terms of it’s popularity.   It’s a great way to spend time with your family and friends.  Improvising with one another.  We did a wonderful storytelling with my godson the other day.  Instead of telling a traditional Chanukah story we wound up in Sweden. It was great. We did it as a co-creative project with four other people.  We were very inventive of each other.  That’s one level. The other is the extreme opposite.  I want to see really great improvisers going head to head with really good stuff. You don’t get that edge on the TV competition shows.  Maybe you need to do an all star show.

Michael: Perhaps like Larry said before, everything has to come full circle where you just have two actors improvising a scene with a 3 minute time limit.

What is you most juicy, colorful, vivid memory of the Improv Olympics?

Howard:  There are so many.  Here are some highlights.  A Workput event involving shoveling snow.  The guys in the scene did a fairly accurate activity of shoveling snow. Then a woman came on with some lumber and nails and proceeded to build a wall or something. Then she nailed the snow onto the board and sledded it out of there.  Wild flights of imaginations – individual performances are what I remember from the Olympics.  Another was Sandra Oh’s improvised monologue during the Canadian Improv Games finals to her parents on how she didn’t want to be a mathematician – she wanted to be an actress.  She ended up doing that same piece in a movie. Teams that squeak through. Dynasties are wonderful – like in Canada. Sir Frances Liberman High School in Ottawa won year after year because they were clearly better, more disciplined, more creative. They forced the games to be better than they were, by their existence.  Those are the kind of juiciest memories I have. A vague memory of Toronto excellence with the best actors available.  They had a show-down – it was wonderful, intense, and it was not the high pitched shrill “you have to get a laugh every second” thought. It was more about improv integrity than madness. What about you.?

 Canadian Improv Games, 2012.

Michael: The most recent is the best for me. Being in Ottawa for the 25^th anniversary of the Canadian Improv Games, standing next to David in the audience of the National Arts Centre as you administered the Olympic Oath on stage surrounded by teenagers.  It made me feel connected to something that was historic and larger than myself.

Howard: I’d like to talk about the book a little bit.   The idea of the 4^th dimension was the involvement of the audience where they get to direct and participate. I remembered we learned that yes, you could trust the audience - but you shouldn’t get hurt in the process. So it was, “no you do it.”  Someone suggested an activity of eating shit. And I said, “I’m not going to do that – you do it.  I’m not going to demean myself for your entertainment. If you’re so interested in seeing that, you do it.” 

Michael : So, the whole concept of audience involvement came from a dare.

Howard: Exactly.  There should be a brief history of ancient rituals that involved group creativity processes. Then, we show a modern version of that ritual – like the Emotional Hurdles sprang from this cultural process.  We need to support the thesis of group creativity as being an eternal cultural process. People reach out to each other to do something creative in history. An exploration into the nature of group creativity – its historic backgrounds, scientific findings written in the language of improvisation.  This is all peppered through-out the book.  Each chapter should have a “you do it” component.  You can’t go on to the next chapter until you get three people to try the format you just read about. The book is about theory and practice. It needs more than just words – it needs blank spaces for creativity for the readers to do it.

Michael: It’s a hands-on handbook.

Howard: Yes. Exactly.

Howard feeling the love at the Canadian Improv Games.

Co-creators Willie Wyllie (sitting) and Howard Jerome with Al Connors, National Director of the Canadian Improv Games.

Michael Golding is a writer, director and improv teacher.  He can be contacted for workshops, festivals and private consultations at migaluch@yahoo.com. Michael participated in the evolution of the Improv Olympics & Canadian Improv Games. Artistic director of the Comic Strip Improv Group in N.Y. & created the Insight Theatre Company for Planned Parenthood, Ottawa.  He is a faculty member at El Camino College in Los Angeles, working with at-risk teens and traditional students. He wrote and co-produced the documentary "David Shepherd: A Lifetime of Improvisational Theatre" (available for free on YouTube).  His book, Listen Harder, a collection of essays, curriculum and memorabilia on improvisation and educational theatre, is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and CreateSpace. Michael holds a BFA degree in Drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts & an MA degree in Educational Theatre from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education & Human Development.