Billy Merritt’s Improv Party

Billy Merritt‘s Improv Party is great.

Sadly it hasn’t been updated in a couple of years, but I’ve learned as much from this blog as I have from most improv books.

Here’s one of my favorite posts:

The Pirate, The Robot, and the Ninja

Attack your scene like a Pirate:

Sail along side of the scene then at the right time swing aboard. Land on the deck of the scene giving a harty YARRRrrrrr. Pull out your sword and initiate. Hack away at denial with vicious postivity. Bath yourself in the blood of good scenework. Look a “transaction” scene in the eye and watch it quake in it’s boots, then run it through. Rape an “argument” scene, and pilage a “teaching” scene. Then when it is all done collect your booty. Look for your next victim.

Analyze your scene like a Robot:

You are Robot. You are machine. You maintain system integrity. You look for the unusual in the situation given you. You lock onto what is different in the situation. You process. You apply the IF-THAT-THEN-WHAT-ELSE program. You build. You create. You move on to the next situation. You go from situation to situation adding and deleting what is needed to make the system run smoothly. When complete you collect Booty.

You edit like a Ninja:

You are one with the wall. No one can see you. You are silent. You are death. You watch from your perch waiting for your victim.Your victim is the scene. In order for you to kill the scene you must understand the scene. Become one with the scene. When the scene leasts expects it, you ride in on the winds of change. Silently cutting the throats of all in the scene. Before the scene knows what happened, they all fall away. Without the death of that scene a new scene can never grow, you must do what you do so that all may benefit. You must keep the balance. Without you there would be chaos. You wait silently for your next victim. You collect your booty.

We do this all for the Booty.

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