Flash Family

“What a lovely way to spend an afternoon! (What are you guys doing next Sunday?) I can’t tell you how surprised I was to hear about this award. Shocked. (It was like finding out that someone you were in love with years ago also had the “hots” for you and you never knew it.)

I had no idea we were considered “influential”. We were just in our little corner of Ft. Mason doing our thing. We didn’t really fit with any particular scene. We were not comedians. We didn’t want to be comedians. We weren’t looking to be on “Saturday Night Live”. Comedians didn’t understand us because we weren’t just looking for rapid-fire punch lines. At the same time, some people thought we were slick and commercial because we were very funny.

Because of the training we all brought with us from Viola Spolin, Paul Sills and Del Close, (the founding fathers), when we emerged from “Improvisation, Inc.” we believed that on-the-spot improvisation could be used to create an entertaining evening of theater. “Theater” meant that we could entertain on many levels. We knew that spending two hours onstage just trying to be superficially “glib”, “clever” or “witty” would get old pretty fast.

(I have to credit “Improvisation, Inc.’s” Cindy Kamler & Hal Taylor with being “keepers of the flame” and the bridge between us and “The Committee” workshops; helping us develop our format and introducing us to Del Close’s revolutionary long-form “The Harold”.)

Two things that all of these teachers impressed on us were: “Don’t make jokes and don’t repeat anything”. Let me say that again. “Don’t make jokes and don’t repeat anything”.

Because we thought of ourselves as primarily doing theater, we were sometimes criticized for occasionally doing realistic or “serious” scenes as part of our exploration of a theme, if it lent itself to that. Some improvisers thought that if we were doing “serious” scenes, it meant that we just weren’t “doing it right.”

First of all, all scenes are “serious” to the people in them. It’s the audience that finds the humor. I think “serious” is a misnomer. “Serious” scenes can contain a lot of humor. (People use humor to cover up a lot of pain and discomfort.) Believe me, we did a lot of very silly scenes, but even “silly” scenes can benefit from having some reality, believability, or heart. I don’t think the gap is that wide between “funny” and “serious”. I think each can have elements of the other.

I was lucky enough to see pretty much the first 10 years of Second City casts, including people like Alan Arkin. I remember seeing him onstage and thinking he was hilarious, but I could not point to anything specific he did that was funny. He just listened funny. He was very intense, present, and real.

As I got more performing experience, I realized that sometimes the audience would laugh and I would have no idea what they were laughing at. That just reinforced my training that the easiest, most natural way to elicit laughter onstage was to just be honest. (That contrasts with some of the improv I’ve seen, where there may be little honest emotion or even recognizable human behavior for the audience to identify with.)

While I know that improv for a long time was thought of as primarily a “boys’ club” (and it’s certainly is much better than it used to be), I was fortunate to have most of my opportunities in improvisation come from women; certainly Viola Spolin, who started it all. In Nov. 1961, when I walked through the doors of Second City, she put her arm around me and took me on a “Magical Mystery Tour” that continues to this day.

Almost ten years after that life-changing experience, I met Sue Walden during the waning days of Improvisation, Inc. She and Jim Lilie came up to me and asked me if I wanted to “keep doing this”. Little did I know she was talking about the next 20 years of my life!

In addition to being a player (and I mean that in the best possible sense), she was crazy enough to turn it into a business. It wasn’t easy. Creative people can be difficult to deal with. (I don’t know if you know that.)

Because of Sue, we always had a roof over our heads, a place to play, with a loyal audience whenever we played, and only played as much as we wanted to. Some of us began our teaching careers working with Sue.

I would like to thank the San Francisco Improv Festival, Flash Family, all the people I’ve gotten to work with or performed for, and of course, Sue Walden for creating something that we could look back on with pride 34 years later.

Thank you.”