It’s Wednesday again, and I’m at practice, knee-deep in a Story scene. For the past few days, ever since my parents’ heartwarming display of support, I’ve thought a lot about how to be the best possible improviser I can be. The answer has to be in that improv book, so I’ve been practically glued to it, most recently rereading all the parts that talk about Story.
Every Story event has to have a narrator who guides the story. For our team, that’s me, and the book’s been reminding me of ways to give my teammates solid offers and ideas they can use to develop the story. Today I’m getting my chance to try them all out.
The whole idea of improv is that there’s no script. Every scene is brand new because you have to think up stuff as you go. For most events, teams ask for a suggestion from the audience. Our Story event is always about an unlikely hero—usually played by Asha—who saves the day. That much we’ve planned, but we ask the audience to suggest an unlikely hero, and their suggestions make our Story scene different each time.
We know that sometimes an audience member will suggest a hero who suits another team member better than it suits Asha. Mr. J. has given us “Super Geek.” Ziggy is clearly the best team member to play that, and Asha’s not here today anyway.
“Thirty seconds,” calls Mr. J.
For three and a half minutes, Ziggy has been tearing around the stage, with Faith as his trusty sidekick, using his geeky know-how to save various characters from their crashed computers and slow Internet connections. Super Geek also has to save them from our accidental villain, Ignorant Man, played by Vern. For each problem, Nigel’s turned himself into whatever the scene needs—first a mainframe computer, then a software virus and now a satellite dish.
“From two rooftops away,” I say in a serious scientist sort of voice, “Super Geek watches helplessly as Ignorant Man turns the carefully tuned satellite dish away from the building upon which its focused beam has been directed. Meanwhile, inside the building—”
“Oh no!” Faith cries, jumping in. “Without a signal, the family that lives there won’t be able to watch the Jeopardy! finals!”
Ugh. Those stakes hardly pass the “so what?” test.
“Wait!” cries Ziggy. “Rip up that piece of sheet metal. I’ll use it to deflect the signal back where it belongs.”
Faith throws her hands up in despair. “You’ll never get the angle right in time,” she wails.
I step toward the imaginary audience. “Can Super Geek triumph and save the day yet again?” I say, all melodramatic. “Or is the innocent, law-abiding Thompson family doomed to spend the rest of their lives without Jeopardy!?”
“Never fear,” cries Ziggy. “I have”—with a flourish, he pretends to pull something from his pocket—“a protractor!”
It’s an obvious final moment.
“Aaaaaaannnnd scene!” we yell together.
Not a bad scene. Probably not good enough to get us to nationals though. I wish I could watch a recording of it to see, but Mr. Jeffries nixed the idea of filming anything other than competitions. Still, I know a few things we should fix.
Mr. J. seems pleased with it. “Very nice! Nice work, all of you! Chloe, I think you’ve been practicing your narration.”
“You were like this whole other science-fiction narrator person!” Faith says.
“It totally flowed,” says Nigel. “Logical and everything!”
I grin. “I have been doing some extra reading.”
“Attagirl!” Ziggy gives me a high five.
I turn to him. “And your ending was inspired! A protractor—nice!”
He grins.
He didn’t do a perfect job, but he definitely had moments of darn good. I hesitate, then decide to say what I’m thinking. “I’m really glad you went to the math-angles thing at the end,” I say. “I kept trying to steer you guys away from computers.”
They look at me.
Ziggy’s grin fades. “You did? Why?”
“To fit in some more variety. Being a geek doesn’t have to be all laptops and networks. He could be good at science and math. And he could really be into remote sensors and futuristic stuff. I tried to point you guys to some of those possibilities. But every time, we’d end up back at good ol’ monitors and cables.”
“Yeah,” says Ziggy, “but I was trying to make him a computer geek.” He looks at the others. “That’s valid, right?”
Since they’re all nodding, I decide I’d better drop it. I can’t be too hard on him. After all, he hasn’t had many chances to play the hero—that’s Asha’s job.
But she’s not here. Again. And Mark’s missing too.
“The only thing I want to mention,” says Mr. J., “is the stakes.”
“Right,” I say, nodding. “The improv book says the problem should be super important to make sure the audience cares.” I turn to Faith. “Watching Jeopardy!? Not exactly a matter of life and death.”
Faith looks from me to Mr. J.
“I was going to say,” I go on, “that the building was a hospital and the brain surgeon inside was operating with instructions he was getting by satellite, but you jumped in with Jeopardy!, so…”
Her cheeks pink up a little, and I feel a flutter of guilt. Should I maybe have talked to her about this privately?
“Well,” she says, “I didn’t—I mean, TV was the first thought that came to me.”
Mr. J. nods. “That’s what improv should be. And, hopefully, the more we practice, the stronger those first thoughts will get.”
At least he’s sort of agreed with me. And he’s brought up practice.
“Yeah, more practice would be great,” I say, grabbing the opening. “Zones are less than three weeks away, and it’ll be tough to compete when we’re only here on Wednesdays. And we’re not even all here. A few of last year’s teams said they train three or four times every week, sometimes more.”
“But Chloe,” says Mr. J., “we’re not those other teams. We’re this team. All of us are busy, and practicing on Wednesdays is what seems to work best for everybody’s schedules. Usually, anyway. We agreed it would have to do for now, and we’ll add more if we make it through zones to regionals.”
I love Mr. Jeffries, but just when I think he sees what this team needs, he stands right smack in the way of us getting it. No extra practices. Ugh. That means we’re going to have to make the couple we have left really count.
“So,” he says, “another Story event?”
The others agree, but I can’t. There’s too much at stake. “Isn’t that kind of a waste of our time without Asha here?” I ask. “Since she’s usually the hero?”
Mr. J. looks at me funny—what is with him lately?—and nods.
“All right, Life then. Everybody into the huddle while I think of an object in a teenager’s life.” That’s what we ask the audience to suggest for this event.
Like I said, in our team’s Life event, Vern and I are always the two main characters—friends, or maybe a parent and child, whatever—who need to resolve some sort of problem. The rest of the team still tosses in ideas for the scene, though, and we all get ready to do that now.
“Your object is…” says Mr. J., thinking, “…a broken vase.”
We drop into our huddle.
“You could be brother and sister,” Hanna suggests.
“Chloe knocks over a vase,” says Nigel, “that was their great-grandmother’s.”
“And Chloe’s worried,” Faith adds, “’cause she knows she’ll get in big trouble for it.”
“Right,” says Ziggy, “but she can’t afford to be grounded because she’s going on a date.”
I jump in. “My first date ever, let’s say. And with a cute guy I really like, which is why I decide to pin the blame on Vern.”
A Life event is supposed to present a serious situation in a realistic way, so my idea brings murmurs of approval from the team.
“And I don’t want to take the blame,” says Vern, “because I hate being grounded.”
Hmm. Stronger stakes would be better. “What if,” I say, “there’s also a big hockey tournament you don’t want miss?”
He hesitates, then shrugs. “I guess, if you want.”
Geez, why is everybody so touchy?
“Your idea’s part of it for sure,” I say, switching to gentle mode. “I’m only suggesting the tournament so it matters even more to your character. Okay?”
Vern looks at me for a second, then nods. “Sure, whatever. And I think I should be older than you.”
The others make more suggestions, and we launch into our scene.
“Chloe,” says Vern, “you’re the one who broke Mom’s vase. I saw you knock it over with my own eyes!”
“That’s strange,” I say innocently. “I’d swear I saw you send it flying with your humongous hockey bag.”
“You know that’s a lie,” he says. “And Mom and Dad’ll know it too. You’re the clumsy one, not me.”
“Yeah,” I reply, “but they caught you lying to them just the other day about those cigarettes in the laundry. They won’t trust you.”
Vern shakes his head. “I don’t believe this. My own sister. I thought you were supposed to have my back, not stab me in it!”
Some players find it tough to play the serious side of Life, but not Vern and me.
“Oh yeah,” I reply. “As if you ever have my back. Your friends make fun of me at school, and what do you do? Nothing!”
“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re a klutz. Only you could knock over a whole stack of cafeteria trays.”
We go on, working to strike a balance between entertaining and realistic—and trying to keep the emotion real without pushing it too far and getting all melodramatic. It takes skill, and Vern and I seem to be able to make it work every time. That’s why I think Life is probably my best chance to impress any improv scouts there may be at nationals.
The scene’s not bad. Vern only accepts about half of the offers I throw out for him. I try to blackmail him with some secret that I know, and we each work to strike the best bargain about who’ll take the blame and how we’ll tell our folks. At the end, we reach a compromise. There’s plenty in there that real kids deal with every day, which is exactly what a Life event is supposed to show.
After, when Mr. J. is giving us his feedback, Vern says, “I think it would’ve worked fine without the hockey tournament.” He looks at Mr. J. “Not wanting to get grounded is enough, right?”
Mr. J. turns to us. “What do the rest of you think?”
He does that a lot—makes us decide. Sometimes it drives me crazy.
“I got grounded once last year and I hated it,” says Vern.
I nod. “I agree—nobody likes being grounded,” I say. “But the improv book says you raise the stakes when you add a specific personal reason why your character wants or doesn’t want something to happen. ‘I don’t like it’ is not very specific.” I know I’m right on this one.
Silence, and the whole team is looking at me. It occurs to me that I may have gotten a wee bit carried away.
“Geez,” says Vern. “What’s up with you?
“I’m…just trying to make the scene stronger,” I mutter.
Nigel looks from Vern to me and reaches for his backpack. “I’ve gotta go. My sisters are home by themselves.”
Mr. J. stands up. “That’s probably enough practice for today anyway. Next Wednesday, people?”
I want to ask if everybody will actually be here next Wednesday, but before I can open my mouth, they’re already out the door.