Improv Comedy Techniques: Listening Game

Video Transcript

"LES MCGEHEE: So I'm going to make Joe talk to me about the San Antonio Spurs 'cause I like the Spurs basketball team. I think this is the first time that the San Antonio Spurs are going to repeat as champions. JOE PARSONS: Say, I haven't been to a game in so long, maybe we should go to a game together. LES MCGEHEE: Right now, I don't have the time to go to the game with you, but I do watch them all on my buddy Murray's [PH] HDTV. JOE PARSONS: Very nice. I wish I had an HDTV. Where do you think I could get one for cheap? LES MCGEHEE: Perhaps Fry's Electronics will have a sale after some major sporting even that you wish you had had the TV for in retrospect. JOE PARSONS: Too true, I always seem to think I wish I had seen a game that was on, but I never get the chance. LES MCGEHEE: And when Joe looks at you that means he's ready to get out of the thing, and that's not hard for me to see either because I'm paying attention to Joe. A lot of people are uncomfortable with that listening exercise, waiting all the way 'till the end, and I had a businessperson ask me a great question about that, and we'll close this segment with that. This businessperson asked me, they said, that listening to somebody all the way to end of what their saying is all well and good, but what if they just keep telling you stupid crap? Well, I thought that was a pretty good question. This lady had 20,000 governmental employees working for her or something. And I said, well, I think they might be telling you stupid crap because you're not listening. So let's go back and try this exercise, and come back. And I gave her an assignment. I said when you come back after that person reports to you, I want you to have listened to it so well that you can tell us everything that person said. And she came back and she did that, and I said, what was that like? She said, well, it was odd, the lady reporting to me got sweat on her upper lip and acted like I was staring at her, and then reported back to me a couple of hours later with a follow-up on the conversation. And I said, you de-crapped that person by listening to them. So people that aren't listening well and lack for information, they don't realize that they're part of that problem. On the improv stage, you get it all from listening. All the information's trying to present itself to you already. We say the scene's trying to go the way it's supposed to go, if you listen and let it. Anyway, Joe is really good in the next segment, so we hope you're going to watch it too. We'll be right back on Expert Village."