Passive & Active Choices In Improvisational Comedy

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village, this is Paul Zuckerman with the cast of Chicago City Limits here in New York City, and today we're going to show you some techniques for improvisational comedy. When we improvise, we're trying to show the audience just a slice of behavior. Why is this moment important? The way to heighten and escalate that moment is to use active choices to heighten the energy rather than passive choices that might shut things down. I'm going to show you an example of what happens with a passive choice and what would have happen if an active choice had been made. Man, I don't know what to tell you Linda. I feel awful about this. I feel bad too, I really do. Me too, it just feel horrible. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, well I guess I am too. They're all kind of sorry because nothing is really happening. The actors are agreeing but the choices are low energy. Let's see when they make active choices. Linda, I'm so sorry that I did this. You're sorry, again. How many times are we going to go through the same pattern? I wrote you a check. Oh, how nice. You can get yourself a new car. And you think this is going to make up for the dog that was in the car that died? I got you a new dog. Oh."