Coaching vs. Self-Exploration
Q: Is it always best to explore new formats only after officially being coached as a team or is it silly to worry that we may fuck up when we explore new formats on our own?
It depends. On two things: (1) friendship and (2) experience.
In general, I recommend you get a coach and a few practice sessions with a new format, before developing it yourself. The less (1) or (2) you have in stock, the more you need a coach.
A startup improv team is basically a little startup company. Yes, that kind of Silicon Valley, tech-, drop our day jobs and tinker in a garage-, kind of company. In a tech company, the startup stage is critical to burn rate.
The “burn rate,” indicates how much money a company is losing over a given period of time. For example, your SaaS startup could be losing, i.e. “burning,” $40,000 every month, or $480,000 per year. The origins of the term “burn rate” are unclear, but the most likely contender is rocket science. Money is fuel for companies: It propels your startup forward on its path toward growth and profitability. If you use your fuel inefficiently or burn it too fast, you might not reach your goal or destination.
Source: https://quaderno.io/blog/saas-burn-rate/
For improv troupes, the burn rate is not money. The economy is friendship.
When you are exploring new format, your biggest concern is NOT about fucking up the format, but about losing the joy. Format does not matter as much as joy. Fun takes priority any time. Fun feeds into more friendship which sustains a troupe together. But, when you are goal-oriented to get a format done “correctly”, frustration will mount and has a burn rate into the friendship. Little artistic or commitment differences easily heighten.
This may sound dramatic, only to realize that, many troupes already get into petty skirmishes over what opening to use, let alone entire formats. I have seen many teams disintegrate because of the insistence of getting a format correct.
This is especially true when you run the format-discovery by committee. Usually it is one person (the de-facto “captain”, but may not be elected as such!) who made the extra investment into the format. But if they is not experienced in the format, all their references are the books, not the inner process — and the struggles — to play it. Your first time, you have no idea what you are supposed to feel. (Like the first time you smoke a joint. You have no idea what being high feels like. But that’s another story).
This is where experience comes in. At some point you have to make adaptations of the format to the personalities of your group, instead of playing the book version. When you have experience playing Armando and a Harold in a previous team (not just taking them in a 401 class, but actually playing it and failing in front of crowds), you take that experience with you, and realize which one is necessary hallmark of the format and which one is malleable.
Most successful startup companies begin with founders who had learnt the ropes from an earlier company. They have a clear vision what to do and what not do, so they don’t linger as much burning money. Same thing, you don’t want too much time figuring out the format and burning your friendship fuel too quickly.
There are successful startup companies which start as noobies, sure. And I happen to be part of a startup troupe who learnt the ropes ourselves. And it has its own benefits of creating our own identity together. But this process will take time*. So in this case, make sure you have a lot of friendship fuel in the tank before you go on your journey.
*RELATED: Everything happens at the right time.
Dedicated to Sai Kamisetti.