Top improv academies are split over whether to maintain a focus on live theater or turn their curriculum’s focus to online.
From casting directors to screenwriters to development executives, the consensus is that actors have a path to success through the online world. But in order to deliver in web videos, experts say that actors need improv training.
The Groundlings and Upright Citizens Brigade have long been the biggest names in the New York and Los Angeles improv worlds. (The Second City, another prominent improv group, offers classes in Hollywood but its theaters are located in Chicago and Toronto.) The Groundlings has maintained focus on its Los Angeles theater, while UCB now considers the web its “fourth stage.”
Kevin Kirkpatrick, a member of The Groundlings’ main company and a top improv instructor, said their focus on theater improv best prepares students to work in a variety of comedic settings, including online. “We’re not just switching gears from the theater, taking people’s money and saying, ‘We’ll help you develop something that’s a hit online,’” Kirkpatrick told Back Stage. “We’re not in the business of breaking Hollywood down into a formula.”
The Groundlings school, he explained, teaches students to “do more than act.”
“I think comedy is about having your specific voice and cultivating that. I don’t think you have to play into any kind of specific formula,” he said.
Kirkpatrick said members of the company have developed online material independently, which then gets posted on The Groundlings website. “Puppet High,” for instance, features several members of the company in live action and puppet roles. But the web series is produced by Above Average Productions, an arm of Broadway Video, Lorne Michaels’ company.
Groundlings students are also encouraged to develop their own projects online, but collectively the company’s focus remains on its Melrose Avenue stage, Kirkpatrick said.
Meanwhile, UCB has been steadily growing its online presence, including producing web videos in house and posting them on its YouTube channel. “We consider our video channel like our fourth stage,” said Todd Bieber, UCB’s director of content and production. (UCB’s three stages are in New York and Los Angeles.)
UCB’s online videos require the same sort of skills as live improv, Bieber noted, because they’re filmed with two cameras in a cross shot. So even while an actor is waiting to speak, his or her face can be visible on screen, which requires them to stay in character. That’s easier for improv-trained performers because “they’re used to being on stage and having to be on for a half hour straight,” he said.
Still, improv actors performing online don’t have the audience to feed off of. “You’re trusting your instinct” about what’s funny, said Bieber. “The director on set serves as the audience.”
Members of the company are becoming aware that performing live and in online productions can reach the same number of people. And in some cases, online performances can sometimes lead to actors connecting with producers and executives. For instance, Allyn Rachel and Patrick Carlyle, two members of UCB’s Los Angeles company, recently got a development deal for their web series “Couple Time.”
Still, despite the attention being paid to online work, Bieber said that “the training program here hasn’t changed based on web videos.”
But that could change, he added. “Web series is such a new thing that maybe you’ll see classes pop up in a few years.”
