9 ways to back yourself on the backline

You're not in the scene, but you are in the show. How improvisers can best support their teammates from the side of the stage.

Image credit: Kyle Head on Unsplash

The back wall of an improv venue is often really sticky, literally and figuratively.

It’s quite easy for performers who are not in a particular scene to relax, fold their arms and lean against the wall while their teammates crack on with the hard work. Or in a particularly heady format, a line of furrowed-brow improvisers are focused more on their next initiation than what’s happening on stage. Either way, a backline can often look unhelpfully disengaged.

Some shows have the opposite problem: instead, the back wall seems to be electrified, no-one can stay next to it for very long. Players offer walk-on after walk-on, without any scene having a chance to get going. Now, that’s fine if your team has agreed to play that way. But if it’s borne from nervousness among the players that they need to be out there doing anything, then you’re struggling.

There are a few helpful instincts that a good backline player has though.

First, some bad ones that should be self-evidently not a good idea, but still crop up more than they should in a professional setting:

1. Do you really need to take a drink on stage for a 25 minute set? Especially an alcoholic one. Unless it’s clear in your marketing and to your audience that they’re seeing a loose ‘bar-prov’ type show, they’d be understandably miffed that the performers they’ve paid to entertain them are half-cut. 

2. There’s also a sweet spot of laughing from the backline. A team that enjoys, and can still surprise each other, is so fun to watch. On the other hand, a team that is more pleased with itself than their audience is a cringe-fest. Basically, never out-laugh your audience.

3. The core principle of a good backline player basically boils down to: Keep concentrating. 

   A few years back, watching the excellent UCB House Team Grandma’s Ashes, I noticed something all the players were doing when they were tagged out of a scene. They all left backwards, their eyes never leaving the stage space they’d just departed. This meant they could (a) pay enough attention to the incoming tag to know if they were needed to help again and (b) look really invested in what their teammates were doing and where their show was heading. 

   Grandma’s Ashes are a team that edit fast and play really moment-to-moment with each other, and this was one little thing that made that possible. (Sidebar, Grandma’s Ashes are one of the best at creating a welcoming vibe for their show. Their show ‘We Won’t Tell’ invited salacious audience confessions as inspiration for scenes in a way that felt like you were with your best pals. Making your improv house a home is so important. Come back, Grandma’s Ashes!).

4. A good backline player has concentrated enough that they understand the scene, what makes it fun, and whether or not it needs help. Everyone wants their moment in a scene that’s going well, no-one wants to be in a scene that’s going badly. Try and flip that mentality around: charge in to help the bad scenes, and leave the good ones be. Your teammates did a great job creating the scene, they’re probably capable of seeing it through to the end.

5. Similarly, a good backline player knows that a good walk-on is usually a good walk-off. Get in there, serve the scene, and get out.

6. A good backline player takes responsibility for the pacing of their show, editing scenes not just in a good place for that specific scene, but for the balance of the show as a whole.

7. A good backline player takes away the chairs from the stage when the outgoing players have forgotten. More on the gift and curse of an improv chair here.

   A good backline player brings the chairs further to the front of an unexpectedly huge stage, to keep a level of intimacy with the audience and ensure that a tag or a sweep isn’t a 5k run away.

8. A good backline player recognises on arrival that when a stage is especially shallow or for some other reason, a sideline might be required.

9. A good backline player trusts their gut. They understand their role from the backline instinctively precisely because they’ve done it badly a thousand times. They’ve ruined a million scenes and saved a hundred others. They trust their instincts even if their instincts are bad 40% of the time. That 40% is smaller than it was 5 shows ago and smaller still than 5 shows before that. 

   Every show, ensemble and venue needs a different approach from the backline. Picking a strong one in a given moment (there are always many good options in an improv scene, rarely just one ‘right’ one) is product of reps and experience. Confidence in your own moves from the backline is fickle things that can slip through your fingers at the very time you feel you’ve figured it out. So, ultimately, don’t sweat every decision: a good backline player keeps concentrating, plays with a spirit of fun and trusts their teammates. 

Back yourself from the backline.