Warming-up with purpose
Take these 8 routes to harmonious pre-show nirvana.
How your team warms-up has a huge impact on how you perform a show. The time you spend together pre-show is an opportunity to connect and get on the same page, to shake off whatever else has been going on that day, and get in a mindset to put on a show for a paying audience.
Purposeful warm-ups make for purposeful shows. Here’s some things to try to embed some good warm-up practice for your team:
Decide a time for warm-ups
Decide as a team a 10-15 minute window to do warm-ups undisturbed. Keep this time sacrosanct. If your team likes to use the bathroom before a show, allow enough time between the warm-ups and the start to do that. You’re adults, you can hold it for 15 minutes.
If you’re performing with another team on the bill, but your teammates haven’t arrived yet, respect that other team might want this time to themselves. Only join them if expressly invited. If invited, consider saying no and waiting for your teammates.
Be on time
This should just be basic manners. Turn up at the time your team has agreed for warm-ups. Can’t make warm-ups? Don’t play the show. Your commitment is to the full time from warm-up to the end of the show. A team that was missing players in a warm-up risks playing very disjointedly. Obviously, unexpected things come up and journeys get delayed. Plan for this as best you can. Showing up on time shows you respect your teammates’ time and have their back.
Have your coach lead warm-ups
You’re paying a coach to run rehearsals, to be an outside eye and to help improve your show in the long-term. If they attend your shows to give notes, ask them to warm you up pre-show too. They can take the pressure over choosing what to do and will know objectively what helps your team do your best improv (sidebar, turn up on time for your coaching sessions! Value the time someone else is giving up to help you develop your show. It’s not a great start if the first 20 minutes are spent waiting for people to turn up and re-introducing the session each time someone arrives).
No coach? Make one of your team ‘warm-up captain’ for each show
Assuming you’ve collectively agreed a goal that you’re aiming for in your shows, this should be an easy job. Assign one team member each show to choose warm-ups to help meet that goal. Decide who before you all arrive for a show, give them no other preparation jobs. Most importantly, listen to them and do the warm-ups faithfully. The time to say ‘can we do this exercise instead?’ was before you arrived.
Choose warm-ups that relate to your show goals
If you’re the sort of team that wants to play very connected, emotionally-driven improv, make time to get connected and express emotions pre-show. Choose exercises that come with tons of eye-contact, have you mirroring each other, melding minds, Meisnering (eg ‘you look happy’/’I am happy! I’m happy because I won the lottery’).
If you play fast-paced game-driven improv with lots of tag moves, warm-up with exercises that encourage that. Categories help establish a shared understanding of what’s grounded and what’s shiny for the team that day. Practice grounded scenes with tags. Play an actual real-life game.
If you like playing lots of group scenes, warm-up with group exercises. Make an object together, soundscapes, follow the follower, chuck a ball around, etc.
If you’re performing a complex format, practice the format. Do warm-ups that get your brain doing the sort of thinking you’ll be using in the show.
In all cases, choose exercises that get you connected and used to agreeing with each other. Positive vibes only pre-show.
Choose excitement over nerves
If you tell a teammate you’re nervous, you’re telling them that you’re worried about yourself. That you’re afraid of hurting your ego. That means you’re not going to be looking after them on stage, that you’re not focused on making others look good. They now need to worry about you.
Worry is infectious. So is excitement. They feel pretty much the same. Choose excitement. Always tell your teammates you’re excited. It’s way better to play from.
Get each other’s backs…and mean it
We’re taught to say ‘Got Your Back’ to each other pre-show. No-one is quite sure why. Maybe Del Close did it. Rarely is it done with meaning. Make proper eye-contact with each other, and really mean what you’re saying. Come-up with your team’s own phrase for ‘Got Your Back’. Something to connect with pre-show and let your teammates know that you’re going to look after each other.
Finish on something fun
Regardless of the show, make the last thing you do together before going on stage something really stupid and fun. Carry that energy on with you.
What does your team do pre-show to put you in the right place to do a really good one? What kind of warm-up is useful to you as an individual improviser? Let me know in the comments below!
Very useful advice. Thanks Shaun. Personal favourite for a high-energy, silly and fun end to a warmup is the Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia clapping game. Leaves you on a high!