Long Form v. Short Form Improv

From MET ensemble member, Comedy Pig and Waiting to Be Called over member James McGarvey:

Often people ask me what the difference is between long form and short form improv. I always preface it by saying that both formats are unscripted and spontaneous scenes that utilize an audience suggestion. Usually I begin by explaining what short form is due to its popularity from the hit television show, Whose Line Is It Anyway. In the show, you see actors utilize audience suggestions to perform games such as Worlds Worst and Party Quirks. The object of many of these short form games is to use gimmicks or a device to plug in ʻjokesʼ. The games take on many different forms such as guessing games, audience participation games, rhyming, improvised musicals, and so on. The METʼs very own house troupe, Comedy Pigs, is a short form group that performs many of these games on a regular basis.

WTBCO members (and former Comedy Pig members) Wendy Donigian and Mikael Johnson rehearse.

Long form, however, is a little harder to explain to someone who has never seen it before. Basically itʼs a longer, story-based format where the focus is more on character development, relationships between characters, and, at times, a plot. Typical scenes can last from two to five minutes long. Many times the players will find connections that can be made from scene to scene and then heightened by layering new ideas or concepts. The first well known long form structure became known as a Harold invented by Del Close of Chicagoʼs Second City and Improv Olympic (iO).

 In the basic manual of improvisation, Truth In Comedy, the author points out that, “…the laughs in a Harold come from the connections made in the work, the audience has to see where the information originated.” The ʻworkʼ simply refers to the relationships that are made up on the spot by the players. Typical Harolds will begin with a group game or monologues by some of the players and then followed by three unrelated scenes.  These scenes, which are known as beats, donʼt have an ending. They are merely begun to establish relationships that can be revisited later in the Harold through a time dash or picked up from where they left off.

After the first set of scenes, a game will be played or set of monologues performed by the group. The Harold will continue with a second round of these three scenes that were established from the first beat followed by another game and, finally, finished with a third round of scenes that continue from the second beat. Each time, the scenes will be heightened with new information about the relationships of the characters that were originally established from the first beat. In all, the Harold will last for about 25 to 30 minutes.

 Waiting To Be Called Over will be performing a version of the Harold this weekend at the Maryland Ensemble Theatre called The Armando Diaz Experience in which a monologist tells personal stories that provides the inspiration for the resulting scenes. WTBCO will be joined by some of the areas top improvisers from Washington Improv Theater and Baltimore Improv Group. Everything will be made up completely on the spot and no two troupes will perform the same type of long form.

Waiting to Be Called Over (and friends!) this weekend, January 8 and 9 at 8pm. Get info on the troupes here.  Ticket info here.