Getting an audience for your show, obviously, is The Big Thing. I’ve personally been hunting audiences for ten years now, and it still makes me crazy. It’s harder than calculating orbital mechanics, takes more time than the collapse of stars, and feels more like witchcraft than astronomy.
So how do we do it? Promoting a show is some combination of yelling about God’s vengeance on the street and sending thank you letters after an interview. A stage show is a product, and no one buys a product they don’t know about, or perceive as valuable. And if it isn’t a good product, they won’t buy it more than once. We’re going to talk about marketing. It’s not why most of us started doing this, but here we go. This will be posted in three parts.
Part 1 — All the freshest ingredients
Your show is a product, and just like every Freemium cash grab in the Android Play Store, it will be thumbs upped or thumbs downed, and hopefully shared. If you want that audience to treat you like social media gold, be worth it. There’s no better tool for building an audience than doing good improv and running a good show. You could be the Don Draper of promoting improv shows or beam your message onto every television set in America, but if the show doesn’t stand up to the hype, no one will talk about it.
Because I’m a hopeless pedant, I’ll distinguish between “doing good improv” and “running a good show.”
Doing good improv is subjective. I think I know a lot about it (I think I know a lot about a lot of things). Endgames Improv tries to teach improv performance for audiences. None of us have a monopoly on good kinds of improv. Decide what’s right for you. You have to have a vision, and you have to work toward it. Knowing what you want is more important than any one stylistic choice. To get better, get a coach you respect, and build a team that agrees on a style. Keep working toward that. It is never too late to kick off your very own Rocky-style training montage.
One thing that is always true is that good improv respects audiences. As has been said, “Treat your audience like poets and geniuses and they’ll have the chance to become them.” Good improv, just like good films and television, doesn’t condescend. People don’t need to be force fed jokes in a Clockwork Orange procedure. They’re willing to go along with you, see something honest and human, and let the laughs come. Some truth goes a long way toward building trust with an audience, and in the end laughter comes when we can relax and trust.
Running a good show is everything that happens around the improv. The lighting, the pre-show, the intro music, the hosting, the way you talk to the audience and get the suggestion. It’s how you pull the lights and the way you close it down at the end. A good show feels like people put effort into it. It has a package and presentation that make it consistent. If your improv show is whale watching, the whales are the improv. Running the show is the boat, the announcer, and the seats. If your improv show is Sea World, that is unethical and you should shut it down.
When you select hosts for your show, make sure they put energy and enthusiasm into it. A disorganized or lazy host can really kill that first impression. This show will to take us someplace weird, and hosting is the liminal space between. We need a guide to hold our hands a little. A real Disney Jungle Cruise boat pilot type. Be energetic, be confident, and help us understand the show without condescending. Hosting isn’t improv, so have a plan. Know what you need to say and who you need to thank.
The technical aspects can make a good show stand out as well. A timely light cue can help create a barrier between the world of hosting and the world of the show. At Endgames, we train our techs to dim the lights between the suggestion and the first line of the scene. A subtle clue to the audience of a change. Most of us don’t improvise in a theater with a full proscenium and curtains, so this is our way of drawing the curtains back. Little things matter. A spotlight on a monologue, cleanly executed entry music, or a perfect blackout are things we don’t always notice, but feel as they tie the show together.
Your show is the thing you have the most control over. People will see it, and they will pass judgment. Audience response is like America’s Got Talent, but everyone gets to be a judge, not just celebrities with valuable opinions. Viewers will ultimately affect how your audience grows. Let’s give them something to talk about. In the next part, we’ll talk about how to spread the word. You’ll want to be sure when people get that word, they have something cool to see.
Next week I’ll be talking about ways to get your message out there.
