Which Top Improv School is Right for You?
Whether you’re a novice or have some experience under your belt, if it’s improv you want to pursue, then you need to find the right place to learn. The following top improv schools in LA overlap in many ways, but each has its own distinct approach and curriculum. To determine which is one best suited to you, keep reading.
Michael Churven – Teacher / Main Company Performer
“The main thing that makes our approach distinct is our focus on character work. It’s often referred to as ‘the comedy of the who.’ We believe that a great character can be doing something very simple, such as searching for a pen, and if the character is strong enough, an audience will just watch the character go through that emotional journey. And that’s the scene right there. As opposed to the ‘comedy of the what,’ where you end up leading or looking for something that’s strange and funny about a situation. At the Groundlings, we focus less on the premise of the scene and more on the identity of the characters, which includes what they’re going through from an emotional and relational point of view.
Our improv curriculum has two tracks. The first is the workshop series, which is for students who have no acting experience at all, so there’s no audition required. The other track is the core track, which has three levels of improv: basic, intermediate and advanced. It requires an audition to get into because we rely on people having some acting foundation before they come into the core track. So based on that audition process, you can get into the basic class, and then you build from there. The passing process depends on if your instructor feels like you’re ready for the next level. If not, you’ll simply be asked to repeat that class.
After the core track, you can be invited into the performance track, where we focus on writing. There are two levels: writing lab and advanced writing lab. Once you’ve passed both, you can be invited to join our performance company, the Sunday Company. There, you’ll write and perform a new sketch show every week for at least a six-month season. After graduating from the Sunday Company as an alumnus, the Groundlings might decide to bring you into the Main Company as a performer.”
Nancy Hayden – Associate Artistic Director
“Something that may differentiate Second City is how we write sketches through improv. Veteran instructors will work with students as they improvise to find little nuggets that they love. Students will re-improvise those ideas, losing what doesn’t work and adding to beats that do. They end up with a collection of written sketches that were born of improv and have become a finished, polished show. Sketch isn’t for everybody, though. Some people want to learn to improvise but don’t necessarily want to turn it into a sketch.
That’s why our curriculum splits our basic improv sketch track into a beginning level program and an advanced conservatory program. The beginning level program consists only of improv, which includes three levels: Improv 1, Improv 2 and Improv 3. For anybody that just wants to try improv and see what it’s like, they can come and take these classes. There are no prerequisites or audition requirements. If they choose to move on after completing them, though, then the passing begins.
An audition is required to continue on to our advanced conservatory, which consists of five levels. This is when the program becomes more time-consuming and students start using improv as a tool to create sketch. And then the final level, Grad Review, requires an audition as well. It’s the closest thing we have at our LA training center that mirrors what the Chicago main stage cast does, of writing a show and performing it. So it’s pretty competitive because we only put together casts of eight people, and they have to complement each other. It’s pretty common for students to not get through their first time. But once they make it into Grad Review, it’s really rewarding.”
Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB)
Johnny Meeks – Academic Director
“I think what makes us different from other comedy training programs is our emphasis on a unifying idea of comedy, which we call the ‘game of the scene.’ It starts with two people ‘yes and-ing,’ which sets the base reality of the scene. Then the job is to find the first unusual, funny thing about the scene that breaks an expectation. It becomes a focused comedic idea that you can improvise around. But the idea of the game of the scene can be challenging for people, especially if they’ve studied improv elsewhere. Once they build up that muscle, though, improv becomes so much easier. So most of our training is about getting people’s brains to function in that way.
As far as our curriculum, at UCB we have four major disciplines: long form improv, sketch writing, character work and musical improv. But long form improv has the longest and most involved track. It has four core levels, starting at Improv 101 and leading up to Improv 401. By Improv 401, students are performing long form, which they start by learning the ‘Harold,’ a completely improvised half-hour form.
Anyone who completes Improv 401 in our core program can move on to the next tier, Advanced Study. People at this level may be actors, writers or just people interested in getting further into improv. But to make it to the next and final level, UCB Academy, students have to audition. UCB Academy is a two-year process of more intense study in improv scene work and forms. Students in this tier get the prime slots for their performances on our main stage.”
With the above background info in hand, you can start comparing these programs and considering whether the Groundlings, the Second City or UCB is right for you. Keep in mind the audition process each school incorporates into its curriculum. Reflect on how you feel about sketch comedy as well as the game of the scene technique. Choosing the right school is an important decision, not a choice to be made in the moment. But after that, it’s all improv.
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