Monster Improv specializes in longform improv but what is longform improv?
Quick detour: shortform improv is the type of improv that most people are familiar with. In performances, it’s usually presented as a series of improv games with lots of audience interaction and their suggestions incorporated frequently throughout a show. You might have seen examples of shortform on TV in shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway? and MTV’s Wild ‘n Out or even locally at NCT Phoenix, ImprovMania @ Mic Drop Mania, and in the Bridge Improv Theater’s Mainstage shows. Shortform improv started as the theater games that Viola Spolin — the Mother of Improv — used to foster socialization among immigrant children in the late 1930s/early 1940s. Spolin’s son, Paul Sills, would go on to use those theater games to found The Compass Players and Second City in Chicago and shortform would become the platform on which longform was built.
Longform is an improvised comedic theatre show that takes a single, audience-given suggestion* to inspire a team of performers* to playfully create unique characters and fun, enthralling scenarios over 15 to 60 minutes*.
*Exceptions to the sentence above:
- Some shows take multiple suggestions from the audience members. Other shows take no suggestion at all.
- The number of performers on stage can range from solo improvisors and duos to mega-casts of 20+.
- There are longform improv shows that are shorter than 15 minutes and longer than 60 minutes. The “long” in longform is less about the amount of time in performance and more about the intent of improvisors to look further than quick, low-hanging jokes and easy laughs. The performers trust that treating each other and audience members as poets and geniuses allows for the kind of breathing room that yields unexpected discoveries that could never have been planned and payoffs that are funny, interesting, and memorable.