A Quote by Marc Evan Jackson
River City Improv set the stage for my career.
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Well, actually, the Second City thing came about because I was taking a few improv classes there. I thought that the improv classes would help with my wrestling career, which it has.
Second City Las Vegas is very different from Second City in Chicago on the main stage, where they do improv sets. That's how they kind of hone material, kind of work up to new material.
I was the cocktail waitress, and Sandra Bullock was the host, and this guy came in and persuaded me to try improv with Gotham City Improv.
I think the improv also helps with the imagination of dealing this person across from me who's not physically there. When you do an improv scene, you're usually working on a blank stage and creating the props and creating the environment.
Because I started my career in improv, performing with Second City and the Ace Trucking Company, I always enjoy being in situations where - as an actor - you have to think fast & be light on your feet.
I took an improv class in 2005 in Chicago at ComedySportz, which was short-form, more of a games-based improv. I remember it being real fun and helping with my stand-up. If I did an improv class, and then I did stand-up later, I felt looser on stage and more comfortable.
I was never that good on stage with live improv. I was much better on film or writing something and then thinking about it. I was too in my head when I was on stage.
It's great when improv is encouraged. It's a really fun thing. It depends on who's in the movie and how their process works, as well. It takes a director who is open to that because you have a script, but then something funny could happen on set. So, to have people around you who encourage improv is really exciting.
Speaking of River City in The Music Man & his home town, Mason City, Iowa: I didn't have to make up anything. I simply remembered Mason City as closely as I could.
National parks, zoos, protected areas, polluted seas - using the whole world as a readymade, I thought about it as a stage set. To activate a stage set you need a drama, an actor to offset it.
I had a teacher who recommended I take improv classes in Chicago - I'm from Evanston, Illinois - so I did improv classes at Improv Olympic, and that kind of opened me up.
There's different kinds of improv. There's Second City improv where you try to slowly build a nice sketch. There's stuff you do in college coffee houses where you just go joke, joke, joke. Bring another funny character with a funny hat on his head. Christopher Guest is more the line of trying to get a story out.
One of the things I do tell young women, if they want to pursue a career in acting, is to get good stage training. It is essential to have a good basis in stage technique. You can move into film easily, and acquire more skill and more understanding, but you can't necessarily go the other way around. For women, longevity of career will very much be on stage.
Delhi is a very maligned city, and deservedly so. Yet there's something about it. It's a secret city, it doesn't hang out its wares. It's like a very deep river. Floating right up on top are the institutions of contemporary power: government, politics, media, and then there's the bureaucracy, the diplomatic missions. But it's also the city of intellectual debate, of protest, it's the city where people from all over the country converge to express their anger. And then, underneath all that, there's this crumbling, ancient city, a confluence of so much history.
It scared me to death to think about improv, but I got hired for a year at Second City in Chicago, which made me nervous, but I found I could improvise. Then I was in a group called the Ace Trucking Company, which we'd do, like, a half hour set of material, then open up for improvisation.
We live in a time where improv is king and people love improv, and I think there's a time and a place for that and people who are really good at structuring improv.
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