In the Moment with Jimmy Carrane

Jimmy Carrane is the co-author of Improvising Better: A Guide to the Working Improviser. He was the host of Studio 312 on Chicago Public Radio where he interviewed Conan O'Brien, Jane Lynch, Jeff Garlin, Harold Ramis, Adam McKay, Jon Favreu, Robert Klein, Tommy Chong, George Wendt and Cindy Crawford. He has taught at The Second City, iO-Chicago, The Annoyance and Victory Gardens. He currently teaches the Art of Slow Comedy at Stage 773 in Chicago. For more information about classes you can to his web site at jimmycarrane.com

He was an original member of The Annoyance Theater, Armando at The iO-Chicago and was a member of Carl and The Passions. He currently performs with Burning Desires. He has performed in some of Chicago’s most innovative and ground-breaking long-form improv shows, such as “Jazz Freddy” and “Naked” (a two-person one-hour improvised scene with MAD TV’s Stephanie Weir.)

Other theater/improv credits include: “I’m 27, I Still Live at Home and Sell Office Supplies,” “Godshow,” “Every Old Man,” “Living in Dwarf’s House” and “Summer Rental” at The Second City etc.

Jimmy was recently seen in the films “LOL” and “Public Enemies” with Johnny Depp. His other film and TV credits include “ER,” “Natural Born Killers,” “Early Edition,” “The Untouchables,” “Stash” and “Tapioca.”

How were you first introduced to improvisation?

It was in my senior year of high school, and I had gone to Second City with some friends and I was blown away. After I graduated, I had no direction and no interest in college, and I needed something to tell my friends I was doing besides delivering office supplies, so I started taking improv classes at The Players Workshop of the Second City. After the first couple of classes, I realized that all the time I had wasted on being funny in school had paid off. I was hooked. I was hooked bad ― so bad that if improv was crack, I would have been dead by age 23.

What should improvisers expect from your Art of Slow Comedy Class?

You can expect to learn how to slow down and shut up. Improvisers talk themselves out of scenes all the time with their frantic energy, and worse, with their mouths. They will learn to connect to their partner with the silence at the top of the scene, and when they start doing that, the relationship, the environment and the game of the scene will fall right into to their lap. The Art of Slow Comedy teaches people that it’s not important to try to be funny. Instead, you’ll learn how to trust that the funny will come to them, and by doing this, they’ll be even funnier. Some get it more quickly than others, and I have been known to beat the funny out of people, of course, in a loving way.

You have mentioned “playing things real” in previous interviews. What does that mean to you?

Comedy is so much more effective when the players are emotionally invested in the situation.

Look at films like “Bridesmaids” and “The Hangover.” You believe everything that comes out their mouths, regardless of how ridiculous the situation is. “Playing things real” means being effected emotionally by your partner. It means responding to your partner like you would in life or in the character’s life. I think they call this acting, and good improv is good acting.

I want the improvisers to take me on a trip with them, and this can only happen if they believe what they are doing up there and when they do it, they can take the audience anywhere. Too much of improv is about being witty. People forget they are actors and they think good scene work is stringing together enough bits until they get edited. I like a good bit every now and then, as long as it is grounded in the relationship and they players are listening and reacting to each other. It’s up to you to make it great theater or to be an awful parlor game.

What was the evolution and the history of the group Jazz Freddy?

Peter Gardner had put it together and directed the first show. He asked me to join, and I had been on a Harold team with him at the Improv Olympic in the late ’80s. He assembled some of the best improvisers in Chicago at that time, and then Dave Koechner and Kevin Dorff, who had been in New York with the Annoyance Theater’s “Real Life Brady Bunch,” came back to Chicago and joined Jazz Freddy. What made the show great was the commitment we all had to the process. We rehearsed three nights a week. We treated it like we were cast in a play. We did not miss rehearsal to do other things. That would never happen today. We made Jazz Freddy our number one priority. The second run I remember we did not let Rachel Dratch and Pat Finn do the show because they could not make the rehearsal schedule since they were touring with Second City. That is how serious we were. I am proud of that show, and I find it cool that after almost 20 years people still want to talk about it. It influenced the next generation of long-form improvisation. Thanks for asking.

What was the best note you were ever given?

Good Question. (Stalling to come up with an answer). Last night Eileen Vorbach said in rehearsal, “You are enough.” I have been saying it for years to my students, and it actually felt good being on the other side of it. I could not hear that note enough. “We all are enough,” if we just can get out of own way, and when I do that, I will let you know.

In addition to reading your book, what are some things improvisers can do to become better performers?

Continue to learn; it’s all in the learning. If you always wanted to do stand up, do it. If you want to study acting or dance, do it. If you think you have learned everything there is about improv because you have been performing for years and you want to go and take another class, do it. The best people are constantly learning. I still take classes, for my teaching, for my performing, and for myself. When I stop learning I die. The fun and excitement is replaced by jealousy and bitterness, which never helps in any area of my life. The other thing is don’t make improv your whole life. Take breaks now and then. I know it’s hard not to make it an obsession because it is so much fun, but you need to take care of yourself because if you don’t, it will affect your work and it will show on stage.