The Improv Boom Has Gone Bust

Audiences who once filled black-box theaters for $5 improv shows have largely moved on, and Dennis Hogan investigates how the once-omnipresent entertainment choice has fizzled. Hogan traces how long-form improv, once pitched as a quasi-spiritual art of "group mind," became a millennial obsession, a corporate-training staple, and finally a wobbly business model propped up by pricey classes and underpaid performers. For a while, it seemed to be everywhere in pop culture, but Hogan can't remember the last time he heard somebody talk about taking a class. He doesn't declare improv dead—he says the boom is—but he doubts it was ever as teachable or democratic as the marketing claimed. "For a while, improv training was sold as something everyone could benefit from," writes Hogan, who adds that he still sees some truth to that.

"But what improv at its best offers isn't optimizable, despite the commercial success of its applied forms," he adds. "It's got a lot more to do with the artistic experimentation, group consciousness formation, and even childlike play that improv's pioneers envisioned." One fundamental problem with extending the form to the masses: It's difficult to do well, as anyone who's sat through mediocre shtick can attest. "You can teach someone to follow the rules and make the right moves, but at the end of the day, there's a level of innate ability that distinguishes the truly great." For the record, Hogan likes improv and once indulged himself, and the piece offers a primer on the principles of "yes, and ..." a format called "the Harold," and the Mad Libs-style of improv that puts random things together for a scene. Read it in full here.