Auditioning With a Partner Who Isn’t Helping

We all know improv skills are supremely important, and improvisation in the casting room is a many-headed beast. You might be auditioning alone, reacting silently to something. You might be talking to the casting director or a reader. You might be talking to camera. Or you might be filmed in a master with a scene partner or two, which can be tremendous fun. You have someone to react to. What a gift. Unless, of course, it isn’t.

Every now and then you’ll be paired with someone who, for whatever reason, isn’t a great scene partner. Very nervous. Very new to improv. Not listening. Trying to be funny. It happens to the best of us. So what do you do when you’re in the room with a partner like that? Glad you asked.

What not to do

When I first wrote this I filmed it with my friend Sarah Harvey, our studio receptionist at the time, a Leighton Agency actress and a very talented improviser. We did a fake audition for a company called the Happy Fun Time Pizza Place, and I played a terrible scene partner: interrupting, not listening, and very intent on playing the whole thing “jokey,” the actor who’s trying to make themselves look good. In take one, Sarah didn’t handle it well. She reacted to my nonsense, argued with it, tried to steer. The scene went nowhere, and it was awkward for everyone, including the imaginary pizza company.

What to do: agreement, and vertical moves

In take two I was exactly as wretched, and Sarah found a way to give a decent audition anyway. How? Two principles: agreement, and what we call vertical scene moves, which means building on what was just said rather than adding an unrelated new piece of information. It takes some rehearsal to feel, so here’s a fast example.

A: “You stole my Skittles, Brenda.”
B: “Yes, I stole your Skittles. And you kidnapped my dog.”

Already a weird scene, but go with it. Rather than dealing with the initiation and furthering the who, what and where, B introduced a brand new problem. Now try this:

A: “You stole my Skittles, Brenda.”
B: “Yes, I stole your Skittles. You were late on rent, so I’m collecting late fees in the form of your personal groceries.”

Still weird, but this time B really heard the offer and helped justify it. We got new information about the what, by establishing rent. We learned about the relationship: roommates. And the initiation, the Skittle theft, got heightened instead of abandoned. That’s a vertical move, and it’s a far better way to build a scene. For a deeper read on all of this, the UCB Comedy Improvisation Manual is excellent.

Back to the pizza place

So in take two, while I interrupted and joked and generally tried to win the audition, Sarah simply agreed with everything I threw at her and moved it vertically. Every obnoxious offer became a fact about the pizza place, and by the end she’d gotten out three genuine selling points for the Happy Fun Time Pizza Parlor without once fighting me for the scene. If the casting director had been real, she’d have booked it, and I’d have gone home.

That’s the whole technique. You can’t fix your partner in the room. You can hear them, agree, and build, and the person behind the camera will see exactly who the professional was.

Leeann