Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual

Wow! First of all, I think that most of these reviews cover it. Secondly, I'm only a novice; I just recently finished taking level one improv at the Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington, so far be it from me to "Critique" this book. Having said that, from my amature stand-point, this book has been tremendously helpful. It is clear, thorough, and concise, and has helped me to begin to find my bearings. The book clarifies the building-blocks of an improv-performance; especially helpful to me at this stage, was the break-down of building a "base-reality" and "finding a first unusual thing" in order to begin playing a "game". If you are reading this and thinking, "What the hell are you talking about?" After getting the book, it will be obvious, duh, no-shit, right!? Anyway, I could see immediately, that when I was playing my first mini-scene, that I had no idea of what I was doing. I was going for strange or obscure things to say, and digressing into laying the ground-work for confrontation, which was totally antithetical to to yes-anding. In other words, I was lost, and reaching, in order to build up something, "funny" out of my head, which was a complete, fizzling-failure. Like my amazing instructor said, you aren't trying to make things funny, you are working together to find what is funny. Buying the manual helped to remind me of what she was teaching us in class, and to be able to drill the principles into my head so that I can be aware of what I should be looking to say and do, so that I'm not wasting my time or my partners time in a scene.I plan on pursuing this as a career, as successfully as I can do so. I plan on writing comedy sketches , as well as performing improv. I can see that the manual is going to be invaluable at every level of learning and beyond. I will be referencing this often. If you are serious about improv, you will not be wasting money in buying this book, you will be investing in your success at being able to perform improv confidently, and being an asset to a team; instead of being timid and lost in your performance. Also as they say in the book, you will have to practice, practice, practice, and play with an ensemble, tirelessly in order to be good at this, let alone great. This truly is a team effort but with the right people around you, it is extremely fun, and rewarding! I'm already hooked, even though I'm still pleasantly nerve-wracked at times, it really gets into your blood. Anyway to sum up the UCB manual is indispensable to me and hopefully to you too. If you are on the fence about this book, then get off of it, because it is well worth it!

I studied at UCBTLA and can say that The UCB Comedy Improvisation Manual is an excellent representation of their philosophy and technique. It's very challenging to boil down longform improv in a clear and concise way, but Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts, and Matt Besser do just that.What separates this book from others is that it is actually a manual. Most improv books can be summed up as a collection of anecdotes, but are not particularly well written for educational purposes. You won't learn improv history from the manual, or about improvisers, but you'll learn about how to improvise.The book is a good example of what I think the UCB Theatre has done most for improv as a whole which is push the art away from its loose, oral tradition and toward an effective codified system which provides improvisers (whether they agree with the UCB or not) with a useful common language. Learning improv without a clear approach vs learning the UCB approach is like the difference between learning to box by getting beat up by your burned out golden gloves uncle in your backyard, or practicing martial arts in a disciplined, school environment which wastes no time getting to the point. The UCB Manual treats improv as an art and a science and that makes it an important step forward for improv theory.The manual is surprisingly holistic, including sections on forms and techniques that are not even touched upon in the UCB core curriculum (like the Deconstruction and Movie forms) and it does a good job of providing a step by step, basic approach to improv while still illuminating a path toward really artful work.There's no replacement for getting time with an experienced coach and watching as many shows as possible, but not everyone has access to an improv theatre and this book is as good an alternative as you can get. For anyone with ideal access to real world education, it still makes sense to pick up a copy as valuable supplemental reading.Many of the lessons of legendary teachers like Del Close may be lost forever, but those of Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts, and Matt Besser--three of the four founders of the most influential improv theater today--have been well recorded in this manual for all time. I'm happy for that.

This book is great. Beginning with very little knowledge of what Improvised Comedy could be, this book taught me how to create a skill set in order to understand and perform with other improvisors. From the very beginning, they take you through the proven methods that UCB has been teaching to improvisors for years in order to get on the same page as other improvisors in the scene (a Base Reality), how to support each other and move the scene forward (Yes, And...), recognize the genesis of where the comedy of the scene will be realized (in the First Unusual Thing), and then how to explore and heighten (If this is true, Then what else would be true?) the patterns in the scene (the Game of the Scene) in order to extract the comedic potential as fully as possible.And that's just the first half of the book!The remaining chapters discuss ways to overcome common problems that improvisors face, different scene structures and forms, supporting other players, and practical advice on rehearsal, starting from a suggestion and opening up scenes.The illustrations are perfect and not overwhelming. I particularly like the paint being poured on a sphere as a way to visualize the material causing an opening, how different scenes will form, and finally callback to culminate to a satisfying ending.

Bien expliqué, pragmatique, tout en anglais en revanhe

I've seen so many comments about this being THE book for beginners and look forward to working through it. I definitely want to sing the praises of the seller (Smaller world future) , as they have been amazing. It was delayed, but they were very quick to respond, they resolved the issue and offered a discount as compensation.

The UCB manual is required reading for students of long form. And not just in the idiomatic sense, if you're a UCB student. Regardless, it's a nice book. Thicker than many, but not too thick. It has a soft cover, which makes it gentle and yielding in your hand, not hard and unattainable like a hard-cover book.The words in this book are predominantly of the English language variety, the preferred language of people who read in the English language. I'm not saying English is a better language than say, German, but English is the language I expected the book to be written in, so am very satisfied.

A fantastic book. Very thorough and well written. Arrived very quickly.

This book provides great guidance and insights to long form improv from the legends of UCB themselves.