Here's A Suggestion

For many years I've been fighting against improv.  Perhaps that's a bit much.  Let's just say I haven't been a strong supporter.

I recognize its uses.  It can be helpful training for actors, and, in its proper place, can be used to develop sketches and other things.  But it's not great art.  It's a tightrope act--you're watching people make something up that, if it works, isn't completely awful.  Compared to a properly written script and a well-prepared cast--you know, what you generally need for art--it's not much.

In fact, I wouldn't mind it so much if so many didn't praise it to the skies.  As live entertainment, it's usually atrocious.  And even when done well, all I can think is "this would be awful if I thought someone had written this." But for many years, all I could hear was positive things about improv.  If people wanted to hate some art form, they chose mime.

But I think things may be starting to turn.  More than once, on sitcoms, I've noticed anti-improv sentiments. (I've got to fight autocorrect, which keeps turning improv into improve--which is what improv needs to do.)  On both Modern Family and Schitt's Creek one character, to show he cared for another, was willing to make the sacrifice of watching some improv.  Modern Family went so far as to show a little of it, and it wasn't good (which was the point, of course).

Is improv becoming a punch line?  It may be.  And if I played any small part in this, that would make me happy.