Improvising Humor: An Ethnography of Comedy Theater Nathan Dern Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Nathan Dern All rights reserved ABSTRACT Improvising Humor: An Ethnography of Comedy Theater Nathan Dern This dissertation is a qualitative sociological account of how adults involved in the play of improvisational comedy theatre use gender in their performance. I take play seriously as an important frame of social life where culture is actively maintained, created and put on display. My approach is a micro-interactional one analyzing moments of humor dealing with social categories via video recordings. As my case study I use performances of improvisational comedy theatre at the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) Theatre in New York City, one of the world’s premier improv comedy theatres, to observe adults actively engaging in play with each other, a space where men find disproportionate institutional success. Building on the frame theory of Cecilia Ridgeway, I look at when gender stereotypes are invoked in creating spontaneous scenes of human interaction, and in so doing, to what extent performers are able to work through “straitjackets” of social conventions, focusing on the distinction between scenes making fun of sexism verse scenes that are merely sexist. I look at the ways that though people occupy a role, there is room for them to improvise within that role, adopting different strategies for comedic success. To this end, I conclude by comparing Shamus Khan’s range of masculine expressional opportunities theory, as presented in his work Privilege, with Robb Willer’s account of the masculine overcompensation thesis, arguing that the way in which male presenting improvisers are able to adopt the comedic strategies of minority groups under the guise of irony, thereby securing that the number of expresional opportunities available to them is greater than other groups, ensures the continuation of their dominance. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF IMAGES AND FIGURES ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii DEDICATION iv PREFACE: Initiation to Belonging, Bit by Bit v INTRODUCTION: What’s So Funny? A Theoretical Framework for the Study 1 of Humor CHAPTER 1: How Do You Practice Something that Is Spontaneous? 31 An Organizational History of the Upright Citizens Brigade CHAPTER 2: Adults at Play: Revisiting The Autotelic Quality Of Play by 84 Examining the Improv Comedian Practice of “Doing Bits” CHAPTER 3: Straight Men and Unusual Characters: Gendered Expressional 124 Opportunities in Improv Comedy Performance CONCLUSION: A Comedic Sensibility Is Never Neutral: Creating Shared 192 Private Culture Through Play Within the Frame Of Gender REFERENCES 218 APPENDIX I: A Statement on Method 221 APPENDIX II: Glossary of Improv Terminology 227 APPENDIX III: Defense Memo 234 i LIST OF IMAGES AND FIGURES IMAGES Image 1. Donald Trump mocks a reporter. 6 Image 2. The object of Trump’s mockery, reporter Serge Kovaleski. 6 Image 3. The Onion mocks Donald Trump. 8 Image 4. GoodGirl performs improv at UCB’s Harold Night. 72 Image 5. Grandma’s Ashes does a scene about Benjamin Franklin at UCB. 109 Image 6. Michael and Langan perform at UCB’s CageMatch. 137 Image 7. Seth Meyers’ segment “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell.” 151 Image 8. Aaron saying “faggot cocksucker” as a wizard at UCB’s CageMatch. 154 Image 9. Two straight men embrace for a laugh on the UCB stage. 166 Image 10a and 10b. Episode of Friends where Joey and Chandler kiss. 170 Image 11. “Oh, I’m just going to the rape crisis center.” 188 FIGURES Figure 1. Gender labeling by performers at UCB’s CageMatch. 178 Figure 2. UCB Performers by Gender (2014) 182 Figure 3. UCB Students Auditioning by Gender (2014) 182 Figure 4. UCB Students in Level 101 by Gender (2014) 183 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre for allowing me to study comedy at your venerable establishment. In particular, thank you to the founders of the UCBT, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts, and Amy Poehler. Thank you to former UCBT NY artistic director Anthony King and current artistic director Shannon O’Neill, managing director Alex Sidtis, former training center academic supervisor Will Hines and current academic supervisor Kevin Hines, and, of course, thank you to the hundreds of performers who allowed me to interview you about improv comedy and to observe you doing the play of your craft. Additionally, thank you to the other members of my cohort at Columbia who provided valuable feedback and direction in the earlier stages of this project, in particular Ryan Hagen, Alix Rule, Phillip Brandt, Joan Robinson, Sarah Sachs, and Anthony Urena. Thank you to the professors in my department who gave me mentorship and insight during my sociological growth, especially Gil Eyal, Josh Whitford, and Greg Eirich. And of course, thank you to the members of my dissertation committee, David Stark, Diane Vaughn, Peter Bearman, Christia Mercer, and Shamus Khan, who believed in me and allowed me to make a serious study of the silliness of improv comedy. iii I dedicate this to my advisor at Columbia, Shamus Khan, who always knew the appropriate ratio of encouragement to mockery to keep me moving forward. iv PREFACE Initiation to Belonging, Bit by Bit I step into the hallway and freeze as I find myself in an unexpectedly awkward situation. I’m locked in a staring contest with Neil Carey1, a veteran improviser and teacher at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. It’s 2008 and I’ve just finished taking an improv comedy class and, as a mere lowly student compared to the comedy God I’ve stumbled upon, I feel unworthy to even be staring him in the face. I’m not sure why things feel as awkward as they do. Is this stairwell for teachers only? Then, I notice that Neil’s holding a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other. As if an invisible director has given us a cue, both of our eyes go to the sign on the wall in between us: “Absolutely NO SMOKING in the stairwell.” So that’s what’s afoot: I’ve caught him doing something wrong. A trivial infraction, but I can tell by the look on Neil’s face, even though we’ve never spoken, that he immediately — instinctively — made the choice to play this real life scene as if I’m a coworker who has caught him stealing money from the cash register or urinating in the soup du jour. Before I have a chance to smile, which would break the spell, it happens: Neil runs down the flight of stairs at a dangerous speed. Without thinking, I follow. I’m careening after him, he’s looking back after me as he nearly falls, each of us slamming our grips on the handrail, taking the stairs two at a time, barreling down the four flights of stairs, with a flourish bursting through the door into the lobby. With the same seamless maneuver as before, Neil assumes an air of over-the-top poise as we 1 I use a mixture of pseudonyms and real names throughout this paper, depending on context. Since many of those mentioned are performers and hence public figures, when I deem it appropriate I prefer to use real names. In the case of improv students or more private conversations or moments, pseudonyms are generally used. v walk past the security guard, who is reading a paper at the front desk. I follow Neil’s lead. As we walk through the doors out onto 30th street, we each pause. Neil gives me a knowing nod and utters a single word: “Sir.” I nod and repeat the salutation back to him. “Sir.” We walk our separate ways. It was at that moment that I felt like I’d been initiated into the tribe of improvisational comedians of the UCB Theatre. I was in a year into my study, just finishing a Level 501. Soon I’d get placed onto a house improv team and begin performing bi-weekly for paying audiences. Later I’d become a teacher myself, as well as the Artistic Director of the UCB Theatre’s two New York City venues for a tenure of three years. In the time that followed, I conducted over fifty formal interviews and many more informal ones, took hundreds of pages of field notes, studied hundreds of video recorded scenes, watched thousands of hours of improv, and even made a visual ethnographic documentary film about the audition process of getting placed onto a house improv team. This paper represents the culmination of that work. Of all of the many fascinating aspects of the UCB improv comedy community that have compelled my attention over the years, the phenomenon that most grabbed my attention was the notion of belonging which I felt at UCB, as exemplified by the ability to engage in play with other members who belonged to the amorphously boundaried “community” (as it was so named from within), and yet which alluded others. Throughout my time at UCB, as a student, performer, teacher, artistic director, and ultimately researcher, one of the most salient factors in this regard was gender, an aspect that at times as a straight white male navigating a scene with a reputation for being overcrowded with straight white males, vital aspects of which were perhaps initially invisible to me. For example, in telling the above anecdote around a table of beers in a vi corner booth at the Peter McManus Cafe, a local favorite post-show Irish dive bar near the UCB Theatre in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, while sharing stories of our early days of feeling like we belonged (or not) at the UCB Theatre in New York City, an aspect of the story I hadn’t initially noticed was pointed out to me by a female improviser.