Quotes About Improviser

#1. I want to be an improviser, and I've worked very hard at that. It's an art. You don't just play whatever comes into your head; you have to be very deliberate about what you do.

Neil Peart

#2. I don't think I'm anything like the improviser. I'm not. I do better with at least an outline.

Kathleen Turner

#3. I can't imagine doing anything without being an improviser. I can't imagine trying to write or act or direct without what improvising offers you.

Marc Evan Jackson

#4. My brother was an improviser. He's now a lobbyist, but he used to perform improv in the city when he was in high school, and one of the funniest guys I know to this day.

Jake Johnson

#5. I've always been an improviser. I was one before I knew even what the word was ... And acting, that I've been doing since I was 5.

Alan Arkin

#6. An improviser does not operate from a formless vacuum, but from three billion years of organic evolution

Stephen Nachmanovitch

#7. The improviser has to understand that his first skill lies in releasing his partner's imagination.

Keith Johnstone

#8. I'm more of a writer than an actor, and I used to say that I'm mostly an improviser, though I haven't improvised in awhile.

Tina Fey

#9. The lifelong goal of an improviser is to listen to what the other person is saying, taking it in, and responding.

Ali Farahnakian

#10. I am an improviser, ... I improvise music. Whatever you want to call it all, it is all improvised music. I may capture it and go back and write it down for others, but it was originally improvised.

Joe Zawinul

#11. Baseball players practice, runners practice, so how can you practice being funny? You get up onstage. You train as an improviser, playing make-believe, using the vernacular of improvisation, saying 'yes and' to other people's ideas, making statements.

Ali Farahnakian

#12. As an improviser, I always find it jarring when I meet someone in real life whose first answer is no. "No, we can't do that." "No, that's not in the budget." "No, I will not hold your hand for a dollar." What kind of way is that to live?

Tina Fey

#13. Vince Vaughn is a master improviser.

Alan Tudyk

#14. Is he always like this?" she said irritably. "Flying by the seat of his pants?"
"Pretty much, yeah." Oliver grinned. "He's not a planner. But he happens to be the best improviser I've ever known.

Elle Kennedy

#15. You have to know composition to be a good improviser.

Roscoe Mitchell

#16. I've always wanted to be an actor. I didn't get into this game to be the best improviser in the world. I didn't choose improv as a stepping stone, it just happened to become one.

Rob Corddry

#17. The day of the great jazz improviser who doesn't know how to read music is over.

Maynard Ferguson

#18. An improv team would have eight guys and one woman; that was still pretty standard. If you were a woman improviser, it was actually kind of an advantage because, if you were halfway decent, you'd get a lot more stage time.

Rachel Dratch

#19. I've never gotten hired for drama because I'm a good improviser. I don't think people who write drama scripts want you playing with them as much.

Matt Walsh

#20. Jesus was a brilliant Jewish stand-up comedian, a phenomenal improviser. His parables are great one-liners.

Camille Paglia

#21. Anytime I audition for something, it's always a question of whether or not the people I'm auditioning for understand I'm an improviser and I like to do that, and if they like that or if they just want someone who's going to do what's written.

Adam Pally

#22. I'm an improviser at heart, when I'm writing, I'm improvising in my head. When you're an improviser on stage, you can never be precious about anything, you can't control what anyone else is going to do. The best stuff comes out of moments of inspiration that spontaneously happen.

Scot Armstrong

#23. Dave Rocha is a mature and eminently musical improviser. His sumptuous tone and cafefully chosen notes embody real musical thought. His performance of 'Dear Old Stockholm' at Chez Hanny evoked favorable comparisons to Miles Davis' classic recording.

Frank Hanny

#24. I think not every improviser is a good stage actor. Certainly not every stage actor is a good improviser.

Rich Sommer

#25. As an improviser I'm now pretty comfortable with trios, so I'm thinking of working up to quartets.

Fred Frith

#26. People know my background and for people who need an improviser, I'm one of the people they think to use if I'm appropriate for the part.

Jason Mantzoukas

#27. I think for anyone - male or female - in improv, the biggest thing to get over is the fear. I think every improviser has that.

Rachel Dratch

#28. Steve Carell is the most spectacular ad-lib improviser ever. And just doing a scene with him, it's just one incredible topping himself on every take.

Lucy Punch

#29. I guess I'm sort of spoiled because, most of the things that I get to do, people know that you're a good improviser, so they allow you at least one improv take, and for comedy, that's great.

Matt Walsh

#30. I consider myself a good improviser but Will and Kevin showed me I have a lot to learn.

Erick Chavarria