In my daily life, I overhear all kinds of conversations: people discussing or gossiping about their friends, lunatics shouting out at passersby, people swearing at each other from their cars, people sitting at a meal, lovers arguing on a subway platform, me yelling at my own children. When I hear something interesting, I note it, and I might use it later as a starting point for an improv.

When I begin the improv with a fragment of overheard speech, I repeat it like a mantra, using the phrase to invoke an attitude. For example, take the phrase: “Fuck you!” The improv might go something like:

“Fuck you.” “Fuck you!” “No, man, fuck you!” “You saying, ‘Fuck you!’ to me? Well fuck you!” “Come here and say that.” “No, you come here.” “I’ll come there if you come here.” “What, you’re telling me what to do now? You think you’re better than me?” “As a matter of fact I do, shithead.” “Who you calling a ‘shithead’? Fuck you!” Etc.

In “Upgrade” from Wake Up, I riff on the kind of officious check-in counterperson. The key word here is “sir.”

Here you go, sir, you’re all set. You have a seat on this flight, it’s leaving in ten minutes so you better hurry up! Yes, sir, that’s right, it’s a coach seat. Yes, I know you had a fully-paid-for-first-class ticket, sir, but this seat is coach. Well, let me see what I can do, OK? (Types into keyboard) Alright, I’m looking at a first-class seat on a 3:30 A.M. departure with a six-hour layover in Saint Louis. How’s that sound?

Yes, 3:30 in the morning, sir, that’s correct. I understand that, sir. Yes, I can see that you have a gold card. All the people behind you have gold cards, sir. Well, sir, sir, sir, why don’t we do this: step aside for a sec here, let me get everyone on board, get them seated, let the flight leave and then we can see what we can do, OK? (Signals to next person) Next in line?

The trick with these improvs is not to aim for anything in particular. Not to try to make it funny or poignant. I just want to become the person behind the counter and get into the situation and see what happens from there. The most important goal is to play and cut loose, to let the character speak for himself. This is not the time to worry about final performance, how inarticulate or articulate the character sounds.

Here is a fragment of the verbatim transcript of the first improv I did for Wake Up’s “Harmonious”: