An imaginary suitcase can become heavy without a single prop appearing onstage. One actor struggles to lift it, another reaches for the handle, and suddenly both performers are dealing with an object that exists entirely through their actions.
Nobody needs to explain the suitcase to the audience. The actors establish its weight through movement, and the scene develops from the reality they create together.
This kind of physical play belongs to a long tradition of improvisational theater, one that Nashville-based comedian and performer Anna Manis includes in her advertised training. Her instructional offerings encompass Viola Spolin’s theater games, short-form improvisation, the Harold, and comedy writing. Behind those names are distinct approaches to creating theatrical material without knowing exactly where it will lead.
Viola Spolin Found Theater in the Act of Playing
Viola Spolin helped establish modern theatrical improvisation through a deceptively simple idea: give performers a game with a specific problem to solve, then allow them to discover what happens through participation.
Her approach grew from work in recreational education and community theater before becoming an influential method of actor training. In 1963, Spolin published Improvisation for the Theater, which organized her techniques into exercises that performers and teachers could use.
Her theater games place considerable emphasis on attention. Actors may concentrate on an imaginary object, the physical environment, or the behavior of another performer rather than trying to invent amusing dialogue before anything has happened.
Manis advertises Viola Spolin improvisation through her Entertainers Worldwide profile. Her description specifically identifies space-object work and following the follower among the techniques associated with the lessons.
Space-object work involves establishing imaginary objects through physical action. A performer might open an invisible door, carry something fragile, or struggle to move an object whose weight must remain consistent throughout the scene.
The audience understands the environment through the performers’ movements. A convincing imaginary object can become part of the scene’s action, especially when other actors recognize and respond to it.
Following the follower takes a different approach to collaboration. Instead of insisting that one performer must lead every action, participants remain attentive to one another, allowing direction and initiative to emerge through their shared activity.
That idea challenges a familiar assumption about performance: that someone must always have the cleverest idea in the room. An actor who notices and develops another person’s choice can contribute as much as the person who introduced it.
Spolin’s methods became closely associated with the Chicago improvisation movement and the development of The Second City. The principles of structured play and ensemble cooperation remain influential in improvisational theater.
Short-Form Comedy Gives Performers Very Little Time
Short-form improvisation places performers inside games or scenes with relatively compact structures. They might receive a location, relationship, occupation, or unusual situation from the audience and begin performing almost immediately.
The result can be exhilarating because neither the performers nor the audience knows exactly what will happen. An ordinary suggestion can develop into an increasingly absurd exchange through a few well-timed decisions.
Consider a fictional restaurant scene in which a customer discovers that the waiter is terrified of soup. The initial premise is silly enough, but the performers still need to establish a believable interaction for the joke to develop.
A waiter who treats every bowl as a potential threat creates opportunities for the other actor to respond. The customer might become suspicious, concerned, or increasingly frustrated, and the scene can grow through those conflicting reactions.
The performers need to remember what has already happened. If the waiter suddenly becomes completely comfortable with soup for no reason, the scene loses the strange reality that made it funny.
Manis lists short-form improvisation as a separate training subject, emphasizing fast-paced games, audience suggestions, timing, and quick responses. Her professional background includes comedy-club performances and improvisational work, giving her experience with the immediacy that characterizes this form.
Her Backstage profile records a 2015 action-comedy credit with comedian Mark Riccadonna and lists improvisation among her performance skills. The following year, she appeared as Debbie in Murder at the Strip, a comedy production associated with Riccadonna and Chris DePierro at Comic Strip Live in New York.
Those credits place improvisational and comedic performance within her working history, beyond the instructional subjects she advertises.
The Harold Takes Its Time
Long-form improvisation offers a different challenge. Instead of completing a game within a few minutes, an ensemble develops scenes that can acquire connections and significance over a longer performance.
The Harold is one of the best-known structures in this tradition. Associated with improvisation pioneer Del Close and developed through the Chicago improv scene, it uses an opening suggestion to generate material that performers explore across multiple scenes.
An idea introduced early may return later in an unexpected form. A peculiar relationship, recurring behavior, or unusual character trait can appear in different circumstances, allowing the performers to build connections without a completed script.
At the Upright Citizens Brigade, where Manis trained, the Harold forms part of a structured improvisation curriculum. Its Improv 301 course introduces the format, including openings, scene development, group support, and techniques for revisiting material established earlier.
Improv 401 develops those skills through the performance of complete Harolds. Students work on connecting scenes, recognizing recurring comic patterns, and sharing responsibility for the larger show.
One of the concepts taught at UCB is the game of the scene. Performers identify something unusual within an interaction and explore the consequences rather than filling the scene with unrelated punchlines.
Suppose a fictional office manager believes every minor workplace inconvenience requires a formal awards ceremony. The first scene might establish the behavior, while later scenes could explore how the manager handles increasingly inappropriate occasions for celebration.
The comedy develops through the repeated behavior and its changing consequences. Performers have to recognize the pattern, find another direction for it, and avoid simply delivering the same joke again.
Manis advertises Harold training as a distinct instructional offering, describing the development of characters, relationships, and thematic patterns through longer unscripted performances. Her Backstage profile also lists completion of the Upright Citizens Brigade program in New York City.
The Harold’s demands are quite different from those of short-form games. There is greater room for developing relationships, but the performers must retain enough of what happened earlier to make later connections satisfying.
Comedy Writing Gives the Ideas Another Life
Manis’s instructional menu also includes Comedy Writing 101–401, which she presents as work combining writing and improvisation.
The relationship between the two disciplines is especially interesting because a written sketch can preserve discoveries that first emerge during spontaneous performance. A character or situation invented in an improv scene may contain enough material to develop into a more carefully structured piece.
Writing allows a comedian to experiment with the order of information, strengthen a premise, and decide which developments deserve more attention. Material that seemed promising during a performance can be expanded, rearranged, or abandoned during revision.
An improvised scene offers no equivalent opportunity to return to an earlier moment and replace a line. The actors must continue from the situation they have already established, even if an unexpected choice sends the scene in an entirely different direction.
That difference makes writing and improvisation productive partners without making them interchangeable. A writer can use spontaneous performance to discover possibilities, then apply deliberate construction to the material that survives.
Manis’s professional experience extends across both prepared and spontaneous entertainment. She has worked in stand-up comedy, improvisation, television, and theatrical performance, while her instructional listings encompass techniques for developing material through play and through writing.
Her Entertainers Worldwide profile provides an inquiry route for these advertised training subjects. It does not identify a fixed class schedule or establish that every participant follows the same curriculum, so the individual offerings are best understood through their stated areas of instruction.
Beyond the Quick Laugh
Improvisation can produce a joke in seconds, but some of its strongest moments develop because performers are willing to follow an idea further than they initially expected. A physical action becomes a shared environment, an unusual behavior grows into a comic pattern, or an early scene returns in an entirely different context.
Anna Manis’s training interests encompass those different possibilities, from Viola Spolin’s theater games to the extended structure of the Harold. Her comedy background and Upright Citizens Brigade training connect the advertised lessons to an established performance tradition in which the best discoveries often begin with one actor paying close attention to another.
