What is Long-Form Improvisation?

BATS Improv
May 2005

What is long-form improvisation? Well, the answer depends on who you ask.

If you travel around the world, you will find different approaches to what is loosely defined as “long-form improvisation.” There is also debate as to who started it and where. (Heck, let’s give credit to early hominid: after all, making up stories and acting them out is as old as time.)

At BATS Improv we look at long-form as an opportunity to tell longer stories. To us, it’s akin to watching a full-length play or movie—although one that is created spontaneously right in front of the audience with no pre-planning.

What makes it different from the short, quick, comedy improv often seen on stage and television is that while long-form shows definitely include humor, the greater goals are layered narratives, complex characters and complete stories.

By all indications, long-form had its start in San Francisco. In the late 60s, The Committee, a North Beach-based improv troupe, began to seriously develop ideas and techniques of long-form improvisation. In 1970, Del Close, one of The Committees’ organizers, took the concept to Chicago and developed “The Harold,” a long-form technique in which performers riff on a single word. For many improvisers across the country, “The Harold” is still synonymous with long-form.

When BATS was founded in 1986, improvisers from various backgrounds and performing groups came together to share not only an interest in the Theatresports format, but also a common love of good, fully-developed stories with characters they could sink their teeth into. Long-form was a natural for the company.

In 1988, BATS player Brian Lohmann started Pulp Playhouse, which specialized in a night of character based narrated stories—some running up to 20 minutes. The following year, Rafe Chase introduced long-form into his improv classes, exploring how a single story-line might be played over an entire show. He then directed the group Improv Theater in a series of long-form shows at the ACT Playroom. Soon BATS was doing its own long-form shows, the first directed by Reed Kirk Rahlmann.

Today, BATS is known throughout the world for the depth, scope and variety of its long-form formats. We are proud of this distinction. Each year, we celebrate this unique and compelling form of improvisation and salute its practitioners—past, present and future.