Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation

College Improvisation

This book helped me when I was inchagre of a college improvisational troupe. I learned more about improv from this source than from anywhere else. This was especially useful since our troupes acting background was limited, but it helped us to become one of the most popular groups on campus, even if we were based out of a Residence Hall. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about the improv. craft, or in need of ways to spice up a dried out troupe

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Have we got a book for you! Especially if you're young!

pyramid scheme n. A fraudulent money-making scheme in which people are recruited to make payments to others above them in a hierarchy while expecting to receive payments from people recruited below them. Eventually the number of new recruits fails to sustain the payment structure, and the scheme collapses with most people losing the money they paid in. At Charna's school it's pay to play. Pay to take classes because only people who go through their one year course can play on their stages-then pay coaches if you make a team. Everybody there makes money off of the show except the players and students at ImprovOlympic. This is where Truth in Comedy comes in! If you like constant name dropping you'll love this book! If you love being bullied in print this text will dazzle you! If you love being baited into a legit profession yet not take any pay for it (art for art's sake I beleive it's called. Shhh. Don't tell Art!) then this tome will tantalize you! If you're looking to be suckered by one book this year make it Charna Halpern's TRUTH IN COMEDY! Available in most bookstores.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

A bitter book

This book is so bitter. It repremands a learning improvisor on the very thing they should be trying, experimentation. It trys to enforce it's view of an artform that is often open to interpretation. I used to love this book until I realized it's just another name dropping text trying to masqerade as an authority on improv. I recommend trying Mick Napier's Improvise or Keith Johnstone's Impro instead. They realize that there is very little room for the term 'don't' in improvosation. Truth in Comedy is just another example of the politic laden ImprovOlympic machine that makes Charna Halpern money and doesn't pass on any of the profit to the performers working for her. To buy this book is to contribute to a corrupt system. Don't get suckered in like myself and many others.

0 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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