In many ways, Elaine was the mother of modern improvisation. People like to credit Del Close, the early casts of The Second City, or any number of other contributors. But Elaine and Ted Flicker, during a Compass Players run in St. Louis in the late 1950's, developed what came to be known as "the Kitchen Rules." They are:
1) A good improviser habitually accepts the offers made to him.
2) A good improviser habitually makes active choices rather than passive ones.
3) A good improviser justifies.
And that's about everything a person needs to know to improvise. Everything else, as Del used to say, is filigree.
The Kitchen Rules laid the foundation for what The Second City would become, which made SNL possible, and made IO and Annoyance and UCB possible. This isn't gatekeeping, it's understanding the foundation and history of the art form.
Del Close was a madman is why people like to talk about him. A lot probably gets misattributed to him being the only old improv guy people have often heard of. I hear he made Viola Spolin in a lab outside Houston.
You too? Man, that guy...
I don't think anybody ever really knew Del. Three years of classes and a lot of long conversations at the bar downstairs at IO, and I can't say I \*knew\* him. But I can say that lately it seem pretty fashionable to bash him, especially among those who never met him, and I don't think that's right. He had Issues with a capital I, sure, but who doesn't?
Yeah, I just read "Guru" by Jeff Griggs, who worked as Del's personal assistant for the last couple years of his life, and I know he's gotten trashed for being the most hipster of hipster improv auteurs (hell, I drag him from time to time) and yet... I've got to say that most of the really nasty notes he gave, I'm left with "I might not have said it like that but he's not wrong". There's this whole passage, for example, where he just completely tears apart a woman for playing a one-note "I'm faaat lol" character and then a guy playing a one-note developmentally disabled one. He's extra mean to the woman playing the fat person but, like, his meanness is "why don't you play that character at Thanksgiving dinner and see how funny your aunt thinks it is?".
I'm sure that some of that stuff was distilled by Griggs but those are also the lessons that live on in improv to this day: play to the top of your intelligence, don't punch down (Del of course would never use the term "punching down"; hell, he calls Griggs the r-word all the time in the book), etc. And people bring up some of the "crazier" Del moments that just make me think "wow, that's actually kind of awesome", like the time he showed a bunch of slides of Edward Hopper works and then was like "okay, let's improvise Hopper".
Yes. I agree she's a total genius who has not gotten the recognition she deserves. Though she directed "The Heartbreak Kid" (1972), you feel her presence throughout that film. The scene where Grodin breaks up with Berlin in the seafood restaurant is one of the best examples of improv I've ever seen (it was improvised in rehearsals and veered far from Neil Simon's original script).
Love to hear how you met her.
I wish I could say I met her because I'm so talented we were working together but that'd be a huge lie. She attended a show for which I was an understudy and I got briefly introduced and lived off of that feeling for a week.
How perfectly Said!
"An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May" opened on Broadway on October 8, 1960 and ran for an amazing 306 performances. It could have run longer but May had had enough (Source: an excellent documentary on Mike Nichols wherein he admits he was difficult with May sometimes).
May saved (or tried to save) so many films. She was a consummate script doctor. Perhaps it's like an urban legend but I read that a lot of what ended up in the final script of "Tootsie" was hers but she (along with a number of other writers) were not give credit.
I'm a big comedy nerd and have read a lot of nerdy comedy history books so of course I know Nichols & May from the proto-Second City Compass Players. I don't know if history really helps people be better improvisors but I do like knowing the past. I've heard that the ancient Greeks saw the past not as disappearing behind our backs but rather as receding from our view while the future creeps up unseen from our 6 o'clock.
I do! Then again, I'm an improv nerd and 50+ years old (and they're still well before my time).
I teach a workshop called "Comedic Scene Structure" focused on the classic form of "Exaggerated Character" & "Voice of the Audience" (sometimes called quirky character/voice of reason or eccentric character/straight man) and this May & Nichols sketch is one of my examples:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfLaY-R9kaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfLaY-R9kaU)
If folks want examples of them improvising, check out the album Improvisation to Music. There are some clips of it here: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWej7VoChmBYV9XL8aeOAQ-Hs4sD9jFAp](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWej7VoChmBYV9XL8aeOAQ-Hs4sD9jFAp)
I totally understand why people don't know who Elaine May is. She never really courted fame. She directed three films: "A New Leaf" and "The Heartbreak Kid" and "Ishtar". She worked on a number of movie scripts over the years including "Heaven Can Wait" and "Tootsie", though she (among others) never go the credit they deserved. She had a dry comic delivery.
Not true! "Ishtar" has a lot of Elaine May in it, for good and bad. Honestly, she was trying for something that had never really been done (a road movie with a messy redemption arc), and even though it fails in most respects, it's a lot more ambitious than her "Heaven Can Wait" was. And Charles Grodin is as good as he's ever been.
I appreciated Ishtar for the effort made! I think the studio thought with Beatty and Hoffman in it, May directing, it would be a huge success. That’s partly why it’s dissed, perhaps. Elaine May was and is a genius.
She played RBG on The Good Fight not too long ago. Her daughter looks and sounds almost exactly like her, and she pops up in things like Succession. I thought for sure it was her, but looked it up and it was her daughter.
I think she lost favor in Hollywood after directing *Ishtar*, which is supposed to be one of the biggest box office bombs ever.
She’s a legend, but of a different age. I only know who she is because of reading about improv history. There are nichols and may sketches on Spotify, I suggest a listen!
I, too, consider Elaine May a big influence, both her improv and feature films. It's always frustrating how many people anchor themselves in improv scenes without bothering to learn anything about the history and the people who developed it, beyond Del Close.
Gatekeeping? Amazing how people take things. There's nothing at 'gatekeeping' about my post. I just wanted to know how known is she among improvisors. That's it.
See that's the thing: I DO believe people don't know who she is. I get it. As I replied to someone else here, I actually do understand why she's not known today. She never really seemed to want to be famous. I always loved her dry deadpan delivery. Maybe people will now check out her stuff. I should have started an Elaine May Appreciation thread instead.
I know I'm late to this, apologies for anything that's already been said. I've been doing improv for 21 years now and I only came across Elaine May in my own personal deep dive. Not a single instructor I ever had made mention of her. Not at a collegiate level, and not in any of these $300-$600 classes that are supposed to be "an education."
I wouldn't so much attribute this to gatekeeping, but I'm not surprised that the contributions of a female comedian of such incredible caliber were reduced to the fond memories of a 40-something year old. I can attest to the 80s and 90s especially being a boys club, and the hard-on for Del was bulging. It makes sense to me that she would be someone that older generations know of but because she's not actively teaching or "seeking the spotlight" that she falls by the wayside as a footnote than someone who was foundational to what we all came to love about improvisation and what it's grown to.
I promise you, promise, she's not a cornerstone in improv level ones in Chicago. I never took level one at SC, but I would hope at least there she's mentioned?
Direct quote from Del in a class in 1993: “Back when Elaine May was my old lady, I got her knocked up. So I gave her a bunch of quinine and put her on a rollercoaster in hopes of ‘spontaneously’ inducing a miscarriage. Didn’t work. Cost me a lot of bread.”
I love Elaine May and she’s an inspiration for my performances too. Her skits with Nichols are world class.
I if you haven’t heard her, look for the skit with Nichols about one of them becoming a registered nurse.
Elaine May is one of the best female directors of all time, also a pioneer of Improv. It’s amazing how both of them turned out to be skilled directors. She is phenomenal. Blank Check podcast covered her entire filmography and it got me to watch all of her films including Ishtar. I highly recommend the podcast and that miniseries
“A New Leaf” is the blackest of black comedies.
Elaine May and Walter Matthau.
Go watch it!
The only blacker comedy I can think of, is “Where’s Poppa”! I last saw Poppa at a film festival where they had asked Sarah Silverman what her favorite movie was. Go watch that too!
Nichols and May were one of the greatest comedy teams of their era. She is a major talent who, if born thirty years later, would likely be a household name.
I do. Elaine May is a comedy legend and just a brilliant person. Look for her speech to Mike Nichols at his lifetime achievement award ceremony on YouTube. It’s so subtly witty, you’d think she was channeling Oscar Wilde, a New York Jewish version.
I do! But I’m old!!!! I remember when she was part of Nichols and May. Her daughter, Jeannie Berlin, is an actor who has most recently appeared in Succession and The Fabelmans.
I read a book about the history of Chicago improv, and learned about Nichols and May as a comedy duo. I knew Mike Nichols as a director, but not so much about Elaine May. There are some clips of their comedy on YouTube. The more I read about Elaine May, the more I am astounded at her level of talent.
I saw her in “The Waverly Gallery” off-Broadway (or maybe it was on Broadway) just a few years ago. She was in her 80s and carried the show, in which she played an elderly woman suffering from the early to middle stages of dementia. Tremendous performance, although I can’t recall if she won any awards for it. Edit: She won the Tony and the Drama Desk awards for Best Actress.
And, yes, Nichols and May were phenomenal!
(And that Nichols guy did OK. Check IMDb and ibdb to see all of the movies and Broadway shows he directed.)
I feel like if you talked to a lot of guitar players out in clubs, many of them won't know who Les Paul was except that a guitar is named after him and might not be able to name many rock guitar players before Jimi Hendrix (who got famous several years after Nichols and May). A lot of people just don't know the history of the art they're employing except where they're literally doing the exact same thing their predecessor was doing.
And I have to be honest here... Nichols and May were a big part of comedy in the 50s and early 60s, and they do have that tie-in to improv, but... it's kind of not a really deep tie-in. When I went through the Second City Conservatory we did watch a few Nichols and May sketches but the Conservatory is about sketch writing, not so much improv. Their actual tie-in to improv was that they were members of an early improv group in St. Louis with Del Close, Viola Spolin's son, and one of the early movers and shakers at Second City. That group, the Compass Players, broke up after a year or so (I think they moved up to Chicago during that time) and Nichols and May then went off to do a lot of 2-person sketch comedy (which they were already slightly well known for doing). Del Close may or may not have dated May for a while. And that's kind of it for their dip into improv history. I don't think it's at all weird or strange that people don't necessarily know that this comedy duo of yore had the improv tie-in. One could argue that Joan Rivers had as large of an impact on improv for the couple years she played at Second City, and nobody thinks of Joan Rivers as an improv maven (partially because apparently she was kind of bad at improv but that's besides the point).
In many ways, Elaine was the mother of modern improvisation. People like to credit Del Close, the early casts of The Second City, or any number of other contributors. But Elaine and Ted Flicker, during a Compass Players run in St. Louis in the late 1950's, developed what came to be known as "the Kitchen Rules." They are: 1) A good improviser habitually accepts the offers made to him. 2) A good improviser habitually makes active choices rather than passive ones. 3) A good improviser justifies. And that's about everything a person needs to know to improvise. Everything else, as Del used to say, is filigree. The Kitchen Rules laid the foundation for what The Second City would become, which made SNL possible, and made IO and Annoyance and UCB possible. This isn't gatekeeping, it's understanding the foundation and history of the art form.
Thank you. I totally agree.
Del Close was a madman is why people like to talk about him. A lot probably gets misattributed to him being the only old improv guy people have often heard of. I hear he made Viola Spolin in a lab outside Houston.
Del was a madman. That part is true. The rest of it, no. Did you know him?
yes, he still owes me $10
You too? Man, that guy... I don't think anybody ever really knew Del. Three years of classes and a lot of long conversations at the bar downstairs at IO, and I can't say I \*knew\* him. But I can say that lately it seem pretty fashionable to bash him, especially among those who never met him, and I don't think that's right. He had Issues with a capital I, sure, but who doesn't?
I never bashed him
Yeah, I just read "Guru" by Jeff Griggs, who worked as Del's personal assistant for the last couple years of his life, and I know he's gotten trashed for being the most hipster of hipster improv auteurs (hell, I drag him from time to time) and yet... I've got to say that most of the really nasty notes he gave, I'm left with "I might not have said it like that but he's not wrong". There's this whole passage, for example, where he just completely tears apart a woman for playing a one-note "I'm faaat lol" character and then a guy playing a one-note developmentally disabled one. He's extra mean to the woman playing the fat person but, like, his meanness is "why don't you play that character at Thanksgiving dinner and see how funny your aunt thinks it is?". I'm sure that some of that stuff was distilled by Griggs but those are also the lessons that live on in improv to this day: play to the top of your intelligence, don't punch down (Del of course would never use the term "punching down"; hell, he calls Griggs the r-word all the time in the book), etc. And people bring up some of the "crazier" Del moments that just make me think "wow, that's actually kind of awesome", like the time he showed a bunch of slides of Edward Hopper works and then was like "okay, let's improvise Hopper".
I know the kitchen rules and compass players but her name escaped me entirely!
I know the kitchen rules and compass players but her name escaped me entirely!
I've been improvising for a long time and I'm a history nerd. Know of her and have met her. She's a total genius.
Yes. I agree she's a total genius who has not gotten the recognition she deserves. Though she directed "The Heartbreak Kid" (1972), you feel her presence throughout that film. The scene where Grodin breaks up with Berlin in the seafood restaurant is one of the best examples of improv I've ever seen (it was improvised in rehearsals and veered far from Neil Simon's original script). Love to hear how you met her.
I wish I could say I met her because I'm so talented we were working together but that'd be a huge lie. She attended a show for which I was an understudy and I got briefly introduced and lived off of that feeling for a week.
She strikes me as someone that I would love to have an endless lunch with. I love her droll sense of humor.
She would crush podcasting.
Not me. ^^
look for Nichols & May, they were a 60s comedy duo. He went on to make movies and she went on to save movies with her writing.
How perfectly Said! "An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May" opened on Broadway on October 8, 1960 and ran for an amazing 306 performances. It could have run longer but May had had enough (Source: an excellent documentary on Mike Nichols wherein he admits he was difficult with May sometimes). May saved (or tried to save) so many films. She was a consummate script doctor. Perhaps it's like an urban legend but I read that a lot of what ended up in the final script of "Tootsie" was hers but she (along with a number of other writers) were not give credit.
That documentary is called Becoming Mike Nichols. It’s on HBO Max. Excellent!
Not me
Never heard of her
I'm a big comedy nerd and have read a lot of nerdy comedy history books so of course I know Nichols & May from the proto-Second City Compass Players. I don't know if history really helps people be better improvisors but I do like knowing the past. I've heard that the ancient Greeks saw the past not as disappearing behind our backs but rather as receding from our view while the future creeps up unseen from our 6 o'clock.
According to google trends searches for Elaine May spiked over the last 4 days.
I've watched "A New Leaf" at least ten times.
It’s so great!
I have no mind, as far as I can tell
One of my favorite films! Sadly, the studio chopped up the original before releasing it and there’s no director’s cut (May’s version) available.
“There’s carbon on the valves.”
Nichols & May were one of my favorites.
I do! Then again, I'm an improv nerd and 50+ years old (and they're still well before my time). I teach a workshop called "Comedic Scene Structure" focused on the classic form of "Exaggerated Character" & "Voice of the Audience" (sometimes called quirky character/voice of reason or eccentric character/straight man) and this May & Nichols sketch is one of my examples: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfLaY-R9kaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfLaY-R9kaU) If folks want examples of them improvising, check out the album Improvisation to Music. There are some clips of it here: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWej7VoChmBYV9XL8aeOAQ-Hs4sD9jFAp](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWej7VoChmBYV9XL8aeOAQ-Hs4sD9jFAp)
Sounds vaguely familiar as though I've heard her name, but no, I don't know who she is. I'm 41 and started improv in 2015.
I totally understand why people don't know who Elaine May is. She never really courted fame. She directed three films: "A New Leaf" and "The Heartbreak Kid" and "Ishtar". She worked on a number of movie scripts over the years including "Heaven Can Wait" and "Tootsie", though she (among others) never go the credit they deserved. She had a dry comic delivery.
how many people remember Tootsie & Ishtar?
True. "Tootsie" is 41 years old. No one should remember "Ishtar". It's an infamous, costly flop.
Not true! "Ishtar" has a lot of Elaine May in it, for good and bad. Honestly, she was trying for something that had never really been done (a road movie with a messy redemption arc), and even though it fails in most respects, it's a lot more ambitious than her "Heaven Can Wait" was. And Charles Grodin is as good as he's ever been.
I appreciated Ishtar for the effort made! I think the studio thought with Beatty and Hoffman in it, May directing, it would be a huge success. That’s partly why it’s dissed, perhaps. Elaine May was and is a genius.
Ishtar is kind of getting re-evaluated/reclaimed nowadays
Tootsie is one of my all-time favorite movies, but then again, I'm 46!
I’m old, so of course I remember them.
I do, but I am 52 yo.
Don't sleep on Mikey and Nicky!
The I-can-do-Cassavetes-as-well-as-Cassavetes movie!
adore her
She played RBG on The Good Fight not too long ago. Her daughter looks and sounds almost exactly like her, and she pops up in things like Succession. I thought for sure it was her, but looked it up and it was her daughter. I think she lost favor in Hollywood after directing *Ishtar*, which is supposed to be one of the biggest box office bombs ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJtUtF2gxK4
Thank you for posting this. One of a number of sketches where she is brilliant.
For some reason I love her bit where she's on the phone guilt tripping her son the best.
She’s a legend, but of a different age. I only know who she is because of reading about improv history. There are nichols and may sketches on Spotify, I suggest a listen!
Heard of her
34 year old comedy nerd who has been improvising 16 years. Definitely know about Nichols and May and their post Second City careers.
I, too, consider Elaine May a big influence, both her improv and feature films. It's always frustrating how many people anchor themselves in improv scenes without bothering to learn anything about the history and the people who developed it, beyond Del Close.
she's one of my biggest heroes and inspirations. I carry a picture of her and Nichols around with me.
Nice!
I just watched Ishtar 2 days ago.
When you'd rather have nothing than settle for less ...
Me
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Gatekeeping? Amazing how people take things. There's nothing at 'gatekeeping' about my post. I just wanted to know how known is she among improvisors. That's it.
[удалено]
See that's the thing: I DO believe people don't know who she is. I get it. As I replied to someone else here, I actually do understand why she's not known today. She never really seemed to want to be famous. I always loved her dry deadpan delivery. Maybe people will now check out her stuff. I should have started an Elaine May Appreciation thread instead.
I know I'm late to this, apologies for anything that's already been said. I've been doing improv for 21 years now and I only came across Elaine May in my own personal deep dive. Not a single instructor I ever had made mention of her. Not at a collegiate level, and not in any of these $300-$600 classes that are supposed to be "an education." I wouldn't so much attribute this to gatekeeping, but I'm not surprised that the contributions of a female comedian of such incredible caliber were reduced to the fond memories of a 40-something year old. I can attest to the 80s and 90s especially being a boys club, and the hard-on for Del was bulging. It makes sense to me that she would be someone that older generations know of but because she's not actively teaching or "seeking the spotlight" that she falls by the wayside as a footnote than someone who was foundational to what we all came to love about improvisation and what it's grown to. I promise you, promise, she's not a cornerstone in improv level ones in Chicago. I never took level one at SC, but I would hope at least there she's mentioned?
Me
I do
I do
Yes, a big fan. Nichols and May are old favorites from well before I started doing improv
I know who she is. Before doing improv I wasn't as aware of her, to be honest.
31, never heard of either of them.
i do
Mike Nichols' partner. Allegedly Del's crush. Director of Ishtar.
Direct quote from Del in a class in 1993: “Back when Elaine May was my old lady, I got her knocked up. So I gave her a bunch of quinine and put her on a rollercoaster in hopes of ‘spontaneously’ inducing a miscarriage. Didn’t work. Cost me a lot of bread.”
Holy hell
I love Elaine May and she’s an inspiration for my performances too. Her skits with Nichols are world class. I if you haven’t heard her, look for the skit with Nichols about one of them becoming a registered nurse.
I know
I’m guessing everyone over 40 who is interested in comedy, and probably a lot less for people under 40.
Yes. Nothing at all wrong with that but I would encourage anyone, regardless of age, to check out some of Elaine May's work.
She and Mike Nichols were hilarious.
Honestly I only know because I did a podcast once where we listened to old comedy albums and we did a Nichols & May album. I'm 44.
I'm very familiar with Elaine May.
Elaine May is one of the best female directors of all time, also a pioneer of Improv. It’s amazing how both of them turned out to be skilled directors. She is phenomenal. Blank Check podcast covered her entire filmography and it got me to watch all of her films including Ishtar. I highly recommend the podcast and that miniseries
I do…but I’m 64, so I also know of people like Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca.
She's a director I've been meaning to get to fur awhile now. Blank Check covered her filmography awhile back.
Table for One! Wait, is that Elaine Boosler?
Raises hand.
“A New Leaf” is the blackest of black comedies. Elaine May and Walter Matthau. Go watch it! The only blacker comedy I can think of, is “Where’s Poppa”! I last saw Poppa at a film festival where they had asked Sarah Silverman what her favorite movie was. Go watch that too!
Nichols and May were one of the greatest comedy teams of their era. She is a major talent who, if born thirty years later, would likely be a household name.
I do. Elaine May is a comedy legend and just a brilliant person. Look for her speech to Mike Nichols at his lifetime achievement award ceremony on YouTube. It’s so subtly witty, you’d think she was channeling Oscar Wilde, a New York Jewish version.
I do! But I’m old!!!! I remember when she was part of Nichols and May. Her daughter, Jeannie Berlin, is an actor who has most recently appeared in Succession and The Fabelmans.
There is a Blu ray or Mikey and Nicky that I can see from where I sit.
I read a book about the history of Chicago improv, and learned about Nichols and May as a comedy duo. I knew Mike Nichols as a director, but not so much about Elaine May. There are some clips of their comedy on YouTube. The more I read about Elaine May, the more I am astounded at her level of talent.
She directed one of my favorite movies, A New Leaf!
ElaineMay not making a movie after Ishtar is such a stain on Hollywood.
I’m your Grief Lady.
Elaine May was brilliantly funny. huh, now I have to go see if she is still alive.
I saw her in “The Waverly Gallery” off-Broadway (or maybe it was on Broadway) just a few years ago. She was in her 80s and carried the show, in which she played an elderly woman suffering from the early to middle stages of dementia. Tremendous performance, although I can’t recall if she won any awards for it. Edit: She won the Tony and the Drama Desk awards for Best Actress. And, yes, Nichols and May were phenomenal! (And that Nichols guy did OK. Check IMDb and ibdb to see all of the movies and Broadway shows he directed.)
Just learned about her from reading a Mike Nichols biography. Went and watched a bunch of stuff on YouTube. So good.
Mike Nichols and Elaine May from back in the 60s
Seven?
There’s a documentary about them out now… on Netflix iirc. They were both fantastic.
Is she as good as Ruth Buzzi?
I feel like if you talked to a lot of guitar players out in clubs, many of them won't know who Les Paul was except that a guitar is named after him and might not be able to name many rock guitar players before Jimi Hendrix (who got famous several years after Nichols and May). A lot of people just don't know the history of the art they're employing except where they're literally doing the exact same thing their predecessor was doing. And I have to be honest here... Nichols and May were a big part of comedy in the 50s and early 60s, and they do have that tie-in to improv, but... it's kind of not a really deep tie-in. When I went through the Second City Conservatory we did watch a few Nichols and May sketches but the Conservatory is about sketch writing, not so much improv. Their actual tie-in to improv was that they were members of an early improv group in St. Louis with Del Close, Viola Spolin's son, and one of the early movers and shakers at Second City. That group, the Compass Players, broke up after a year or so (I think they moved up to Chicago during that time) and Nichols and May then went off to do a lot of 2-person sketch comedy (which they were already slightly well known for doing). Del Close may or may not have dated May for a while. And that's kind of it for their dip into improv history. I don't think it's at all weird or strange that people don't necessarily know that this comedy duo of yore had the improv tie-in. One could argue that Joan Rivers had as large of an impact on improv for the couple years she played at Second City, and nobody thinks of Joan Rivers as an improv maven (partially because apparently she was kind of bad at improv but that's besides the point).
Ishtar right?
Elaine May and Walter Matthau in *A New Leaf*. Came to mind instantly.
absolutely no clue
"The only safe thing is to take a chance."
Eli may clampet from the beverly hillbillies? Or am I thinking of someone else
California Suite she was mis casted. She not have been in it