
Improv Nation
How We Made a Great American Art
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Narrated by:
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David de Vries
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By:
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Sam Wasson
At the height of the McCarthy era, an experimental theater troupe set up shop in a bar near the University of Chicago. Via word-of-mouth, astonished crowds packed the ad-hoc venue to see its unscripted, interactive, consciousness-raising style. From this unlikely seed grew the Second City, the massively influential comedy theater troupe, and its offshoots - the Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade, SNL, and a slew of others.
Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv in this richly reported, scene-driven narrative that, like its subject, moves fast and digs deep. He shows us the chance meeting at a train station between Mike Nichols and Elaine May. We hang out at the after-hours bar Dan Aykroyd opened so that friends like John Belushi, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner would always have a home. We go behind the scenes of landmark entertainments from The Graduate to Caddyshack, The Forty-Year Old Virgin to The Colbert Report. Along the way, we commune with a host of pioneers - Mike Nichols and Harold Ramis, Dustin Hoffman, Chevy Chase, Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, Alan Arkin, Tina Fey, Judd Apatow, and many more.
With signature verve and nuance, Wasson shows why improv deserves to be considered the great American art form of the last half-century-and the most influential one today.
©2017 Sam Wasson (P)2017 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...




















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good, but not comprehensive
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Great performance by David de Vries. His narration handles difficult deliveries of sketch material and characterizations that would have led to a train wreck for most audiobook performers. He handles them with gusto, avoiding both understatement and showy impression.
Compulsively listenable historical overview
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With all the improvisers in the entertainment and audiobook industry, I'd think they could find a reader with a passion for the material. The read doesn't feel like the reader cares about the material, and every time he mispronounced Dave Koechner's name (which was every time he said it), I cringed. Likewise, the one time he said Paul Feig's name, he whiffed it. He even said "Mike" Napier once.
Good book. Loving writing. Hope there's more.
The subjects covered are excellently written.
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