Improv is all about spontaneous performances. But behind the scenes, there are a few aspects of improv that require forethought and planning.
Booking shows, for example, requires making sure everyone can show up to perform, providing show details to performers, and promoting your show so you’re actually performing in front of an audience.
Between each show, there are practices to coordinate, details to be ironed out, and a cool Instagram account to maintain.
Fortunately for the modern improviser, there are quite a few tools out there that can help you organize your group and get the word out about your shows.
There’s an improv app for that
While I don’t think the designers of any of these tools expected improvisers to flock to them en masse, your team can use them to step up your planning and collaboration game. These apps are grouped by their function and are listed in alphabetical order. You can skip to what your team needs most by using the table of contents below.
Table of Contents
Branding and promotion
While branding and promotion aren’t necessarily the most important parts of organizing your improv group, they’re definitely the most fun.
Canva
Canva offers a lot of free templates that help you get started with designs and layouts for social media posts or event posters. The free version gives you access to quite a few options, most of which you can customize to match the look, feel, and vibe of your team.
Creating an image in Canva (Source)
How to set it up: To create a free Canva account, you just need an email address and an internet connection. Choosing your layout and design is fairly intuitive once you start using the system.
Piktochart
Piktochart is a free design tool that offers templates your group can use to promote events. While Piktochart’s templates aren’t as geared toward social media as Canva’s—they don’t offer pre-sized Instagram layouts, for example—they still offer a multitude of free icons, shapes, and font options to choose from. You’ll just need to look up correct sizing yourself.
Piktochart also offers template options (Source)
How to set it up: Piktochart has the same setup process as Canva: Just plug in your email address and get going.
Communication
Efficient communication is half the battle when trying to organize an improv group. You need to make sure everyone has all the details about your shows and practices. And if someone has a question for the group, it’s easier to have one location to check rather than an ever-lengthening group text or email chain.
Google Drive
For big-picture ideas or ongoing, long-term discussions, using Google Docs or Sheets can help your improv group keep track of various details. When one of my indie groups held auditions, for example, we used Google Forms to create an audition application, Docs to keep track of things we wanted to cover in the auditions, and Sheets to keep track of which auditioners were coming in at which time slots.
Create all kinds of documents in Google Drive (Source)
How to set it up: The most common way to access Drive is through your Gmail account. So if you already have one, you’re good to go. However, if you don’t have one, you can access Drive via a Google account (which isn’t necessarily the same as Gmail). You can create your account here and still have access to all your team’s documents.
GroupMe
GroupMe is a group texting app that helps you communicate with all the member of your group in one place. Instead of scrolling through your SMS inbox, you can create groups within GroupMe to keep communications uncluttered. Plus, you don’t have to scroll through your contact list every time you set up a group text to make sure you’re including all the right people.
Bonus: You can also use the polling function in GroupMe to make quick decisions or see if people are available for upcoming shows.
Text every member of your group from one app (Source)
How to set it up: Sign up for GroupMe via Facebook or email here or enter your number here to download the app on your phone and complete the sign-up process there.
Scheduling
Trust me, finding practice and show times that work for every member of your group is one of the most frustrating parts of improv. I firmly believe it’s why some improvisers leave improv to perform stand-up exclusively because then they’re only responsible for scheduling themselves. Group texting back and forth just won’t cut it when trying to coordinate schedules. For your sanity, you should use an app.
Google Calendar
Creating a shared calendar gives you one place to keep track of all your team events. You can also add event locations or create custom notes within the event to provide as much detail and cut down on confusion as much as possible.
You can use a team calendar to keep track of shows and practices
How to set it up
- In your Google Calendar app, create a new calendar (with the large plus sign in the left sidebar).
- Name your calendar—I suggest using your group’s name—and click “Create Calendar.”
- You should see an option to configure your calendar, and from there you can choose to share it and customize different members’ access settings.
Doodle
If you need to figure out the best date to schedule an upcoming show or practice, Doodle is a great alternative to texting back and forth about it. Doodle allows you to set up a group survey with a list of dates and presents the results in a color-coded, easy-to-read format that shows when people are available.
Find a date that works for shows or practices (Source)
How to set it up: You can create a Doodle poll here without signing up for an account. Just select the dates you’re considering and send it to your improv team members via email. However, if you create a Doodle account via Google, Facebook, or email, you can access all your polls in one place, as well as choose to integrate Doodle with your calendar app to make seeing your own availability easier.
Social media management
Since I track down dozens of improv groups on social media every week to put my newsletter together, I can say with full authority that most need a lesson or several on social media best practices. Before you think about using any of these tools, you need to have at least a group Facebook page and Instagram account. If you have one or both of those, please read on to see how these apps can make managing your social media super easy.
Buffer
With a free Buffer account, you can connect up to three social media profiles. I recommend connecting Twitter and Instagram, as Facebook has restrictions that I’ll discuss below. From Buffer, you can post images and text to different social media channels and choose what date and time you want your posts to go out. So if you know you have a show coming up, for instance, you can write tweets or queue up an Instagram post of your event poster and set it to go live a few days or hours before your show instead of scrambling to promote your event at the last minute.
You can schedule social media posts from Buffer.
How to set it up
- Sign up here with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or email (I recommend email) here.
- From your dashboard, choose which account you’d like to connect.
- You’ll have to verify each social media account with your password so Buffer knows you have the authorization to post to these channels.
Your Facebook page’s publishing tools
Ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal when lots of people allowed lots of weird apps to access lots of their personal information, Facebook has been increasingly strict about allowing third-party apps to connect to profiles and pages. For that reason, I recommend scheduling any Facebook posts within the app itself. Write your post, tag any relevant groups or performers, pick your date and time, and hit “Schedule.”
Schedule posts from your Facebook page.
How to set it up: Assuming you already have a group Facebook page, just go to “Publishing Tools” to create and schedule posts.
Task management and accountability
Now that you and your improv group have so many accounts to manage, you might want to create one more to make sure you remember to do all the stuff you’re supposed to do. Maybe you want to keep track of when you’re supposed to schedule your social media posts or who’s supposed to create a Doodle survey. You can keep track of those things by yourself or as a group with one of these apps.
Todoist
If you’re like me and just need a place to create to-do lists, Todoist is a personal task manager that can help you stay organized. In the free version, you can share a project with up to five people. While that might not be enough to include all of your improv group’s members, you’ll at least be able to keep track of your own responsibilities.
Todoist helps you make to-do lists (Source)
How to set it up: You can sign up for Todoist with Facebook, Google, or email here. From there, you can set up projects and share them with group members.
Wunderlist
Wunderlist is similar to Todoist, but it allows you to add an unlimited number of people to your projects, as well as share files and add notes to tasks. Bonus: You can customize the background to make your Wunderlist experience fit your aesthetic tastes.
A project to-do list with subtasks
How to set it up: Sign up for Wunderlist via email, Facebook, or Google here. Then create your projects and share your tasks.
Get your improv life together
Since it’s 2018 and the apocalypse hasn’t happened yet, improv groups can take advantage of internet connections and digital tools to stay organized and get the word out about shows. You don’t have to resort to carrier pigeons or whatever Del Close used to let his improv group know when practice was.
Use any combination of these apps to simplify your improv logistics. And if your group is using another app that makes your comedy life easier, tell me about it in the comments or let me know about it via Facebook or Twitter, @ComedicPursuits.
Additional reading
- If you need to know how to start an improv group, not organize one, this post might help.
