Big News... 👀

Friends,

I’m happy to announce that the third book in my improv trilogy is under contract with LSU Press: The Age of Improv: How Improvisation Shaped Global Popular Culture. It’s currently undergoing a vigorous review and editing process. Look for it in the fall of 2027.

Tracking the emergence of global popular culture driven largely by American improvisation—from minstrelsy to Jon Batiste’s Big Money and Bad Bunny’s spiked football, with many stops (especially in New Orleans) along the way—The Age Of Improv casts a wide net. It puts jazz on the largest possible stage along with varied discourses which share the claim of being composed in the moment, impromptu.

Hot jazz, Jackson Pollock’s flung paint, and Second City’s yes, ands...: we are comfortable labelling them all “improvisations.” But what connects them? Wherein lies the family resemblance? These are fresh questions in the nascent field of improvisation studies. Asking them helps us see that improv, while thumbing its nose at the powers that be, has always been about building a new, more vital community.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll join me over on Instagram or Facebook, where I’m having fun posting reels on everything improv, from jazz to Trump’s “triumphal arc.”

I had a great conversation last month with Amy Iler and JJ Gordon, an experienced improv practitioner and alum of 2nd City and The Theater Io, on their podcast “It Takes Two with Amy and JJ” on KFGO. Listen to it here.

If you enjoyed this post (and my big book news), I’d appreciate if you’d give the ❤️ button a tap.