Improv Basics: Happy, Healthy, Sexy
AKA The Three Cs
When initiating a scene, keep it “happy, healthy, sexy.” This is a mantra that I’ve heard around the improv community. It comes from Keith Johnstone1, and it is a nifty way to make scenes work. I’ve heard many improvisers use it, but I must confess that it’s not my favorite phrase. I’ve taught it to my students, many of whom find it confusing. A more descriptive phrase is “content, competent, connected,”2 which means the same thing but is more direct.
New improv students will often start scenes negative or confrontational. The most exciting thing to do in the moment is to oppose the other character; however, a scene that starts with a conflict usually runs out of steam rather quickly. A few lines in, the players realize that they don’t know who these characters are or why they feel so strongly about their stance. Instead, start scenes positive. There’s plenty of time to introduce conflict later in the scene. We can further break down positivity into happy, healthy, and sexy.
Happy (or Content)
Scenes should start happy, but not necessarily giddy, joyous, or mirthful. A better word is “content.” A typical discontent scene initiation is a character who is complaining. E.g., “I hate amusement parks. I don’t want to be here.” We now know she is at an amusement park, but we have several questions. Why did she come to the amusement park? Why can’t she leave? Where would she rather be? If instead, she was happy to be at the amusement park, these questions don’t arise.
Simply put, if someone is discontent, they will make an effort to change that. When you establish a discontent character, you have to establish why they haven’t made a change already and what they would prefer instead. Choose to start with a character that is content (at least, in the moment). This choice makes it easier to establish a base reality for the scene (see CROW).
To be clear, a content character can still have wants and desires. It is fine for characters to be discontent with their station in life and desire change. In terms of character arc, the characters may be discontent; however, they don’t need to be grappling with this at the beginning of the scene. For example, in a story about a boy who wants to leave his small town and become a famous musician, we don’t start with him hating his town. We start with him loving music. Starting positively allows the audience to connect with the characters and see what they care about. Later, when conflict does arise, we’re on their side.
Healthy (or Competent)
Characters should start healthy—but a better word is “competent.” Of the three, I think this is the most often neglected by students. Partly, the reason is the inherent humor of incompetent characters. It’s funny to see an expert or a professional (high status) be bad at their job (low status). This can be a funny game, but that is a topic for later (see “game of the scene”). Another reason is that players can feel ill-equipped to play an expert on a topic they aren’t actually experts in. At this point, as a teacher, I have to remind them that they can simply declare themselves to be an expert, and then, because of “yes, and”, anything they say becomes fact in the scene.
Another way incompetence manifests is the character who asks questions such as “Who am I?”, “Where are we?”, or “What just happened?” These questions are not helpful in improv since you could have just as easily provided the answer rather than asking the question. Not only do these questions put your scene partner on the spot, but you are also establishing yourself as an unreliable source of information about the base reality. Your character needs to be competent enough to know what’s going on.
Characters can also be incompetent if they are inebriated, hallucinating, or compulsive liars. Such characters cannot contribute to establishing the base reality, so avoid bringing these characters into scenes.
An incompetent character can also strain the reality of the scene. Once, in a rehearsal for a pirate-themed show, the cast all wanted to play pirates who were bad at being pirates. A fire started on the ship, and each of the pirates was too oblivious to notice or too incompetent to put it out. While this led to several funny individual scenes, the plot quickly got out of hand, because it wasn’t clear how these pirates were ever able to function as a crew. If a pirate is allergic to parrots, that is a funny juxtaposition. If a pirate doesn’t understand that fire is bad, we start to question how they can be a pirate at all. At a minimum, the characters need to be competent enough to function in the world they inhabit.
Sexy (or Connected)
The most confusingly named of the three, “sexy” should really be called “connected.” To Johnstone’s credit, telling students to be more “connected” is nonspecific and confusing. Telling them to play more “sexy” makes them giggle and blush, and then they end up playing scenes where the characters are more connected to each other. Of course, Johnstone isn’t saying every improv scene should be sexy. What is important is that there is a strong connection between the characters.
Common examples of scenes with unconnected characters are transactional scenes (e.g., buying groceries, doctor/patient) or teaching scenes (e.g., yoga class, learning how to fix a car). In these scenes, the characters don’t know each other well and are just going through a series of steps. Ideally, scenes are about characters who already know each other and have some deeper connection. (Connected overlaps with Relationship from CROW.)
Newer improvisers focus on establishing their own characters and are overly cautious about endowing their scene partner. This trepidation leads to playing strangers or characters that are just friends, classmates, or neighbors. Encouraging them to play more connected characters leads to more interesting relationships like best friends, rival classmates, or neighbors who are falling in love. They must establish this connection before introducing the conflict because the connection is why we, the audience, care about the conflict. If we just see two characters arguing, we don’t know how to feel about that; however, if we first see them caring for each other, we are rooting for them to resolve their argument. The connection between the characters makes us invested in the story.
“Happy, healthy, sexy” succinctly helps improvisers avoid many beginner mistakes in scenes. I find it easier to remember than long lists of what not to do (don’t do teaching scenes, don’t start with conflict, etc.). However, it is a rule that is meant to be broken. Well, all rules of improv are meant to be broken, but “happy, healthy, sexy” is broken quite often. “Last class, we learned ‘happy, healthy, sexy,’ but we saw <hilarious local improv troupe> this weekend, and they never did that!” One could argue that ‘happy, healthy, sexy’ is just training wheels, but I think it’s good advice for experienced improvisers as well, especially those trying to play more grounded scenes and those doing narrative.
Perhaps the biggest issue with “happy, healthy, sexy” is the name. I think “content, competent, connected” is better terminology, but it is harder to remember. Among teachers I’ve talked to, there seems to be a consensus that there ought to be a better phrase than “happy, healthy, sexy,” but as of the writing of this blog post, there isn’t any one replacement phrase that has caught on. If you have one you like, leave it in the comments.
Also check out Johnny Meeks on Yes, Also talking about “por las buenas” scene starts. It roughly translates from Spanish as “willingly.” A character should want to succeed at whatever they’re doing in the scene. When a character is really uncomfortable or really inept, they are in the situation unwillingly (“por las malas”). I think that covers many of the same ideas as HHS, but perhaps more succinctly. He goes into much more detail in the podcast, and I recommend listening to that episode.
I’ve tried to find a good source for this, but the phrase does not appear in Impro or Impro for Storytellers. However, the phrase is commonly attributed to Keith, and I have spoken with several people who personally attended Keith’s workshops and can verify that it was a philosophy he taught.
Again, this phrase is hard to give credit for. To my best recollection, it was borne of a brainstorming meeting of the teaching staff at the Hideout Theatre. Caeriel uses “happy, competent, connected”