Harold is a form of longform improv. Developed by Del Close

Del Close

Del Close was an actor, improviser, writer, and teacher. Considered one of the premier influences on modern improvisational theater, Close had a prolific career, appearing in a number of films and television shows...

 and brought to fruition through Close's collaboration with Charna Halpern

Charna Halpern

Charna Halpern is a co-founder of the ImprovOlympic, now known as The iO. She was born and raised on the North Side of Chicago. In 1984, with partner Del Close, she began teaching The Harold to many students in the Chicago theatre community. She and Close co-authored the book Truth in Comedy: The...

, the Harold has become the signature form of Chicago's I.O.

I.O.

iO, or iO Chicago, is a theater located at 3541 N. Clark St., in Chicago, Illinois, one-half block south of Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. The theater both has performances of, and teaches improvisational comedy. It was founded in the 1980s by Del Close and Charna Halpern...

 and the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York and Los Angeles. It is now performed by improvisational theatre

Improvisational theatre

Improvisational theatre takes many forms. It is best known as improv or impro, which is often comedic, and sometimes poignant or dramatic. In this popular, often topical art form improvisational actors/improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously...

 troupes and teams across the world.

The Committee

The Committee (improv group)

The Committee is a San Francisco based improvisational comedy group founded by Alan Myerson and Jessica Myerson . The Myersons were both alums of The Second City in Chicago. The Committee opened April 10, 1963 at 622 Broadway in a 300 seat Cabaret theater that used to be an indoor bocce ball court...

, a San Francisco

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

 improv group, performed the first Harold in Concord, California in 1967. They were invited to a high school and decided to do their improvisations on the war in Vietnam. On the way home in a Volkswagen Bus

Volkswagen Bus

-Light commercial vehicles:One of five generations of Volkswagen vans:*Volkswagen Type 2 , generation T1 *Volkswagen Type 2 , generation T2 *Volkswagen Type 2 , generation T3...

they were discussing the performance when one of them asked what they should call it. Allaudin (Bill) Mathieu called out "Harold." It was a joking reference to a line from A Hard Days Night

A Hard Day's Night (film)

A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...

 where a reporter asked George Harrison

George Harrison

George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

 what he called his haircut; he answered "Arthur." Close later remarked that he wished he had chosen a better name.

When The Committee

The Committee (improv group)

The Committee is a San Francisco based improvisational comedy group founded by Alan Myerson and Jessica Myerson . The Myersons were both alums of The Second City in Chicago. The Committee opened April 10, 1963 at 622 Broadway in a 300 seat Cabaret theater that used to be an indoor bocce ball court...

 disbanded in 1972, improv company “Improvisation, Inc.” was the only company in America continuing to perform Del’s “Original” Harold: A 45-minute free-form piece that would seamlessly move from one “Harold technique” to another. In 1976, two former I-Inc performers, Michael Bossier and John Elk, formed “Spaghetti Jam”, performing in San Francisco’s famous Old Spaghetti Factory through 1983. Spaghetti Jam performed Harolds while also turning Spolin games and Harold techniques into stand-alone performance pieces... i.e Short-Form Improv. Early performers of The Harold also included Betty Thomas

Betty Thomas

Betty Thomas is an American actress and director in television and motion pictures.-Life and career:Born Betty Thomas Nienhauser in St. Louis, Missouri, Thomas graduated from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree...

, Jose Simon

Jose Simon

Jose Simon was an American comedian and musician who founded Comedy Day in San Francisco and aided that city's reemergence of stand-up comedy starting in the 1970s....

, Terry McGovern

Terry McGovern (actor)

Terence "Terry" McGovern is an American film actor, television broadcaster, radio personality, voice-over specialist, and acting instructor.-Personal life:...

, Buzz Belmondo

Buzz Belmondo

Lorenzo Matawaran, better known by his stage name Buzz Belmondo, is an actor, comedian, filmmaker, film producer and writer.- Early life :...

, Robin Williams

Robin Williams

Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...

, Barry Sobel

Barry Sobel

Barry Sobel is an American actor and comedian.-Life and career:Sobel grew up in New York City. During the 1980s, he toured the comedy circuit heavily. His routine centered around rapping in a Beastie Boys style....

, Gil Christner

Gil Christner

Gil Christner is an American actor, writer and comedian living and working in Los Angeles.-Early life:...

, Joyce Imbesi, Taylor Negron

Taylor Negron

Brad Taylor Negron is an American writer, actor, and stand-up comedian.-Personal life:Negron was born in Glendale, California to Conrad Negron, Sr., former mayor of Indian Wells, California. He grew up in Pasadena, California. His cousin is singer Chuck Negron...

 and Paul Willson

Paul Willson

Paul Lee Willson is an American actor, most notable for his television work.Willson has played numerous guest characters on a variety of shows including Curb Your Enthusiasm, Boston Public, Caroline in the City, and Star Trek: Voyager...

.

Close's book, Truth in Comedy, which was co-written by Charna Halpern, is the definitive text on the form. It describes a "training wheels Harold" as three acts (or "beats"), each with three scenes and a group segment. With each beat, the three scenes return. By the end of the piece, the three scenes have converged.

Structure

A typical Harold is 25 to 40 minutes. Given three unrelated scenes A, B, and C, the structure follows:

• Opening
• Scenes A1, B1, C1
• Group Game
• Scenes A2, B2, C2
• Group Game
• Scenes A3, B3, C3 (Note: In the final set of scenes, not all three will always return. Players are encouraged to call back the most interesting scenes and characters from the Harold, and also to intertwine them.)

Close called this a 3x3 structure, using it to give improvisers a sense of organization to help them through their first Harolds. He was clear that the format was theirs to use. Departures were not only allowed but were considered important steps in developing a group's ability to Harold. He expressed this in his book Truth in Comedy noting that "the first rule is: there are no rules." In performing Harolds, content and the need to develop an organic commentary on the suggestion trump predetermined structures.

Various Harold structures use different sets of guidelines such as the 3x3 format. Another guideline might be whether you stay as the first character you create or can play multiple characters. Or, that the ending is a group scene. Or, that everyone knows each other and scene partnerships may change from the first to second and second to third layers.

The loose structure allows for the creative bursts necessary for the Harold. Using an audience suggestion, actors explore their relationship to the topic as a starting point. The scenes progressively evolve as the exploration continues to an ending point.

Opening

The basic form starts with an "opening." After eliciting the audience's suggestion, the ensemble explores it for a few minutes in either an unplanned or a predetermined structure. Textbook structures include:

• A cocktail party that ebbs and flows between conversations.
• Monologues that rotate among cast members.
• Invocation of the suggestion in the style of an occult ritual (It is, you are, thou art, I am).
• Organic involving morphing sound and movement exploration.
• Pattern game where word association is used to generate ideas, often referred to as a clover leaf because the pattern arcs out with associated words and returns to the suggestion, and is repeated two additional times.
• Source scene or scenes which are used to pull ideas and which might return in the 3rd Beat.

Rarely is the opening just about the literal suggestion. The suggestion serves a starting point to discover greater underlying themes. Del Close stated that a suggestion should be elevated from the commonplace to the extraordinary.

First Beat (A1, B1, C1)

Following the opening are three completely unrelated two-person scenes. Each may use such information from the opening as:

• Details, such as location
• Themes and patterns, such as troubled family life
• Tangential information, such as a throwaway line

As the suggestion inspires the opening, the opening is a launching point for the first set of scenes.

Group Game

Following the third scene, multiple members of the cast return to stage, for a group game based on the opening. A group game is a palate cleanser and should not relate to the established sets of scenes.

In a scenic group game, the focus jumps between all the characters participating. A textbook structure is the Advertising Meeting, where the entire cast must come up with an ad campaign for a new product.

More abstract group games are called presentational, which focus less on individual characters and more on a concept; in "slide show," for example, one improviser presents slides that are recreated by rest of the troupe. Some other examples of Presentational group games are

• Flocking - all the improvisers mirror each others actions
• Simple game - rules are developed of a simple game during the game, like freeze tag.
• Inanimate Objects - improvisers become inanimate objects and do a very short monologue describing their perspective then perform a scene based on the interpersonal relationships of the objects.

Second Beat (A2, B2, C2)

The second set of scenes heightens what was established in the first set. What it is heightening will differ from school to school. At the I.O., the characters and relationships are heightened. At the Upright Citizens Brigade, the "game" of the scene is heightened.

A tool for this is a "Time Dash," where the scene picks up at a different point in time than last left (for example, a scene between a newly married couple with problems can take the second beat to show them on their tenth wedding anniversary).

After the second beat is another group game.

Third Beat (A3, B3, C3)

The final set of three scenes (the third beat) connects themes, characters, situations, and games from the whole piece. Often, scenes merge into each other, avoiding the need to return to all three. The third beat is usually the shortest.

Related Forms

Del Close allowed for and encouraged much variation within the structure of the Harold and saw it as a malleable and organic form with which to explore themes and ideas. The beats and games need not appear in the order or number described.

Most modern forms are derived from the Harold. These include:

• Armando (The Armando Diaz Theatrical Experience and Hootenanny) - a host's monologues provide the inspiration for scenes. The name originates from Charna Halpern
  Charna Halpern
  Charna Halpern is a co-founder of the ImprovOlympic, now known as The iO. She was born and raised on the North Side of Chicago. In 1984, with partner Del Close, she began teaching The Harold to many students in the Chicago theatre community. She and Close co-authored the book Truth in Comedy: The...
  
  and is named after Armando Diaz who was the first one to be the monologist.
• Deconstruction - one long opening group scene, which is used for idea generation.
• La Ronde - Multiple locations with improvisers staying in one character the whole performance.
• Monoscene - One scene location, sometimes with improvisers playing different characters and sometimes playing the same characters for the entire piece.
• Movie - an improvised movie that uses disjointed situations which converge by the end.
• Sybil - one-person Harold.
• The Bat - a Harold performed in the dark, like a radio play.
• French Harold - a Harold performed within a monoscene, in which the improvisers perform the Harold in one location.