As I began reading Improv Nation, I was unconvinced by Sam Wasson’s broad statements and claim that improv is American’s most popular indigenous art form taking over from jazz. He makes a bunch of these claims, and Jason Zinoman picks up on many of these uncertainties, including the fact that Wasson ignores the rest of the world.
“It’s a valuable book, benefiting from dogged reporting and the kind of sweeping arguments that get your attention. By his second paragraph, Wasson, the author of five books including Fosse, argues that improv has become ‘America’s farthest-reaching indigenous art form,’ a bold, if defensible claim. On the next page, he writes that it ‘has replaced jazz as America’s most popular art.’ That is harder to ‘yes, and.'”
“To do justice to the impact of improv comedy, you need a wider lens, one that explores the increasing importance of improv theaters in the comedy ecosystem, the various schools of pedagogy and how the principles of improvisation have infiltrated the business world, traditional acting and popular culture.”
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