Art By Committee

Art by Committee
A guide to advanced improvisation

Charna Halpern
Meriwether Publishing- 22.95 USD

This book is kind of a sequel to Truth in Comedy, ans as such, offers little more or little new, apart from anecdotes about ImprovOlympic and Del Close. Author Charna Halpern relives how she met her partner Del, and describes his death. Unless you are a serious fan of Del Close, such tidbits are no reason to buy the book.

What is enlightening are Charna's observations on how Del's signature format, the Harold has evolved since the publishing of Truth in Comedy.

Also interesting - at least if you do not live in Chicago, New York or LA - is the DVD that comes with the book. There are examples of the Harold and and Armando, though not all snippets are all that high quality. The performance of Beer Shark Mice on the DVD is really good, and is a prime example of the TagOut format.

Finally, the DVD packs interviews with folks like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Andy Dick and Tim Meadows. Mildly interesting, but not earth shattering.

In all, a not very interesting book, the DVD included probably being the most interesting aspect.