Improv Nation: How We Made a Great American Art

Wasson (Fosse) makes a thoroughly entertaining case that improvisational comedy has “replaced jazz as America’s most popular art” and represents the best of democracy. Improv was a product of the McCarthy era and came of age quickly with an energetic, ambitious cast of characters. Wasson brilliantly weaves together the disparate strands of improv’s first decade, when players with different philosophies and skill sets persevered in defining their art. These pioneers, including the duo of Mike Nichols and Elaine May and actor and comedian Del Close, influenced the explosion of comic talent that poured out over the next half century. Wasson nicely foreshadows future events and collaborations and does an admirable job of making simultaneous events easy to follow by drawing contrasts (for example, the collegiality of SCTV’s Canadian style vs. the raw competitive ambition of New York City’s Saturday Night Live cast in the 1970s). He covers such major late-night figures as John Belushi, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Murray, as well as Alan Arkin and Harold Ramis. In the spirit of an improv performer, Wasson takes care to never let the stars take over the show. Photos. [em](Dec.) [/em]