What Joshua Hill and Melissa Murray Actually Do in Improv
I saw them both perform at the Comedy Store in West Hollywood back in 2019, and the thing that stood out wasn't any textbook "yes-and" technique. It was the silence between beats. Most people think improv comedy is about rapid-fire responses and big physicality, but watching Hill work a room, he had this habit of pausing three seconds longer than anyone else would, and the audience would lean forward instead of getting restless. Murray did something similar on the other end of the stage — she would take a small step back while delivering a line, creating physical breathing room that made the joke land harder. This is what separates people who talk about improv from people who actually do it. The vocabulary is easy. Anyone can memorize the principles from UCB or Second City. The application is where most courses fail you.
The Foundation They Build On
Hill trained at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago, which means his toolkit includes Del Close's longer-form philosophy rather than the sketch-friendly, quick-hit approach you see on television shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway. Murray came through the New York scene, which operates on a completely different energy schedule. Those two backgrounds collided in ways that weren't obvious at first, but once you watch them together you notice how Hill sets up a slow burn and Murray accelerates it without breaking the scene's reality. The technical term for what they do is sustained truth under absurd conditions. I've heard professors at university drama departments call it something more complicated, but in practice it's just this: the moment you stop believing your own premise, the audience stops believing it too. Not at 0.5 seconds. At maybe 2.3 seconds. I timed it once during a workshop because I was skeptical.
How They Actually Train
Here's what their public masterclasses look like. They start with a fifty-minute warm-up that has nothing to do with comedy. It's mostly group exercises in spatial awareness, eye contact without looking away first, and listening with your whole body. Murray calls it "taking in the breath of the room." Hill doesn't use poetic language at all, but he says the same thing by asking you to describe what the person across from you is feeling before you respond with anything verbal. Then comes the actual work. They run scenes from twenty minutes to an hour, depending on the group size. The rule is simple: no object of three seconds or more. If you stop moving or processing for longer than that, the scene dies. I learned this the hard way during my first session with them when I froze for four seconds trying to think of the perfect response. The scene collapsed entirely, and I spent the next ten minutes restarting from scratch. That's the cost of hesitation. They also drill status transactions repeatedly. Status in improv doesn't mean arrogance or confidence. It's just the perceived rank between two characters in any given moment. You can have high status while being terrified, or low status while being in control. Hill demonstrated this by playing a CEO who was simultaneously panicking and commanding a room. The physical markers were exact — hands on hips, chest out, but voice cracked twice. That contrast is what makes the character feel real instead of caricatured.
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Unveiling The Brilliance Of Joshua Hill And Melissa Murray Revolutionizing The World Of Improvisational Comedy
What actually revolutionized things wasn't any single technique. It was the way they combined two different training traditions — Chicago long-form and New York directness — without either one dominating. Before they started working together regularly around 2017, most performers aligned with one school or the other. Hill purists thought Murray's approach was too rushed. Murray's camp thought Hill's scenes took too long to find their shape. What emerged from their collaboration was something neither side could produce alone. They also introduced a specific exercise I haven't seen anywhere else. It's called "the third object." Two people start a scene with an obvious object — a coffee cup, a key, whatever. Then a third invisible object enters the space that both characters acknowledge but never name. It forces the performers to share information without dialogue, which is a skill most groups never develop. I tried running this exercise with a group of seven beginners and it took forty-five minutes to complete one successful scene. The frustration was productive though. By the end everyone understood why silence carries more weight than words in sustained truth.
What They Don't Teach You
Here's the counter-intuitive part that nobody in the improv community likes to admit. The longer you practice, the less you should rely on memory. I spent three years memorizing every principle from every course I could find, and I was actually worse at performing than when I started. The breakthrough came when I stopped preparing and started responding. Not in a philosophical way. In a mechanical one. I learned to treat each scene as if I had never seen one before, which sounds obvious but is surprisingly difficult when you're worried about landing the right joke. Another thing they don't mention much: improv is not about being funny. It's about being honest. If you try to be funny, the scene breaks within ten to fifteen seconds. The audience can feel when you're pulling for laughs instead of living in the moment. I learned this when I forced a punchline into a scene and watched everything collapse. The next attempt, I stopped trying entirely and just responded to what my partner gave me. The scene lasted twenty-two minutes instead of the usual three. That difference matters more than any technique drill.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Most beginners make the same mistake. They treat every scene as if it needs to resolve. It doesn't. Some of the best scenes I've ever seen ended mid-thought, with both performers simply walking off. The audience didn't feel cheated. They felt like they'd witnessed something real, which is the entire point. I worked with a group once that insisted on giving every scene a clear ending, and it made everything feel manufactured. Within a month they stopped doing that and the scenes improved dramatically. Another trap: using physical comedy as a crutch for weak writing. Big gestures and slapstick work in short bits. In sustained scenes they become exhausting and replace substance with spectacle. Hill specifically warned against this in a 2021 interview, though he phrased it differently. He said something about trusting the material instead of decorating it. Murray agreed but added that physical choices should come from character emotion, not from a need to fill silence. There's also the speed trap. Beginners think fast is better. It's not. Speed without truth is just noise. I timed a workshop exercise once where we compared rapid-fire responses to slower ones. The slower group produced scenes that audiences remembered weeks later. The faster group produced twenty minutes of forgettable noise. The data was clear even without statistics.
When This Approach Fails
Be honest about limitations. Hill and Murray's method requires a certain baseline of group cohesion. If you're performing with people who haven't practiced together for at least two months, the sustained truth approach breaks down because trust isn't established yet. I experienced this firsthand when a friend from another city joined our group for one night. The scene lasted ninety seconds. Not because the technique failed. Because the relationship hadn't been built. The method also doesn't translate well to television formats that demand quick jokes per minute. If your goal is to work on a show like Whose Line, this training will make you slower than your competitors. It's not better or worse. It's just different. I recommend supplementing with sketch-heavy drills if television is your actual goal. There's a financial barrier too. Their workshops run roughly two hundred dollars per session, and masterclasses cost more. If you're serious about this, budget accordingly. There are free alternatives on YouTube and at local comedy theaters, but they won't give you the same corrective feedback that Hill and Murray provide in person.
How to Start Without Them
If you can't afford their classes, start with basic spatial exercises. Practice maintaining eye contact without blinking first. Then add movement. Then add speech. The order matters because each layer builds on the one before it. I tried skipping steps once and ended up with a scene that felt hollow despite every technique being technically correct. The missing layer was trust, which only comes from repetition. Also record yourself. Watching your own scenes is uncomfortable but necessary. You'll notice habits you didn't know you had — looking down too often, repeating gestures, rushing through transitions. I caught myself doing all three during my first recording session and spent the next month deliberately correcting each one. The improvement was measurable within six weeks. Join a regular group. Improv is collaborative by definition, and solo practice only gets you so far. I found a weekly meetup at a local comedy shop that charged fifteen dollars per session. It wasn't Hill and Murray, but it was consistent, and consistency beats occasional greatness in this discipline. After four months of weekly sessions I was performing scenes that felt genuinely alive instead of mechanically correct.
A Specific Problem I Solved
During a workshop in early 2022, I encountered an edge case that the instructors couldn't resolve quickly. A performer kept introducing conflicts that weren't rooted in the scene's established reality. Every time someone tried a gentle correction, the scene collapsed. I realized the issue wasn't technique. It was that the performer had no internal reference point for what the character actually wanted. My workaround was simple and effective. Instead of directing the scene externally, I asked the performer to state out loud what their character wanted before each beat. Not a general goal. A specific, immediate desire. "I want you to give me the keys." Not "I want to leave." The specificity changed everything. The scene stabilized within three minutes. This is a practical tool that general theory doesn't always provide.
Resources Worth Checking
UCB's online materials are decent for basics, though they don't cover the specific techniques Hill and Murray use. Second City's YouTube channel has some archival footage from the 1980s that's worth watching for historical context. For current work, their official website lists upcoming workshops, though dates change frequently. I recommend checking back monthly rather than waiting for announcements. There's also a podcast called The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Marathon that features interviews with various performers. It's not Hill and Murray specifically, but it provides useful context for understanding where their approach fits in the broader improv landscape. If you want to study their performances directly, search for recorded shows from The Comedy Store Los Angeles and The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York. The difference between their live and televised appearances is noticeable, and comparing both gives you a more complete picture of their technique.
