Joshua G. Caven ’24 said the best thing he ever participated in was his sixth-grade production of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” where he played the Mad Hatter. And true to his roots, as his senior at Harvard, Caven wears quite a few hats. Caven is the lighting designer for the original musical “White House Princess,” co-director of On Think Ice, Harvard University’s oldest improvisational comedy troupe, and a performing stand-up with the Harvard University Stand-Up Comedy Society (HCSUCS). He is also a comedian. His art is used on campus, throughout comedy media, on and off stage.
“The deciding factor for me is the simple fact that I’m not good at sports, no matter what I do,” Caven said. “But I like working in a team.”
From Caven’s perspective, technical theatre, improvisation, and stand-up have one major common element: opportunities for collaboration.
“[Technical theater] It’s a very collaborative experience. You are working with other people. You are communicating with other people. And it gives you the opportunity to be creative in a way that’s completely divorced from selfishness,” Caven said.
But while traditional theatrical performance requires incredible teamwork, Caven believes the medium doesn’t require as much collaboration as improvisation, which he calls “the most fundamentally… We call it a collaborative art form.
“In something like theater, you have assigned roles, assigned tasks, responsibilities,” Caven said.
On the other hand, he describes improvisation as a “completely flattened field” because performers can play any role they choose.
“Every time I go into a scene, I don’t know who’s going to lead the scene. How are we going to play against each other? Who’s going to have power in the scene, who’s going to be disruptive, who’s going to be more interesting?” Caven said. “And there’s really great joy in that. There’s joy in the spontaneity.”
Even in conversations with the Harvard Crimson, Caven was constantly cracking jokes. This sense of humor not only helps me in my improvisations, but also in my work at HCSUCS. His comedy is an unlikely medium for someone as passionate about collaboration as Caven, given that stand-up speaks alone for 3-5 minutes on stage, but from his perspective stand-up Up comedy is a team his sport.
“Standup at Harvard is all about telling jokes, riffs, and tidbits to each other. And then someone else comes up with a tidbit and says, ‘Oh, this is a good one, but I can do it better. I think, you know? Like, if you want to run with it, it’s all yours,” Caven said.
It may seem counterintuitive that comedians feed off each other’s best material, but in Caven’s words, artistic collaborations are “rarely a zero-sum game.”
These three mediums roughly encapsulate Caven’s artistic pursuits, but they do not completely. He calls improvisation “his second favorite thing in the world.” His first favorite is wanting to be “considered more artistic”?
“That’s disgusting: Dungeons & Dragons.”
For Caven, this role-playing game combines the best parts of his other three art forms. From technical theater, the idea of “learning technology” is included. From improvisation, “pure collaboration” and “pure spontaneity”. An opportunity to “really put yourself into it” from stand-up.
Another benefit of Dungeons & Dragons is that it “eliminates failure,” unlike improvisation, where failure is a big risk, Caven said.
“There’s no guarantee it’s going to work. You can practice all you want, but you’re still going to bomb at the show, and that feels terrible,” Caven said.
“Sometimes we’d open for THUD, and sometimes we’d do well, and other times we’d get stuck in the Perry the Platypus scene, which probably wasn’t great,” Caven said. “And maybe after that, THUD didn’t have anyone recruiting anymore. And maybe it wasn’t your fault, but maybe it was, and that happens.”
But while the “Phineas and Ferb”-inspired fiasco is painful, improvisation helps Caven overcome his self-described “really deep fear of failure.”
“Improv is the only space I’ve given myself in life to fall on my face in a truly embarrassing and humiliating way. And I’ve fallen on my face many times improvising, but… “It didn’t feel good at the moment, but I think it made me grow as a person,” Caven said.
While Caven says he loves improvisational theater at Harvard, he is troubled by the art form’s exclusivity on campus, especially when compared to technical theater and stand-up.
He said that “anyone can do technical theater at Harvard” and that stand-up comedy is “totally welcomed.” However, he pointed out that improvisation is “different” because its collaborative nature requires extreme trust between performers. Although he enjoys improvising on campus, he is frustrated by its exclusive atmosphere.
“Harvard doesn’t need more things on campus that keep people from getting involved on campus. I wish Improv could be one of the more welcoming spaces on campus.” Caven said.
Given the lack of availability of improv on campus, Caven is interested in “expanding comedy opportunities.” This is an initiative I started in high school, when I participated in a comprehensive performing arts program called Live Arts and an improvisation class for underprivileged students in Richmond, Virginia. .
“This isn’t about a savior complex. ‘We need to reach out to people and bring them in with the power of their comedy,'” Caven said. “However, it’s fun to improvise with people, and you need to have a broader perspective when thinking about the kind of people you want to improvise with.”
Caven’s commitment to making comedy inclusive is first and foremost critical to the concept of art as a space for collaboration rather than competition. He recognizes the power of comedy not only to make people laugh, but also as a force for social good.
Part of its power, in Caven’s opinion, lies in comedy’s ability to subvert mainstream narratives, and he draws inspiration from the black comic tradition.
“There is a really long history and tradition of using stand-up comedy to express things about America, life, society, racism, etc. that cannot be expressed in everyday conversation,” Caven said. “And for me, I really find the potentially subversive elements of comedy, especially stand-up comedy, as an art form in addition to collaborative work, really interesting and fascinating.”
“But actually, I wasn’t good at sports.”