A thing's context is everything outside it, that relates to it in any way at all.

For example, consider a janitor. His context includes:

•	Where he works (maybe JFK Junior High School of Malcolm Creek, Missouri)

•	The brand of vacuum cleaner he uses (maybe MIT Research, Experimental Model)

•	His wife (maybe named Esther)

•	His wife's job (maybe she's on the city council)

•	His bank account (maybe he's got about ten thou stashed away at First Imperial)

•	His favorite hobby (maybe he's really into Rimsky-Korsikov)

•	His ethnic group (maybe he's a gypsy)

•	His kitchen table (maybe it's a Chippendale)

•	His past (maybe he regrets betting on the Buffalo Bills)

The examples in parentheses illustrate what can happen when you think of ways to Be Concrete with context. Notice how much any one of these suggest about the janitor. Notice how much they stimulate your imagination for ways to have fun with the janitor.

The basic Yes And trick is actually to supply elements of context for whatever you've been given. Don't limit yourself to the thing, look outside the thing.

Context is where the leverage is

It's not obvious, but most of a thing's power or meaning is a result of its context and not a result of its own attributes. For example, the meaning of a word is due to where it is in a sentence and the vast social context of how people understand the language. Alan Greenspan's power derives not from his physical strength, but from his position within the Federal Reserve. What makes the janitor interesting is not himself, it's his relationship with the Buffalo Bills, his bookie, and the many teams that defeated the Bills in the Super Bowl.

In improv, where you need to quickly create a rich reality and make amazing connections, creating and exploiting context is pretty much the basic tool. Context gives leverage to your lines. Pointing your thoughts toward context gives leverage to your imagination. (Exception: Bozo The Clown Humor, where there is almost no use of context.)

Stacking the deck

When you "score" in improv, it's because you said a line that connected with its context in some surprisingly appropriate way--something that no one would ever find if they were searching for lines in a systematic way or by telling themselves to think of something funny or clever. Finding such lines seems like searching for a needle in a haystack.

A way to find such lines easily is to do what almost no one would do: play along with the context rather than opposing it. This makes each line contribute to building up more and more context for lines to connect to. It stacks the deck: with so many possible ways to connect, you practically stumble over them.

The illusion

Most people are not aware of how many different ways there are for things to connect, especially when there is a rich, concrete reality established. There are so many different possible connections, any one you find will be a surprise--even to you. The one you find would probably not be the one that someone else would find. And yet the illusion that you somehow found "the one right line" persists.

"Paint the target where the arrow lands" is easy in improv because there are trillions of targets. Just, neither you nor the audience can see one of those targets until you reach one.

Nearly all improv techniques are ways to build a context or relate to a context that's already built. The best techniques lead you to do both at once. In a word, Yes And.