Improvoker

I’m more than half way through level 301 at UCB NY and it’s been interesting. My instructor Chris Gethard may be one of the most brilliant thinkers I have ever had the pleasure of working with. He is insightful, straightforward, and extremely astute in his observations about improvisers and their work. I have been humbled, on several occasions, by his on point notes which have really catapulted my understanding of Improv as an art-form rather than just a means for a cheap laugh.

I have, however, been thinking a lot about improv recently and not enjoying my progress in class or practice group. This has been largly to my thinking too much about what I’m doing wrong and holding onto my mistakes rather than noting them and letting them go. I have been putting undue stress on myself to perform.

Don’t suck, don’t suck. Please don’t suck.

So, before my class on Thursday, I decided that I don’t pay $325 a level to beat myself up. I don’t spend 3 hours after an exhausting day of work to feel worse about myself than I did before. I certainly don’t want to give up. I love improv - I should let my self criticisms go and have fun. This is improv! Why am I taking it so seriously? Why aren’t I having the fun I was having in 101?

This isn’t rocket surgery.

The most basic component of improv is play. When children play there is no right or wrong, mistakes are part of the process and are adapted on as they happen. Children understand that there is nothing to loose so they have no problems making leaps of faith when playing. Yet when I’m playing in improv I’m so afraid of not making mistakes, that I never make the moves I want to, because I’m afraid of screwing up the scene. Amazingly, or not so amazingly, once I decided to have fun - I felt free in class. I jumped into scenes, played game, raised stakes, supported scenes, and had a lot of fun unencumbered by my judgements. Sure I made mistakes, but I also learned from those mistakes ¹. Even when Chris gave me notes, I took them to heart, feeling encouraged that I could do better next time rather than discouraged that I haddn’t done better at the time.

At the end of the day, we all do this because we love it, we all love it because it’s fun, it’s fun because it’s not supposed to be taken too seriously.

It’s only Improv.

¹ As a supporting move to a scene I was in about confronting fears, Dan, a fellow student, came out as a bull for my scene partner and I to bullfight. He passed by once and exited stage left. Wanting more scenes with the bull, I broke the scene’s reality to comment on how weird it was that the bull just ran off after one pass. In retrospect I should have gave Dan a cue by saying something to the effect of Here comes that bull again. This would have given Dan the heads up I wanted him to come back in and moved the scene forward at the same time.