Plateau: a criminal oversimplification

This summer, I've been working with my friend Brendon on a two-person show* called Flash Fiction. We had our first show a couple of weeks ago after about 8 weeks of practice.

This is a mathematically precise chart** of our progress over the summer:

You know what communicates mathematical precision? Paintbrush.

A is our first two or three practices. We were figuring out what we wanted the show to be and getting our scene legs. While we have 18ish years of improv experience between us, neither of us had ever done a two-person show. The initial learning curve was huge. It took us a couple of practices to loosen up and articulate our goals.

B is the middle several practices. Let's call it practice 4, 5, and 6. I realize that, on the chart, it is MUCH LONGER than A, even though it represents a similar period of time. This chart is not following calendar time. It's following how the time felt. We plateaued for a few weeks, and that plateau felt like it lasted forever and ever amen. We weren't bombing; we just weren't getting better very quickly anymore. Everything we did was ok. Just ok.

C is our last three weeks of practice before the show. Every piece felt amazingly better than the piece that came before it. We played hard and smart. It was the kind of playing that reminds me why I do improv in the first place. I don't know exactly how we pushed out of that plateau; good coaches and a Jet Eveleth workshop certainly helped.

D is our show. It was not our best work, but it was not our worst, either. It was on par with our plateau. This is consistent with several other troupes I've played with and coached. Even if you have experience, it takes a few performances for a troupe to really find its legs. A show introduces variables -- a different space, an audience, logistics -- that can throw you. I thought they wouldn't throw me this time, but they did. The space was unexpectedly weird, the audience was larger than we'd anticipated, and the tech was rocky. It takes practice not to be distracted by those things.

We have another show in a few weeks, so I'm excited to see what E looks like.

---

This post was inspired by Bill Arnett's classic post, Analysis and Synthesis, which I've found hugely encouraging. Please read it. Bill Arnett would say that what looks like a plateau is actually a very gentle upward slope, so subtle that it's hard to notice while you're on it.

That’s it. A criminal oversimplification of something that is born from our souls. I’ve ascribed numbers to art, the most sacred and challenging, the most human, of all of our endeavors. I’m just playing my part in the history of western civilization, I guess.

- Bill Arnett

*It takes a conscious effort for me to say this. I default to "two-man show," even though I'm half the troupe and also a girl. 

**No it is not. 

Playing with an open heart.

Meet Jet Eveleth, one of my favorite improv teachers in the world. In her words, this is what it takes to be a good team:



A key here is shared goals. A troupe that lasts is a troupe that is making progress together toward an agreed-upon end. And -- guess what! -- the same goes for church congregations.

Not long ago, I took a workshop with Jet called "Loving the Harold," which emphasized quirky organic games and grounded scenes. At the end of the three weeks, one classmate spoke up, "Ok, so now I love the Harold. I love this kind of Harold. But I'm afraid if I start playing like this with my team, they'll eat me alive."

Jet said something like:

They very well might eat you alive. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Start daydreaming about your perfect team. How would they treat you? How would you play with them? Go ahead and start playing like that now. And expect to get your heart broken.

Some people find their soul mate early on, but some people have to go through relationship after relationship before something clicks. If you were vulnerable and open and you got broken up with anyway, you still have to pick yourself back up and be vulnerable and open again. Don't be so busy protecting yourself from being hurt that your soul mate can't recognize you.

You have to keep playing the way you want to play deep inside, and you have to let yourself be seen. You have to believe that there are people out there who want to play with someone like you, but they will never find you if you're not playing with an open heart.

So I started daydreaming about the kind of troupe I wanted.

I like watching witty, stylized shows, (like Whirled News and Improvised Shakespeare). When I have friends in from out of town, that's often what I take them to see.

I like watching mind-spinningly fast, aggressive improv (like Deep Schwa and Beer Shark Mice). I find it impressive, because that's not how my brain works.

I could stand to develop more in all of those areas, and maybe the best way for me to do that would be to jump into teams who have those shared goals. Ultimately, though, I have not been happy on teams like that. I like seeing their shows, not playing in them.

My favorite way to play is patient and relational, maybe with some big group non-scenes to shake things up. I thoroughly enjoy Whirled News and Deep Schwa, but TJ and Dave and The Reckoning melt my nerdy little improv heart.

I want to play like the work is important, like I have all the time in the world, like my partners are poets, and like human beings are inherently amazing.

Not everyone wants to play like that. That's ok. It doesn't mean they're bad guys. It just means they have certain goals, and their goals aren't the same as mine.

This whole idea resonates with my own experience with different churches and denominations. 

I didn't fit in with Southern Baptist churches in my hometown. And, because my hometown was almost entirely Southern Baptist, I thought that meant I didn't fit in with any church anywhere. I would have to be a rogue, church-less Christian. Love Jesus, hate religion. That sort of thing.*

(For the record, that works just about as well as a being a rogue, troupe-less improviser. Sure, I can say I'll work on a coach-less solo project, but I can only get so far without critique from veterans and support from other players who are growing along with me. It might be necessary to go solo for a season, but it's not a long-term solution.)

Am I saying that Southern Baptist churches are bad? No. I'm just not cut out to be a Southern Baptist anymore than I'm cut out to be a ComedySportz regular.

After some trial and error, I discovered I'm most free to be myself in an Anglican church. I need the structure, the liturgy, the sacraments. I need the arts in worship and the theology classes. It's where I belong.

But it was four years between the time I realized that and the time I let myself use my gifts and make my friends in the congregation. If I had risked being open earlier, it wouldn't have taken me that long. I missed out on four years of using my gifts for the church and letting the church serve me in turn because I wasn't willing to risk coming to church with an open heart.



*And by "thing," I might possibly mean heresy. Maybe. If, by "religion," you mean "hypocrisy," I'm totally with you, but please say what you mean.