Moved!

For Christmas, my husband made me a lovely new home for my improv thoughts. Come find me here!

www.thankyouredball.com

In the beginning ...

... my sketch idea was more boring than it was in the end.

My church is moving into a new building, and they asked me to make a video to promote one of our Consecration events: We're going to read the whole Bible aloud in a week, which should take roughly 24 hours each day. This means we need the whole church to take turns reading so nobody gets worn out.

I recruited my Flash Fiction partner, Brendon, to act in the video. My husband Blade helped with some of the technical aspects.* I wrote the basic outline for the sketch and edited the footage.


Rez Consecration Week: Brendon reads the entire Bible from Church of the Resurrection on Vimeo.


I had three ideas for the sketch, and they came to me in this order:

1. Brendon signs up for all the reading slots, and I spend the video talking him out of it. I explain how the Consecration event actually works.
2. Brendon signs up for all the slots and I coach him through it. He messes up a lot -- reads the verse numbers and all the footnotes aloud, for instance -- and I have to keep him on track.
3. Brendon practices reading the whole Bible, and I just let him go.

The third thought ended up being the strongest. Del Close said** that an improviser's first and second thoughts tend to be knee-jerk reactions. It's usually a player's third idea that has life.

The first thought was boring, because why would I spend 3 minutes trying to talk Brendon out of doing something? It's always better to do something than it is to debate about doing something.

The second thought was based off the idea that we needed a straight man to ground the scene and set the record straight. Maybe we would need to explain more with some audiences, but our audience is biblically literate folks who like Rez on Facebook.

The third thought was the most energetic. It felt like Brendon and I were on the same team instead of him being on the Team of Fun and me being on the Team of Boring Reasonableness. Being on the same team is more joyful.

Also, my own role shrunk from actor/director/editor to director/editor, which felt better. Three hats is too many hats.



*Technical aspects include: Setting a camera up on a tripod, letting me know when we were out of battery, and teaching me how to use iMovie. 

**I can't find a citation for this, but I can find a lot of people writing, "Oh, yeah, a teacher told me that Del told her that ..."

How to Spot a Healthy Improv Troupe

Maybe your dream troupe is patient and grounded, or maybe it's stylized and off-the-wall. Maybe it's short form, maybe it's long form.

Regardless, you want to be in a healthy troupe. Not just a funny troupe or an impressive troupe, but a healthy troupe. If you're not healthy, it doesn't matter how charismatic or witty or patient you are; things will get miserable.

What does healthy look like? In my experience, a healthy troupe is characterized by:

• Eagerness -- The players are eager to try anything, eager to learn from critique and experience, and eager to support others.
• Honesty -- The players are open and honest, both on stage and off. On stage, honesty often begets comedy. Off stage, honesty begets solid relationships -- which, in turn, creates good comedy. As conflict arises, players talk about it in person rather than gossiping or shelving.
• Showmanship -- While practicing improv can be therapeutic, it is not therapy; it is preparation for a performance. Players work on technique to improve their shows and care for their audience.

This is the kind of troupe I want to coach.

It's the kind of troupe I want to play with.

So I guess it's the kind of player I ought to be.

Walking in Neutral - or - Stay alive.

The last time I played "Standing in Neutral," my class told me I looked like:

• a person who judges people in public places
• a teacher who isn't friends with other teachers
• a woman watching nervously out the window for gremlins

I wrote here:

That was four years ago. At the time, I was struggling with anxiety and depression. ... I'm curious to know if my neutral has changed since then. The best way to find out is probably to get into a room full of honest strangers and ask. 

So I was excited/terrified when Paola had us play a variation of Standing in Neutral* in our clowning class this week. I was afraid I'd be the same as I was back when Noah led the game.

Instead of just standing in neutral, we walked in neutral, and five people walked behind us. Paola told us that the leader was to think of these other five people as an extension of her own body -- not to ignore them, but not to worry about them either.

And instead of just commenting on what sort of impression we made, she made each of us do it again and again until we were truly neutral.

After the first few people had failed, someone asked, "Paola, what are you looking for? How is it supposed to look?"

Paola** said, "This is like you ask me how you ride the bicycle. I write you the book on how to balance, how to ride the bicycle, but that does not make you do it. You do not learn to balance with words from other people. You know when you see, and you know when you feel."

Then it was my turn, and I was resigned to failing a time or two at least. I walked across the room. This felt totally surreal. I was just thinking, "This is the strangest I've ever felt. I do not anything could take me by surprise right this moment, and also, I think I'm floating," when there was this odd little gasp from several people. When I arrived at the front of the room to face Paola, the gasps turned into little groans.

Paola said, "Alyssa. You do this very well. In neutral, you walk like a queen. We all see this and soe we understand what I say about the bike. But then you disappoint me. You disappoint the whole room!"

"Oh no! What did I do?"

"You apologized! You apologized with your eyes. You were a queen, and then you used your eyes to hide being a queen. This is like you apologize for being alive. You were alive when you walked, and you died when you stopped. Stay alive."

I told this to my friend Steve tonight, and he said, "She's right! You do that thing with your eyes!" (Someone please point this out to me the next time you see me do it so I can start breaking the habit.)

"Queen" definitely trumps "judgmental teacher plagued by gremlins." Now I have to grow into it and quit doing the thing with my eyes.



*I now see that "Standing in Neutral" would be better called, "Standing in Natural." Natural and neutral aren't even close to the same, apparently.
 
**Italian is her native language; she tells us that her brain translates from Italian to French to English before words come out of her mouth. Imagine her words accompanied by lots of big hand gestures.

How to Play: Throwing a Stick

Throwing a Stick
Get a large stick -- a thick dowel rod would work well -- and throw it back and forth with your partner. 

While throwing the stick, tell a word-at-a-time story. Or talk about your day. Or just make noise. Whatever.

Don't hit each other in the face. Don't stop throwing the stick. Do this until just before the boredom sets in.

I've been told* that I have four choices for where to be in my scene: My head, my body, my world, or my partners eyes. Three of those things are awesome. One of them sucks. Guess which is which.**

To that end, my friend Brendon and I came up with this simple warm up game to get us out of our analytical brains and into all those other good things.

Another friend, Kevin, and I throw the stick before a show, as illustrated by my husband, Blade.

Throwing the stick makes us move around with our whole bodies.

It allows us to talk and listen without allowing us to judge, because our normal logic is being short-circuited be needing to throw and catch an unwieldy object.

It requires that we make good eye contact if we're not going to get hit in the face.

Throwing the stick puts us in just a little physical danger -- more than a little, if we're not attentive -- which prepares us to take risks.


*Probably by Jet Eveleth.

**It's the head. The head is the worst option. We all know that, right?

On the hook

I've said before that Jet Eveleth is one of my favorite teachers. Here she is, talking about nerves and fear:


There are at least 19 wonderful things in this video, but I want to highlight this comment:

"I purposely do things that scare me all the time to learn how to manage my adrenaline so that I can be more authentic onstage. ... Especially because I teach, I think it's really important for me to constantly be scared so I'm empathetic with my students."

Sometimes, after a Jet workshop, I'd ask, "I'd never done that exercise before; what is it from? Where can I learn more things like this? How can I get better at this?"

Jet's answer was usually along the lines of, "I learned it from clowning. Paola Colletto is the best clowning teacher around. Take classes from her if you can."


So I Googled Paola Colletto and found out that her classes were way out of my budget, in terms of both time and money. And I felt a little relieved. Well, that scary thing isn't an option for me. I'm off the hook.

Until last week, when I heard through the Facebook grapevine that Paola was offering a class called "Physical Theater for Improvisers." It's in my schedule and my budget. That puts me back on the hook. I've talked with Paola, sent my registration check, put it on my calendar.

I'm purposely doing a thing that scares me. And now it's time to panic.*




*My friend Steve asked when the class was, and I told him it doesn't start for another 3 weeks. "So now is not actually time to panic. You cannot possibly panic for 3 weeks straight." Watch me.

Students scaring teachers

Last night, I played again with my friend Brendon at Open Source Improv. It was our second show. We were all warmed up, the logistics were taken care of, I was feeling relaxed and ready ...

Until 3 of my students walked in the door.

Then I got anxious.  

---

Every week or two, Jimmy Carrane posts a talk show podcast called Improv Nerd, which I highly recommend. His guests are talented improvisers who have some connection to Chicago's improv scene. In the dozen or so episodes I've listened to I've noticed a trend:

It doesn't matter how many Second City Mainstage shows they've done, how many i.O. classes they've taught, even how many seasons they performed on Saturday Night Live. They say that they're afraid of being found out as frauds.

This seems especially true of improv teachers. When I took classes at i.O, a few of my teachers would encourage students to come to their shows, then quickly admit that having students in the audience freaked them out. If they just taught a 3-hour class on environment, then their show better have a rich environment. If it doesn't, their students might call them on it. Or worse, their students might lose respect for them.

---

I think that's where my anxiety was coming from last night. It helped that I'd heard so many players I admire come on Improv Nerd and name that feeling. Naming the fear drained some of its power. That gave me enough distance harness that fear as energy instead of letting anxiety win the day.

I felt better about this show than about the last show, partly because the students were there to scare me.* I think I play better when I'm scared but don't let the fear win.



*I do not think they were there for the purpose of scaring me. That was just a side effect.

Thinking over thinking

I thoroughly enjoyed this video, posted last week by Ze Frank.

In life -- especially in church -- I view people telling me, "Don't think so hard! You're thinking too much!" as a giant red flag. I don't appreciate being asked to turn off my brain.

Phillip Carey summarizes the problem well in the chapter of Good News for Anxious Christians entitled, "Why You Don't Have to Worry about Splitting Head from Heart."

"The new evangelical theology, like all forms of consumerist religion, ... requires you to be afraid of engaging in critical thought, so that you're easily manipulated and easily pressured into wanting to feel what everyone else feels. ... So it's hardly surprising that a misleading piece of rhetoric ('don't split your head from your heart'), which has the effect of making you feel you're thinking too much, is pretty popular in evangelical circles these days."

I often tell improvisers I'm coaching, "Get out of your head!" At first glance, that seems to be the same thing as "You're thinking too much!"* It's not. But I can see them get stressed out when they misunderstand me, because then they start thinking about their thoughts, which is an unhelpful internal spiral of nothing happening.

What I actually mean is, "Think in a different way!" Or, more actively, "Do something! Think about it as you go instead of agonizing about your actions beforehand."

Most players I've coached have been college students at a competitive school. They spend all day at taking notes on lectures, writing papers, doing research, and conducting experiments. They use their analytical brains all day.

When I tell them to get out of their heads, I'm not asking them to turn off their brains. I'm asking them to use a different part of their brain than they use in philosophy class. I'm asking them to use the intuitive part, the playful part. The logical part doesn't disappear, it just takes second chair for a few hours. That the players are smart, logical people makes the play that much richer.

So I like how Ze Frank says this:

It is possible to overthink, but first you have to think and try and talk and do. And after that, if you're still at an impasse, maybe then you let go. 

---

I also liked this:

Laughter is the release of suddenly unnecessary emotional inertia.

(See this post on why death scenes are funny in an improv show.)



*If I ever tell you you're thinking too much, you have permission to kick me in the shin.

Women in improv: Support vs. Submission

I've heard a couple of different improv friends lately mention a person being "the kind of player who takes good care of her partner" or "the kind of player who takes good care of himself." (I don't think the pronouns were arbitrary; more on that further down.)

I'm going to suggest that this is not the most helpful distinction. It's important to take care of yourself AND to take care of your partner, but you can kill both of those birds with one stone by making strong choices. What we need here is a deeper understanding of the word "support."

In Improvise, Mick Napier puts it this way:

If the first thought in your head when you approach an improv scene is "Support your partner" ... [w]hat are you supporting them with?

Are you supporting them with thoughts about supporting them? That's very nice but not very supportive. ... Do you say nice things to them, do you uber-agree, do you pat them on the head, offer them a chair, rub their shoulders? No, the most supportive thing you can do is get over your pasty self and selfishly make a strong choice in the scene. Then you are supporting your partner with your power, and not your fear.

If you want to support your partner in an improv scene, give them the gift of your choice.

So, what's the best way to take care of myself? To make a strong choice. No brainer.

And what's the best way to take care of my partner? Also, to make a strong choice. Not deferring to them, saying "yes" a lot, and keeping your own ideas to yourself.

For me, the latter concept was difficult, because I confused 'support' with 'submission' for my first couple of years of improv. I'm sure there are guys who deal with this, too, though I haven't met many. I have seen this over and over with evangelical women.

Conservative evangelical gals grow up being told that good Christian girls are polite and deferential. We're told, for instance, that the only reason Deborah and Jael were allowed to lead is that Barak and the rest of the Israelite men were too wimpy to step up. A woman could only be strong if all nearby men had abdicated their manhood.* Even if you don't consciously buy into these ideas, they're in the water, and they need to be fought.

Being polite will not serve you or anyone else. Being generous will. It means giving of yourself, not abdicating yourself. Generosity means making strong choices.

It's not as though strength is a single cake, and for one woman to have more of the cake, it means a man or another woman has to have less.

Strength is NOT a cake.** It's more like the widow of Zarephath's oil, which never dried up during the famine; she always had enough to give some food to Elijah.

Or like the other widow's oil, which Elisha told her to divide into other jars. She took all the jars in the neighborhood, and no matter how many jars she poured her oil into, there was always enough to fill another jar.***

In God's upside-down economy, giving things away doesn't necessarily mean you have less for yourself. Grace isn't a zero-sum game. The more I give of myself, the more I have. That's how we're supposed to live, and good improv is a small, concrete example of how it can play out.

Making strong choices yourself doesn't mean your scene partner can't. My strong choices should make it easier for you to make strong choices, which will make it easier for me to make strong choices, in an endless loop of strength and support.


 *Here is a more reasonable interpretation of that story, preached earlier this summer by Rev. Karen Miller. I highly recommend investing 20 minutes of your day listening to this.

**THIS IS A WAY IN WHICH IMPROV IS NOT LIKE CAKE. My world may collapse.  

***Elijah and Elisha had a thing for widows and oil, I guess?

In which Piglet, a Very Small Animal, is more important than he thinks

There's a player who tends to hug the back wall during workshops and shows, either because of fear or because he wants to make sure everyone else has had a turn. Too often, though, he never takes a turn himself. We'll call this players Piglet.

Dear Piglet,

I want to see more of you, but you seem afraid to leave the sidelines.

It's a little Anxious to be a Very Small Animal Entirely Surrounded by players who think they have more Brains and more Bounce than anyone else. You may think, "If they want me in their scene, they'll ask me, or they'll pull me in. They look like they have everything under control on their own. I don't want to rock the boat."

Piglet, you can't stay in your corner of the Forest, waiting for others to come to you; you have to go to them sometimes.

I know you're worried about The Worst happening. Maybe it would help to say The Worst out loud. Supposing The Worst happened, what then? And what would happen after that? Usually, The Worst thing that can happen if you take a big risk is that you'll look silly and people will laugh at you. But this is an improv show, so that's actually a good thing. That means you can give all your Supposings a rest.

Here's a secret: Other players could stand to be a little more like you. I know you're Very Small, but you're thoughtful. You are willing to give away the spotlight, and that can be a Noble Thing, as long as you're doing it to build someone else up and not just to hide yourself.

Some of those Brainier, Bouncier players need to learn a little Consideration, a little Thought for Others. Because you have those things, I'm going to ask you to be very brave and to take lots of turns next time you play with your troupe. You know how much you need all of them; now you need to realize how much they need you, too. 

Love,
Alyssa

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. 

Question: Can improv be as deep as more traditional theater?

Did you know you can tell me what you want to read about, and I'll try to write accordingly? You can! And my good friend Marty has done just that.

Marty asks:

Do you think improv can reach the same psychological/emotional/conceptual depths as more traditional theater? 

No and yes.

Can improvisers make situations, settings, and plots as tight and complex as Arthur Miller or Yazmina Reza? No. I've never, ever seen a group do this on the fly. So my answer on the "conceptual depth" part is: Probably not.

But the psychological/emotional depth part? Yes. The potential is there. The players have to be in sync, with heightened focus, vulnerability, and amazing amounts of patience. Then, sometimes, you can reach those depths. Not always. But sometimes.

I don't think that's different from more traditional theater. Not all produced plays are as successful, artistic, and moving as the greats. Not every script is God of Carnage or August: Osage County. For every Tracy Letts, there are countless Corky St. Clairs:



The same is true of any art form. For every masterpiece, there's a daunting volume of worthless crap. When it comes to books, movies, and scripts, we trust time to separate the wheat from the tares.

Improv shows don't have that chance. They're like fireworks*: Dazzling, then gone. Or underwhelming, then gone. Time doesn't preserve the good ones. No matter how good or bad an improv show was, no one will ever see it again.

---

I also want to address the connotation that "deep" means "solemn" or "intense." Solemnity and intensity depend on setting, not on content or quality.

Let's say you're watching a solid two-person scene. One of the characters is dying. Maybe he even dies by the end of the show. Do you laugh or cry? That depends on where you are. Are you in a black box theater or a cabaret? The space you're in shapes your expectations, and your expectations shape your responses.**

People associate improv with comedy. They expect to laugh. So when they feel any reaction at all to what is happening on stage, that emotion manifests itself as laughter.

In a more solemn, black box setting, complete with costumes and lighting, that same emotional connection could manifest itself as crying or as a deep, attentive quiet.

In a way, improvisers have it easier. If you're performing a death scene in a tragic play in a black box theater, laughter is the worst thing that could happen. It probably means your show is a flop.

But if you were do to that same serious, tragic death scene in an improv show, and the audience laughed -- well, you're probably in a comedy club, so laughter isn't bad. It might not be what you were going for, but it's not bad. It doesn't mean you've failed.


If we aim for depth, for greatness, we might miss, but we will hit "interesting" or "funny" or "smart" along the way. If we aim at funny but miss, we just hit "corny" and "irritating" and "boring."*** We might as well aim high. 

---

What do you think, Marty? Or anyone? Is improv inherently shallower than other kinds of theater?




*This may be a Del Close quote. A teacher said that another improviser said that Del Close told her once ...

**For an upsettingly bizarre case study of this effect, read about the date rape monologue scandal at last year's Del Close Marathon. And watch it, if you have the stomach. Once audience member wrote: "I also think [the performers] assumed ... that the story would have a twist, a hilarious revelation that nullified the intense creepiness of the first, oh, I don’t know, 500 minutes of it. If they thought that, it is because they are comedians who expected a comedic story with jokes in it." People laughed, not because it was funny, but because they had prepared their bodies and brains to express emotion through laughter, even if the emotion was disgust.

***Possibly a David Pasquesi paraphrase. A teacher said that ...

In which Eeyore's audience is Kind and has Brains.

In some troupes I've been in and others I've coached, I've noticed a tendency to argue with the audience after the show is over. We'll call one of these troupe members Eeyore.

Dear Eeyore,

When someone from the audience approaches you after the show and says, "Good show, Eeyore!" say, "Thank you. I'm glad you came." Then stop talking.

Always say thank you, even if you didn't think you did a good job. This audience has not only paid to see you play but has also sought you out afterward to say hello. That makes it a Kind and Thoughtful audience.

If you say, "Really? You think so?" it seems like you are asking your audience for specific critique. That is your coach's job, not your audience's. 

If you say, "Thank you, but I didn't feel very good about it," that makes it seem like you don't think very highly of your audience. 

When someone tells you you did a good job, believe that they mean what they say. If you disagree or question them, you are suggesting either that he is a liar, or else a Bear with a Pleasing Manner but a Positively Startling Lack of Brain.

They've got Brains, all of them, not only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake. They Think. And we already know that they are Kind and Thoughtful, so let us assume they are telling the truth. They really did enjoy your show.

A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference. Just say thank you.
 

Love,
Alyssa

How to Be a Jerk and Have No Fun.

Are you having fun?

If you are not having fun, seriously consider the possibility that you are a jerk.

I've created a handy quiz, like in a magazine, to help you figure out if you are the jerk.

Click the picture to see full size.

If improv isn't fun, it probably has to do with judgment. You're judging other players, judging yourself, or judging your coach. Judgment is antithetical to acceptance, to YesAnd.

If you are the jerk in the troupe, not only are you sabotaging yourself, but you're making it hard for your friends to play with you and hard for your coach to direct you, and now nobody's having fun. Just like you. So congratulations.

The solution to not having fun is to have fun. That means showing up -- physically and emotionally -- and playing with your fellow artistic geniuses. Having fun doesn't mean everything will be easy, but who cares if it's easy if you're having fun?

For the sake of argument, let's say I'm wrong about you being a jerk. It really is everybody else's fault.

It does. not. matter. Have fun.

Even if everyone else really is better than you, have fun. If you're having fun, your shortcomings won't matter as much, and you'll get better faster.

Even if one of your troupe members really is a black hole of comedy, have fun. If you support them anyway, you might be surprised. And even if you're not surprised, this scene is over in three minutes, so who cares?

Even if your coach is asking you to exercise muscles you didn't even know you had, have fun. Be sore later, but have fun now.

Even if you think your director is trying to ruin your life by turning your troupe into an extension of his own maniacal ego, have fun. And maybe consider firing him later, but don't think about that during practice. 

I know that middle column of the chart well because I've spent some time in all those white boxes leading to JERK. I know that 90% of that was my own fault. The other 10% was the fault of my coaches for not calling me out.

As for that lower left hand quadrant, I've written here about playing with depression and here about finding a troupe with a common goal. Do whatever it takes to have fun anyway until it's time to walk away.

And there is a time to walk away. The good folks over at People and Chairs have an excellent post called On Coaches, Chemistry, and Finding Your Dream Team that talks about this. I recommend reading the full post, but the ending especially is gold:

At some point, it will be time for you to leave: your team, your Coach, or the theatre company that trained you. This is a good thing.

When you do, try to do it with grace and respect.

That team who liked fast-paced shows while you prefer slowprov? Wish them the best as you both pursue your own interests.

That Coach who drilled you on game of the scene till you wanted to throw a chair? Be thankful for the skills they imparted, and for helping you define your own beliefs.

That theatre company that gave you a start? Say a silent “Shalom” and step aside to make room for some new up-and-comers.

Be grateful for each and every experience, then focus on doing more of what fulfills you. In life, as in the Harold, nothing is ever wasted. 

Yes, there is time to walk away. Figure that out with your coaches, your teammates, and your journal outside of practice. During practice, have fun anyway.

Depression and the discipline of just showing up

I have said before that improv is not therapy*, but it can be therapeutic.

I got hit hard by depression and anxiety about a year into practicing improv. My playing wasn't stellar during that time, because I was so full of self-judgment that it was hard to have fun. I thought about quitting.

My counselor suggested I show up and pretend to have fun, just for a few minutes at a time. Did it fix everything? No, but it got me through practice that night.

As I healed up, pretending to have fun turned into really having fun. I'm not sure which came first, really.

Doing this in improv helped me to do it at church. While I was depressed, it was pretty hard for me to connect with other people, much less with God. I couldn't focus to read the Bible. But I could show up at church, and I could be present while other people read Scripture, and sometimes I could join in the prayers or the Creed with my mouth if not with my heart. I don't remember exactly when pretending to say the Lord's Prayer turned into praying the Lord's Prayer.

Just showing up at improv practice overflowed into just showing up at church. I couldn't muster the emotional energy to sincerely pray the Lord's Prayer, but I could still recite it. Somewhere along the way, pretending to pray in church turned into praying in church.

Even if you're dealing with something emotionally crippling, the discipline of showing up is hugely helpful.

For me, it was also helpful to practice focusing on other people, just for a few minutes, just for this scene. And then just for another few minutes, just for one more scene. My scenes were probably not awesome. That's ok.

My troupe and my church both had grace for me, which encouraged me to have some for myself.**


*OH MY GOSH IMPROV IS NOT THERAPY. 

**If you're depressed and are in a church or friend group that is less gracious than mine was, I highly recommend the book Darkness Is My Only Companion, as well as the chapter of Good News for Anxious Christians entitled, "Why You Don't Always Have To Experience Joy."

Improv is not therapy: a cautionary tale

Improv can be very therapeutic. It can teach you better communication skills, help you access and process your emotions, and give you practice relating honestly to other human beings. And, if you're a Christian, I think improv can give you some concrete practice in doing unto others and being part of one body. Improv has helped me be better at being a human.

But I cannot emphasize this enough: Improv is not therapy.

I've been part of troupes where one player had a crush on another, or a grudge against another, or whatever, and they made every scene about that. I had one teammate who went through a phase of turning everything into a father-son scene in which the son takes revenge upon the father and another who made every scene into a fantasy of his relationship with one girl.

If a coach asked a player like that about her choices, she would say, "That was my first instinct. I'm drawing on my life experience."

Ok, do that. Draw on life experience. Take your instincts seriously. 

I can't tell you your instincts are wrong. But you should have the self-awareness to know when your instincts are helpful. Work on your interpersonal relationships outside of practice. Drop the agenda. Improvise in the actual moment with the people who are actually present.


Improv is not therapy. For that matter, church is not therapy. Therapy is therapy. And it might be totally necessary and helpful, but it's for a certain time and place.


Do not turn your improv practice into group therapy time any more than you would turn an inductive Bible study into group therapy. You're there for a very specific purpose. Leave your issues at the door. Take care of yourself outside of practice, or else you'll end up with a cripplingly dysfunctional group dynamic.


And now, a true, cautionary tale:

This was our "ironic detachment" phase. It did not serve us. The Breakfast Club was not taking new members.

We were a college troupe, and we named ourselves Third Wheel. We may as well have called ourselves, "We feel awkward and jilted, and maybe nobody likes us, but watch us not care."

Four of our guys, two of whom were gay, were in love with one of our girls; well over half of us (myself included) were on heavy duty medication for depression and anxiety. Because we couldn't leave our issues at the door, the atmosphere was poisonous. Every practice was like that one Angel episode where our heroes get possessed by metaphors for their relationships. 

If our coach called us out on it, we paused our infighting to band together against him. He was obviously wrong and couldn't understand the emotional depth of our scene work. (We burned through a lot of coaches.)

I so wish these pictures were not typical of our collective attitude.

We didn't get many shows, and we were cut from the roster after only a few months. It is really, really hard for a whole troupe to get cut at a Christian college, where folks are generally prone to charity. To my knowledge, we were the only team ever to get cut rather than fade out as our members graduated. 

I was outraged and heartbroken at the time. However, if I were in the club director's position, I hope I would have had the guts to make the same decision.

Half of the players quit pursuing improv altogether. Some of them were really good, too. It's a shame, but who could really blame them after that soap opera?

Even so, some of us are still friends, and those of us who stuck with improv were better for having been through an in-depth course in how-not-to-practice. I hope you don't have to go through the same thing to learn that lesson.

For the record, I think each of these people are lovely. There are hugs when we cross paths.

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.

So the Christian thing wasn't a joke?

A few years ago, as I prepared to graduate from college into a recession, I poured all my energy into job applications. I applied for so. many. jobs. I sent my resume everywhere from the American Girl Place to the American Nuclear Society -- anywhere I thought might take an English/theater major.

One day, I got an email asking for a phone interview about a comedy writing position I'd applied to on a whim. I'll call the interviewer "Gary." I was slightly suspicious to begin with, since Googling the nonsense words in Gary's email signature pulled up an inordinate number of furry event calendars. I  spent most of the following conversation hoping that was a coincidence and trying to avoid imagining Gary in a fox costume.


Me: What kind of comedy writers are you looking for?

Gary: Funny ones.

Me: Right. What kind, though? Stage? Screen? Sketch?

Gary: Screen. We're working on a sitcom.

Me: What's the premise?

Gary: I can't tell you a lot, since it hasn't come out yet, and there are intellectual property laws. I can tell you it's about an oddly matched set of roommates.

My head: Like Friends or Gilligan's Island or Laverne and Shirley or the Odd Couple or Three's Company or Will and Grace or ... or ... or ...

Me: What level of content are you looking for?

Gary: Dense. Juicy. More Simpsons than Family Guy.

Me: How will it be rated?

Gary: Highly, I hope. We're shooting for a big audience.

Me: I guess I'm trying to find out what your target audience is. What kind of comedy is this?

My head: Please let this not be furry porn. Or porn of any kind. Please.

Gary: Why do you care? Is there any kind of comedy you won't write?

Me: Well, I'm a Christian, so there are a few boundaries* I'll want to respect.

Gary: Ha! We are into pushing boundaries here. Why don't you come by the office, and we'll see if you're a good match for our team. Is this weekend good?

Me: Would next week work? I'm graduating from college this weekend.

Gary: Congratulations! What college?

Me: Wheaton College.

Gary: Oh. So the Christian thing ... that wasn't a joke?

Me: No.

Gary: You're serious?

Me: Yes.

Gary: Christians make me want to gouge out my own eyes.

Me: Ok.

Gary: Also, you might as well know, this sitcom is going to be mostly NC17/X. A Wheaton graduate wouldn't be a good fit for us.

Me: Probably not. Thanks for your time.





*This is one of several reasons why I've not been that motivated to get more deeply involved in the Chicago improv scene. There is amazing work going on there, but I'm not at a point where I'm comfortable being totally steeped in that culture. For example, I have a low threshold for rape jokes and for team bonding via collective substance abuse. I know not all teams are like that, but I've run into it enough to know it's not something I can handle right now.

You can't be a human in a vacuum.

This video, created by the good folks over at People and Chairs, was a gut check for me.



Part of what makes it so funny is that the woman behaved as though she was putting on a generic, universal sort of lipstick (while we could see the specific color going sloppily all over her face). The man wasn't answering an actual phone he could picture, just some archetypal phone.

The thing is, nobody owns an archetypal phone or universal lipstick. I own a very specific phone and -- well, I don't wear lipstick, but if I did, it wouldn't be the Platonic ideal of lipstick, unless that's what happened to be on sale at Target.



Precise object work may seem like a chore, but it will make your life on stage infinitely easier.

I found the idea of object work intimidating when I thought it was about being an impressive mime. The key mistake here is the word "impressive." I thought object work was there for show, so the audience would understand that I knew what I was doing.

When someone told me that improv is not about impressing the audience, object work didn't seem as important, so I didn't put much energy into it. I put all my energy into being a human being in relationship with other human beings.

Lately, though, I'm realizing that it's pretty tough to be a human in a vacuum. I've got to be someplace, and there are probably things in that place that I can touch.

Jet Eveleth, one of my favorite teachers, doesn't coach you to "do more object work." Instead, she says, "Live in your world. Touch your world."

When I take that note, the whole scene opens up. I don't have to stress about inventing clever things or coming up with the next plot point; I can discover what's going on based on what I see in my world.

Object work isn't mainly about technical precision, but a lack of technical precision is often the result of not really seeing your world. If my coffee mug grows and shrinks with abandon, then sort of disappears sometimes, my scene is likely to be clunky and forced. If I'm only pretending to see my world, you'll have to watch me work hard to think of the next thing. That kind of effort is tiring and ugly.

I don't see and touch my world for the sake of the audience. I see and touch my world because I want to give my brain a break, because I want to make my life easier on stage.

Give it all, give it now.

“Spend it all. Shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place…give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things will fill from behind, from beneath, like water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
 —Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

I was reminded of this Annie Dillard quote by Laura Turner's guest post at Rachel Held Evans' blog this week. Turner writes, "Where am I giving from, and what am I holding back? Am I giving from abundance? And if so, why I am I holding on to so much when I know that everything I hold back from God is exactly what separates me from him?"



I would add that everything I hold back separates me from other people, too. And this is a problem if I want to do improv.*

If I find myself holding back my ideas and my impulses -- which are all I have to offer on stage -- I won't connect well with my scene partner, and then the audience won't connect with our scene. We won't stumble into truth or comedy if we can't connect, and we can't connect if we're not willing to give generously of ourselves.

I go through phases of having trouble giving of my ideas. "My ideas aren't good enough" is one reason; "My ideas are AWESOME and I'm saving them for myself" is another. Both of these attitudes are selfish. The first masquerades as humility, but it's actually selfishness and fear.

When I first started learning improv, I would try and come up with good ideas to use at my next practice. And sometimes, during practice, I'd come up with a Really Good Idea. A Hilarious Idea. An Artful Idea. But I wouldn't play it right away. I'd want to save it for a show. No sense wasting it in practice, right?

Ironically, when I did use these good ideas in practice, the scenes turned out to be flat and uninteresting. And those good ideas I had on the sidelines to save up for a show? I don't remember actually using any of them. They were ideas that made sense in the moment, but not outside of it. They absolutely turned to ash.

Preparing characters and situations before practice is not actually improvisation; it's writing. Writing is wonderful and valuable, but it's a different pursuit altogether. Improv really is best when it's improvised.**

Those impulses you have on the sidelines? The ones in your gut? Go with them. Right now. Don't judge them. Don't save them for later. Don't hold them back out of politeness. Don't be polite at all; be generous. The most generous thing you can possibly do is throw your idea out there for the group to play with.

Maybe the idea won't play the way you thought it would when it occurred to you. Maybe it morphs into something else. That's ok. If you're on stage, the idea has already served its purpose. The only time an idea has any value is if you let it move you from the sidelines to the stage. 

Once you're on stage, it's not your idea anymore, anyway. It belongs to the group. That means it's not up to you to make it come out ok. You can relax.

Remember that attitude of thankfulness exemplified in Red Ball? Generosity is born out of that. If you feel like you can't afford to give your ideas and go with your impulses, ask yourself if you're thankful. Everything is a gift you can be specifically thankful for.

thankfulness --> generosity --> connection --> truth/comedy



*It's also a problem if I want to live life in the Church. Or even if I just want to be, you know, a human being who has friends.
**Duh.