Welcome to part 2 of our new feature looking at improv. Now it’s not just me who has had their life changed by improv, many people have and we are going to hear their stories!

Today we hear from Bill an improviser who is from Boston and now lives in the UK with his wife and children. He is an actor and voice over artist is part of the Newcastle Improv scene. He decided to write his experiences slightly differently. 

Three Little Life Lessons from Improv

Make an offer

I dabbled in Improv while in drama school and I was a huge fan of SNL and Second City Television. Flash forward a few years and I’m in a dead-end job in Boston and doing no theater (please note: American spelling).  On a whim, I took an Adult Learning Class on Improv, taught by an alumnus of Boston Improv.  It was a terrific introduction, and he pushed me to take meatier course at Boston Improv itself.

But the singular thing I remember from that course was a wonderful hand-out about what an offer is: specific, but not too specific. The hand-out gave ten variations of an offer, starting with

“Behold!” (very vague),

…and ending with…

“Behold, the father of my castle where I was cast out by my evil uncle; but, just as I vowed then, I have returned with a mighty army in tow, including you Pikeman Stephen, to take my kingdom of Centopia again and claim the throne which is rightfully mine!” (too specific)

In the middle was,

“Behold, the Castle of my father!”

You want to make an offer that’s generous. Not vague (Let’s go out), but not so detailed as to leave nothing for the other person to add on to (Let’s go out for Vietnamese. I know the waiter at the place on Clayton Street. You’ll have the Pho)

Yes

This one is short and simple.

My next courses where at Boston Improv. Also very good, and I recall picking up the concept of ‘yes’. ‘Yes’ moves things forward. ‘Yes’ opens doors. ‘Yes’ is almost always riskier, more rewarding, and more exciting than ‘No’.

Nobody exemplified this better than one of my favourite improv performers, John Candy. Candy’s characters are always wonderfully positive and affirmative about any situation and ide– even when it was a bad idea.

And while saying ‘yes’ has been a regrettable move at times of my life, it’s more often been what has moved my life forward.

If you want things to happen, say ‘Yes’

Remember what’s happened

photo credit – School of Improv

Do you know what’s going to happen next? Neither do I.

This is the single most frightening thing about Improv, especially to experienced actors.

After I moved to Newcastle Upon Tyne and lucked out on discovering the courses taught by the Ian and Bev of what is now The School of Improv, I found myself in a familiar situation: being one of the few actors in the Improv classes. I’m always encouraging my actor friends to take Improv courses and they react like cats offered a soak in a hot tub. The dreaded actor’s nightmare is to be on stage not knowing what’s going to happen next, which is exactly what improv is. I wind up performing improv with lawyers and singers and jewlers who are a generally nervy bunch, even if they don’t always know how to stand in the light.

I must confess, at this point, I was convinced I was really clever. I could often work out a great ending for an improv routine. Since I couldn’t stop the scene and have a huddle with the rest of the performers, I’d drop heavy-handed hints about where the scene should go. I’d wind up frustrated because the scene would not go there and my ingenious ideas would die of neglect.

But at The School of Improv I finally figured out that I’d gotten it the wrong way around: don’t worry about what’s going to happen; instead, remember what’s already happened.
If you’re in an improv scene and you trip over something and no one picks it up, it’s still there. If your roommate has a dog named Buckles and a sister named Sandra, take note of it. It makes the setting and the characters real.

And life is like that. If you don’t remember the past, you can’t learn from it.
And you can work out a plan for the future, but future sometimes has its own plans.
So be ready to improvise.

photo credit – School of Improv