I love improv and believe (when my heart and head are in it) that I'm good at it, too. Here are some other things I love and believe myself to be good at. They share some skills with improvisation. Am I good at improv because I am good at these things, or am I good […]
When we show Vulnerable Confidence we share ourselves without hesitation, comfortable whether we are accepted or not, committed to accepting others whether we are accepted or not. If we are afraid to show the depth of our personality and/or our emotional core, we deny the scene, our fellow players and the audience the power inherent […]
The surprise inherent to improvisation is made even more satisfying when we’re specific in-the-moment. If we are too cautiously vague or too ungrounded in grasping for hilarity, then we deny the scene, our partners and the audience the power inherent in the specificity of The Details that allows a world to form from the nothing on […]
When we show make a bold choice the moment we step out on stage, a blank slate is immediately endowed with an active element that provides fuel for a scene to grow. If we put off making a choice - instead timidly walking out to the center of the stage to meet our scene partner and cautiously […]
When your initiation is all about you - your perspective toward where you are, who you are and/or what you're doing - you establish a solid foundation for your character to move forward from while keeping the door open for many potential paths forward, confidently capitalizing on the improv "magic" of "making it up as you go along." If instead […]
When we spontaneously emit an emotion toward something imagined on a blank stage, that's crazy - and the audience loves it. Society's path to "maturity" often overlaps with a push to subdue your emotions; the upside is that people like watching other people share their emotions on stage - it's a cathartic surprise. A scripted actor’s […]
When we fill a blank stage with objects and an environment through committed mime, the world we create becomes that much more engaging, for players and audience members alike. The audience loves to be able to "see" what we create on stage. And if we really look at what we create on stage, we'll find it […]
Agreement is a cornerstone of improvisation. We’re on stage creating something out of nothing. If I create one thing out of the ether then we have something. We want to build that something up and out; we don’t debate the validity of something made up. Inquisition, opposition, negotiation and transaction are counterproductive on stage to […]
Anyone can talk about something on stage. Not everyone can react to in-the-moment stimulus on stage. The few, the proud, the brave improviser reacts boldly in-the-moment to make-believe and taps into the art’s unique surprise. The audience knows there’s no script to tell you how to react, so your reaction comes out of “your” perspective. […]
We want active emotions in our scenes, so we need active details to react to. If the doll your character is afraid of is actually on stage with you, then rather than just talking about how you're afraid of dolls, you can actually act afraid because that doll is actively making you afraid in-the-moment. If you endow […]