It’s not a mistake on an improv stage as long as you recognize what happened and in some way react to it, right? Your pure reaction to someone walking through an improv table that you just took a minute to set up, is justification enough that they walk through the table. You don’t need to call somebody out and say “You just walked through my table!” You know that’s going to alienate them and alienate the audience likely, and then you’re going to spend the rest of the scene trying to dig yourself out of that callout. As opposed to just go over, pick up the table, set it up again, patiently, diligently, and then when somebody else walks over, don’t even mention a word, just go pick it up again and do the same thing. That’s going to create laughter from the audience because you’re respecting the environment and showing that there are no mistakes. That wasn’t a mistake they walked through the table, that’s a gift that’s an opportunity.
Bill Kullhan on accepting mistakes from Improv Nerd E225.
Tag: acceptance
Invasive Species→
When I moved out to Boston from Chicago everyone kept talking about “the game of the scene” and I had no idea what they were talking about. Instead of playing “the game,” I was playing in the style I was taught—and experienced success at—back at iO in Chicago. I looked for relationship and emotional connection over a single focal point. And of course there’s overlap between the two (a scene with a strong game should also have strong relationships, and an emotional resonant scene should probably have some discernible pattern as well), but without fully understanding my new environment, I was making moves that, while theoretically “good,” weren’t connecting with the other members of my team who had been trained a different way. I was being an invasive species, incapable of adapting.
The Zen of Improv: The Journey→
We are on a journey. And we are exactly where we need to be on the journey, as much as it sucks to hear that. The secret is to find joy in being where we are at this moment, while at the same time keeping our eye on the prize of where we want to be. This secret, this intention, is no small task. Personally, I know it will take me a lifetime of practice. But perhaps I can meet it with curiosity: What would it be like to be perfectly content with where I am right now on the journey?