If you’re in your head, you’re trying to think of what to say or do. You will never, ever need to do that if you are simply reacting to what’s already there. You have everything you need; your scene partner has just given it to you. You just have to let yourself be affected and pushed in a direction by it. If you are in your head, you are looking for answers in the wrong place.
Links
The Zen of Improv: The Hardiest Easiest Work (Part One)→
But the basic take-away I gleaned from my time with TJ and David is that the show is just fine as it is and any effort we put forth will only fuck it up. We can’t TRY to be funnier. We can’t TRY to be better listeners. We can’t TRY to be more skilled improvisers. Any trying we do ends up looking clunky and unseemly to the audience. Instead, the idea is to approach improvisation as an act of non-doing. Which is different than not doing anything. It’s about being fully present in the moment unfolding gloriously onstage. It’s about opening ourselves to improvising well. It’s about not trying. I guess, it’s about just being.
Who to blame for your Improvisation→
How having 4 walls can set you free – a workshop approach→
Squirrel in the Garage→
It’s easy for any improviser to forget, after all the hours logged in classes and on stages in front of audiences, that they once started out as sweaty-palmed students. Whether you’re brand new to improv or you’ve been performing for years, I want to remind you all of the Squirrel in the Garage: the thing that will awaken you to your imaginative side, or the reason you started improv in the first place.
No Bullshit Harolds→
It’s roughly that I want to see scenes where people are not worried about making a game, or making a pattern, or doing anything at all where it seems like they’re doing it because they think they SHOULD. No shoulds. This is slightly different in my mind than the related “don’t be funny” exercises. I just mean, forget the rules of what you think you SHOULD do, and instead just be in the scene for real and tell me what the person would really say.
Malcolm Gladwell on the key to success: don’t be afraid to look like a fool→
The most powerful weapon against fear is forgiveness. If you are part of a community or a context or a world that is comfortable with the idea that people are sometimes fearful, sometimes make terrible decisions, and sometimes don’t do what they are supposed to do—and you continue to support them—then it becomes a lot easier to overcome fear.
55 Classic Improv Scene Initiations Featuring Alligators→
Gentlemen, I think you all know the esteemed Dr. Alligator.
Improv and Mental Health→
True. True and good.
You Already Know The Real “Why”→
Being able to stop, hold and articulate your natural feelings is a hugely necessary skill in improv. There are many people out there who can’t do that. The moment you make them think about what they’re saying or feeling and ask them why —- all their awareness vanishes. Can you imagine your co-worker, after they say something like how they “hate French Vanilla coffee” being asked “why?” They’d look at you and just say “what do you mean WHY? I just DO.”