Ok, let me be honest. I was NOT in the mood to go to improv class last night. I don’t know what it was, but I just felt like curling up on my recliner, reading a magazine or three and not talking to anyone.
But I decided that it was like going to the gym: You don’t want to go, but once you’re there and you work out, you’re glad you did. Right? Well, that’s how it is for me. (Don’t get the wrong idea, though; sometimes, even with that logic, I end up skipping the gym and eating handfuls of sunflower seeds in front of the TV anyway).
In any case, I went, and I was indeed glad that I did. We covered a lot of ground this week!
After our standard warmup, Corey introduced this week’s theme, which was all about building on others’ ideas, saying “yes, and” (of course) but also really paying attention to what the other person is doing and making that action part of our idea too.
The first set of games was all based around the same concept as the “Telephone” game we all played when we were kids. We stood in a circle, and Corey made a sound and movement, and then the person next to him had to imitate that exact sound and movement. That went on around the circle, with each person imitating only what had come immediately before, rather than what the original action/sound had been. So, just like in a game of Telephone, there were variations and little affectations that got incorporated into every next person’s turn. By the time it got back to Corey, it looked pretty close to the original (because we’re an above-average group, obviously!) but still had some pretty clear differences.
The next phase of this game was still in a circle, same concept, but a little different in practice. This time, the first person walked toward someone else in the circle, saying a short phrase (rather than a noise like the first phase) while walking in a unique way. The walking person then switched places with the other, and then their job was to imitate the walk and phrase of the previous person. So on and so forth, walking and talking to each other, changing and rearranging the words to hilarious effect.
Next up was mirroring, which apparently is a familiar exercise to anyone who’s taken an acting class. However, it was new to me, and of course I thought of this classic scene from A Night at the Opera. And it was pretty much like that, to be honest. One person was the leader, and the other the follower, with us switching roles halfway through. Building on that, we had to do the exact same thing, but this time Corey instructed that neither person should lead or follow, that the movement should just happen naturally without direction. I am a Type A personality who loves instruction and rules, so this was NOT working for me and my partner. We ended up doing not much of anything. It felt kind of like a Buddhist riddle, almost: “How can two people follow each other when no one is leading?” Not quite the old one-hand-clapping riddle, but in the same ballpark.
The last game on this theme was my favorite, since it involved a ton of creativity. We were split into teams, and each team was given a common object (ours was a vacuum cleaner). We became an ad agency, coming up with a new use for that object. Then, once we had that use, we had to decide on its target audience, how it’s packaged, where it would be sold, who would be the celebrity spokesperson for the product, and what would be the catchphrase or jingle for the product’s commercials. I had a great group to work with, so it was really fun! I was proud of our product (making our vacuum into a children’s toy) and our pitch. The main lesson from this exercise was that it’s easier to say “yes, and” to someone’s idea and build on it than it is to stop the brainstorming to insist on your way or the highway.
With 20 minutes left in the class, Corey revealed that we had gone through all the activities he had planned around the day’s theme already. Oops…
Luckily, he had some activities he had planned for next week with him, so we just moved ahead a little bit and got a head start on Week 4 with the concept of Declarations.
Corey explained that every improv scene starts with some kind of declaration from one person. It can be as simple a phrase as “I’m hungry” or as emotionally loaded as “I am getting a divorce.” It provides the jumping-off point for the entire scene, so it’s pretty damn important. We practiced by standing in a line and, one by one, making declarations starting with “I want,” followed by “I need,” I feel,” and “I am.”
It was at this point that improv class became part creativity and part therapy 
It’s interested how much thought goes into a seemingly simple statement that starts with one of those phrases. All of us tended to reveal true things about ourselves, rather than trying to be funny or creative. We learned that using true statements make it much easier on you to think of something to say, and, in a scene, that gives your partner(s) more to go on when developing the scene from their end.
Don’t worry: there were no tears! It was just a genuinely interesting way to explore our feelings and to feel comfortable around a group of people we don’t know that well. A serious but fulfilling end to a great class.