[Writer's note: I forgot to write about Class #6 (summary: miming is harder than it looks) and missed Class #7 due to being out of town, hence the lapse in posts.]
Final improv class! It hardly feels like it’s been 8 weeks, but there I was at my last session of Everyday 1. Corey, our usual teacher, was out of town (Vegas, baby) so we had a different teacher named Dave. Apparently he normally only teaches the performance-level improv classes, which I could tell as soon as he started teaching. This felt a lot more like a “real” acting class, where we were pushed to do things over and over again until we felt comfortable doing each particular exercise. For example, one student was having a particularly difficult time with coming up with nouns for a particular game, so he put her in the middle of our circle and had her be the game leader until she stopped hestitating and truly said whatever came into her head. It sounds cruel, I know, but he made it such a supportive, enthusiastic environment that we all learned and enjoyed it.
The next in-circle exercise was where the first person had to make up a word from a fake dictionary, and the second person had to invent a definition for that word. Since there were no wrong answers, it felt great to say whatever bubbled up to my subconscious without worrying if it would be funny or well-received. Plus, I’m a word nerd, so any game revolving around a dictionary is probably going to feel like a success to me.
That focus on saying whatever came to mind quickly carried on to the next game, a standard improv game called “Clams are great.” The idea is that you keep giving reasons why clams are great, without stopping, even if those reasons don’t make sense. “Clams are great because they eat tacos” is a perfectly good example of something you’d say in this game. It’s all about letting yourself go and shortening the distance between your thoughts and your speech. I have to say, it was pretty exhilarating to pull down that wall and know that I just had to keep talking no matter what!
The final exercise of the night was another round of declarations and “yes, and” statements, like we’d done so many times before. This time, the twist was that we had to attach emotions to our speech, emotions that we had decided on beforehand and were going to use no matter what the context of the actual words that ended up coming out of our mouths. So if I decided to be sad, I had to respond sadly, even if my partner was talking about something really great. He emphasized, above all else, that our declarations should be truthful. Being truthful is crucial to succeeding in improv, not doing our best to make each other laugh.
Overall, I (and I think the rest of the class) felt refreshed by the higher level of energy and feedback this time around with our new teacher. It just goes to show that in improv, like everything else, there are different styles of teaching and performing, and there are benefits to each of them.
So there you have it! Eight weeks of improv class. Some final thoughts:
This defeinitely put me outside of my comfort zone. Having to be honest and open and creative in front of a bunch of strangers was stressful but rewarding
That bunch of strangers evolved into a group of buds, a product of that kind of forced bonding that turns into real appreciation for each other.
I found that I’m not too bad at improv, and I even imagined myself headed to the performance-level classes someday! As someone who’s never acted before in her life, who knew this would be the case?
It was great to see people open up and allow themselves to be real and truthful with the group. I felt so supported in our class that it made it a lot easier for me to be in the moment and participate fully without feeling or looking stupid. As a final "graduation" from Everyday1, we all got to sign the walls of the classroom:
BOOM.
If you think you'd be interested in taking Everyday Improv, let me hook you up with a special discount! Just use the discount code "25_OFF_SU" when you register for any class, and you'll get $25 off! Click here for class schedules and more info.
See you soon for Everyday 2!