Improv?! What’s That?
The spotlight of life pivots to YOU!
You’re presenting a passion project in front of your dead-pan boss and beady-eyed work colleagues and your stomach threatens to erupt with that barbeque-sauced sandwich you devoured at lunch.
You’re debating about sharing a vulnerable truth – you do prefer mustard over ketchup -- to that expansive sea of your Instagram following and fear you might lose a few after spilling this condiment confession.
You’re spotted by the ex in the toothbrush aisle at Target and have to manage a polite hi before sneaking by …
Life is like an improvisational theatre scene – it’s unscripted, spontaneous and riddled with surprising plot twists. So as we improvise through life, through our day-to-day scenes, the question becomes … can we stay true to ourselves when the spotlight is on us?
Can we stay true to expressing our unique creative instincts, our dearly held dreams, our shaking and bold truths while in front of the unblinking crowd of colleagues, family and friends, and even our social media crew?
Or do we dim and people-please? Do we freeze and shut-down? Do we puff out our chests and put on the armor of aggression and get noisy and loud?
Or … can we remain simply ourselves: embodied and at ease, trusting our response, actively listening and sharing our voice with clarity and confident ease.
Improvisational Theatre Games help us, really free us! to do just that … be ourselves when we feel like the world is watching so we can dance like everyone is watching!
Through the power of PLAY, these Improvisational Theatre Games cultivate present-moment focus so we can deepen self-trust in our innate creativity and strengthen our communication skills to collaborate easily and joyfully within a team.
And these Improvisational Theatre Games are from the original improv source – the remarkable life’s work of Viola Spolin, the social-worker-turned-theatre-revolutionary who invented improv, completely changed America’s theatre scene and whose influence can be seen in “The Graduate” to The Colbert Report.
Spolin’s legendary theatre games came from her social work experience in the 1930s at Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago. Inspired by her teacher, Neva Boyd, a sociologist who passionately advocated for play, Spolin taught theatre games to immigrant children as a fun-spirited way to encourage collaboration, communication and connection with self and within a community.
In honor of Spolin, these time-tested theatre games will be instructed in her non-authoritarian approach to teaching – freeing players to experiment and explore in a supportive environment.
These Improvisational Theatre Games take our fun seriously. When we gather as a group to play, we nourish and celebrate the very best of our shared humanity. We re-remember that we are needed in our fullness to contribute to the game, and to generously support our fellow players as they show up in their shine, too. This ripples out to our work places, our dinner tables, even that toothpaste aisle at Target. So we improvise with life, staying true to the person we’ve been perfectly cast to be. And being open to simply trusting our feet.
Improv Classes
Teaching improv at Hickory Community Theatre in Hickory, NC 2021
Trust Your Feet: Improvisational Games For Everyday Humans (That’s You!)
You don’t need to be funny. (Actually, a heartfelt plea to the Creative Muses and Theatre Gods … don’t even try to be. Don’t try to be anything other than the messily glorious human being that you already are, because you’re perfectly cast for this NOW scene.)
You don’t need any theatre experience, and if you are a veteran of the stage, well, you’re brightly welcomed too! This introductory improvisational theatre course simply asks that you bring an open-hearted willingness and a spirited readiness to PLAY.
We will be learning from the original source of improv, Viola Spolin’s improvisational theatre games, which free us to focus on sharing our creative voice while helping our fellow players do the same. In honor of Spolin, I facilitate using her revolutionary, non-authoritarian approach to teaching – so students can experiment and explore their unique creative impulses and choices in a supportive environment that reminds there are no mistakes, just different ways to play the game!
And in finding the focus, as Spolin wisely guides, you might discover a few surprisingly delightful things about yourself, connect with new people, stretch your creative muscles, and laugh, giggle, snort or Mona Lisa smile along the way.
Improv For The Corporate Scene: Cultivating Communication, Collaboration and Confident Ease Within Work Teams
Envision work meetings where everyone feels heard and seen. Coffee is luxuriously sipped, bagels are happily nibbled as colleagues effortlessly engage in active listening and speaking. Out-of-the-box ideas are encouraged and accepted, and group in-put is enthusiastically expected. Here genuine excitement motivates the progress and completion of quality-led projects, and innovative thought is championed and respected. Improvisational Theatre Games can make this dreamy day at the office a reality.
Resentment and tension among work colleagues stagnates the essential force of creativity within teams, and sours workplace wellbeing. And an unhappy work place is an unproductive one. Bringing improvisational theatre games into your next work retreat, or Monday morning meeting will refresh the collaborative spirit that is needed for individuals to thrive in optimal workplace wellbeing. These games sharpen interpersonal skills, free participants to trust their creative instincts and express them within a group setting, and enhance focus, attentiveness and presence.
Over the course of a life, an average person will spend close to 90,000 hours at work. Having an improv session or two will help to make these work hours feel vibrant and alive, and might even make meetings feel more inspirational, too.
Improv For Youth & Teens
Improv empowers young creatives to trust their creativity while also learning to support the creative voice of others.
This class teaches students to channel YES AND, the golden guide of improv, to cultivate self-confidence and collaborative skills to spontaneously create fun and funny worlds right on the spot!