What improv has taught me...

…the value of mucking around!

In my forthcoming book there’s a scene in which I improvise a monologue about a bad date for an improv comedy show. My fellow performers pull some of the things I mentioned as fodder for scenes.
 

To quote myself, “Seeing my foibles reflected through this comedic prism makes me weep with laughter from the backline. They genuinely make light of it all, and this lifts my spirits tremendously.”

 
That’s one of the biggest and unexpected gifts my improv comedy life has delivered me.

I’ve been thinking about the value of this thing I’ve come to love.
 

My relationship with improv has been ambivalent.
 

I loved improv in high school, where our extraordinary teacher Jennifer Adams led by example and encouraged us to act before thinking.

But in theatre school we were strongly advised against studying improv comedy – in their view, improv was about being CLEVER whereas we were being taught to be HONEST. 
 
In 2009 I was two years out of theatre school, auditioning for commercials, occasionally doing workshops of new plays, working in summer stock and rocking my joe-jobs.

Through a recommendation, I signed up for an “Improv for Actors” class at the Second City. I had an extraordinarily good time letting it rip. Then I auditioned for and got into the Second City’s year-long Conservatory program, which was a blast until we started moving towards writing sketches.

I didn’t want to write sketches. I wasn’t interested in satire. I wanted to master the art of improvising.

At the same time, my acting and writing work had picked up and a theatre was producing my first solo show, OH MY IRMA. I didn’t really have the time or bandwidth.
 
I turned my back on improv, until about seven years later. I’d moved to London, where I was primarily doing voiceover work and creating and performing solo shows. I was LONELY.
 
I started taking improv courses at the Free Association, a long-form improv school. I feared I’d be sounded by 20-year-old men, but the groups were incredibly diverse.  

This time it felt right.

I learned about listening. Really listening, as opposed to planning what I want to say and waiting for my chance to say it.

As someone whose always hated group projects (because “no one works as hard as I do!”), I learned that I don’t have to do all the heavy lifting myself. I can trust other people.

It’s taught me the value of not having a plan. 

It’s given me a chance to perform regularly. It’s given me a community. It’s made me comfortable with failing.
 
I’ve gained an understanding of the principles of comedy – how patterns and techniques tickle audiences – all of which I’d been intuiting before then.
 
I love that in improv, like in sports I imagine, you practice and practice and then when it comes to performing, you simply let go and rely on the instincts you’ve honed through training.
 
I love that it allows me to be silly, that sessions are spent following the fun and trying to make each other laugh.

It’s an amorphous form. Sometimes it feels like chasing a ghost. And sometimes it doesn’t “go well.” I still have so much to learn.
 
I like being new at things. Moving to the UK illuminated that for me.

When you’re new, you can’t be cynical. You’re just so grateful when anything goes right!

 
Now I’m on a Free Association house team, DreamPhone – we’ve been on hiatus through lockdown, but we’ve had some really fun rehearsals trying to figure out how to do an improvised dating show.
 
And I have a duo, Jess & Haley, with the funniest person I’ve ever met, Jess Ulrich, accountant by day, mystic by night and all-round wild one. Our shows together are exercises in total permissiveness, silliness, bold physicality and no-holds-barred dives into whatever raunchy stuff is on our minds.
 
Through lockdown Jess & Haley have been practicing over Zoom with our coach, Matt Folliott. And we’ve been doing a show, Ask Smart Women, in which we play two smart women who answer the most difficult questions.

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