IMPROVISATION – BRIGHTENS THE FUN OF
ACTING AND STRETCHES OUR
CREATIVITY AND TRUST
by Sandra Williams, Theatre Artist in Residence,
Oklahoma Arts Counci
“Stretches our creativity” is too tame a word for the effects of improv on our creativity. In working with theatre groups, students (especially at-risk kids), and even grade-schoolers, I’ve seen bursts and explosions of creativity that surprised and excited every one of us.
I got into improv by a simple twist of fate. I’d not been “perfect” at improv the few times I’d done it. I was a good actor – I practiced in the safety of my bedroom and came to rehearsals already pretty far along with my characters and interpretations. Improvisation scared me beyond anything I’d ever done. I froze up. I couldn’t think. I made mistakes. I was embarrassed by the things I did and the things that came out of my mouth – or didn’t. I avoided improv at all costs, even when I saw other people having tons of fun as I watched, afraid to risk it. One time I left a rehearsal feeling sick when the director asked all of us to improvise character choices for our roles in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
I went to a free OCTA workshop on script writing, an opportunity to prepare for the Oklahoma Fall Arts Institutes, to which several of us had received OCTA scholarships. When I arrived, I was dismayed – no, I was horrified – to learn I’d come on the wrong weekend. This was an OCTA improv workshop taught by Errol McClendon, an improv pro from Chicago, familiar to festival-goers as an adjudicator.
Errol edged us into the process very gently. Not too much risk and, hey, we were all theatre people, how bad could it be? It turned out to be the most fun I’d ever had in theatre! I was a pirate, a secretary, a fish, a pizza patron a la Keystone Kops. I was a spontaneous, creative, collaborative, fun and funny person.
After I had learned that I could do improv and I could survive embarrassment, making inept choices and feeling stupid, I realized that I’d also succeeded, accomplished things I’d never done before, and that felt good. It still feels good.
What happened to me as an actor? I was more open, more willing to try new things, less inhibited and far less in need of perfection. As a director I had another tool for exploring character and situation, for creating unity and trust among the cast.
After improv workshops with and encouragement from Julie Tattershall, who studied at Chicago’s Second City, I started teaching improv. It was a whole new teaching experience. Instead of standing before the class, dispensing wisdom or directing, it was the students who were standing in front of the class. I saw them experience the same things I did – opening up, feeling good about themselves, learning to trust themselves and the other actors. There was so much laughing – that never happened when I lectured! Kids in alternative schools have highly inconsistent attendance. Improv was the perfect approach. It has been the most rewarding work of my teaching career: I saw some stunning transformations.
"Improv, just like regular theater, is a cooperative art form,” Julie Tattershall says. “Improv doesn't work unless you trust your partner. It speeds up the rehearsal process because it forces trust and spontaneous responses. You'll never be stuck onstage when you blank out. You'll learn to keep going and never be afraid of that again."
Improvisation is enormous fun. The hard part is allowing ourselves the freedom to play, to have good, clean fun as adults, giving up some of the “control” that we costume ourselves in to appear, what – sane? competent? normal? Oh puhleeze!
We have lots of information available to us on the internet: improv guidelines, theatre games, and books. Julie and I are available to teach workshops.
Let’s bring some improvisation into our theatre experience. Let’s give ourselves some of that bright fun, that spontaneity. Let’s burst and explode our creativity!
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