The Tao of Improv - Page 3


I started improv several years ago. I'd just finished marching through some significant emotional losses: the death of my father, the death of my first wife, and the hospitalization of my daughter. I was bored with my job—lots of long-winded, stagnant community meetings; worries about the morale among my 40-plus staff; sweating the quarterly budget review; and having little time for clinical work. I felt dazed and dull. Then one day, I stumbled on a sign posted in a store window. A woman was offering improv classes, and to my surprise, I called, and then actually showed up. The class was a good mix of men, women, and backgrounds—a computer guy, an aikido instructor, a research biologist, a salesman, a musician, a poli-sci student—folks well outside my usual world.

I liked the energy of the group. As we got to know each other, I started to feel the way I did in high school, having a gang to hang out and fool around with. Our teacher gave us different exercises and challenges each week, and I found myself playing characters much like my clients: drug dealers, hyperactive children, depressed moms. We were en­cour­aged not to plan or even think, but simply do. What came out was often strange, off-the-wall stuff—grown-up fantasies involving traveling to work on a giant soap bubble, a bar scene where we had to wear a three-cornered hat to get served, a bizarre reinterpretation of Snow White, in which she had a heavy romantic crush on Dopey and the evil stepmother was actually a brush salesman. I wasn't bored. I wasn't calculating. I wasn't worrying. Almost everything we did seemed hysterically funny—a good antidote to the low-grade depression that had been building in me.

Brad and I are talking about the big block order that has to go out that day. We're doing the talking-heads thing—standing around, mumbling. The energy in the scene is draining; we seem a bit lost. Ann enters to come to our rescue.

"Hi, guys," she says, stepping onstage, talking in that slight southern accent that she does so well. "My name's Trish. How are you boys today? I'm your local Mary Kay representative," she says with a big smile, pointing to an imaginary name badge. "Nice concrete plant you got here," she says, circling her hands around the room. "I just love these cinder block walls—so gray and . . . solid. So, I was in the neighborhood and wondering if you'd be interested in seeing some of our latest Mary Kay products?"

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