Make it up as you go along

Yesterday was my first day attempting something very different. I went to improv class, as held at the "world famous" Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. The classes are held in a small office above 23rd Street. The room itself seems like half storage, half disused sweatshop. A set of plastic molded bolted down chairs sit facing a small rubberized mat (the stage, I suppose). The improvisers trickled in and mostly sat in silence. One or two started introducing one another, but it was a fairly subdued group. In a moment, the instructor started up her introductory spiel and the improv class was going. A few late stragglers made it in under the bell. Then it was off to the races. Sort of. The kind of improvisation practiced and preached by the UCB Theater is called "The Harold" and is a long-form version of improvisation more akin to dramatic/comedic theatrical pieces than to the short and snappy skits that I recall from other improvisational escapades. The instructor talks about finding the truth of the scene and playing to your highest level of intelligence. My mind starts to draw a blank. Hmm...what if I'm not intelligent enough to play to the level of my intelligence? It could get pretty existential in here in no time.

Thankfully, we then spent what seemed like the next hour doing warm-up introductions. Basically a long extended riff on a name game. So, now, not only do I know everyone's name, but I also know what their name rhymes with. I know more than that, too. In fact, the only three requirements that the instructor laid out was to read a required text, see 30 minutes of improv a week, and go drinking with your classmates afterward. Normally that seems easily enough -- except I don't drink. (I get to join the pregnant woman, a lovely woman who is also an art therapist as I found out over seltzers and ginger ale, in the non-drinking group).

After the name game, we played a version of sing-a-long. This game, basically took me back to my least favorite memory from elementary school. In elementary school, we were supposed to write a short story (I loved writing short stories) but to use as many song titles as we could in the service of the story (I knew next to zero song titles because music was not part of my family's social outreach -- they listened to Mozart and Beethoven. Maybe I'd hear a Peter, Paul, and Mary song...maybe). I stayed up waiting for KTEL commercials to glean enough song titles in order to make a cogent story and the teacher said I needed to try harder in comments on the story. Ouch. I had that long momentary flashback as the song game started. I found that I couldn't remember any songs, let alone the lyrics to any of them, let alone sing the one stanza of lyric that I did remember. Thankfully, this game didn't last long and the point of the class (thankfully) was not to unduly humiliate students.

After this embarrassment, improv class moved into an honest and dishonest debate segment, essentially to teach us how to believe strongly in the moment that we were living in and to sell our convictions. I argued vehemently that some human relationships are governed by the laws of physics. And then we were supposed to argue with conviction something that we didn't believe in (there were the usual GWB is the smartest guy in the world kinds of approaches). I argued that Godzilla was going to save us. The woman who was working with me (the "listener" was supposed to agree vehemently with you), played along beautifully. It was quite a nice little silly moment. I still get very nervous when I'm on stage and my voice tightens and I have a huge adrenalin rush and have trouble staying in the moment. Maybe that will go away with practice, though I don't know if it ever goes away. It's almost like I can see myself from outside myself and think, "I'm not usually like this. Why do I sound like this?" It's very odd.

In any case -- it's a nice rush and I can sense a level of camaraderie that may develop through the course of the several weeks of class among the students as we prepare for a final presentation. Thoroughly recommended. And if you're around, you can fork over the $5 and come see my final performance on October 4. I think. More on that later...