Improvisers and Responsibility

Improvisers are a diverse group of people. We excel in a wide variety of things and we struggle with an incredibly broad range of deficiencies at the same time. Improv is a job that is often done for free (or very close to it) so most of us have day-jobs that we use to support our improv habits. We have families and friends outside of improv who don't understand what we mean when we say we have to go to rehearsal. I get it, fellow improvisers. It's tough to commit fully to this thing, but somebody's gotta do it.

Jesse, Ryan, and Lacie go ham on a round of "Do-Run"

The Nashville Improv Company is a very large improv troupe. We have 16 members currently active and if people would stop moving and having babies and getting married we'd probably be able to have even more available for things. We are expected to attend a minimum of six hours of rehearsal and be in at least one 90 minute show each month. That responsibility is a small, easily managed one for most of us. However, as a company, we have begun to expand and get our grimy improv hands in other cookie jars. We do corporate training gigs, teach classes, perform at cons, and travel to improv festivals. All of a sudden our cast of 16 doesn't seem quite as enormous.

I watch our directors struggle endlessly with people not returning or reading e-mails (I am sometimes one of them, I am shame-faced!). We have to receive facebook updates, e-mail notifications, and hear an announcement at rehearsal before we can guarantee that everybody is paying attention to what's going on. And if all of those things happen we will succeed and everybody will say that we're adults and our directors don't need to hold our hands. Then next time something comes up, our directors let us fly free and we just fall gracelessly and unwittingly from the nest to the earth.

Improvisers (and creative people in general) are very often not great about things like deadlines and organization and follow-through. We're good at being passionate and in the moment and some other excuse. A creative endeavor is a lot like a D&D campaign. One person has to bite the bullet and pray that they can still have fun while running the thing, and then that same person has to hassle and harass all the rest of the players to make sure that the campaign stays running. The DM also frequently prays and silently hopes that one day his players will desperately crave his horrible power and be able to take his place so he can abdicate his throne of responsibility. Maybe that's just me.

Improvisers as a whole have got to wise up a little bit. I understand we're still in that phase where the popularity of our form is rising and we're hella rockstars, but we've also gotta learn to be responsible business people. We've got to learn how to take care of the people we work with off the stage as well as on it. We've got to learn to respond to e-mails, direct and host our own shows, and be prepared to run our own rehearsals without constant prodding. You do improv basically for free because it's your passion, right? Well then be passionate about it, dammit.