What Do You Want Out of Improv?

I was reading a post on an improv blog and it made me think about what I want out of improv. It's a post on improvnonsense titled No One Here Wants to be Funny? In that post, the point is made that it's okay to improvise just because you want to be funnier. I'm guilty of rolling my eyes when someone in a workshop or a class says that they want to be funnier or quicker on their feet, but that is a totally valid reason for wanting to improvise! My distaste for it comes from me assuming that if someone is here just to be funny or quick then they are going to be doing those things at the expense of their scene partners which is one of the things that made me hate improv when I was younger.

Then I had to sit and think to myself what I really want out of improv. I don't really want to be funny. Being funny is just a thing that happens when you're telling the truth. I want to tell the truth. I've heard it said that good art is lying to tell the truth, and that's what I want to be doing. If it's funny then that's great, but it's not my first goal.

If my goals were just this lofty idea of truth and art then I could still be acting. What does improv have that acting doesn't? I get to do anything. I will probably never be cast as a leading man in a play. I will almost certainly never be a villain that strikes fear into audiences' hearts. I doubt I'll get the role of a doting mother in traditional theater. In improv, I can do all of those things and nobody can stop me. I don't have to be on stage speaking someone else's words while dancing through somebody else's blocking on yet another person's set in yet another person's costume. I'm getting worked up just thinking about how restrictive traditional theater is! Shackled to another person's work. You're not the air, you're the filter. You're not the image, you're the lens.

I also really love that "good improv feeling" that comes when you're fully connected to your cast. There's something hugely satisfying in knowing that no matter how wildly afield you throw something, it will always be caught and returned with even more force. Something about the improv hyper-accelerator that just makes my heart swell with joy. I've spent a lot of time in my life feeling lonely and like there's not a person in the world who's on the same wavelength as me, and improv shows me that everybody else is right there with me. It's like somebody flicked on the light in a dark room and all of a sudden my friends are all here throwing me a surprise party.

I improvise because it connects me to people. I do it because it lets me make up whatever story I want to tell. I do it because it's fun. Whatever your reason is, it's good enough for me as long as it keeps you having fun too.