I Love Improv

I love improv.

I love improv because I get to make stuff up.

I love improv because not only is my weirdness accepted, but it's a highly valued commodity.

I love improv because it has led me to make friends with some of the most wonderful, talented, kind,
and intelligent people that exist.

I love improv because I get to be on stage and make people laugh.

I love improv because it has taught me that I am good enough.

I love improv because it is slowly buffing out all of my cynicism and negativity and leaving behind a person who is happy and whole.

I love improv because it has inspired me to talk about how much I like, enjoy, and love everything else in my life.

I love improv cause it's super dumb and that's okay.

Think about what you love, really roll in that for a while. It's nice.

Accepting Compliments

I've found that even when I feel supremely confident about a performance I've delivered, I'm still very bad at accepting compliments. That's not an uncommon failing of a young, creative person, though. Every time I go to see a show at my alma mater the actors, singers, and dancers deflect my compliments on their performances by telling me how bad they felt on stage and how many things went wrong. 

"Hey, you did a great job!" 

"Ugh, really? I forgot my line in this scene and this person tripped and somebody else missed their entrance by a full beat!"

I used to do this all the time until I realized that it was a total buzzkill to tell somebody that enjoyed the show that they were wrong to enjoy something so awful. My issue with accepting a compliment has evolved in an interesting way that is almost entirely too generous. Someone will come up to me after a show and tell me how much they enjoyed my performance and I'll accept the compliment by saying, "Oh thanks, everybody else is amazingly talented and that's why the show was good." Or maybe I respond with, "Thanks, it was a lot of hard work!"

Those replies might seem okay, but they're not what the audience member wants to hear. You know what they want to hear? "Thank you, I'm glad that you enjoyed it." Don't give them excuses. Don't give them the notes you took for the rest of the cast. Just look them in the eyes, smile, and thank them.