Sleight of heart

As if being a complete improv nerd isn’t enough of an indictment on my “cool guy” credentials, I am also a fairly experienced magician. When I was in college, my wife lived in VA and I lived in Charleston. Practicing magic gave me something to do when I was in the house alone instead of being afraid that my neighbor’s police dog would break in to kill me (not a joke, I believed it.) While there were a number of tools that I was capable of using in a magic trick, cards were my absolute favorite.

All of my friends in my electrical engineering program would do our studying in the Barnes & Noble close to my home. For those of you who don’t know, Barnes & Noble was a magical place where one could purchase a book from human beings and have a cup of coffee. This was long before the experience was usurped by the safety of cyberspace, where you don’t have to worry about being chloroformed near the books on baby names.

One night we were studying for a tough test in Antennas and Propagation. It was very difficult to focus, as you would expect from anything involving differential equations. In an attempt to distract myself, I began throwing cards at a bookshelf just outside of the coffee shop. I am not good enough to cut a banana in half, but I can put a bit of pepper on the queen of spades in a pinch. I kept throwing cards for a few minutes, and then something strange happened. The ace of hearts hooked upwards and lodged itself in the cork ceiling of the bookstore, about 25 feet above the display for Freakonomics. The Navy taught me to never leave a man behind, but that ace became a prisoner of the war on boredom.

A week later, I went to the bookstore hoping to find a decent book on CD, maybe one read by James Earl Jones. On the way in I saw a woman looking at the dust jacket for Freakonomics, deciding whether to buy it or not. I approached her, hoping to perform a trick for her. Luckily, one way to not seem intimidating as a lone black guy is to have a deck of Bicycle cards in your hand. She said yes.

I began a common magic routine where she selected a card, by chance the Ace of Hearts, and placed it in the center of the deck. Once the card is in the center, the spectator snaps her fingers and the card comes back to the top of the deck. I did this once, just to cement her expectations. I placed the card in the deck a second time and I asked her to snap. This time, however, I snapped with her. When I turned over the top card, it wasn’t hers.

“Did I not snap hard enough?” she asked.

“I think we snapped too hard.” I said, pointing to the ceiling. She let out a scream that was a wonderful mixture of glee and fear. She then thanked me and grabbed a copy of the book to buy. “After seeing that, I know I was meant to be standing here.”

In my mind, improvisation has many similarities to other things that I love. In the case of magic, it is a very easy connection to explain. When improv is executed properly, it seems like a magic trick. The average person watching will be amazed at your ability to be so nimble of thought, recall so much information, and be on the same page as your fellow players. At its best, the members of the audience will say, “You must have made some of that up beforehand, right?” This is because the notion that people could collectively create a vivid tapestry of ideas without forethought simultaneously reeks of trickery and teems with majesty.

“Life is filled with surprise and wonder and astonishment for those whose hearts and minds are open to receive them” Dr. Eugene Burger (Magician and Philosopher)

The magical quality of improv can be considered in one of a few ways: a magician performing for family, a magician performing for a stranger, and a magician performing for another magician.

When performing for family, the audience refuses to see your failure, almost to a fault. If I had performed that card trick for my mother, I could have walked away with a false sense of my effectiveness as a performer. She could have seen every detail of how the card rose to the top of the deck and spotted the card in the ceiling on her way in the store. She still would have given a response commensurate with what I experienced in the store. Her excitement lies in the fact that she is getting to see me perform.

For those of us that perform improv exclusively for friends and family, we get to see a similar phenomenon. We could have what we consider the worst show of our lives. Onstage denials that would make Bill Clinton wag his finger in shame. No real establishment of relationships, dropped games, and a general inability to listen may have plagued the players on a given night. Your family will still greet you after the show and tell you “Wow, you were great up there. It’s amazing that you guys can do that.” They are telling the truth, so far as they see it.

When performing for strangers, the audience enters the situation with an element of skepticism that is usually outweighed by their desire to enjoy the experience. They may not recognize why something wasn’t done correctly, but they are more apt to perceive it than family. Most won’t come up to you and overtly tell you, “You made me choke on my own bile!” However, they may or may not come up to you after the show to tell you how much of a hoot you were… you have to earn it.

Lastly, there is the idea of performing for other magicians. There are in excess of 25 ways to place a card in the center of a deck and make it “magically” rise to the top. If I were performing the described trick for another magician, I would have felt compelled to do it in the most difficult and knuckle-shattering manner possible. The magician would have known immediately that I was going into an “Ambitious Card” routine, and began judging me on technical proficiency. He has no expectation of enjoying the routine, because he is watching as an expert. The challenge associated with this is that you feel compelled to prove how much of an expert you are.

Imagine how this affects teams that play rooms filled with improvisers. The fact of the matter is that the audience is not there to laugh, in this case. They are there fulfilling the laboratory requirement for their own improv education. This can lead players to overemphasize different aspects of their scene work to show their abilities. I have never seen better object work than when I was sitting in one of these shows, but sometimes that is all the set amounted to… a workshop in improv skills. To be fair, I have also seen some of the most magical onstage work in these same rooms. Keep in mind, David Blaine can still have his mind blown by the right magician, especially when the performer goes out on a limb and does something unexpected.

“Confusion isn’t magic”- Dai Vernon (the Del Close of Card Magic)

Why do I tell you all of this? I do love talking about magic, but that wasn’t my overall point. I think that it can be helpful to know what sort of circumstance you happen to be in. The reason this occurred to me was because of a conversation I had with my wife before she saw her first show at iO. Years ago she had seen an iO troupe at the Charleston Comedy Festival. They played the way they would in front of a room full of improvisers to a room full of strangers. They were spectacular scene painters, but the audience didn’t give two shits about that. They had come to see improv comedy, not an exhibition of the player’s skills. I, later, had to drag her kicking and screaming to see TJ & Dave, because she was convinced that all improvisers in Chicago were taught to play that way. And I assure you she wasn’t the only person that got that impression. If they had considered what audience they were playing for, it may have been a much more successful experience for everyone involved.

It isn’t my intent to say which way is better. All three of the situations above are legitimate ways to express our art and connect with an audience. In reality, everything that I have said is more of a comment on my own play than anyone else’s. I would like for you to consider the following: When we take the stage, magic is created. Some of the best improvisation occurs when you have an outcome that you can’t even explain to yourself. When it seems magical to you, you know you have succeeded. Knowing what level of sorcery we aim to present will ensure that we are mystifying the public in a way befitting their expectations.

I love me… I love me not

As members of society, we are constantly being evaluated. This could manifest itself in my judgment of the guy in front of me in the express line that has 13 items in his cart when the limit is ten, or the women at my job reminding me of the lack of manliness I exhibit when I attempt to talk about sports. However, not many evaluations are more daunting to a submarine officer than the process required to be accepted into the submarine program.

Every submarine officer has had to go through a rigorous interview process, and the capstone event is a personal interview with the four-star Admiral in charge of the nuclear power program. To place this into proper context, imagine applying for a manager’s position at an Apple Store and having to interview with Steve Jobs when he’s angry about an iPhone prototype having been lost.

The day starts out with technical interviews, where you are asked specific questions about your major. In between interviews, everyone is corralled in a waiting room where you’re allowed to stew in your own fear. It feels like being a holding cell during spring break. You are aware that you are all there for the same thing, but no one wants to talk about it.

Before you go in to see the Admiral, a guy briefs you as to the following: “You will go up, stand in line and wait to be called. When you are beckoned, walk straight to the chair in front of his desk. Tell him who you are, where you attend school and if you want to be on subs. Don’t get disoriented and end up somewhere like his bathroom. He will ask you something to try to make you uncomfortable. Just respond to it honestly. And when he is done… LEAVE. If you freak out, I will be there to restrain you.” If there is a way to amplify fear, this man has mastered it. After those instructions, everyone is sufficiently terrified.

When my time came, I waited my turn to go into the Admiral’s office, and stared at a picture of Jimmy Carter just outside of his door. I kept trying to imagine whether Jimmy would wash away a day of stress in the Oval Office with one of his brother’s Billy Beers, when I heard a sharp voice say “COME IN!!”

I began to walk into the office, and realized why we were given such detailed instructions. The Admiral’s desk was in the rear of a giant room. He sat behind a desk that was the size of an aircraft carrier and leaned back in his chair with his glasses on the tip of his nose. He had a large coiffeur of hair atop his head that was just tame enough to allow people to ignore it, but was waiting for its opportunity to strike. He was equipped with three sheets of paper that told my entire life story for him to prod me about.

I wrapped up my required spiel as I sat down in the chair. He looked me up and down before asking his first question.

“Why do you want to be on submarines?” he asked.

“Sir, it is a small crew of technically qualified people. I think the camaraderie can’t be matched.”

“Have you ever been on a submarine before?” he probed.

“No, sir.”

“Have you ever been on a ship?!?” he yelled back at me.

“No, sir… Well actually, I visited my wife on the USS Enterprise.”

“What is your wife doing on that ship?”

“She is a Nuclear Reactor Operator, sir.”

He began to review the complete works of my life as if I had told him something that he didn’t know. He regained his bearings and started in again.

“That’s got to be an interesting living arrangement, her being in Norfolk and you being in South Carolina,” he joked.
There are moments where one sees life in slow motion and wonders if things are really happening. The first time you kiss a girl. The first time you have a run-in with the law. Or, more critically, the first time you smart off to the chief executive of an organization that you are applying for entry to. This was one of those moments for me.

As I let the words fall from my lips, I knew that I shouldn’t say them. I was powerless to stop them, as fear had disabled the filter between my lips and my mind. I said “Yes, sir, but I have the Navy to thank for it.”

I wish I could say there was a pause. A moment in which he allowed my stupidity to soak in, before reacting. However, He pounced forward in his seat as if he were a cat leaping toward the toilet to flush his stash of catnip. He slammed his hands on his desk and leaned forward to project his words at my head as forcefully as possible. “YOU’RE FUCKING WELCOME!!!!!” His hair carpe-ed the diem and began to reach for my face like ocean spray from breaking waves. It was beautiful.

I was too afraid to move. There was an awkward pause that could have been 10 seconds, could have been 45 minutes. It felt like eternity in that chair. He sat calmly back in his chair and looked back at his reference sheets. He mumbled under his breath, “I’ll take you. Welcome to the program.”

Let me say first that I was absolutely terrified that I had killed my career with that silly outburst. I have said far worse things in professional situations, but this was definitely flirting with disaster. Secondly, I met the Admiral again a few years later and I had an epiphany. Under more favorable circumstances, he was allowed to be himself. He was kind, funny, interesting, insightful, and a pleasure to be around. I mentioned my experience to him, and he vaguely recalled it. He said that it was one of the times that he had to resist the urge to laugh during the interview. He didn’t because he didn’t want to break character.

Character breaks come in many forms. Many of them aren’t necessarily bad, as they humanize and endear us to the audience. A genuine laugh during a moment that is legitimately funny indicates that you are having as much fun performing as the audience is watching. Losing track of a particularly difficult accent is less optimal, but understandable if it is inhibiting your ability to navigate the scene. The case that I wish to question is when someone starts to abandon their character because the character exhibits behavior that the actor personally disagrees with.

I have played a character a few times that I despise. He is chauvinistic, ignorant, repugnant, and creepy. When I am playing scenes as him, there always comes a point where I have to shake myself not to abandon him. I hate him with all of my might, and that is precisely the reason that I feel the need to remain in his shoes for the duration of a piece. I will never know whether a piece could potentially be better served by making the decision to tone down on the less likeable traits of this guy, but I would venture to say not. What I can say for certain is that I am better served, as a player, by sticking with the truth of the character as I know it regardless of how despicable I may find him.

“All the characters we play are subsets of ourselves. They’re just ourselves in slightly different moods. Ourselves carrying a little more emotional freight.” – Del Close

Considering that the characters we play are either some variation of ourselves or the people that we have chosen to surround ourselves with, the idea of playing a morally reprehensible character is terrifying. It is scary because it may shed light on one of the dark corners of our psyche. We worry what we may learn about ourselves if we allow the character to continue unrestrained. I will admit that it scares the shit out of me. I consider myself to be a decent guy, but some of my characters are just douche satchels. There really isn’t a way around it. I work hard to get myself to be comfortable with the disgusting behavior they exhibit so that I can potentially figure out why he is tucked away in my brain space. Also, being able to explore the darker parts of my mind onstage makes it easier to preserve the comelier parts for my own persona.

In the eyes of the admiral, I was pretty insignificant. He assumes the role of the “disgruntled interviewer” routinely to put young officers through the wringer and ensure that they can stand up to pressure. He maintains that character, even in the face of absurdity, and it makes for an incredibly memorable experience for all those who go through the process. I don’t know if that version of himself represents some pocket of darkness in his heart. It’s none of my business. What I do know is that he is very comfortable with what it represents. And having it separate from his own persona makes him a much happier person when he is being himself.

4th Amendment: Reasonable Search for Seizures

Electrical engineers are, for the most part, exactly how you imagine them: incredibly meticulous, numbers oriented, and easily excited by the minutia of nerd-dom. I once had a professor cancel a programming class with glee because the Microsoft Windows 2000 source code had leaked. His reaction reminded me of the first time I had seen a Playboy magazine. For all of the ability to solve differential equations and recite Battlestar Galactica episodes in their entirety, EEs are not as intuitive with money. For that reason, we were required to take an Engineering Economics course.

One afternoon in the spring, everyone came in for our final exam. People sat at their tables, verifying their #2 pencils were sharpened, checking their TI-89 batteries, and going over equations in their heads. The collective nerves in the room would have made you think that we were on the verge of executing a mass suicide pact and were afraid that the Kool-Aid wouldn’t be sweet enough. Finally, the exam started.

Everyone opened to the first page. There was this chorus of folks muttering, “Oh shit,” as if someone had opened the bathroom door at an inopportune time. The test was hard. I don’t mean the brand of difficulty that we were used to, where a professor would get a kick out of making a giant circuit problem resolve in an answer of zero. I mean the kind of difficulty where we legitimately didn’t know what the hell to do. Every turn of a page was followed by a groan and the slap of a forehead. I spent just as much time trying to account for the moments I didn’t spend studying that week as I did trying to answer questions. It left you wondering how this exam could get any worse, knowing that you would soon be met with the answer to that inquiry when you finished the question you were on.

About a third of the way through the allotted time, a guy two rows in front of me fell out of his chair onto the floor. He began kicking around with his eyes rolling around in the back of his head. His jaw was working overtime like he had five pieces of Bazooka Joe in his mouth. He was having a seizure. It is with great shame that I admit that the first thought that went through my head was, “What question is he on? It must be hard as fuck!” Milliseconds later, reason kicked in and I yelled to get everyone’s attention. Luckily there was a guy in the class that was a trained EMT, so he took immediate action while I called for help. The patient was fine within an hour, and we were all allowed to finish our test at a later date.

First of all, even through my cynicism, I think that EMT was put in that room for a reason. Luckily, he heard the call for help and responded promptly. Secondly, I saw two groups of people form in this situation: those of us who stopped racking our brains about the test to figure out what we could do to help (even if it was nothing), and those in the classroom whose honest response was to shush a man who was fighting for his life 10 feet away from them. They were so focused on trying to accomplish what they “showed up” to do that they were completely unaffected by the fact that a life hung in the balance within their pencil’s reach.

When players enter a scene and together discover who, what, where, when, and most importantly, why, it can be a magical thing to experience. However, we have all been in situations where a predetermined agenda was being pushed in a scene. I mean specifically that we have had an idea of how things were “supposed” to go, and if anything betrayed that vision, we ignored it, hoping it would conveniently go away.

I am not making the argument that a character should completely abandon something that is important to them (unless something is said that if not accepted, negates the reality). What I am saying is that the characters should always allow themselves to be affected by what is being done and said around them. If your character is trying to defuse a bomb, and your scene partner uses what they perceive to be their final moments on earth to admit that they have always loved you… be affected by it. Of course trying to save your lives is important, but this too may very well be YOUR last moments on earth. This moment is meaningful.

On a base level, this level of behavior would be connected to poor listening. I believe that would be the best case scenario, as it says something completely different about a player than the idea that they did hear you and just didn’t care to acknowledge your input. If the latter idea is what prevents a player from being impacted by their surroundings, this is much more difficult to deal with. I have always hoped that the folks in that classroom saw commotion, but didn’t realize the nature of it. If they did know, and still couldn’t be bothered, I shudder to think how many children they would push over in a fire drill.

As players, we are human. Sometimes, we think we have a good idea and we would like to see it to fruition. The nature of the “contract” between scene partners is such that you may have to abandon a notion that you have, as your partner makes their contribution to the world you both occupy. If you have an honest lapse in your senses, and don’t receive the offer, that is one thing. However, allowing your scene partner to fight for their life mere feet away from you such that you can finish calculating the interest over 30 years on a real estate investment is definitely going to drive a wedge in the relationship between the characters. More importantly, it may prevent you from learning why you were put in the same room to begin with.

**********From the Editor**********
Share your experience with us: What do you do when your scene partner doesn’t accept your offer?

Passion of the Heist

I spent most of my adolescent years in Newport News, VA. Newport News is a city that spans the Elizabeth and James Rivers and is home to one of the largest shipbuilders in the world. The city itself has a spinal cord that is comprised of two main streets that run its entire length. The vertebrae of side streets run all the way from the base of the brain, which would be the upscale neighborhoods of Denbigh, to the less favorable gluteus of downtown. Any person who has spent a few years in the Navy has at some point spent some time in the shipyard here, so they are familiar with the area. For my first few months in the Navy, I would introduce myself and the fact that I was from downtown Newport News. The response was literally always, “Ooooh, I’m sorry.”

\I began working when I was sixteen, and with no desire to fight stereotypes, I began my job at KFC. I slaved day in and day out working 40+ hour work weeks to alleviate the financial burden of my existence on the household. No one likes to feel as if they are another bill to pay, so despite what rich Republicans like to believe, I worked an unlikeable job to do my part.

One day, a friend named “Jeff” offered to give me a ride to work. Catching the city bus was easy enough, but it usually drew a crowd that seemed like it had just watched Han Solo shoot Greedo at the Mos Eisley Cantina. I was in no mood to feel like I was trekking to Ellis Island from Europe, so I accepted despite the risk.

Jeff was his own type of character. He discovered that he had a predilection for stealing cars when we were 15 and he started by stealing Chevy Astrovans to allow for carpools to the mall. A few months later he learned that he could make money from stealing cars, so he determined that he should get paid for taking the risk. He still went to school with the rest of us, but he had formed a crew to help him with the heavy lifting of all the cars that needed to be stolen. He even had a motto: “I’m the illest brother alive, watch me prove it/ I’ll steal your car with The Club still attached to it!” Stealing cars had become his raison d’être.

While we were riding up Jefferson Avenue, Jeff was ranting about how successful of a month he just had. He sounded like The Donald bragging about a new golf club that he had just opened on the surface of Mars. I asked him what compelled him to jump so deep into stealing cars. Wait a second … to be honest, my words were much less eloquent than that. What I actually said was, “Why the fuck do you get such kick out of snatching whips?”

Jeff looked at me and asked, “Why do you go to work at KFC and come home tired and covered in flour every night?”

“I don’t know. They hired me and they pay me all right,” I responded.

As he pulled into the parking lot, he parked and looked at me. “You wake up and come to work because you feel like you have to. I do this shit because it is a part of me. It might as well be breathing. I love it, and it loves me. I’m sorry that you have to go in there.”

Now let me get some important stuff out of the way.

1) Stealing cars is not cool.

2) Jeff spent more than a few years in prison for his role in leading a car theft crew.

3) I did get an ungodly amount of flour on my KFC uniform while working there. I may have looked like Farva getting his powdered sugar shower, but it
was not nearly as delicious.

Next, I would like it to be clear that it is not my intent to argue the merits or morality associated with Jeff’s actions. However, Jeff managed to discover something in his life that many people will never have the opportunity to: a passion.

It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.
T. S. Eliot

My parents, probably like most of our parents, were creatures of survival. The American Dream has conditioned us to believe that the measure of our success in life is in property, bank receipts, stock options, and vehicles. Both my parents had hobbies and passions when they were young, but abandoned them for different reasons along the course of their lives. I have found myself wondering who has served harder time: Jeff, who lived his passion for a few years, and spent time (to this day) in a real prison, or my parents, who never really did anything that they loved and have been imprisoned by the rigmarole of sustaining the American Dream (or surviving, as applicable).

We, as a community of improvisers, have been fortunate enough to discover each other. We are fanatic in our pursuit of the form. We practice several nights a week, perform, and teach. We read about improv theory. We read and consume massive amounts of “useless” information to ensure that we know a little about everything. We take workshops and watch improv shows whenever the opportunity presents itself. All of these things are enjoyable and they make us better performers. We are passionate.

We have the ability to come together in our respective cities and theaters and create. We have moments, fleeting as they may be, when we get an opportunity to experience something that would not have existed had we not been put on this earth. Hell, none of us would have guessed that people would pay money to see us make stuff up with our friends. Not bad for the kind of kids that had Monty Python’s African Swallow scene committed to memory before their multiplication tables.

Most of us still have other lives. You probably work a job in order to pay the bills, and make the time to be able to take part in your true interest. We treat our job as a necessary evil to make improvising possible. The fact that we get to improvise after work is what makes the drudgery of the day tolerable. It is important to realize that the experience that you collect along the way in your normal life helps inform and enhance the connection to your work onstage. Those occurrences allow you to establish your individual contribution to your passion. Please never forget that for those moments where you are involved in the art, whether reading, watching, or doing, you are getting to do something much more than the masses whose free time is consumed solely by hanging out in bars and watching marathon sessions of Bones.

Jeff still sits in a 6 foot by 9 foot cell, but he is only mildly apologetic for the things that he has done. He had the chance to do something that he loved, regardless of how objectionable it was. Many people will fumble through life, with the only thing they have ever really gotten excited about being a pub crawl or a half marathon that they ran on a bet. Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they did something they truly enjoyed. Improvisers and Jeff don’t have that problem.

Danger Zone

I have been married for seven and a half beautiful years. My wife and I paid for our wedding ourselves when we were 23 and 22 years old. Being that we were young and low on the military totem pole, we didn’t have much money to do so. Despite the financial limitations, we had a lovely ceremony; however, the cost of the wedding and our work schedules did prevent us from having a proper honeymoon. Over the years we managed to take a few trips together; one of the most notable was a week in Malaysia during which we saw a dead Rottweiler in a pet store window (which my wife still believes was sleeping. IT WAS NOT!). However, it wasn’t until this year that we were able to take a trip that had the true feeling of a honeymoon when we went to Cancun, Mexico.

Contrary to what Joe Francis tried to teach me with his Girls Gone Wild documentaries, Cancun can be a pretty laid back place. We stayed at a nice resort on the beach, slept in until noon, drank umbrella drinks and had great food. One night we learned of a fire show that was going to happen on the beach. We had nothing to do that evening, so we resisted the urge to look at the stars alone, and joined the spectators already gathered on the beach for the show.

The crowd was filled with the various groups of people that you would typically find at any show in the world. There was the couple who was too drunk to know if they were wearing pants. There was the couple who was terrified of becoming part of the show, so they sat behind the farthest row from the action. The guys, who hoped that volunteers would be asked to twirl flaming nunchucku with the professionals, sat in the front row. The family from the Midwest, for whom the most exotic thing they had ever seen was Munch’s Make-Believe Band performing at Chuck E. Cheese. The rest of the crowd were just good clean people who wanted to have a good time.

Seven fire performers came out dressed in black outfits that had flame accents along the pant legs. They were all showing skin to varying degrees, which was refreshing in the case of the two female performers. It however made me crazy self-conscious in the case of the shirtless male performers. I don’t have many strict beliefs, but no man should have a 24-pack on his stomach. It just makes the rest of us look bad, and Charlton Heston told me not to worship false idols in the form of steel abs.

The show opened with a spectacular display of twirling flaming objects. They rotated, one by one, spinning emblazed weapons around their near naked bodies. Each weapon grew sequentially more dangerous as they moved from spinning flaming sticks to flaming swords and sledgehammers. Every round of performance was rewarded with a corresponding growth of applause and appreciation for the degree of danger associated with it.

About two-thirds of the way through the show the two female performers were collaborating in whirling around a few pieces of equipment that could be used to kick my ass even without the fire. They moved in unison, mirror images of each other. The display was impressive and exhilarating. Suddenly and simultaneously, they threw their individual implements in the air, spun their bodies around and reached out to catch them as they had done several times over the course of the show. Only this time, one of them dropped the proverbial ball. The instrument fell squarely on the ground, where it continued to burn. A lesser human being would have run off of the stage in tears screaming, “I DON’T NEED YOU TO LOVE ME!!!” (I say that because I have been there). She instead did a roundhouse kick, swept it up from the ground and continued with her routine.

Until this point, the response of the crowd had become somewhat predictable. A performer comes out, does some awesome shit, we cheer. The show had been completely amazing, but there was a natural rhythm that had developed. One could expect that an interruption in that rhythm would serve to lose the interest of the crowd. That the critical eye would lead to jeers and heckling. However, the onlookers cheered harder than they had cheered all night. Deafening whistles echoed off the ocean, sounding like a dolphin orgy as they returned to our ears (For the record, late night out on a submarine, I have heard my fair share of dolphin debauchery.) The troupe finished their spectacular show and walked off the beach as proud and sexy as they had arrived.

“Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; whenever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable. They go together.” Earl Nightingale

No one would dispute that manipulating articles of death which have been transformed into forest fires swinging inches from your own face has an inherent element of danger. For that reason, making a mistake in the middle of such a performance is not only forgiven but applauded when the performer pushes through it. When people sense that something is being done that they couldn’t do themselves, their natural tendency is to support the performer, for better or worse.

I would argue that the idea of spinning a flaming chainsaw around your neck, while understood as dangerous, is abstract in the average person’s mind. Even though they recognize the danger, it isn’t a danger that they could ever imagine undertaking. This lies in stark contrast to the danger that people see in allowing yourself to be vulnerable onstage in an improvised show. No matter your level of experience or number of shows performed, every one of us has heard something like, “I don’t know how you guys do that. I would be terrified up there not knowing what to say.”

The idea of being caught in a situation for which you don’t have the words to thrive is a palpable fear that everyone experiences. Its ability to be palped (I assume this is a word, even though Microsoft Word is underlining it) is amplified when they think of it happening in front of a room full of strangers. Whether you know it or not, when you step on that stage you are a shirtless superhuman with a 24-pack, making spectators aware of their insecurity about speaking in front of others. You are also, due to the element of danger they sense you to be experiencing, in an incredibly supportive environment.

Keep in mind that there are some situations in which a performer encounters a much more adversarial relationship with the audience. In stand-up comedy, very often the mentality of the crowd is, “I dare you to make me laugh. Oooh, I wish this muthaf*cka would make me laugh.” Mistakes made during a fully scripted production are less likely to be lauded with supportive praise, the key difference being that most people assume that when you have had time to practice exactly what you are going to do, you should be able to do it perfectly. This is probably an unfair characterization, but none of us are exempt from feeling this way. I nearly untied my own navel out of anger when Christina Aguilera botched the National Anthem before the Super Bowl. I am not the kind of douche that questioned her patriotism, but you would think that she is a professional and would be prepared for something of that magnitude. I did not applaud her as she pushed through that mistake.

You are bold. You are out there every night doing things that most people could not fathom doing. Stepping out in front of a jury of your own peers and allowing yourselves to be viewed in a supremely vulnerable state, performing without a script or any anticipatory measures to prevent you from looking foolish. You practice, work to develop chemistry, hone your group mind and toil over the mechanics of format, but anything can happen onstage. Continue to embrace the peril. Light fire to that bat’leth (my Klingon-speaking folks have one of these in the closet), put some baby oil on that 24-pack of abs, and take that risk again. Your reward awaits you.

No such thing as a mistake…

A few years ago, my wife and I were discussing the idea of getting a dog. Having seen a Chow nearly devour my cousin’s face during childhood, I was not really a dog person. However, I figured that the honest pursuit of a dog could stave off the biological desire for children. Really, the only stipulation I had was that the dog be small … really small. I am a reasonable enough person to realize that unprovoked dog attacks are not very common, but I believe irrational fear has kept me alive in many situations where I was moments from being the black guy who is first to have his head hacked off in some movie scenario.

I was scheduled to go to sea one afternoon in March. After packing up in preparation for a month at sea, we had an unexpected change of plans. A vital piece of equipment broke, causing the underway to be postponed. I arrived home to an empty apartment. Sadly, the Navy socializes you to get worried when you come home early from being at sea to unanticipated circumstances, so I called my wife to see where she was. She said, “I’m at the airport picking someone up. He should be coming out now.” I am secure in my marriage and always have been, but the idea that she would be picking someone up from the airport while I was scheduled to be gone without telling me was a bit odd.

When she came home, I met the guy she had picked up at the airport. He was much shorter than I had anticipated. He was black and had patches of white hair, as if he had caught glimpses of a ghost. His brown eyes were simultaneously intense and innocent. I was frustrated with how much I liked him, even though I hadn’t agreed to his presence. She had brought home a one-pound party poodle that was the size of a can of RC Cola.

She had decided to buy the dog in a unilateral maneuver that would have made Ollie North proud. Feeling left out, I demanded to have permission to name the dog. She reluctantly agreed and asked what I wanted to name him. “I want his name to be Daniel …” I said slowly. “Okay?” she responded. “Daniel Schultz …” I continued. She said, “That sounds fine.” I finished my thought, “His name is Daniel Montag Schultz!” Confused, she asked whom I knew by that name. “I only know the dog by that name. Dan Schultz.”

When I went to sea the next day, I told the guys that my wife had picked up this guy named Dan Schultz at the airport because she’d thought I would be gone. Over the coming months, I shared my wife’s emails with the guys when she mentioned Dan Schultz. It was always rewarding when she would say stuff like, “Dan and I went for a walk today. It was nice,” “Dan Schultz licked my hand this morning to wake me up,” or, “Dan jumped in the bed with me last night. I didn’t expect it, but it was cute.” The guys on the boat started to conjure up all sorts of revenge schemes to make this man, Dan, pay for living in my house. I always told them that if she wanted Dan there, I wouldn’t stand in the way.

One morning while I was on the way into work, a member of the crew approached me on the pier. This gentleman named Frank was a six-foot-eight-inch cup of the most loyal man I have ever met. He pulled out a magazine and told me that he knew who Dan Schultz was. Pictured was an officer named Dan Schultz. Frank asked, “Sir, is this Dan Schultz?” I responded with as little emotion as I possibly could. “That is not him.” He asked if I was certain. All he wanted was a sign from me, and he would do the rest. “That is not Dan Schultz,” I responded.

A week later, the ship had a party for the crew and their families. Frank was at the same table as my wife and I. My wife began to talk about Dan and offered to show pictures to everyone. “I have wanted to see this guy for a while,” Frank proclaimed. When he saw a picture of a three-pound toy poodle wearing a cowboy hat, he had a moment of realization that can only be compared to seeing Michael Douglas attempt suicide and ending up at his surprise birthday party in The Game (who among us has never had that happen, be honest). He looked at me with an intense look of betrayal and then burst into laughter. “Fuck you, Sir! You got us,” he yelled as he took my wife’s phone to show the picture of the interloper who had been staying with my wife in the preceding months.

From my cunning ruse to cut the red wire on my wife’s biological clock, I learned a few things. The first is that I obviously have no control in my relationship. I don’t see this as a bad thing; it just lets me know that when I feel like I have achieved a victory by eating BBQ ribs for breakfast, it was only because my wife allowed it. I learned that the guys on the boat are loyal to each other to an intimidating degree. The thought of Frank visiting every Dan Schultz in the phone book with the intention of demonstrating his ability to palm their heads like an overinflated basketball scared the shizznit out of me.

The last lesson that I drew from this experience is this: Life does not fuck up; you just have to wait long enough to see why it was right. As productive members of society, we try to be measured and deliberate in our speech and action to prevent discomfort. Sometimes, we manage to say or do things that we didn’t mean to. The natural inclination is to try to correct yourself if you inadvertently pick up the wrong flavor ice cream for your pregnant wife, as you know she will probably tear your spleen out otherwise. However, I believe that occasionally embracing the path of the unintended can lead to interesting outcomes, as long as you own the “mistake” that got you there.

There was a complete absence of premeditation in the naming of Dan Schultz. I had never heard the name before, and never considered it. As it came out of my mouth I wondered why I was saying it, but there was no real reason to fight it. I spent the next few months “justifying” the decision by weaving the story of the hairy and debonair gentleman from Tulsa who intended to steal my wife. Whenever the subject of Mr. Schultz came up, I learned more and more about why the hand of fate had manipulated my lips to say his name. At face value, accepting the name and the resulting events was a good practical joke on my shipmates. However, I have come to believe that these situations give a group of people a shared experience to reflect upon and a story that they can tell that they wouldn’t have if the mistake had been corrected. I mean, let’s be honest, how many of your great stories resulted from things going according to plan?

It is common to be on stage and correct something that didn’t go according to plan. “I didn’t mean to say Navel American. I meant Native American.” Or, “Did I say this was a carton of eggs in this foxhole? Nah, it’s a box of grenades.” It is very simple and innate to make those course corrections to stay within the channel of reason. However, when you are improvising – I mean truly being in the moment and living without premeditation – realize that your brain lets things past the filter for a reason. At its best, the reason you said something may not be completely apparent when it comes out. One of the great joys of improvisation is taking disparate concepts and thoughts and discovering why they make sense in the same space.

Another important aspect to consider is that you cannot un-ring a bell. Once something is said or done on the stage, it has been witnessed by your fellow players and the audience. That thing is, in that moment, truth. Obviously, there is a difference between becoming Mushmouth while speaking – allowing unintelligible chains of words to fall from your lips – and saying something you don’t expect. The former, just not making sense, is worthy of cleaning up. It prevents you from needing to have an exchange in order to clarify your intentions. However, when it comes to a completely unexpected statement making its way past the mind filter, an equal amount of effort is expended trying to explain it away rather than just living with it and finding out down the line why it came out.

Consider this: My wife and I were friends for a few years before we started dating. We had been dating for about six months, and I driving to see her in Virginia. Along the way, I saw a billboard that said “Te Amo Cigars” while I was on the phone with her. I was passing this sign as we were saying our goodbyes and I read the first two words aloud. I have never taken a Spanish class, so the silence that fell on the line was puzzling to me. I asked what was wrong. She said “Te amo means I love you …” I HUNG UP IMMEDIATELY. For the rest of the drive, I considered what had happened. I scoured my soul to discover how I had messed up so egregiously and prematurely said such a thing. The more I thought about it, I realized that I did love her. Life knew better than I did what needed to be said in that moment. Life had not made a mistake. Good thing too, because YOU CAN’T UN-RING THAT BELL!!!

It is fair to not want to look like a crazy cat lady when you correct your words in a parent-teacher conference. However, you should not fear the idea of letting something happen that you didn’t plan for. We are not in the business of performing sketches, after all. You are not deviating from a script when something slips out, and your efforts to control the scene can generally work against you finding some pretty spectacular outcomes in your work. Dan Schultz could very easily have been named Spot if I had rescinded the gift my subconscious had given me. How many interesting memories come from naming your dog Spot? I damn sure could have attempted to recant my declaration of love but I am certain that would not have resulted in my life forever being enchanted by my lovely wife. Molly Ringwald will tell you that the song can’t go back into the boom box. Life does not fuck up; just give it a little time to show you why it is right.

The status of the status quo

A group of Navy Lieutenants (rank O-3) are standing in a parking lot talking to one another while waiting for a shuttle to base. They are equals. As such, they are very relaxed as one guy tells a story about another vomiting into the gas tank of a car during a port call. A few moments later, a Commander (O-5) shows up, hoping he is not too late to catch the shuttle. The lieutenants’ tone and demeanor shift instantly. They are now focused intently on the Commander’s story about his last golf game. They laugh at his joke about his golf handicap. In his defense, the idea of Batman continuing to fight crime after having his back broken by Bane is sorta funny. He is in charge. He talks over them, he ignores their thoughts. Most degradingly, they allow him to call them by the wrong name without correction. Keep in mind everyone wears a nametag in the Navy.

This guy is on top of the world. He is fully ensconced in his cloak of power, having these completely uninterested guys listen to his tale. I could swear I am watching Cobra Commander show his stamp collection to Destro and Storm Shadow. He laughs incessantly at the words coming out of his own mouth.

Suddenly, his façade of control tumbles down around him as if that stupid cousin of yours had just pulled a Jenga block from the bottom on his second turn. A Navy Captain (O-6) walks up in an effort to catch the same shuttle. The Commander’s dick instantly shrinks three inches. He focuses on the Captain’s story about getting a flat tire on the way to church. He laughs at the Captain’s joke about it being a sign that he should have stayed home to watch the Cowboys game. Most degradingly, he allows the Captain to mispronounce his name. His name isn’t difficult to pronounce; it’s Wesley.

In our everyday lives we watch the value of status change like a politician’s position on pepperoni pizza, and we never question it. Just because a police officer has the upper hand in a traffic stop, it doesn’t mean that he will be top dog back at the precinct. You wouldn’t speak to your pastor with the same tone that you speak to an annoying telemarketer. We can appreciate the fact that in order to survive in certain situations, we may need to adjust our status accordingly to yield desirable results. We should have that same level of flexibility in our scene work.

Inelasticity of status plagues us all in various ways. Sometimes it manifests itself when our characters maintain their status in all situations presented to them. But the ability to discover new things about our characters, our premise, and ourselves is heightened with our willingness to allow for vulnerability. That vulnerability is applicable to both the actors and characters they portray. I wouldn’t go as far to say that all characters need to experience a status shift over the course of a piece. It does, however, limit the possible outcomes if you rule it out as a potential option from the beginning.

We also rob ourselves of the ability to cultivate tension when situations are predictable. When it is established that a character has a certain expectation of status, an inherent sense of tension develops when that character is put in new relationships. According to Joe Bill, “laughter is always the result of tension broken.” Thus, it is easy to see that the mining prospective humor from experiencing a status shift is a rewarding way to get a laugh while adding dimension to our characters.

The second way that status rigidity presents itself is within the actor. We have all encountered players that will never allow themselves to be made low status (or high status conversely). It could be helpful to ask why that tendency has developed. While the answer to that question may not be something that we want to share with others, knowing it can help you combat your natural tendency to fall into that groove. It is also challenging to imagine the things that you might discover about yourself as a person if you allow yourself to be in a position that is uncomfortable, whether that is high or low status.

The natural reaction of a group is to learn one another’s tendencies of this sort, such that when you commence a scene with Earl, you know that you will always be the high status character. I also submit that you have the potential to learn something profound about your troupe if that dynamic isn’t predictable. Learning that the President of the United States is the low status member of a scene in the Presidential Limo with his Secret Service Bodyguard not only leads to something interesting in the scene, but can help inform your troupe on what your views of certain relationships truly are.

In the military it is easy to quantify when shifts in status will occur because members wear their status on their lapels. We as members of society have a sixth sense that not only allows us to see the occasional dead person, but also lets us detect when we are no longer the top dog in a situation. Keeping that sense engaged onstage can add dimension to your characters, scenes, and overall pieces. More importantly, it can help you learn to connect with your scene partners in a way that you hadn’t considered before … by letting have their way from time to time. After all, everyone gets to have their name said correctly every once in a while.

To be more specific…

The late nineties were a turbulent time. The Backstreet Boys were in. The boys of Blackstreet were out. Vampires weren’t revered; they were reviled and hunted by an upstart of a slayer named Buffy. We mourned the death of Cross Colors and Black Bart Simpson T-shirts. During these days, I would spend many an afternoon playing Nintendo 64. One afternoon I was playing Diddy Kong Racing with my four-year-old godson, Hogg. He had just finished a six minute diatribe on the subject of “Diddy Kong Racing is better than Mario Kart.”

After this tiny toastmaster finished making his point, for which I had no retort, I felt like I needed to gain the intellectual advantage over him.

I asked him, “Hogg, what is the opposite of up?” He responded, without a pause, “Down!”

I looked at him and asked, “What is the opposite of hot?” He quickly rattled off, “Cold, silly!”

Hogg laughed a little to himself and awaited the next question. “Hogg, what is the opposite of a bear?” He got a serious look on his face and thought for a few seconds. I could see a light bulb come on in his mind as he found an answer. His face was covered with a toothless grin as he proudly yelled his reply. “GOLDILOCKS!!!”… Hogg 2, Me 0.

Admittedly, I was logically pummeled by Hogg like Clubber Lang beat Rocky in their first fight. Usually a shameful intellectual downfall to a toddler is a memory one tries to block, but it stuck with me. The first reason I never forgot this moment was because of how oddly specific Hogg was in his response. An open-ended question had been asked, and instead of being vague, he made a strong, specific choice that was both funny and memorable.

“When we’re in a state of self-judgment, we tend to be vague [Napier].” When you are sitting at your Wednesday morning meeting with the boss, you aren’t likely to be very specific about the status of your project if you didn’t get to check with your team beforehand. There is a right and wrong answer. An answer that is the truth, and any other answer is less than. It makes sense that you would want to ensure that the information that you provide to those around you is the most correct possible.

However, in a world that we collectively create, any answer is correct. Are you holding a piece of an enchanted tree? Sure. Did you just buy a barrel of spare airplane wing bolts? That’s also correct. No matter what specific choice is made, it can be true. As long as you trust those around you to support the toys that you bring to the sandbox to play with, making specific choices will always enhance a scene in a way that is impossible to quantify. It also relieves the pressure from your scene partners to fill in gaps and lets them pull their own action figures from their toy satchel.

The second reason that I didn’t repress the memory of a baby making me feel dumb as a jar of relish is it made me wonder what made him choose that specific reference. I couldn’t help but rummage through my own soul in an effort to determine why I wouldn’t have come to that conclusion. At the time, the answer that came to my mind was “Minnesota Viking.” It was as appropriate as his response, but to me less interesting because it seemed more obvious.

We as human beings respond to the world in accordance with our accumulated experiences up until the moment we are living. Those different perspectives that we bring to any individual interaction is what makes life interesting. When you converse with me, it is highly unlikely that I will make a reference to the Teapot Dome scandal to illustrate the depth of the veins of corruption in the political system. It just isn’t in my active Rolodex of thoughts. However, I will remind you that the Notorious B.I.G. told us that “Mayor Gulliani ain’t trying to see a black man turn into John Gotti.” Not only did Biggie speak innumerable truths, but that thought will naturally occur to me if we are talking about the last time I got pulled over.

In my estimation, there are two general perspectives from which specifics can be injected into a scene. The first is when unsystematic details are presented as part of the dialogue of the characters. Over time, as we are trained as humans and improvisers to discover patterns, there will be connections drawn between the details. Many interesting, funny, and fulfilling scenes are executed with this method. The decisions to introduce details are driven by both instinct (training/compulsion) and a feeling of responsibility to do your part in the scene.

The second method is when the details presented are a revelation about the nature of the character that said them. What kind of person, when asked for the opposite of a bear, says Goldilocks? What experiences have they had that made that choice the obvious one? Most importantly, what else about their surrounding world is readily apparent to them? While I admit the second school of thought is at face value more challenging, I am a pious believer that it makes it infinitely easier to present details when it is just what that person would say anyway. The motivation for sharing details then becomes a desire of the character to reveal some aspect of the world through their eyes. Hell, this idea is why we have never run out of lyrics to songs with a incalculable number of songs written by countless singers. Eminem would never think to say the same things as Bob Dylan. The lyrics to their songs were a reflection of their view of the world and revealed something about them. Nothing was accidental.

Hogg had four years of life experience. His days had been chock-full of learning to speak, walk, read and write. When he was asked to draw from his wealth of knowledge about the world, he gave an honest and specific answer as he saw it. I had the honor of being humiliated by a person who hadn’t even lived through a full presidential term on more than one occasion. He taught me that your specific choices can help those around you understand the way you see the world. Hogg 3, Me 0.

Kinder Guarding

The other night I was a guest at a wedding reception. When the DJ started his set, he came out of the gate with three songs that have established line dances (the Electric Slide, the Cupid Shuffle, and the Cha-Cha Slide). The guests at the reception flooded the dance floor with a great deal of excitement to partake in these dances. Some people were so experienced in these dances, the Electric Slide especially, that they would put their own personal flair on it as they danced. I watched 70% of the total attendance flock the dance floor to be a part of these dances. When the DJ put on another dance song that did not have an established dance attached, I watched all but three of those people flee the dance floor as if a rabid raccoon were in the center of the crowd. The interesting part is fact that the three people who stayed to continue dancing were children ranging in ages from three to six. They continued to dance their tiny hearts out for the next half hour without reservation or compunction.

From a young age, we are indoctrinated with the idea of rules. When we are young, rules stifle our ability to explore the world. “Don’t cross the street without your brother holding your hand.” Or, “It’s nap time, so everyone needs to be asleep.” All I could wonder was, “What is on the other side of the street that I need the protection of a big kid to ensure my safety? And what the fuck is going on during nap time that grown-ups don’t want me to see?” While these rules were put in place for our own safety, to a young mind, they are just a means of obfuscating the adult world from us.

As we get older, we become much more comfortable with the idea that the rules are there for us. We are acutely aware that if it weren’t for stop lights, it would be nearly impossible to cross a street in a big city. The rules make us think, “I can’t cross the street while the light is orange; I will get hit by a taxi,” and “Only an hour for lunch? I can run a couple of miles and eat a salad.”

The more relevant aspect of regulation, especially when it comes in the form of social convention, is that rules protect us from looking stupid. Whether it is a dress code, dinner party etiquette, or cutting a rug, those “rules” are there to prevent us from looking like Mr. Bean trying to wash his hands or Elaine Benes getting her groove on.

At the reception, people were perfectly comfortable dancing to the first three songs because there were established rules. As long as you do the Electric Slide as taught, you will look normal. There is no room for judgment, as long as you follow the commands given by the overseer of the Cha-cha Slide. When the comfort and safety of those rules was rescinded, the adults scurried back to their cocktails. Only the children, for whom the instructions of the Cupid Shuffle could be restrictive, felt liberated to express themselves. They didn’t yet have the baggage that makes adults compare our actions against those around us to determine if we are being “too different.”

I suppose, lest I be judged, I should come to some grand point. As performers, we experience a natural arc in our progression as players. In the beginning of our training, we learn the rules of improv. We constantly evaluate our actions in scenes against the rules, and attempt to correct our actions to stay within their boundaries. We later learn that we have the ability to not explicitly follow the rules (thanks Mick Napier) and do things that may fall out of bounds. However, if we do them with purpose, intent, and conviction it may allow us to discover something in the work that would not have been found otherwise.

As one of a bunch of big kids that are getting the opportunity to play in the improvised world that we collectively create, I believe it is important to understand and acknowledge the rules. This applies for the prescribed rules of improvisation. It also applies to your social barometer telling you that something you are saying is stupid or offensive. But if we ever hope to discover new aspects of ourselves and our world through improvisation, we should stay in touch with the four year old that feels compelled to do donkey kicks during a Black Eyed Peas song. Who cares what we look like doing it? At least we are getting to do it.

A gentlman always listens well

Its 11:30 pm on a US Navy nuclear powered submarine. As Officer of the Deck, it is my responsibility to take in multiple points of information to keep the ship safe. Information of concern may regard the ship’s position with respect to land, its position with respect to other ships, its depth, the condition of the nuclear reactor, the condition of torpedoes, emergency system operation, and whether the cooks are preparing a meal. (The latter is important because a 20 degree angle while preparing French fries tends to ruin someone’s day.) The means for obtaining the aforesaid bits of information are the ship’s sensors, such as sonar and Voyage Management with Ring Laser Gyro Navigation (fancy speak for Garmin), and the people who make up your team.

In this instance, we are making our way through a narrow strait while submerged. It is late and the captain is busy, so the safety of the ship is on my shoulders. The Sonar Operator begins to tell me that we have two ships that are going to come really close to us, so he recommends that I turn the ship to open our proximity to them. This immediately provokes the Navigation Supervisor to scream at me that if I do that, I run the risk of hitting the ocean floor since the water is shallow on either side of us. Of course, this prompts the ship’s diving officer to tell me that we can’t afford to bring the ship closer to the surface without potentially closing the vertical buffer between us and the ships above. With all of this information in hand, I consider the risks and order the safest option available … skirt the edge of the strait, knowing that two ships going in the same direction will have to follow each other through. We live to fight another day.

I don’t share this story to illustrate how bad-ass I am in my day job, although I did get my fair share of fist bumps from the whole affair. I mention it to elucidate the value of effective listening.

Every one of us has people in our lives who never listen when we attempt to communicate. There is the girl in the office, who only tolerates your voice until she has a chance to make you listen to tales of her misguided efforts to qualify for Olympic hurdles. Then there is your boss, who allows your suggestions to increase productivity to fall upon deaf ears so that he can tell you about his golf handicap. Unless I owe you an apology because you are one of those people that I just mentioned, the question becomes, why would we “Quantum Leap” into those people’s bodies during scenes?

If you make a conscious choice for the character to be completely obtuse, then this diatribe doesn’t apply. The key difference is that the character would merely be pretending not to listen. The player is completely aware of the information being presented, so that they can further what the scene is about (or game of the scene as applicable).

When we fail to listen, the obvious consequence is that it makes our job harder. We rename characters, change relationships, and swap locations in a manner that would be reminiscent of the school change in the second season of Saved by the Bell (for my more urban friends, think the vanishing child in Family Matters). While the mental gymnastics that are required to justify such gaffes are readily available in our toolbox, the energy we expend would be better used to discover something in the information that has been put forth. That energy can only be suitably focused if you properly process that information in the first place through effective listening.

Looking beyond the flaming hoops that we douse ourselves in gasoline to flip through by ignoring the details of our creation, we also grossly inhibit our ability to experience magic in our piece. I could quote Del Close, who said, “Where do the really best laughs come from? Terrific connections made intellectually, or terrific revelations made emotionally.” We all know this, but even coming from the chief architect of improv, we still manage to forget this. I will instead quote Mooj from The 40 Year Old Virgin, who said, “It’s all about connections; it’s not about c**k and a** and t*** and butt**** pleasures.” I am not certain about sex education portion, but that crazy old Hindi man was right. The good stuff, in both meaning and laughter, is buried in the connections. If we are not listening to the stuff that our team is making an effort to communicate and establish, we CANNOT make those connections.

Will you drive a submarine into an underwater mountain by failing to listen to your scene partners? Possibly, depending on how vivid your scene on a submarine happens to be. I can guarantee that the potential loss of non-imaginary life will be minimal in any situation you would find yourself in. Sadly, I can also guarantee that your ability to reflect on a show and wonder how your team managed to discover the tribulations of growing into womanhood from a suggestion of wrought-iron will be diminished. Be respectful of the rest of your team’s ideas. Listen to them. You, your audience, and your Sonar Operator scene partner will like what you discover.