For the last four months I have been taking
Improv classes at the
San Diego National Comedy Theater. I steadily moved on from Level I to Level II, and now I am going to graduate Level III. Our graduation show is on
Wednesday, September 26th, where we will be performing in front of a live audience. Along the way, I have had some great teachers:
Jamie (Level I) and Mike (Level II and III). I owe them a lot!
What is improv? We do it all the time in our daily lives. At any given moment when we are interacting with other people, we do not know what the other person is going to say next, but we almost always have an answer for them. That is improvisation! The difference is that in real life, you are yourself all the time, but when you are on that improv stage you have to be a character that you fabricate in a split second on stage or go with the character your colleague on the stage has assigned to you. That is the hard part. You have to leave all notions of "self' outside and get up on the stage as a naked no-name person. On stage you put on the shell of the character and act as him/her. It is quite challenging and for almost all of Level I, we had the trouble to leave our ego behind. In Level II, the challenge was letting go of the competitive spirit. You are not trying to out-smart the other person on the stage or show-off your comedy skills. All you do is "Yes-And" your partner on stage. You accept whatever the your partner says, not deny it, and then build on it. You are not trying to deliver clever lines, you are just trying to act your part the best way you can. And as you make a fool of yourself, the audience enjoys. In Level III, with more practice, it all sinks in. You realize that you are up on the stage only to make the audience happy, no matter what you do, if there is a laugh or any reaction from the audience, you have earned your time on stage. I have thoroughly enjoyed my improv experience. I wish I could do this more. I don't think I have it in me to take this on as a career, I just want to practice more. Let's see, I will have to find opportunities to do that.
Why did I chose improv? Many reasons. Lets start with the the story on how I discovered improv. I have to confess, when they used to show "
Whose Line is it Anyway" on TV, I did not like it much. I did not get the point of the show and wondered why someone would create a "show where every thing's made up and the points don't matter". But I watched it since hubby liked it. This was when we lived in North Carolina and somehow had the time to watch TV! Fast forward to March 2012, I happened to hear
Alan Alda being
interviewed on NPR and talking about the
Center for Communicating Science where they are trying to teach engineers and scientists to talk and connect with people. I got intrigued. Hey, I am an engineer! I could use some communication skills! I researched that program and since it was on the other coast, obviously I could not attend any of those courses. But I did find out that they use improvisation techniques to 'loosen up' engineers and scientists. That stuck with me and then after a few emails back and forth with the Center, I convinced myself that I will have to learn improvisation myself. Fortunately for me, there was
a fantastic opportunity to learn the craft here in San Diego!
There are other reasons for picking improv too. Some are very personal. My mother passed away this year suddenly with cancer of unknown primary. I spent three months in India trying to help her and failed. When I returned back to the US in March, I was grieving, I felt lost, I was in a terrible shape emotionally and was finding it very hard to reconnect with the world. I desperately needed a distraction, something to take my mind off for couple hours a week, something to engage myself and forget the deep hole in my heart. Improv helped a lot. I made new friends, my colleagues were from professions very different from mine. Their life experiences and attitudes were very different too. It was very nice to find these people. Growing up I led a very focused life, we lived and hung out with folks of the same kind - engineers. My dad envisioned that I will grow up and become one and my family made sure that I was not distracted with any other career options. It was all study, no hobbies, no play, no fun. Even at school I was somewhat a pariah, no friends. There was not much fun in my life back then and I really did not learn how to have fun, how to let go and relax, how to just live in the moment and savor the happiness. This training of 'not to enjoy' stuck with me through adulthood. About the time I turned 30, I realized that I can do other things. But I found myself tied up with responsibilities, job, etc. and spent the next four years lamenting on lost chances - if only I had learned to draw and paint, if only I had spent time singing, if only I had learned to play an instrument, if only I could learn to write, if only I had gone to chef school, if only ..... About 2010, a door opened inside me and the person said - Stupid! It's no use thinking 'if only', just do it! If you want to learn singing, do it. If you want to cook, do it. If you want to learn acting, do it. Since then, I am looking for ways to advance my skills. I have been focusing all my free time on learning a new skill, does not matter what it is, it just has to be something that I find interesting. The best part is that I get the opportunity to meet new people, learn their stories, connect with them at a different level. This is very liberating. I am slowly training my right brain to wake up and become active. It has been a fabulous experience for me. I feel so alive. The world seems full of possibilities everyday. I feel as if I have a crush on life!
So, I welcome you to come watch me make a fool of myself and enjoy it! For more details click
here.
