Comfort Zone (Part 2)

In “Comfort Zone”, I talked about signing up for an 8-week improv class with the Bad Dog Theatre Company.

This for me was going out of my comfort zone.

Today I completed my 5th class.

The other day I was telling a friend that I was taking an improv class.

She didn’t know what I meant.

I asked if she had seen “Whose Line is it Anyway?” with Drew Carey.

No, she doesn’t watch much television.

I then said it’s a class where actors go to learn how to act.

Each week 12 of us meet as a class for two hours.

We have an excellent instructor who takes us through a series of games or exercises.

Some of the games I find difficult, but I throw caution to the wind and participate with a sense of abandon.

Today we stood in a circle for one of our games.

Person A starts the game by facing the person next to her (Person B) and says a sentence. Person B says “Yes and…”, faces Person C beside her and says a sentence that builds on the sentence that Person A started with. As we go around the circle each person says a sentence that builds upon the previous sentence and eventually a story emerges where there are characters, plot, and a setting. When it came time for my turn I had to pause for awhile to think of a sentence that would go with the sentence that was handed to me. The silence felt awkward and uncomfortable, but I eventually came up with something!  

This exercise reminds me of the process of collaboration where we are listening to each other and building on each other’s ideas. We are implicitly using the word “and” instead of the word “but.”

We did an exercise today that I had fun doing.

In this exercise I played off a partner.

While my partner was out of the room, I was told that during the conversation with my partner, I had to get my partner to say the phrase “don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

I didn’t quite know where to start and so I started off by saying that my partner’s character was late for his curfew. My partner did a great job in setting the scene in saying that he was 15 years old and that as his mother, I was annoying. I needed to change the scene where it wasn’t so confrontational and I asked him to remember the time when he was younger and that I used to read to him and that he would say his prayers before nodding off into neverland. I knew that he knew what the phrase was when he said that we used to go camping and he would shine a light to ward off the bugs. He then said the phrase “don’t let the bed bugs bite.” It is quite a feeling when someone understands what you are trying to convey!   

Through these classes I’m learning the importance of listening and focusing on what others are saying verbally or non-verbally through their body language. I know I’m learning how to think on my feet, going with the flow and (slowly) removing the filter of thinking before speaking. I feel I’m expressing myself creatively. 

Most importantly I’m reminded about what it feels like to work in an unstructured and collegial environment. There is no set curriculum, no assigned readings and no such thing as making a “dumb” statement.   

Each week, all of us come to class with an open mind. 

Our instructor tells us the rules of a game and we go and do it. 

During the game he guides us along and we are debriefed at the end.

Sometimes I feel uncomfortable when I can’t immediately come up with a sentence that would build on my teammate’s sentence. 

Sometimes I feel exhilarated like today when I got my teammate to say a particular phrase without my saying any part of the phrase.  

Three more improv classes to go.

I like my improv class.

And I think to myself “What’s next?”

Also Published on LinkedIn on: February 6, 2017

Image Credit:   Florida Public Relations Association (Tampa Bay Chapter) - www.fpratampabay.org