In the car, kind of driving

Thursday was the last day of the term for my Intro 4 class at Go U! We had done our show and after teaching a game we had not gotten to this term, I jumped into giving "evaluations" with each of the folks who were there.

Friday night I was driving home from work, thinking about all the things that my students and I chatted about in their evaluations... the scenes we talked about, the moments from class that showed areas where they could improv, areas they had improved, and areas of excellence. I spent a lot of time thinking about point of view - it came up a lot, for good reason.

How many times do we find ourselves in the middle of a scene and suddenly we are faced with a situation that either we, ourselves, would never want to be in, OR, that is on the edge of taking us to a place we just don't want to go.  We've all had those moments: a pedophile moment, a racist moment, a moment where you know everything is pointing to you being the creepiest motherfucker on the planet and you just don't want to do it.

So what do you do?

Well, if you, the improviser, exert full control you usually end up in your head. There is this sort of wrestling match that starts to take place. On the outside you're hesitating, keeping the scene moving forward with carefully selected words and actions. On the inside there's a WWE Monday Night Raw cage match happening and a take-down's about to take place in a move to end all moves that you hope will be your colleagues calling scene.

You don't want to be a creep.
You don't want to be a prude.
You're wondering how you're doing.
You're wondering where to take the scene.
"Think of ways to play to the height of your intelligence."
"OH But go with the moment."
"Listen to the scene... give the audience what they want"
"Wow everyone."

No wonder why you're desperately looking for the scene to be called, This is HARD WORK!

There are many things missing from the list in your head... there are two I want to point out.

1. PLAY, just PLAY.

It's one of the reasons we fall in love with improvisation, right? We all started improvising and realized how much our internal editor had been fortified through years of "social learning" to keep us from being silly. We have spent a lot of time in our classes and on stage learning how to play again. And here you are doing everything but playing.

Now that you're an adult though, and you've learned how to use your internal editor, as an improviser you now have the ability to play and make choices. You have the ability to be in the car and kind of drive it as it rolls down the hill.  You can enjoy the ride and keep the car from crashing at the same time.

2. What would your character do? Point Of View

Play with your character. You're in the car and riding it down the hill.. how does the car drive? is it big? is it tiny? Leather seats, wood paneling, etc. etc.  This is your character. You are inside the character determining where it goes. USE that opportunity to listen to your character and do what they would do. You can push through the difficult moment by sticking to the character's point of view. And because it's you driving it, and there's no script, you can determine how the character's point of view comes through. 

With those things you can help get out of your head and play with your character in  a difficult moment and push through it.