Improv Class - Tuesday, 6/17/2020

After my first class, I kept hearing Master Yoda from Star Wars in my head saying in his wizened, gravelly voice, "Do. Or do not. There is no try." This improv via The Method process is entirely new to me. I was in improv comedy in Los Angeles for a while and it was almost entirely an intellectual experience. You needed to be "in the moment" to set up the circumstances, but mainly with the left side of your brain so you could always be working toward the punch line. In that sense, it was a calcuated art form. This type of improv is so much more sensory and intuitive and by its very nature, unformed and unknown. Having done comedy for most of my career, believe me, the unformed and unknown is not something I embrace easily. Going for the laugh has been a way of life with me as a performer for a long time. That's probably why I found our song exercise both difficult and scary. I remember Jon said that it was so simple, a 3 year old could do it. Well, I can confirm that that is correct. My 3-l/2 year old nephew is nothing but in the moment and it is a way of being that is all-encompassing and deeply passionate - it is something I strive for in "real life", not just in my acting. If I am humming, in 5 seconds he is humming and bouncing to the rhythm having effortless floated from some intensely important Lego project he was focused on into the joy of musical immersion. Thinking back, I am really not sure how I did our exercise correctly other than I was aware some if it was coming from a subconscious place. Mike Nichols once said that almost all of the creative process emanates from the subconscious so maybe I am on to something. But how to channel that intuition into a living, breathing character. Ah, that is the mystery of the art of acting, isn't it?