"What is the Coolest Thing That Can Happen Right Now?"

I spent last weekend playing games.

Way before I was an improviser, I was a role-playing gamer. I started playing Dungeons & Dragons in 5th grade, running games for James and Craig at lunch time. I barely understood the rules, but I was the one with the rulebooks -- they were my older brother's -- so that made me the Dungeon Master. In high school, my gaming group was made up of other marching band weirdos. We had ponytails and wore jewelry from the Renaissance Festival. We listened to Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden. We were those kids, oh my gosh we were 100% those kids.

When I played D&D in school I was interested in stats, collecting magical gear, and describing my character's topknot ponytail in exquisite detail. This weekend was a little different. I met up with other (actual grown-up) friends at the Origins Game Fair, held every summer in Columbus. We stayed up very late every night playing story games, and then we got up very early every morning (stopping for coffee atNorth Market) to go to the convention to play more story games. 

Story games are different from traditional board games. There's no "winner" at the end. The goal is to craft a fun and compelling narrative with your friends. I playedJuggernaut, where you're a scientist in 1950 trying to figure out if the supercomputer spitting out commands can really tell the future; I played Lady Blackbird, a steampunk/sci-fi mashup about getting an air-pirate to her pirate-king consort; I played Sagas of the Icelanders as a Norse witch with strong opinions on the future of her clan. 

My secret to success when playing these story games is that I'm just improvising. I say yes, and... to my partners' ideas, I try to make the other players look good. We laugh a lot, and sure, the dice rolls can make unexpected things happen, but during some games we would just stop and ask ourselves, "what is the coolest thing that could happen in the story right now?" Then we did that thing.

My secret to success when improvising is that I'm just playing games. I try to make sure my partner is having fun, I ask myself what is the coolest thing that could happen right now?, and then I do that thing. 

Prince has a song called Calhoun Square that starts off with a little in-studio direction, and he says, "Listen to the drummer, but you still want to have fun -- it shouldn't be work." 

It's something I try to keep in mind when improv feels hard. Sometimes it is hard! But you still want to have fun. We're playing games with our friends -- it shouldn't be work.

"Walking Backward"

Don't Think Twice, Mike Birbiglia's movie about improv + improvisers + an improv group, comes out in July. Keegan-Michael Key (of Key & Peele, of Second City) is in the movie, and a video's been making the rounds of him talking about improv. He says:

"People think that improvisation is moving forward. What improvisation really is, it's walking backward. While I'm still looking you, I'm going, I'm here with Sam Jones. As I back up I see there's a light there. What's the light? Oh, I'm on a set. Sam Jones must be a person who works on a set. I keep backing up, I see this chair, I see that chair, I go, Oh he's an interviewer! I keep backing up to Nate -- That's the soundman! What's this room? Oh, it must be a small show! It's backing up that gives you discovery. As you back up, you can create a larger worldview."

He goes on to talk about playing game (or, "the game of the scene"), but that's a whole ball of spiders that I don't mean to get into today. My ears perk up when he says discovery. He's talking about asking yourself, "If this is true, what else is true?" If you are talking to a man and surrounded by lights, you are on a set. If you are on a set and talking to a man and there are two chairs facing each other, you are in an interview. If the other man is asking you questions, you are the one being interviewed. If you are being interviewed, you have done something worthy of being interviewed for.

And that can be a scene! It doesn't have to be a complicated crazytown premise with the cleverest of wordplay and broad characters. If you and your partner have established a reality and lived -- fully! -- in that reality for a few minutes, then you have created a successful improv scene. And all you had to do was be there together. None of that is invention -- it's already there when the scene begins, you just have to see it.

"Don't think fast," Key says. "Just listen to the last thing (your partner) said."

The Secret To Improv...

When I took my first improv class -- I was living in Baltimore and I gave it to myself as a birthday present -- I would experience some very intense social phobia. It was a welcoming class, a safe space, and expertly run by the wonderful Dave LaSalle of the Baltimore Improv Group, but I am a shy, introverted doof by nature, and I was hella uncomfortable with being asked to perform -- in any way -- in front of others, even a supportive group of classmates. 

I would tell myself, in the midst of a mirroring exercise, You are going to finish this class, you are going to exit class, and you never, ever have to come back to class.

But after class, and over the course of the week, my confidence built back up, and my curiosity. I was back in class and I was telling myself, Just have fun in class, it's not like you ever have to go on stage and perform.

Well. Not only did I finish my Baltimore classes, but I took more, and I took some in San Diego. And I wound up going on stage. It was easy, because I found a few partners who were interested in playing the way I wanted to play (with patience, with vulnerability, honestly). 

What I noticed then about going in front of an audience, and what I noticed this month when Coincidence put our show up in front of a Cincinnati audience for the first time, is that, in the moment, it's not about the audience for me. I'm up there with my improv partners and my scene partners, just like I was in class in Baltimore. That's not to say the audience doesn't matter -- laughter, rapt silence, shouts of surprise are wonderful reminders that Yes, you are doing it right! -- but what I mean to say is, I don't get nervous about going out in front of an audience when I have my partners with me. I'm up there connecting with them more than I'm performing for an audience. 

If we make that connection, magic will happen. If magic happens, the audience will be entertained. 

The secret to improv? Find people you love and play with them as much as you can. That's the secret to life, too.