Be Open

The first person I studied any improv with was Dell Close and a lot of people had a guru relationship to him, or some people, not a lot, but some people did, he used to say you're not improvising you're just letting the universe channel through you. If you just open up all your senses. That's your job: To open up all the stops on the organ and so it can just flow through you and he would take out his little pentagram and put it on his chest before he performed because he said the stage was a sacred space.

I love this anecdote from Stephen Colbert, probably the one human being I'd most like to work with if given the chance, about Del Close.

It’s always challenging to recount an improv scene and I think it’s doubly challenging to relay how a note hit, so give me some grace on this one. I was in a scene last week as a son whose mother seemed impressed that at 16 he could navigate a Home Depot. Mom would ask for something, I’d find it, and she’d have a big reaction, incredibly impressed that I could find it. That was basically the game. Near the end of the scene, I asked what the supplies were for. Mom said something to the effect of wanting to fix the shed out back. I took her offer and, seeking a button, I said something to the effect of her moving Dad outside to the shed. Edit. End of scene.

The note I got on that scene was that I didn’t need a button and I could have just played the scene as heartfelt, and looking back I have to agree. The line about Dad was forced. I’ve been coached, in my main theatre, to try and get to a button because in the Harolds I perform in we’re trying to get to a tight repeatable behavior to build a transferable game. This coach, who was outside of my theatre, was pointing out that being truthful to the scene meant leaning into the relationship on stage and that I could have taken the offer from my mom and then said something like “Oh my god, Mom, you’re going to let me get the nail?!” and had a deep heartfelt reaction to that. I think this would have been a good move, a better move.

A lot of what I’m trying to grow toward right now is being open in my improv. I get so wrapped up in being mechanically right that I miss playing the truth. I can keep it simple, read the vibe, and play the vibe, play the truth. I want the confidence of a violin to simply be itself, in the shaping and seasoning, to be open so the universe can flow through and make music.