Going Infinite

I'm fortunate in my current situation to be able to take Improv classes online with Jim Woods at the World's Greatest Improv School. The class he's offered the most online is Scene Notes: Easy of Hard, which is one of the best classes I have taken. The class's premise is deceptively simple:

These will be two person scenes with notes from Jim. A lot of the time, we will ask ourselves: did our choices make things HARD or EASY.

In the two-hour class, you'll do two scenes, and while I am a champion of reps, the value here lies in the notes from Jim. He's given notes that I'll think about for the rest of my life as a performer, but recently, he gave a note I might just think about for the rest of my life. Like a lot of Improv, the scene the note came from faded quickly, and I don't even think it was my scene, but Jim said, "There are only so many game moves, but there are infinite you moves."

Maybe six months ago, I was invited to jam with a bunch of experienced performers, the idea being that up-and-coming performers should play with folks above their skill level so they can grow and feel what the pace of higher-level play is like. Scenes can get fast, and if you're used to classrooms, the pace of performance can be jarring. We were playing a game of "Keep the..." maybe called "Threesome" in some circles to generate the premises for our scenes in the jam. For three scenes-paintings in a row, every idea I had, someone else beat me to. The group dynamics of not joining one are fine; no one really misses you. Missing two in a row, I started getting in my own head about it. Missing the third, one of the team members, in an effort to support me, told me, "You have an idea," and she was right, I did. That wasn't the problem.

I figured out game on 5/26/2025, Memorial Day. It was a 401 class, Group Games, and only four people showed up. This was key because it meant I would get a lot of reps. I don't remember any of the scene, again that's the nature of improv, but I remember walking out from the backline and thinking that I knew what to do to establish base reality, the who, what, where, to "yes, and", find then frame the unusual thing. Justify, etc. It worked. All through the rest of the core curriculum, the rest of 401 and then 501, the Harold, I knew what to do, and I got praise for it: Be the other piece of bread in the sandwich.

That's how I put it at least, my job became structure, good little robot structure. If I do this, my scene partner should do that, two pieces of bread, a successful scene. But if we jump back to that Jam, all the basic structure was already taken care of by people who were more experienced at it than me and I realized for the first time that my role in improv wasn't to be the bread but my own mustard or cheese or sauce or whatever. If you're a fan of the improv process, you might be hooting-n-hollering because that's what this is, but for me, I was terrified. Be my vulnerable, authentic self? Be me? I'm enough? That's what this is!? Oh, no!

I think I am past this moment, but I am not much past it. A few months ago, a coach told me that he could tell I always have a way I want my scenes to go. Which is true. I am at the point now where I am fun and good at improv, so I need to do the hard work of letting go and trusting myself and my teams, so I can make those moves only I can make and trust that they will be supported.