“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. . .”
In the summer of 1980, I attended a Tai Chi workshop at Esalen with my teacher, Chiang Liang Al Huang. Al was fond of inviting other interesting teachers to join him and do their thing to break up the day of dancing. I was delighted to discover that his guest partner this summer was a charming Brit named Keith Johnstone who had just published a new book, Impro, in 1979.
As the newly appointed head of the undergraduate acting program at Stanford in 1977 my most puzzling problem was how to get my bright young actors “out of their heads” and into their bodies and imaginations. Johnstone’s fresh take on acting descended precisely on cue in my life. I stayed up all night reading IMPRO. It changed everything. The workshop was memorable and in a short time Keith and I became friends.
I reveled in the chance to drive him around the Bay Area introducing him not only to theater people buy also to a few Zennies. Various groups adopted him. A notable workshop in the early ‘80’s was at the San Francisco Zen Center. I’ll never forget Keith side coaching me and Reb Anderson playing the “hat game”. Reb became the Abbot a few years later. These were also the years that BATS was coming into being. In that decade I used every means available to bring Keith to the Bay Area to continue his lively work.
Keith even flew in from Calgary to attend my wedding in St. Helena in 1989.
In the summer of 1993 Keith came to Stanford to hold court every morning as the featured professor for a weeklong Improv intensive. It was such a success that Keith came again in 1994. Engineering professors attended these workshops and word spread fast that something special was happening over in the Drama Dept. Members of the BATS school joined the fun teaching specialty classes in the afternoon. The summer intensive idea was then adopted by BATS who continued the tradition of a Keith-centered course. The BATS summer school, featuring Keith, had become a centerpiece of their year.
It was always a happy moment when Keith would shuffle into the theater, sit on the edge
of the stage and sigh deeply as he surveyed the audience. Looking slightly lost he would mumble something like: “You guys already know everything, so I don’t know what to teach you. (sighs heavily). I suppose if you want to work on relationships or stories we can do some stuff.
I just need a couple people up here.” And, off he’d go telling witty stories of people he knew or films he’d seen or read while side coaching the actors to “be average.”
Keith was an original. He was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. I believe that he finished his work on earth by seeding a thousand teachers of his life affirming notions of how theater should delight us and embolden the actor to give up fear of not being enough. Keith was enough . . . and then some.
Patricia Ryan Madson
March 17, 2023, St, Patrick’s Day
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