Staying Healthy
for the Professional
Improviser
I’ve been watching improv actors make magic for over thirty
years. One of the deep joys of living in
the Bay Area is having access to a remarkable array of Improvisational Theatre
groups. I’ve been the lucky audience for
several thousand performances of “one of a kind” plays created out of shear
grit and magic on the spot. I’ve watched
a number of groups come and go, form and dissolve; reform and spring back like the
Phoenix. Among them were Pulp Playhouse,
True Fiction Magazine, Three for All,
San Francisco Improv Playhouse, Awkward Dinner Party and two decades of
BATS shows to name a few.
The community of artists who perform this work are both
saints and crazies in my opinion. Their
talent and courage (and endurance over time) astonishes me. I’ve been a theater person for half a
decade. I taught acting at Stanford
University, spent summers doing stock with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival,
the Nebraska Repertory Theatre and several raucous southern Outdoor Drama
productions. I have not, however, trod
the boards of the improv stage. It’s far
too scary for me, I tell my students. I’m okay with a script. I like knowing when the show’s over.
However, I teach improv and like to think that my long years
experience in the classroom, if not on stage, allows me a voice. What’s on my mind is the mental/spiritual
health of the men and women who are professional improv actors. I am writing this as a love letter to these
courageous players in the hope that this advice might make sense. You know who you are. You have been gifting me and my students for
decades.
When you improvise a performance you are using 120% of your
humanity. Becoming characters that live
and breathe and struggle and die and change and love and mourn (all in front of a paying audience) takes a gigantic
human toll. I’m guessing that when the
lights go down after a successful show (or even a mediocre or lousy one) each
of you is both exhilarated and exhausted.
To improvise means that you are using the whole self-- body, mind and
spirit. You are using your deep database
of knowledge of literature, story, character, locale, vocal technique and
social psychology. It’s a miracle, when
you really consider what is happening, especially in a long form show, but to a
lesser extent, in short form improv as well.
I can’t think of any other human activity that uses ALL of our human
capacity at the same time as this art does. Even Olympic
athletes, while using 100% of their physical and mental ability are not
creating the scene and story on the spot before an audience. I think professional improv actors are Gods
and Goddesses, or at least Superheroes.
They are doing so much more than even great actors are called upon to
do.
So, my advice is this:
You must take time off from this work in order to regenerate. Even if your physical health is excellent
your soul and spirit/mind need time to refuel.
Improv actors need alone time, preferably in nature away from family and
social requirements. They need to ingest
new nourishment. They need to read stories
and books of literature and poetry. They
need to see movies and television dramas of quality as well as those of dubious
worth. They need to take in images,
characters, cultures and genres to stoke up their arsenal of fiction. They benefit from travel both domestic and
foreign. They need time in which they
are not required to perform and put out. They need spaciousness, rest and as
Michael Harris suggests: they need absence—real time and space in which they
are not required to do anything. I’m
convinced that a week of this kind of regenerative space can produce large
payoffs in terms of mental and physical health.
I’m sure this all sounds like a good idea, but when will you
ever find that open week? It won’t fall
in your lap . . . unless you so exhaust yourself that you become unwell and are
quarantined. Instead, those of you who
give so much of your life on the improv stage (and in classes which also are
high calorie life events) you must set aside the time. Put it on your calendar as you would a work
assignment. And, then execute that week
of refreshment.
In addition to finding genuine sabbatical time (as mentioned
above) it is also important to find “mini-vacations” in which you cultivate
alone time, with your cell phones turned off.
Perhaps you can spend a free afternoon alone in a great science or art
museum just wandering the galleries and soaking up the beauty and wonder of art
and nature. Or you can walk in the park
slowly without an agenda, possibly people watching. I have stressed the value of alone time. The kind of regeneration I’m advocating
happens more rarely when you are with a partner or spouse. Find time to be alone. Read a fine book. Munch an apple. Savor a cup of tea.
If you begin to make a life habit of nourishing your
humanity with spaciousness on a regular basis I predict that your on-stage
improv life will flourish and grow. You
deserve this and you need this. I hope
some of you will take this to heart. Let
me know how it goes.
by Patricia Ryan
Madson
October 3, 2015
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