Performance: UCB

Many months ago I went on a date with someone to see an improv show at Upright Citizen's Brigade. This particular gentleman had a personality that I would rate, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the awesomest): zero. It was a weird position to be in, to be dating someone who was so cute, and so right on paper, but in real life contained no spark of a personality at all.

However. He could tell a joke like a mo-fo. That's why I kept going out with him. He kept me laughing the whole time! He just couldn't do anything else. I would ask him a question about his life, and he could barely answer me. Then minutes later, he would find a way to use a phrase or a word that I had used in my question as a catalyst for what I would call, "a bit". It was like dating a stand-up comedian ...who was on stage the entire time.

I gave it my all. I tried my best to get something "personal" out of him. One night I had the idea that we should go to The Upright Citizen's Brigade. Not sure where I had originally heard of this place, but I vaguely knew that Amy Poehler started it, and she's one of my idols. We got tickets to a show on a weeknight. In retrospect, I think it was their most famous show called, ASSCAT, which is a purely improv performance structured in the UCB style called, Harold. I thought if we went out on a date like this, where humor was at the forefront, it would encourage him to open up a little bit.

Well, the show was freakin' hysterical. Hilarious. One improv group after another kept us entertained the whole time. We laughed and laughed. When it was over I asked him if he would ever be willing to try such a thing. He said he definitely would. I said I didn't think I could ever do it. It wasn't really for me. It would be too terrifying, I said.

I went out with him one more time before calling it quits. The show was a good idea for a date night, but alas, he never did come out of his shell. I had to let it go before he started charging me a two drink minimum and a cover charge. But the memory of that performance stuck in my head.

This summer I decided that I wanted to take a class at UCB. I'm not sure what provoked that, it just suddenly felt like the right thing to do. I signed up for one of their intensives, which meant all day, every day for a whole week. 6 hours straight of improv class.

And, yes.
It was
the scariest
thing
I have
ever done.

Except for that one time I took trapeze lessons. The only difference between that and this was I wasn't a gazillion feet off the ground while I was doing it. The downside of that? No net. Metaphorical or otherwise.

It is TERRIFYING to get up in front of a group of strangers, with a partner you don't know, and to build together an entire scene based off of one word that is given to you, AND to make it funny.

I swear I had a stomach ache for the first three days. I felt nauseous. I didn't want to go back to class. I was absolutely certain that this thing called improv was not for me. And similar to that feeling I had when I was standing 30 feet off the ground, staring down at the cement ground below me, reaching for the bar, I had the thought, "What the hell did I just sign up for??"

But, I'm a determined little lass. And I work hard for my money. So if I spent a few hundred dollars on a week-long improv class, darn it, I was going to finish that week.

Plus, I learned a mantra this summer that really struck a chord with me:

Try something once to get over your fear of it.
Try it a second time to learn how to do it.
Then try it a third time to decide if you like it.

I would just like to note here, that I DID do the trapeze three times. And no, I did not like it.

But. By the third day of improv class, something clicked. And wow, suddenly I was INTO IT. All of a sudden I got the challenge of it, and I felt like I did have it in me after all. Once that happened, I started learning so much, so quickly. It was intense.

I realized that standing against the wall and waiting to jump into a scene is WAY scarier than actually being in a scene. So I started to jump in more.

I learned that the feeling of coming up with a great line after a scene is over and you missed your chance, is way more frustrating than being in a scene and not having anything to say. So I started to speak up more.

I learned that if you are in a scene that is sucking so bad, or if you are in a scene that is totally magical, either way, once it's over, it's over. And you can reflect on it all you want, but mostly you just have to move forward and let it go.

As the week went on, more and more good stuff started coming out of me. I started picturing people I knew in my life, and playing them as characters. I took it seriously when our teacher would tell us to, "Play to the top of your intelligence," which meant USE WHAT YOU KNOW. When you internalize that, suddenly it doesn't feel like you're going into a scene with nothing to say. We've all got a lifetime of things to say!

I got what they meant when they would tell us to use, "YES, AND" in our conversations as a way of building off of one another, supporting one another, and developing the scene.

I loved the notion that we were in each scene to, FIND THE GAME. Once we knew what the game was, we would play to it, explore it, exaggerate it. That's when the magic happened.

And mostly I loved what it meant to BE TRUTHFUL in every scene. Our teacher explained, the truth will lead to comedy (as opposed to just, "going for the joke", which always falls flat).

If we were ever stuck, he'd whisper from the sidelines, "What do you really want to say to this person?" And that was such a revelation. Such a grand experience. To say what you really want to say to a scene partner, as opposed to regurgitating what you think you should say or what you think will sound good --- is an awesome, truthful experience.

I learned so much from this. So much of it can be applied to life off the stage.

Then, as a culmination of our experience, we got the opportunity to perform for an audience on the actual UCB stage. The same stage where my comedic heroes have stood. The same stage that I sat facing many months ago, asserting I could never do something like that.

Hey, guess what?
I did it.

And it was awesome.