ryan-lee-1I’m teaching an improv course at Mezrab in May. It’s called Foundations in Improvisation, and it’s designed to do something very specific.

Y’see…

It happens fairly regularly: I do an improv show, or am hosting or performing at an event, and someone comments to me afterwards “I’d love to be able to do that… but I never could!”

First of all: that’s not true. They could learn to do that. And I could teach them.

But more importantly, I suspect that, at least in most cases, learning straight improv isn’t in fact what they truly want. I think that, excepting the people who want to be comedians, what draws people to improv is the freedom, the spontaneity, the confidence… a seemingly effortless ability to conjure ideas, scenarios, stories and humorous relationships out of nothing. 

So I started thinking of how to give those people (the majority)  the maximum benefit from improv training. I think I got it.

Improv in your real life

There already exists a branch of improv called “applied improvisation”. It’s described, in part, as a way to ” increase people’s capacity to be spontaneous and work together generously, these

[applied improv] tools enable leaders to be more effective in terms of presence, agility and communication skills, often in difficult situations.”

The course I’ve created is along those lines. But it applies more to individuals, and yes, can be applicable in a professional setting. But it’s real goal is to give people creative freedom and discipline, an understanding of innate story structure, the joy of collaboration, and more. As it reads in the description:

We’ll spend our time together playing games and exploring a challenging variety of improv exercises that unlock creativity, strengthen communication, and fine-tune collaboration. In short, all the things that you see improvisers doing on stage or on screen – that allow them to find the funny in any situation or scene – these are the things that will come alive in this course. Each week you’ll unleash your natural creativity and humour.

So this course is an opportunity to develop and strengthen fundamental improv skills, as well as see how they work in different contexts, and apply them to your own creative practice. Plus it’ll be fun as hell.

And there’s really no better way to spend Monday evenings.

For more information or to sign up, get in touch.