I was walking down the street the other day and overheard this conversation:
Girl: So what movie are we going to see?
Guy: Star Trek.
[Girl doesn’t react]
Guy: I mean, we are a bunch of dudes…
I loved this interaction because she said nothing, but he reacted to her silence. Her silence had weight. You don’t need words.
My dope as fuck sister wrote the following article for her med school. She’s really great, and this article is really great, and a small corner of the Internet should know about it.
I’m facing a patient, my heart in my throat, as I hear the words come out of her mouth: “Doctor, am I going to die?”
I take a deep breath and look her straight in the eye. “Yes,” I answer. My palm sweats as I grip the gun tighter and press it to her temple. “Yes, you are going to die-unless you can answer me these riddles three.”
Before you report me to any authorities, let me clarify-Darcy, the patient, is not a real patient. I’m a medical student, not a doctor. The gun isn’t real, just my fingers curved around an imaginary trigger. We aren’t in a hospital, we’re in a basement room in the Eden Park Playhouse, performing a scene for an improvisational theater class, one of the few available in Cincinnati.
Improvisational comedy, known colloquially as improv, has its roots in nearby Chicago. Improv has two basic forms: long and short. Short-form improv is games-based, such as that showcased in “Whose Line is it Anyway”. My personal preference-and the type of improv I’ll be referencing throughout this article-is long-form, which is scene-based. Improvisers ask the audience for suggestions, then create characters and stories based off of that input. You get to see thought processes acted out in real-time, without rehearsals or editing.
I started taking improv classes at the Playhouse in the fall of 2011, a few months after starting medical school. Improv for me was a welcome relief from school, a couple hours a week when I could stop thinking about cofactors and instead think about what makes things funny. I could stop being a medical student and start being a fortune-teller, a bank robber, a girl being proposed to in a hot air balloon that’s slowly deflating.
Improv and medicine aren’t fields that often collide, probably with good reason. Comedy is a hard thing to work into medicine without being offensive or insensitive, and medical terminology doesn’t lend itself well to improv1. I’m in the nascent stages of learning both improv and medicine, and can’t claim any sort of mastery over either of the fields2. But, even at this level, I do see parallels between the two. And personally, I think I’ve learned a lot about myself and the way I interact with people from improv, which has in turn helped me in interacting with patients.
Many college campuses have improv teams, but it’s rare to find medical schools that do. That makes sense in some ways: improv can be time consuming, and no one in medical school wants to make another commitment, especially one that sounds as frivolous on a CV as theater. But in a lot of other ways, it doesn’t make sense at all. We’ve had it drummed into us (thanks, IPEX) that medicine requires collaboration. Improv is one of the best team-building exercises there is. And I’m not talking about those awful two-truths-and-a-lie icebreaker type things. I’m talking about getting on a stage with a group of people, and making something together out of nothing.
A lot of people think that improv comedy is purely about being funny, probably because it’s called comedy (a solid argument). That being said, improv is a lot more about finding humor in things that are real than it is about creating crazy madcap hijinks. To quote Charna Halpern (she helped create and establish long-form improvisation as a comedy medium, and she also introduced Tina Fey & Amy Poehler to each other), “Wit is foam on the beer. You blow it away. There’s nothing there. The humor and the laughs come from the seriousness of the scene. We have to do good scene work. If it’s truthful for us, we share the same world.”3 I struggled with this, as the improv shows I’d seen consistently had me laughing from start to finish, which made me think my goals started and ended at being funny. But gradually I began to realize that a huge reason I was laughing was because I was amazed at how intuitive these improvisers were. They would hear a suggestion, one person would come out and begin doing something, and almost immediately their teammates would know what they were trying to do. They were experts at sharing the same world.
This hits on two other important aspects of improv: saying yes, and listening. Saying yes doesn’t mean vocalizing, “yes”. It means agreeing with the scene as it develops, and agreeing with your fellow players. If your partner hands you an imaginary burrito and you think it’s a margarita, don’t say, “This isn’t a burrito.” when they ask why you’re trying to drink your food4. Explain that you’ve just had extensive dental surgery and you’re trying to drink all those tasty meat juices from your delicious California burrito, since you can’t chew the meat itself. Similarly, listening doesn’t mean staying quiet while someone else talks and then veering off in another direction. It means paying attention to what another person says, how they say it, and what they’ve said before that you can tie in. You don’t get costumes or props in improv. When a person comes into a scene, all you get is their words and their actions5. You need to milk those words and those actions for all they’re worth, because everything they’re saying and doing is helping you understand the world they’re in.
In my markedly inexpert opinion, one of the keys to improv is being genuine to your character in your scene. Part of what that means is that you try to react to other people in that scene the way that character would react. This not only takes a strong conception of who your character is but a willingness to evolve with the other people in your scene as you figure out who they are. When I first started improv, my biggest problem was that I came into a scene with a preconceived notion of exactly how I wanted that scene to proceed, and would barely listen to others, as I was planning how to turn the story that was occurring into the story that I wanted.
This experience mirrored my struggles when learning how to conduct patient interviews. I would ask a patient a question then half-listen to the answer, half compose my next question as they were speaking. I wasn’t focused on the person in front of me and what they were saying to me, I was focused on the script in my head. It wasn’t until I talked with an improv coach about the difficulties that I was having in improv that I realized that I was doing the exact same thing while speaking to patients. So, I tried to shift my focus in patient interviews from making sure I sped through a list of questions to trying to really hear what patients/standardized patients were telling me and addressing their concerns. I can’t say whether or not this has improved my interviewing skills in any tangible way, but I do think it’s made me more relaxed and comfortable during patient encounters.
I think the other area where my improv and medical educations have overlapped is in learning how to build an instantaneous relationship with people I don’t know yet. I feel more confident in my ability to relate to patients as a result of trying to learn how to live in the same world as my fellow players. We’ve been taught by our diligent Clinical Skills instructors to ask patients what their worries are, what they think their diagnosis might be, why they came in today as opposed to three months ago. Isn’t that the same as trying to learn what kind of worlds our patients are inhabiting? We’re trying to understand their fears, their motivations, and their concerns, and we’re trying to play a role in their world where we can help alleviate those concerns.
Does all this mean that I think improv should be taught in medical schools? One, I would have a great time with that. Two, no. All this means is that I think some of the lessons I’ve learned in improv can be translated to medicine. As a result of my experiences in improv, I think I’m better at listening, at fostering trusting relationships, and at saying yes, and7. To coin a phrase, I think I’m more effective at creating a constructive healing milieu for my patients8. I think more about how my words affect those around me, and how I can communicate my desires clearly while not losing sight of the needs of others. Not to mention, it’s just fun.
1FYI, people will not be impressed if you say astrocytoma instead of brain tumor during a scene. Actually, they usually don’t know what you’re talking about and stare at you blankly, making things really awkward. Although I definitely wouldn’t know. From personal experience. Twice.
2I can, however, claim embarrassing failures in my education of both so far. In case you were wondering, I’ve honestly found being humiliated on stage much less bothersome than being embarrassed in front of a patient. No one’s health is at stake when you mess up a scene.
4Again, NOT AT ALL from personal experience.
5In beginning improv, this results in a lot of people starting scenes saying, “Boy, I sure do love my job as a plumber!” or, “Wow, this mailman uniform chafes like nobody’s business…how’s your suit treating you, President Obama?” On an unrelated note, beginner improv performances are often underwhelming.6
6Unless you happen to have a medical student in the show who says hilarious things like, “You have an inoperable astrocytoma.” Then they’re great.
7This is a rule in improv that should definitely be used with some discretion in medicine. For example, if a patient says, “Would you steal narcotics for me if I gave you money?” then “yes, and” is probably not your best answer.
8Phrase actually coined by Dr. Philip Diller MD PhD, LPCC 101-202
I like this approach to improv.
- vinny
Yup.
Source: montrealimprov
Source: mullaneyImprov scene templates: You Statements
Scene templates can be very useful for improv scenes. It’s good to have a simple game plan or strategy to help start a scene. And it’s good to practice those strategies over and over so that they become second nature. There is no single right template. Just like there are lots of good ways to begin a chess game or lots of different successful plays in football or basketball, there are lots of good ways to begin a scene.
Here is one that I like:
it’s the only art form that recognizes that every single moment of our lives will never happen again, and celebrates it.
I keep trying different superlatives to describe this. Here are some that work: awe-inspiring, wonderful, perfect. Try one of your own!
Day 1 Take Home Lesson: The difference between emotion and behavior.
Day 2 Take Home Lesson: You can start scenes from neutral and something significant will happen, or you can go in with an emotion, a behavior, a posture.
I have a lot of thoughts that aren’t very well processed - this happened today and yesterday. But here are some notes for myself.
I’m on vacation and I’m watching a lot of TV, specifically I Love Lucy. It’s a beautiful comedy because it’s so well-written; every episode is pattern and recognition and ugh it’s perfect.
In the later seasons, Lucy goes all over the place: Hollywood, Europe, Florida and the countryside. But where she is doesn’t matter. She’s always so Lucy, she’s always that way.
My favorite kind of improv isn’t necessarily character-based, but it’s always based in the reality of a person’s behavior. Lucy doesn’t change, even if she’s somewhere new. People don’t change.
I ran my first practice last night. I didn’t get a chance to do all three exercises that I wanted to do. There were 16 people total. Here’s how it broke down, time-wise:
soft 9:10 start - I get pretty nervous. I have them run a “discovering the body” warmup. I think I stole this from Allen Loeb. You have something in your hands and then you fumble for the door. Once you’re inside, you discover a dead body. Some of these are really weird. Fun, though.
9:20 - Instead of doing the confessions exercise, I run the “Oscar Moments” exercise that I did in Joe Wengert’s 301. Two person scenes, everyone has an “Oscar Moment”. I encouraged people to go really big/emotional with these. I ran these pretty quickly. All of them were definitely less than 3 minutes and most of them were less than 2 and half.
9:55 - I run Eugene’s park bench conversation exercise. I tell them some things that I stole from other people. I am a big fan of this exercise.
10:15 - I have them run the form they’ve been working on. It’s basically a Book Club form—they split into two groups. Group A asks for a suggestion of a book that doesn’t exist, then discusses it as a book club. Group B does scenes based off that opening. Group B does another book club. Then Group A comes in and does their scenes. Then they do a large book club with both groups, A & B, and scenes off of the communal book club.
10:50 - End of form. The group discusses the work they did as a whole, I tried to stay out of it.
I really liked doing the scenework exercises with them; I thought it helped in grounding their scenes. I think it may be my personal preference, but I want to see them play to the reality of the scene. However, I am sort of worried because that’s not necessarily their style and I don’t want them to lose the fun that they have. I am going to talk to them and see if that’s something they’re interested in doing, if it’s not (and I keep coaching them), I’m going to switch styles and run bigger stuff within the group.
I wish I’d thought more about the group as a whole as opposed to working on specific skills; though the reason I decided to work on specific skills is because it was the first time I was coaching. It was the last time they were meeting for the semester. I hope they’re down to have me coach again.
I am going to be able to work with a smaller group next semester, which I’m really excited about. I like learning more about the teaching process and coaching is already helping me articulate my personal style and approach to improv.
So as you may or may not know/care, I recently moved to Michigan for grad school. For the first couple of months I didn’t do any improv (I talk about that a little here and will probably have many other words in the future), but luckily, I recently happened upon a great long-form group comprised primarily of performing arts undergrads and they are letting me play with them.
At this point, I’ve improvised with the group five times. It’s fascinating to watch them practice and work together. They basically haven’t had any formal training whatsoever—the guy running the group has a collaborative coaching style that seems to really lend itself to each person’s mindfulness of how they improvise.
I’ve always wanted to try my hand at coaching (well, since like a year ago when I realized it was something you could do) and I mentioned it to them the other day. They’re okay with it, so I’m going to be coaching them this week. I’m really excited. This is an opportunity that I wouldn’t have in Los Angeles for at least a couple of years. Hopefully the experience that I have from studying at UCB & with Beck will be helpful to them & hopefully having to articulate my thoughts about improv will be helpful to me.
I’m going to document my experiences here. I really wish that I’d talked more about improv while I was starting to study it, but I can at least do that with starting to coach.
So for being primarily self-taught, I think they’re great. Actually, just in general, they’re great. There are some things that I think could be useful & so I’m pulling some exercises from all the classes that I’ve had so far.
I’m going to work on three things with them that I think they (and probably most groups) can always work on: commitment, listening and patterns. Here’s where things are going get way detailed, so feel free to click around elsewhere on the Internet if you’re so inclined. I want to go in depth for my sake as well as theirs.
They haven’t really done much game-based stuff, though they do have ideas about it and seem to have a decent understanding; however, I worry that if I start working on them with game stuff immediately it might become a shitshow. If they remain interested and I keep coaching them, I think I’d do nights where we work on game exercises and watch TV and movies to study and discuss game. If they’re into it.
Here’s my plan—they have a traditional warmup that is silly & active (a tribal dance that still confuses me but it’s fun). I’m going to start them off with this exercise because I want to shake things up a bit, then I’ll have them tribal dance. I’m thinking about having them do the dance slightly differently but I’m not quite sure yet.
I’m primarily working on two person scenes with them and playing grounded scenes.
First, I’m going to do a commitment exercise. I might try and combine this with the physicality of always nodding yes, but I am afraid of putting too much shit on them up top. This is so much fun-it’s a confessions/justification exercise. Two people get up—one of them confesses something to the other and has to own it. I am making a list of gross confessions (though if you have any, I’m down to hear them). Convince the other person that what happened was fine.
My listening exercise is also an exercise in not needing to be funny. And how real reactions are so much more interesting than being jokey and meta. It’s an exercise I did with Eugene’s “If I Were You…” class (my favorite class besides Beck’s), where we did two-person park bench scenes. But instead of doing a scene, you’re having a regular conversation. Talking to your scene partner like they’re a person. Getting to know them a little bit. Hopefully this also helps them because I’ve noticed some of the people who are newer to improv taking/having to take a backseat to louder players, which is one of my improv pet peeves. Almost as much as having to use the phrase “pet peeve”.
The patterns exercise I am pretty sure I’m going to have them do is from Beck’s class (what, you thought I’d just take exercises from Eugene and not Beck? Don’t be ridiculous). It’s basically an exercise in hitting patterns again and again (because I think you can draw easy connections between pattern, game, relationship, behavior, filters and “being funny”, all semantics regardless). It’s a two person scene and there’s only four lines—Person A initiates, Person B responds, Person A responds & Person B responds. End of the first beat within the scene. Then the entire exchange is repeated with the same lines. The improvisers affect each other more and more. The lines become more extreme but retain the same meaning. End of the second beat. In the third beat, everything blows up. Things get nuts & loud & active. Drop the mic, get out of that bitch.
We are so dumb. It is actually that easy—if there’s anything at all that I learned from Beck, it’s that patterns and pattern recognition will make your audience love you every time.
If there is time remaining, I’m going to have them play in the form they’ve created themselves. Ideally, the exercises I’ve chosen will help them play a little more grounded & more focused.
If time runs a bit short, I’ll cut out one of the exercises and just have them play. They’re pretty used to doing long montages and I don’t want things to get way unfamiliar. I don’t want them to get too caught up in what I have to say—some things might work for them, some might not. But I’m really excited to work with them and I hope I can teach effectively.
