Why Everyone Should Take an Improv Class

Alec Hajdukovich
Oct 7, 2019
3 min read

After delaying for over 6 months, this past summer I enrolled in my first improv class. I was terrified to sign up, but after a few drinks and a financial commitment I finally made it to a class. It has been one of the best career decisions I have made to date and would highly recommend everyone regardless of your personality type to take a class. I wanted to share my experience so far and hopefully convince a few of the brave to make the leap.

Misconceptions

I think that the biggest misconception of improv is that you have to be an extrovert or very out going to do it. In fact in all of the classes that I have taken the funniest people have been the quiet ones. It is very difficult for outgoing extroverted people to duplicate the emotion and delivery that an introvert produces naturally when they are speaking.

Here are a few more common misconceptions that I have heard:

I am not good at public speaking
I am not funnyI don’t have the time
I am not good at thinking on my feet
I don’t live in New York
I am absolutely terrified of the simple thought of improv…

Although these are creative excuses, non of these should prevent you from taking the leap and signing up for an improv class. In fact, I believe that improv will help you improve on almost any reservations that you have.

Why You Should Take Improv

There are a lot of benefits to taking an improv class, and most importantly everyone is going to have a different experience. I believe that regardless of your age, personality or location taking at least one improv class can make your life better.

Here are few benefits from improv:

Saying Yes — “Yes, And” as you may have known is just about the only rule to improv, say yes to everything!
Public speaking — This is a given, a lot of the class you will be standing up in front of people and speaking
Failing — You learn to feel comfortable with freezing up or not knowing what to say, because it’s all part of the process
Using your imagination and creativity — Simply put, there are no rules in improv…
It’s a mental workout — For the entire class you are so focused on listening and responding to other people, it gives you a mental workout unlike anything else.
You learn to live in the moment — literally don’t have the brain capacity to think about anything else

What Does a Typical Class Look Like?

Before you go on and read the description of some of the activities, I want to mention that the warmup games are truly a game changer. They are designed to get you out of your comfort zone and make you comfortable with failing.

Here is the typical breakdown of the Level 0 class that I took at the Peoples Improv Theatre:

ree — Gather in a room with 10–15 random people

ree — Get into a circle to play “warm up” games

Warm up games are essentially there to make you feel safe and to not be afraid of being weird or failing
There is a variety of name games that help you connect with the other people in the classLots of body movement to ease any tension that you have
Getting out of your comfort zone fosters an environment that you are able to learn and grow in

Three line games — very short conversations between two people that are pretending to be someone, somewhere, doing something.

Three line games — very short conversations between two people that are pretending to be someone, somewhere, doing something.
The point of the three line game is to get you comfortable with setting the scene and listening to what your partner is saying
This is the perfect game for people to overcome the fear of freezing or not knowing what to say

ree — Group Games — pitching a made up product, interacting with a group as a character, or standing in the front of the room and getting interviewed

Two person scenes are a way for person 1 to use their listening skills and react to what the incoming person is doing and saying
Person 2 gets to use their creative side and set the scene by pretending to be someone different
The interview game is basically exactly what it seemsIt is a bit more difficult than a normal interview as you are standing in front of the class and answering odd ball questions
Character games are used to help people listen to their body language and develop different personas
By developing a character and interacting with the other people in the class, you learn to manipulate your speech, body movements and identity

In Closing

Improv should be something that you are both excites and terrifies you. It is a way to improve a variety of life skills and give you the confidence that you need to effectively think on your feet and interact with people. I can honestly say that after taking an intro level class, that it has changed my life.