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Benjamin Lloyd 10/18/22 Benjamin Lloyd 10/18/22

The Four Virtues of Improvisation

How improvisation leads to the discovery of innate virtues we all possess.

I have a thing for the number four, which is weird because most actors have a thing for the number three. Three is the magic comic number. When constructing a gag based on repetition, do it three times building somehow to the third occurance and you are nearly guaranteed a laugh after #3. There is a library full of various “comic three” sequences, from simple escalations, to elaborate gags involving audience reaction. I love comedy and the techniques that drive it, but there’s something soothing to me about four.

Empathy: Kiersten Adams listens to Shea Sonsky (2020 Improvathon.)

Maybe it’s because I am reminded if the four corners of a room, holding and protecting me. Maybe years of listening to popular music in 4/4 time has brainwashed me. Maybe it’s that as an even number, four contains balance and symmetry. Or maybe it’s my devotion to Angeles Arrien’s Four Fold Way, which has formed a way of living and creating for me since my mom first shared it with me twenty years ago.

Whatever the reason, over years of acting, improvising and teaching I have come to define four virtues awakened by the practice of improvisation (and I do not restrict this to the kind that I practice - long form theatrical improvisation - I believe it’s true for all kinds of performed improvisation.) Here’s what I mean by virtue. To me, a virtue is potential. It is a beneficial way of behaving that is awakened into action by external conditions. A virtue is a reply, a response, an offer. We don’t experience and display virtues until we are stimulated by someone or some situation. And that person or situation needs to be challenging - even uncomfortable - for your virtue to appear.

Courage: Eric Walker improvises a monologue. (2020 Improvathon)

So. The Four Virtues of Improvisation.

Courage. Anyone who has taken any kind of improv class will have the sense memory of being a beginner there. I’ve never bungee-jumped, but I submit it’s a similar sensation. Or maybe it’s more like this: a kindly person points you and someone else towards the beginning of a trail through the woods. You can’t see the end but the kindly person says, if you help each other out you will not only find your way, you will have a great time doing it. When you ask for a map, they laugh at you. Discovering your own courage isn’t only a beginner’s experience in improv. The deeper you get into it, the longer the path is, and the greater the obstacles.
Empathy. There are so many empathetic engines at work in improvisation it’s hard to know where to begin. First, there’s the empathy you feel for your fellow student and performer. How dazzling and brave they become to you headed into the woods like that (and how they inspire you to sense your own dazzle and bravery.) Then there’s the empathy of character, both the one you discover and the one you’re on stage with. Because of the “yes, and” mindset improvisation drives relentlessly towards cooperation. So even the most despicable character cannot be denied. Somehow, some way you find a way to accept who they are and co-create with them to get to the end of the trail through the woods. And in doing so, your empathetic virtue is revealed and strengthened.
Creativity. Not the kind you plan for, the spontaneous kind. The kind where you have no idea what to say so you say the first thing that comes to your head, and it turns out to be amazing. Or you fall on your face and it’s still amazing. The practice of improvisation shows you that your imagination is limitless, which turns out to be a terrifying truth. Improvisation pushes you beyond convention, politeness, and tact. Improvisation pulls you outside of the box and invites you into the cave, as Del Close put it. If you’re being supported in the right way, you will find the most amazing ideas in there . . .
Faith. There is no quitting in improvisation. The scene is not over until the offstage actors say it is. So no matter how boring, stupid, banal or embarrassing you feel in whatever disaster of a scene you are co-creating, you cannot escape. Most of the rational parts of your brain may be shouting, “this is hopeless!”, still you have to say the next thing, whatever it is, and have faith that somehow it will lead the two of you to someplace less embarrassing. Or, you have a spasm of crazy courage and you decide to go all-in on the embarrassment. In either case, you will not have a clue about where you will end up. Improvisation is “ready, fire, aim!” Faith is the virtue that keeps you creating, even in when any reasonable person would forgive you for walking off the stage.

Creativity: Eric Walker, Owen Corey and Aimee Goldstein help Shannon Hill give birth (2020 Improvathon.)

If I’m right, then you can understand why those of us who are devoted to this art form feel like it has answers to many social, professional and interpersonal dilemmas. Perhaps you can see why we feel practicing improvisation is a kind of on-going personal self-improvement. I hope you will see why many of us apply it to situations that have nothing to do with entertainment. Maybe you will understand it as I do not as a genre, but as a movement.

Oh look! A handy infographic! I created this a while back so the descriptions of each virtue are a little different from above, but feel free to print it out anyway and put it up on your fridge. Your virtues will thank you for it.

Faith: Aimee Goldstein, Kiersten Adams and special guest Mary Carpenter creating the path they are following (Improvathon 2020.)

Benjamin Lloyd 9/28/22 Benjamin Lloyd 9/28/22

Destination Tomorrow

Creative Corporate Training serves the nonprofit Destination Tomorrow.

Tableau #3 from the group I worked with.

A month ago, Bright Invention delivered a Creative Corporate Training workshop to the nonprofit Destination Tomorrow (DT), located in the Bronx, NY. They are an inspiring organization. This is from the front page of their website:

Mission:

Destination Tomorrow believes that it is more helpful to empower our most vulnerable LGBTQ+ community members in a way that takes them off the path of needing emergency care. The organization emphasizes economic, social, and mental empowerment through a variety of holistic educational, financial, support-based, housing, and health programs.

Vision:

As we provide consistent, necessary, and empowering resources to LGBTQ+ clients, we envision a future with and for them that avoids crisis situations through action plans and connection to community.

Kiersten and Owen performing scenario 2.

DT is a kind of all-in-one resource center for their constituents who are mostly queer black and brown people, many of whom have experienced trauma. Our work with them marked the first time we had worked directly with the LGBTQ+ community (we raised money for The William Way Center through our Improvathon in 2018.) Our connection was made through another consultant who referred us to them. Plans took shape quickly. DT is gowing, and we were hired to address two topics: friction in the workplace between people who had been with the organization almost from the beginning and new hires brought in to manage the nonprofit’s expansion; and how workplace behavior with visitors can have a real impact on the well-being of the organization. These are topics I had addressed in my work through CCT before. So why was I so nervous about this workshop?

Simple: I am a straight, cisgender, middle aged white guy. I worried that I would be distrusted at the outset, that our differences would be too great for real human connection. From my conversations with DT’s dynamic Executive Director Sean Coleman, I learned about the struggle and crises many on his staff have lived through. The intersectionality is overwhelming: oppressed because of race, sexual identity or orientation, gender, class - simultaneously. And into this beloved community I walk in: a child of wealth and privilege, private school and Ivy league, laden with unconscious bias and inherited racism. Would I make some kind of horrible mistake in language or behavior? Would all my assumptions about our shared humanity distingrate under the glare of my whiteness? Would we be too distracted by the wrapping, unable to receive the gift inside?

A Destination Tomorrow staff person plays in scenario 1 with Kate (right.)

It was a four-hour, in person workshop held at their location in the Bronx. My three assistants were Kiersten Adams, Owen Corey and Kate Black-Regan. We discussed my trepidation at our first rehearsal, and assured each other that all we can do is arrive with thorough preparation, open hearts, and good intentions. Then worked on our two scenarios. One examined a rough first day at rehearsal for a young dancer, who is put through a kind of interrogation by the grand dam of the company. The second involved a visit from a grant manager to a fictional LGBTQ+ nonprofit in which he is treated poorly by the first person he meets, and has to describe this encounter and its implication for future funding to the Executive Director.

It rained all day the day of the workshop. I met my colleagues at a predetermined location in Philadelphia and we drove in my car to the Bronx. I shared with them that I wanted to try something new at this workshop. Sensing, somehow, that this group would be open to creative exploration, I proposed that we use the exercise called “tableaus”, in which a group makes a sequence of group poses to describe a journey. The journey I proposed was DT at the beginning (tableau 1), DT now (tableau 2) and DT as you wish it to be in the future (tableau 3.)

After a couple of hours of rainy driving, we had enough time to grab a snack, and then head upstairs. We met Sean who led us to a larger room where our group was waiting for us. Sean introduced me, and then I addressed the group with my team beside me. Kate had suggested a wonderful welcoming statement that she learned through another kind of training she partook it. I asked her to read it aloud, which she did. In simple and powerful language it names differences and distinctions and welcomes them. I spoke about Bright Invention and our work, and how meaningful this workshop was to us, and especially to me as the father of a transgender son. Kate, Kiersten and Owen introduced themselves. Then we started playing:

Zing, boing, pow, moo run by Kiersten
Met too run by me.
Yes, and . . . run by Owen (including exploration of “yes, but” and the hysterical suggestion from a participant that “yes, but” is nasty - “yes, however” is better.)
Tableaus, two groups: Owen and I in one, Kate and Kiersten in the other.

The tableaus took some time, and were amazing. I was reminded that the learning of this exercise comes not in the performing of what is created (although that is a powerful moment), but in the collaboration required to create it. We from Bright Invention tried our best to allow for the necessary mess and chaos, offering our suggestions sparingly. The tableau exercise took us well into hour 2, but it was worth it. During the break, someone approached me to say “I have never seen this group of people so happy to be together. This is amazing.”

Next came the scenarios which took up the better part of 90 minutes, with a break in the middle. We had vigorous discussions and play-ins (in which someone from the client group steps up to play one of the characters after we work on it for a bit.) The final hour (more like the final 30 minutes) was with Sean, so he could talk about why he thought it was important to do this work, and have a discussion with the whole group.

Later that week, I sent an evaluation form for participants to fill out. Some comments:

“The scenarios were great for the group as it was beneficial to see situations played out without ego. It was live conflict resolution that we all benefited from.”
“I found that the tableau exercise helped me to identify the ways in which my leadership qualities can include a bit more perspectives from the individuals with whom I am on a team.”
“I found the workshop very enriching especially with the different scenarios. What I liked was taking into consideration all the group's suggestions to improve the scenarios. It's very instructive and useful.”

And what of all my trepidation? I think looking back that the fear itself was an aspect of my unconscious bias. Some powerful part of me wanted to focus more on differences, but in practice our immediate experience bonded us together. At Bright Invention we say “when I can play with you then I am safe with you,” and this was born out at this workshop. This will sound trite but here it goes. Yes, we are different - all of us. But the needs and desires we share in common connect us more powerfully than differences drive us apart. In fact, in order for differences to drive us apart we need to make them more important by intentionally focussing on them and saying “yes, but” instead of “yes, and.” Or “yes, however.”

It was a good car ride back, and by the time we returned to Pennsylvania the rain was dispersing and the clouds were like something out of a Maxfield Parrish painting. I hope we can work with DT again. It will be like seeing old friends.

“The River at Ascutney”, Maxfield Parrish

Benjamin Lloyd 9/21/22 Benjamin Lloyd 9/21/22

Rick Horner, new Ensemble Director

Rick Horner is named Ensemble Director of Bright Invention.

With over 25 years experience teaching, coaching and performing improvisation, Rick Horner has been named Ensemble Director for Bright Invention for the 2022 – 2023 season. After being a member of the ensemble for two years, Executive Director Benjamin Lloyd felt this was a logical next step for Rick. Ben said “we have been fortunate to have Rick’s experience in the ensemble. Now it feels like this is the right time for new creative leadership, and Rick was the obvious choice. I’m thrilled he is stepping in!”

Rick rehearsing with ensemble member Aimee Goldstein

Since 1997, Rick has been involved in studying, performing, coaching, and leading various improv groups in Philadelphia proper. Rick was one of the Founders of the Philadelphia Improv Festival and was sole Founder of the F. Harold Improv Festival. Rick was one of the first House Team Directors at Philly Improv Theater (PHIT) (Team Activity Book), who created monthly long-form shows to sold-out audiences. Rick also created and has facilitated the Improv Incubator, which has been running weekly for almost seventeen years and which is open to anyone who is willing. Rick performs virtually with Vintage Improv (Timeless and the Merritt House Team), Ricochet Illustrated Improv and two teams in Improv College. Rick is also half of two different virtual duos; Holdwater and PortmanTwo. Rick created LCR, the progenitor of the fledgling Blue Bell / Ambler improv community scene, focused on creating a healthy improv community in the Philadelphia suburbs. Rick also coaches and directs a musical long form improv team (coming soon to a screen near you!) When not coaching or doing improv, Rick is re-watching Planet of the Apes movies, looking for meaning.

Rick rehearsing with ensemble member Eric Walker, Jr.

Rick is interested in assembling the diverse, talented folks in and around the Philadelphia area into an improv community. “I have been inspired by the Bright Invention mission and am excited to develop new and innovative long form improvisation with the ensemble,” says Rick. “Improv encourages us to focus our attention on the present moment. We listen to each word that is spoken and watch each movement in order to understand who, where and when you are. This is great exercise for our brains and teaches us to trust ourselves. Improv is made up mostly of trust. Trust feels wonderful and lack of trust feels terrible.”

Ben will step back from creative leadership to focus on developing the company’s corporate training work, and to launch some new initiatives serving marginalized communities. Bright Invention will debut a new show under Rick’s leadership later this fall at their new performance venue at the Arden Theatre Hamilton Family Arts Center in Old City, Philadelphia. “I can’t wait to see what they come up with!” said Ben. “I believe it will be improv like you have never experienced it before.”

Benjamin Lloyd 8/26/22 Benjamin Lloyd 8/26/22

Avila

The global conference of the Applied Improvisation Network was held in Avila, Spain in July. I was there!

In late July of this year, the Applied Improvisation Network (AIN) held its global conference in the sun-drenched medieval town of Avila, Spain. For about a week, people from all over the world met to share the ways they use improvisation to improve the lives of others. This conference was supposed to have happened in 2020, and then again in 2021, postponed both times for health and safety concerns. So those of us who made it there in July were like kids for whom a birthday party had been delayed, and then delayed again. We were giddy with excitement and overjoyed to be in each other’s company, off screen and in person.

At the end of my “quest” at the beginning of the workshop.

What is applied improvisation you ask? Think of it this way. Performed improv is used as entertainment. Applied improv is when improvisation and the exercises, games and mindset supporting it are used for any other purpose. Most commonly, applied improvisors work in the business consulting marketplace as coaches, team builders and workshop leaders. But we also work in the fields of healthcare, education and therapeutic research. We have found that the potential application of improvisation to improve the lives of people extends to any field where human beings strive to be in healthy, creative and dynamic relationships with each other.

I was invited by AIN to deliver a workshop on “Using Structured Improvisation with People with Disabilities.” I had an hour to condense the years I have spent with people with autism, cerebral palsy and other disabilities, co-creating structured improvisations and devising pieces of theatre. I delivered the workshop to a small group Saturday morning and it went well. I was even able to squeeze in a short slideshow of our Ability In Action classes at the end. On the last day I led a spontaneous session examining the issue of diversity and inclusion at AIN, which remains a very white network. That has led to an ongoing relationship with like-minded AINers and a commitment to hold each other accountable as we work towards a more diverse AIN.

First night dinner out. Nations represented: Norway, France, New Zealand and the U.S. Waiter looks pissed but he was actually nice.

But if I’m honest, the most meaningful aspect of the trip were the connections I made with applied improvisors from Norway, The Netherlands, Bermuda, New Zealand, Sweden and other places. These were my tribe, and we spent many hours over meals, walks and late night drinks and coffees connecting, sharing, listening and rejoicing in our shared commitment to this extraordinary art form. And yes, the Spaniards stay out late. Speaking of Spaniards: the whole event was organized and facilitated by group of Spanish applied improvisors who were heroic, both in their accomplishment and also in their cheerfulness under duress. Ole tu!

For weeks now I have been trying to distill some punchline, some “moral of the story” to put a neat little bow on this experience. But I can’t. Like improvisation itself, the event was ineffable. But I will say that the world is waking up to the value of skillfully facilitated group experiences grounded in the innate optimism and problem-solving of improvisation. Bright Invention is part of a worldwide movement and, like improvisation, the possibilities are limitless.

Next year, the conference will be in Vancouver. I plan on being there. In the meantime, visit the AIN website and look for ways you can get involved!

Benjamin Lloyd 7/26/22 Benjamin Lloyd 7/26/22

Who are you anyway?

How improv is a personality laboratory in which we play with various identities. And we discover authenticity in a fiction.

Last week I asked you how you were doing.

This week I’m asking you who you are.

This is me improvising someone authoritative with Shea. Or maybe I don’t know what I’m doing and she’s instructing me? I forget.

Oh, you think you know, do you? I submit to you that this assuredness that you, in fact, know who you are is a compendium of things you have been told about yourself, and wishes of ego fulfillment. In the first group - what you’ve been told about yourself - are the messages you have received from the culture at large (entertainments, commercials, the news), your friends and colleagues and your childhood. It’s this last one that takes an entire lifetime to disentangle. Take me for example. My mom left me (this is how I experienced it) when I was three, and so I have been trying to get her back through other relationships ever since (label me exhibit A under “Mommy Issues.”) Some of what others have told you about yourself is true and useful. But a great deal of it is total bullshit, and has more to do with other people’s needs and desires and not your well-being.

Here I’m improvising smoking a cigarette with Owen after sex . . . maybe?

The other category - ego wish fulfillment - are all the ways you want to be. And sometimes you are. And sometimes you’re not. I try to be who I want you to think I am, whether it’s true or not. Even more distressing, the longer I live in this self-delusion, the less chance I have of sensing that it is indeed a delusion. I begin to act and behave as if I am who I want you to think I am. Unfortunately I am occasionally successful at this. People actually believe the nonsense I trumpet about myself in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. And then I’m trapped. Because I know, deep in my core, that I am inauthentic when I am like this. And inauthenticity is a kind of psychic cancer that slowly destroys the ability have real human connection with anyone.

Take a moment and think about all the ways you don’t want the world to know you. Here, I’ll go first:

vulnerable
insecure
afraid
vain
grandiose
and some more, but that’s a good start . . .

Authenticity is owning accepting these parts of myself too. Even more harrowing, authenticity means sharing from these places with other humans, so others can know me when I’m especially vain or vulnerable. Only then can I take the biggest risk I know: ask to be accepted as the damaged and imperfect creature that I am. I’ve done this a few times and guess what? I have never been refused. Those moments of acceptance of me by others when I am weak or wrong in some way are transformative, healing, revelatory.

So what does all this have to do with improv?

Not sure who I am in this picture, but Bob is definitely someone pretty awesome.

The kind of improvisation I practice is long form improvisation. As I understand it, it has to do with realistic people in deep relationship with each other, telling a story together that extends over time. Sounds heavy, but it can actually be quite hilarious. But it doesn’t have to be. And the removal of the requirement to be funny opens up breathtaking possibilities. Long form improvisation is a kind of personality laboratory. If I trust the people I am playing with, I have the opportunity to inhabit “my self” in any variety of characteristics. I can be the most wounded and awful person, the most appalling self-centered egomaniac, the most toxically masculine manly-man, and why? Because I am playing with someone who accepts my offer.

So when you hear an improv zealot like me tell you the practicing improv changes your life, this aspect of it is one of the reasons why. We are given the opportunity to experience all of ourselves, in collaboration with an accepting partner, witnessed by a group of affirming fellow explorers. The calcified mold of identity we have been trying to fit into in our “regular lives” shatters, and we briefly see the pieces of it on the floor of the stage as we take authenticity for a walk. Such a paradox isn’t it? Finding authenticity in a fiction.

It would be nice to report that the inauthentic mold of identity we temporarily escape from practicing improv stays in pieces on the floor. But It doesn’t of course. Under the weight of memory, habit and the crush of external messaging we find ourselves inside that mold again. But less and less. And then comes the day when we break out of it without an improv class, and those around say . . . wow.

Clearly being a Dad here with Aimee and Kelly - not a stretch for me.

Practicing improv is way to explore ourselves in a safe creative setting. And even though I was playing “someone else” a good coach will point out that it all came out of me. This is why Del Close told his students to “to get the hell out of their own way!” At its apex, improv allows all those parts of me I don’t want the world to know about to come out and play. And when I am seen and accepted like that, behind the thin veil of a co-created fiction, something deep is released.

So who am I? Well, I can tell you today. But ask me again tomorrow, and the answer will change. I am not a solid, I am fluid. And I bend and ebb and flow around the people and objects I encounter. Sometimes I am steam and sometimes I freeze. But if you are kind, you can dip your toes in. The water’s fine.