misstrionics

at the end of the day yesterday, i was really regretting signing up for a dcm workshop. i'd had 3 not good shows in a row and i was growing increasingly frustrated with the fact that all my improv friends seem to have all the time in the world to see shows; to block off an entire weekend for the dcm marathon; to do practice groups, dcm workshops, class, see shows and be in shows all in the course of a week. i don't have time for this. i continue to make time for improv in my life and i'm not sure why. why am i continuing to make sacrifices for something that's not "paying off"? for improv, i have missed work, cancelled doctor's appointments, blown off my friends, and sunk way more money than i want to think about.

whether this has been a good choice or not is besides the point. people can argue that improv has its flaws, that the majority of it is not very good, and that it's a money trap. i'm not going to argue against any of that. i'm not sure whether it's been a good choice in my life to continue with it. i know that i have had a hard time committing to any pursuit that takes time, effort and money, that i have wanted desperately to be good at japanese or guitar or screen-writing, but that i have always given these things up because i couldn't deal with the idea of being bad, at failing. so i wrote them off as a waste of time. or something i could do later when free time and a pile of money just happened to come along in my life. how long did i have to suck before it just clicked? where was the movie-style montage where i started out shitty and ended up great at the end of one song?

mid-class yesterday, i asked the teacher (curtis gwinn, a hero of mine and a performer in the first improv show i ever saw... commedia dell high school, which changed my life) a question. he apologized that his response wasn't as cut-and-dry as i'd wanted it to be. but in his answer, he reminded me that improv is not paint-by-numbers, that no amount of following the rules could make up for a lack of innovation or inspiration. i want to approach improv like a science, the same way i approach a lot of things in my life. if i do everything perfectly, if i make no mistakes, if i follow the same system every time, things will have to turn out okay. i go into scenes scientifically, following rules, annoyed at people when they break them.

but improv, like life, is unpredictable. the unpredictable is what makes it funny and fun and an art, as opposed to some kind of machine. there are no steadfast rules. there are no right answers. we make choices and we live with them and sometimes our scene partner makes choices that we don't agree with, but they've been made and the whole audience has seen them and we have to choose how to react accordingly. none of my friends or teachers or parents or bosses can tell me what the exact right thing to do is because there is no right thing. this is incredibly frustrating to me, but i guess you just keep going, right?