improv is good for you*

I’ve been circling back lately to watch the second and third seasons of the U.S. version of The Office. I’m kicking myself for being such a U.K.-version snob all this time. Last May, my friend Steve G., who I know from my real-life office, described the following scene to me while at a bar where my improv classmates and I had gathered to celebrate my birthday. At the time, I remember not laughing so much at his description because the scene didn’t sound all that funny, and I was a little defensive that the joke was centered around someone who was mucking around in an improv class. Today, I know better. Here’s a passage from his IMDB profile and a bit from a Premiere Magazine interview earlier this year:

- From 1990-1996 he taught improvisational comedy class and also performed with The Second City troupe in Chicago where Stephen Colbert was his understudy* for a time. During the 1990s he was writing for The Dana Carvey Show, then he had a stint as one of correspondents on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

- As mysterious as good improv may seem, Carell, who sharpened his skills at Chicago’s Second City, doesn’t shy away from trying to explain his method. “The main thrust of it is just listening,” he says. “There were devices like, ‘Yes and,’ meaning, if someone says something, you agree and add to it. They may seem like playground games, but it breaks patterns when you’re forced to just respond and not feel embarrassed. If there’s a sense of reality to it, of something that’s organic to the scene.” He stops and rolls his eyes. “Oh my God.”
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NYC improviser extraordinaire Tara Copeland on 30 Rock.
And the list goes on … Jack McBrayer as “Kenneth”; Judah Friedlander as “Frank”; Scott Adsit as “Pete”; the incomparable Rachel Dratch; John Lutz as “J.D.” …