improv is good for you

March 16, 2003
On a Sunday afternoon four years ago, my UCB classmates and I stepped outside The Chelsea Playhouse on 22nd Street to take this photo. We had just finished a raucously fun level-one graduation show and were still basking in that post-show glow. For most of us, this had been our first improv performance ever, and I still remember the advice our teacher, improv guru Ari Voukydis (blue jacket), gave us backstage: “To quote Michael Ironside in ‘Starship Troopers’: ‘Remember your training, and you will make it back alive.'” Four years later, many of the people in this photo are still improvising; in fact, two are on UCB house teams and one of them, Kirk Damato, is on the same team as Ari (DeCoster). It never ceases to amaze me how life, just like the pattern game, always finds its way back to one of its many beginnings.
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