We don’t play that way here – or do we?

This weekend I had the opportunity to showcase All Request Radio at the 2023 Baltimore Improv Festival. It was wonderful seeing online friends in person as well as adding my format alongside the other wonderful groups at the festival

Improv festivals are a great opportunity to see different styles of improv, different ways of approaching everything from getting suggestions and transitions, to forms – musical, game, harold, montage… Festivals also reinforce a heightened version of what you already know and see regularly

“We don’t play that way here”

Over the years, I’ve received both the positive and hesitant connotation of “we don’t play like that here” feedback to my show format and my workshops

For my musical show, it might come from: being a solo musical act, the accessibility, or the technical setup. I’ve added a QR code scarf taller than me too, so that’s new for all of us!

For my workshops, I’m recognizing how differently I process our world. Even as improv attracts many neurowonderful people — my facilitating approach is often noted as being unique: a blend of adult learning principles, mindfulness, with a tactical focus on improv specifics

Sometimes, when they proclaim the difference, it is the first time they’re exposed to the concept. It hasn’t been a focus within their prominent schools of thought. It’s a positive feeling though still heady

Contributing a new perspective to this shared passion is a win for us both. To them, I say “Welcome!” to (“a whole new world”…)

Sometimes the phrase is comparative — processing and integrating the new information into their improv paradigm

Both versions offer me a learning opportunity: I can further check-in and better mirror my vocabulary (and preface my examples) to align with their experiences. Concepts aren’t harmed by using synonyms that bring them from ‘what they knew’ to ‘what I’m helping them expand’ in their toolset

By the end of the workshop, people are finding their fun playing in this new way. That is another feedback loop that is valuable for participants and facilitators to embrace

Specific to my Mindful Menace workshop, here are five examples from the festival stage that we do play like that, afterall:

• A++ (Armando): The parents pressuring for the adult child to get married (irritants); the Old Water God (instant)
• 3peat (Pretty Flower? / Living Room?): The rule-oriented car rental workers (irritants); downsizing dad (instant)
• Cakewalk (Improvised Sitcom): “boatcation” boss kept getting his me-time interrupted (irritants); also the players were definitely having fun gotcha moments with each other
• Woodstock (longform): a psychic and psychotic teen (antagonist) wields fear over her friends and family (irritants and instants)
• True Crime: The Musical (musical): the murderous archer (antagonist) confronted by her husband’s paramour (moments of irritant on both sides until the climatic revelation)