I recently wrote an article on writer’s block, writing being one of my passions, and it led me to think about the parallels between that and an issue faced within another one of my passions: improv. And it occurred to me that the two problems are really the same. There’s no name for getting stuck in improv–we usually just call it “getting in your head”–but since improv is essentially writing and acting at the same time, when we get stuck in improv, we’re going through a very similar phenomenon as a writer who encounters writer’s block. And in honor of that, I hereby name this phenomenon “improv block.” No, not all that clever, but I didn’t want to get writer’s block thinking of a better name.
This improv block is the bane of all improviser’s existences. It’s the reason so many improviser’s will sign up for improv classes with the warning of “I don’t think I’m going to be very good at this.” Well, if you think that, you’re not alone. And you’re probably wrong.
I’ve felt this many times myself. I’ve gone onto stage and realized that I had nothing. The magic genie who gives me my ideas is asleep somewhere in the back room, and I’m on my own. Or sometimes I’ll even have a great premise, but the pressure to follow that up with something equally as clever gets the best of me, and then I’m stuck, feeling nostalgic for ten seconds ago when I had some sort of idea.
The question I get from students all the time is “what can I do about it?” How do you rewire your brain so that the most clever and funny things come out of your mouth without ever getting that damn improv block?
Just like with writer’s block, though, the answer is disappointing: there’s nothing you can do. There’s no magic pill you can take to just make the improv block disappear. Well, there is, but that pill is currently illegal except for therapeutic purposes.
That’s because when we get into that mindset, we’re trying to think our way into something brilliant or hilarious, which is equivalent to trying to blink our way into having X-Ray vision. Our brains don’t work like that. I mean, test it out: try to think your way into something incredibly funny right now.
Don’t despair. I come bearing good news too.
Let me know when you're ready.
Alright...
Just like with writer’s block, improv block doesn’t exist either.
Now you might be resistant to that statement. You might be thinking “of course it does! I get stuck in scenes all the time, bonehead!”
You probably also think I’m a dick for inventing a term for something I now say isn’t real.
But hear me out.
What you think of as improv block or getting stuck in your head is actually just a fear of doing bad improv. I mean, when you think you have nothing to say, you actually can say something. That something might be “the walls is black,” or “I have no idea what the hell to say,” or “why don’t people wear monocles anymore?” The point is that you aren’t really blocked, you can say something.
And for those dying to know, monocles fell out of fashion because of advances in optometry and also because they became associated with German officers in World War I, but I digress.
As I’m sure you’re aware, we have two sides to our brain: the creative side and the analytical side. The creative side is usually reserved for the zone we get into when we’re doing good scenes, and the analytical side is usually reserved for pulling premises and then looking back at a show and chastising ourselves over all the things we could have done differently.
When we’re in a creative flow, it’s easy to stay in it. The analytical part of our brain is still there--otherwise we would have a hard time using grammar or telling a logical sequence of events--however the creative side is dominant.
When our analytical side takes over, we’re often making lots of judgments. We’re telling ourselves “that’s not good enough,” or “that’s terrible,” “oh my god, why am I on stage right now?” We tend to stay in this mode too. Our creative side is still there somewhere, but the analytical side is dominant.
So when we have what we consider to be improv block, what is actually happening is we’re stuck thinking with our analytical brain, trying to think our way into something funny and then immediately judging what we did as not very good.
Again, when you’re in this mode, you can say something, it’s just going to be something from this overthinking, often mean, analytical side.
So the real question isn’t “how do I get rid of improv block,” it’s “how do I start thinking with my creative brain when my analytical side is in control?”
And for that I have answers.
Well we already know we can’t think our way out of it. Like quicksand, struggling against it is just going to put us deeper into our analytical brain.
What we need to do, first and foremost, is be ok with doing bad improv. I know how tempting it can be to just hang out on the sidelines when this is happening, but that’s not going to help much. You instead need to risk going out and doing the worst improv in the history of humanity.
At the very least, this is going to get you in the zone, but oftentimes, having this mindset, feeling like it’s ok to come out and be imperfect or even do the worst improv ever (trust me, I think I’ve seen the worst, and you’ve really got to work to get there), will knock you right out of that overthinking side.
Will it be bad? Possibly, but probably not. Even if it is, it’s ok. You’re going to bounce back.
I know audience laughter, or more precisely the lack of audience laughter, can trip us all up, so here are a few mindsets that can be helpful to not think about itr (I wouldn’t do all these at once, I would pick one–whichever one is the most effective for you):
-You are performing a play that’s written by the greatest playwright in the world, and you have the lines and blocking memorized. Everytime you open your mouth the right line is going to come out, and you’ve experienced, despite the play’s perfection, no two audiences react the same way.
-You are doing art. It is funny (and coherent) art, but the most important thing is the craft and not how many applause breaks you get
-You are building a show that comes together beautifully. Individually scenes might not seem like winners at the time, but when the whole piece is done, it’ll be evident to everyone that the genius there the entire time.
Again, these are just shifts to get you to not care about the audience, and are specific only to improv and not writing, since improv gives such immediate feedback and no rewrites.
But above all else, release the need for it to be perfect.
Instead, prove to yourself that you can still make words come out of your mouth. And soon those words will be ones even the analytical side of your brain will look at and think is pretty damn good.
Thanks for reading!
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