Copyright 2000 by Edward Willett

I--and, I imagine, lots of other theatre-goers--have a love-hate relationship with improvisational comedy ("improv," for short).

In a nutshell, I love it when it's good, and I hate it when it's bad (or, in some ways worse, mediocre). Like the famous little girl, improv, when it is good, is very very good, and when it is bad it is horrid.

That alone is reason enough to applaud the efforts of Anne McDonald, who this week held two one-evening improv workshops in Regina--and, based on their success, hopes to offer eight-week series of improv classes this fall.

Anne saw a need for improv classes in Regina because, although there's lots of improv going on here--General Fools is probably the best-known example--there has been no opportunity for those interested in improv to take any formal training.

And no, "formal training" in improvisation is not the oxymoron it might first seem to be. Anne herself studied improv for four years at Second City in Toronto; she also studied improvised singing and took classes in character-based narrative improv, a form created by Ian Ferguson, a former Regina resident who started up the famous Soaps in Edmonton and has been teaching in Toronto for the past three or four years.

While Anne hasn't taught improv before, she does have a background in adult education. And she also had a strong incentive to offer the classes: "I'm wanting to train people so I can actually do more of it myself," she says. If the classes take off, she says, "who knows where it could spin off?" Possibilities could include a Regina Soaps like the Edmonton and Saskatoon Soaps; a Theatre Sports Regina, weekly improv, corporate improv workshops, and more.

So who might want to study improv? In Anne's view, just about anyone.

For instance, says Anne, writers can use impro to hone their sense of narrative and character development, to learn more about the types of relationships that interest audiences, or simply to awaken their creative, original, spontaneous selves.

Through improv, actors can improve their ability to live within their character, to adapt well to various requests, and to be much more alive and real on stage. That's because the focus of improv, Anne says, "is very much on the moment."

Even if you're not an actor or a writer, improv can help you find creativity and play, spontaneity and originality, and help your approach to everything from work to relationships, Anne says. "You build your listening skills, your communication skills, your working within a team skills. It teaches you a whole new way to look at life."

Other obvious benefits include better public speaking skills and more confidence. Plus, says Anne, improv workshops are also about "straight ahead having fun."

"You don't block yourself. You don't block others," Anne says. "You don't sort of stop yourself from doing things that you could do. You don't block life, you don't block opportunities."

You don't have to be naturally funny to do improv, either--whether you were the class clown or the class straight man, you can learn the skills necessary to do improv, Anne says. "The skills are easy to learn," she insists. "It doesn't take anybody special to learn them, you just have to learn them step by step." .

Thus, participants in the initial workshops this week (one Monday, one Wednesday) went through warm-ups, then practiced a number of exercises and activities designed to build basic improv skills: listening, teamwork, storytelling.

On Monday night Anne had six people in the workshop, who judged it a big success. "People said it was completely what they hadn't expected," she says. "They loved the spontaneity."

Best of all, from her point of view, "they said they'd absolutely interested in eight-week session in the fall."

"It was fun to teach," says Anne. "I think it could really work."

All those of use who love good improv sincerely hope she's right.

Posted March 9, 2004