What's On the Agenda?

Improv, as you may have heard me mention once or forty hundred times, is all about letting go of your agenda, your preconceived notions, your attachment to your own brilliant ideas and your insistence that your way is the right way.

Basically, improv is not about you. Imagine my dismay at learning that.

But life isn't about you either. We are constantly adjusting, compromising, retooling and adapting because other people and situations rarely conform to the [extremely well thought-out, comprehensive] plans we have in our heads. And yet, as often as we have to do this in real life, it can still be frustrating and difficult (at best) or downright angst-inducing and paralyzing (at worst) to be forced to let go of what you have believed is "right."

I'm not saying it's any easier in improv, at least at first. You're scared, and all you have with you onstage is someone you barely know and your effing brilliant idea - naturally, you'll tend to cling to that idea. But as time goes by, you learn a few things, namely:

1. OUR idea is better than any idea that either you or I had been clinging to;
2. Holding onto something that tightly = strangling, which is what you'll do to your scene if you don't let go;
3. You're not the smartest or funniest person in the universe.

When you've experienced these things often enough, you'll learn to really believe they're true. And when you do, you will not even want to hold onto your agenda because you'll have discovered trust in the process, in yourself and in your partners. And that's when the real fun begins.

By Sonnjea Blackwell