Improv 101

This Tech + Narrative Lab-sponsored workshop held in March (right before the Covid-19 shutdown), students and faculty learned that improv isn’t just about comedy; it is about how to deal with uncertainty and improve your ability to convey information.

Led by Dan O’Connor and Stephen Kearin from Impro Theater. O’Connor and Kearin are veterans of the improv and theater worlds, and they regularly perform locally and nationally. In addition, they have led a variety of workshops for corporate clients such as Cisco, KPMG, Ernst & Young, and others.

For the Pardee RAND group, the exercises focused on deep listening and the “second circle”, where people are neither withdrawn or overly overt. The group explored a variety of exercises, all in the spirit of improvisation and play but with reference to how the skills are applied day to day. A key concept was that no one was expected to be good at the exercises. Instead, these were opportunities to struggle and fail in the spirit of fun. As Kearin noted, “every mistake is a gift.”

Improv 101

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