3 Things We Learned from our Summer of Improv

A joint article by Jordan Hirsch & Sarah Filman

This summer we offered a series of virtual, drop-in improv workshops based around the theme of a playground. Slides, swings, sandboxes, and more became our inspiration as we played with emotional highs and lows, pumping energy into challenging situations, and experimenting within constraints. Each hour-long session was filled with delight, and people left “feeling more connected, energized, and creative.” With a new season upon us, we wanted to harvest our top learnings as input for our Fall “Playing with an Improv Mindset” series, which you can register for now . The series kicks off on Tuesday, October 10th from 12-1pm ET and meets every two weeks!?

1. Group connection is catalyzed by vulnerability

“It was powerful to create and experience creation as a (small) community - valuing what we brought to the table individually and how to respect each other’s contributions.”

Vulnerability has long been recognized as a tool to build connection , and we could see it working in real time in our sessions. Yet we’ve found that the activities in most articles on vulnerability center around people verbally disclosing deeper truths about themselves, their beliefs, and their experiences – a kind of soul-baring.

We (especially Sarah) love a tender soul-baring, but that approach may not feel appropriate to everyone in certain settings, especially work environments. So we take a different, more playful, tack. Participants in our sessions spoke gibberish to convey anger and happiness, pantomimed being objects in a beach scene, and collaboratively developed a wild story about a pelican. Their vulnerability came in the form of being willing to creatively contribute their ideas to the group, which mirrors a specific form of vulnerability many people struggle to do in their day to day work. Through this sincere commitment to take these creative risks as a group, connection and cohesion was accelerated. By the end of each session, people were laughing together, sharing inside jokes, and relating with a familiarity that wouldn’t suggest they were strangers just 60 minutes earlier.

2. Creativity loves structure

“It felt like there was a concrete wall between me and my creativity and I got to chisel away at it.”

We put a lot of thought into the structure of each session, and each activity. That structure essentially acted as a constraint. It’s not exactly news that constraints breed creativity , but we were still deeply inspired by the creative contributions that emerged within the structure of the activities, and the invitation to “bring a brick, not a cathedral.” That phrase, common in many improv spaces, encourages participants to focus on adding one new idea that builds directly upon the contributions they’ve heard from others, rather than singularly feeling the pressure to come up with a ton of novel, clever ideas.?

This came together beautifully when we asked one group to create a poem together about a physical activity we had just done together, with each person contributing one line:

I was blind to the story our shoulders tell without our knowledge or permission.

HEAVE! HO! went the workers, day and night.

T-rex’s, dance moves, and hoe-downs, party is going down.

Humans in motion

loop de loop, around we all go

yes I had a great night, learning how to speed date?

don't hesitate

don't think?

don't wait

Digging into and dancing with and chewing on life

beautiful people moving

May I join this fun team?

This co-created poem activity, inspired by a similar activity learned at the Global Play Brigade , took the pressure of the blank page away and offered a structure for anyone to be able to participate.

The benefits of structure were there for us as facilitators, too. Giving ourselves a theme for each session (slides, swings, etc.) gave us a useful constraint that we used to invent a handful of new activities that we’d never tried before. And that let us be as playful during the design process as we were during the facilitation!

3. Play is a powerful teacher

“My eyes have been opened to new possibilities and new pathways that I couldn't have previously identified.”

We usually design our improv mindset workshops with some learning goals in mind. Whether it’s helping people become better leaders, more powerful listeners, or more effective collaborators, we’re used to leveraging the fun, playful art form of improvisation to help people practice “serious” skills. But this time, our primary goal was to provide opportunities for play. No lessons! Except…

There were lessons, of course. But instead of telling people what they were learning, we allowed play to be the teacher. Through creative play, people learned about themselves as individuals and leaders, and identified opportunities to change their behavior in future situations to move towards more positive, productive outcomes.??

What’s next?

The fun doesn’t stop just because summer’s over! On the contrary, fall offers us a rich metaphor to mine as a theme for our next series: FALL-ing Into Improv . Starting next week, we’re offering a series of 5 free drop-in workshops over the coming months, exploring themes ranging from falling leaves (dealing with change), to costumes (the masks we wear), to winter gifts (everything is a gift! ), and more. Come play with us!