So the scene ended with my Hammer-Pants-wearing-semi-roller-skating crew running into the plate spinning crew at the middle school talent show, causing the class-assigned “wife” of one of the plate spinners to drop their electronic baby from home economics. Yep, just a Tuesday night practice at Comedy Sportz.
I’m back in San Jose, California for a few weeks due to various speaking engagements, weddings, conferences, and camps. It’ll be nice to spend some time with local family and friends, and with Comedy Sportz San Jose, the family-friendly improvisational comedy troupe where I performed for four years. I arrived in time for our Tuesday night practice. People ask me, “How do you rehearse improvisation?” The simple answer is you just get up and do it.
It’s really about stopping yourself from stopping yourself. Far too often we get in our heads and we worry about failure. Once you get over that fear, it’s a lot easier.
I’ll be performing in the 9pm show this Friday and the practice was good for me. I’m a bit rusty having not done a show in several months. Luckily, my first scene of the practice took place with the founders of Comedy Sportz San Jose. It’s a great feeling to be on stage and know that the person in the scene is not going to let you fail—that you can take that risk, and something good is going to come of it. I like that team environment.
I thought about saw a trailer for the new Pixar movie, UP. If you have a chance watch The Pixar Story. I’ve seen it twice, and the level of failure the creators of Pixar faced in their early days blows me away. Many were fired from their dream jobs for thinking outside of the box. When they formed Pixar, they nourished that type of thinking, allowing people to decorate their cubicles however they’d like and hosting annual paper airplane contests in their cafeteria, all while putting out some of the best animated films ever.
During a Comedy Sportz rehearsal, we might take a moment to point out a habit someone is developing in character, in scene convention, in vocal patterns, etc. The Tuesday nights are used to try something different to push ourselves to another level. A few weeks ago, the cast focused just on accents. This week we spent time working on the Tarantino storytelling method. Pixar does the same thing. They purposefully break habits. When they saw that they were ending all their films with outtakes, they removed them. When they realized that everyone who directed a film was an original Pixar member, they brought in Brad Bird to challenge their way of thinking. Each film takes on a new challenge that the animators, computer programmers, and storytellers have to master. UP is no different as Pixar heads into the 3D era.
I’ve seen far too many groups hold themselves back by falling into habits and not supporting one another while they take appropriate risks. They insulate themselves from the viewpoints of outsiders, and it hurts them.
We need to not be afraid. We need to stop ourselves from stopping ourselves.