Swimming Fish, Catholic Popes

Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?

Recently, StoryZ, my new theatre/performance group, gave a Free Improv Workshop. For the 8 people registered, we scheduled 1.5 hours of a little bit of talking and a lot of doing. At one point, someone said, as if she was drowning, “Is this an advanced class?” I guess so, but she kept her head above water the entire time.

Prior to the event, 2 sent messages that they wouldn’t be able to attend, and someone sent an apology afterwards for not coming, citing illness. The 8th person, I’ve never heard from.

This of course reinforced one of the rules I learned years ago and have to reintroduce into my tool box now. The rule is: if something has no dollar value, people just don’t value it at all. As I said in the advertising for this event: “The first one’s free (it always is).” For those who find worth (or addiction), they will keep coming back.

In that hour and a half, we talked about the principles of improv, starting with, “Yes, and”—you always build on what your scene partner gives you—and then ran through a series of improv games, including “Questions Only” (the woman who’s a therapist excelled at this), “Sound Effects,” and “Freeze Tag.”

Because we only had four people, we went through the games fairly quickly, so we had some time to de-brief and post-mortem. They all enjoyed the experience, and this was reflected in one’s comments on a follow-up survey. (Still waiting on more responses.) Apparently we offered a quality product, and can now think about charging for the next one.

And I heard the “graduate” certificates were a good idea!

Now how does this relate to today’s prompt? Giving the workshop was a performance for me. Guiding others through improv games is also a performance. Not to mention other daily performances, such as talking to store cashiers or restaurant servers, or even walking to and from my car into a place of business. All of it—everyday life—is a performance.

I wonder, if people thought of life as performing, it might turn them into agoraphobics, afraid of public speaking and being “on stage”?

Incidentally, did the title intrigue you enough to read this blog post? I’m experimenting with attention-getting titles. This one arose from reading the prompt and, looking back on my 46 years of doing theatre, thinking, “Do fish swim? Is the Pope Catholic?” I left the bears and their sanitary habits out of this.