Warning: this is a post about improv.

So over the past year or so of my life, I’ve spent virtually all of my Friday nights watching and performing improv, after being selected for a house improv team at iO West, which is the theater where I began my training and, in many ways, feels like home – or at least, as much as a theater with a bar can feel like home.

But about a week ago, evaluations were coming up – basically, one of the few times in the year that the artistic director and the coaches take a look at the teams and see whether or not they should be kept together or broken up, or whether new people should be added to a team.

As it turned out, I missed the show because I was working late that day. It was unfortunate, but one of those things that happens from time to time. The next day, I was informed that because my team had a good show without me, I was being removed from the team (and would later be replaced by another performer).

Improv is, by its nature, an impermanent art – the performances are brief and fleeting (and never repeat particularly well on video). Teams and performers come and go and start and stop as life dictates (in large part due to the lack of financial opportunity in the field). And a house team, by its nature, is not one that the individual performers can control – while the performances and coaches will dictate the success of the team, ultimately it’s entirely at the whim of the artistic director whether or not a team will change or be disbanded or promoted to a bigger venue.

All of this is meant to point out that while intellectually I have no particular issue with being cut from my team (other than, perhaps, the fact that I feel like I was cut because I wasn’t there, rather than because I necessarily deserved it), emotionally it’s a jolt.  Like being cut from a sports team, or fired from a show, we never want to be singled out as “the problem” – losing one’s place because the entire entity is going away (show being cancelled, team being disbanded, etc.) is entirely different.

So after spending a week frustrated by my newfound freedom, I suddenly realized: I have a newfound freedom.

As much as I loved being on a house team (and as much as I loved my team and teammates in particular), it meant that I was spending two nights a week focused solely on that team.  That was two nights a week I couldn’t write.  Two nights a week I couldn’t perform with any of my other teams. Two nights a week I couldn’t chill out and watch TV, or exercise. Spending those two nights a week focused solely on one team also meant that I had a hard time finding the motivation to take another class (which I had been planning on doing for over a year) or focusing on booking my other teams for shows, in the hopes of improving (and recording enough video) in preparation for travel to an improv festival or two this year.

We never want to leave things on terms other than our own. That’s human nature. But being suddenly liberated and given the opportunity to use my time in a new way is, in many ways, a gift, and puts me in a scenario that I would not have voluntarily created (because I would never have quit the team on my own, unless I moved out of town or something).

So now, it’s time to get back to some of the projects I’ve been neglecting. Writing I’m supposed to do. Reading I’ve been meaning to catch up on. Movies I haven’t seen. Rebooting a webcomic that has been on an extended hiatus for two years. Continuing to hone my improv craft. All of these are things that require my attention. Hopefully, having gained two nights a week back, I’ll be able to do all of it. Or at least as much as possible.

Warning:  this is about improv.

I had an improv show on Monday with one of the teams I regularly perform with.  Three people in total, and we had about ten minutes, which generally is not a lot of time (in addition, it was a competition, which meant that we had to move quickly and try to generate laughs).  So we started in a pretty standard way (with a two-person scene), and I was on the side, looking for an opening to get in on the fun.

Then one of my scene partners decided to make me an “old Japanese man”, forcing me to come in and play, well, an old Japanese man.  It wasn’t a surprise, really (it’s one of the things we do on this particular team a lot), but it’s one of the few accents/voices I know I can do, so it was fun to play around with.

A few scenes later, that same scene partner decided to make me President Obama.  Again, I’m not particularly good at impressions, and I’ve never done an impression of the President in a show before, but I was able to glide into a passable version of his speech pattern (truthfully, I have no idea how good it was, but people were laughing at least at the level of recognition of what I was attempting, so I guess it was okay).  It helped that I had just watched the debate before heading to the show, so I had just heard the President’s voice earlier that evening.

All of this is just to point out that there are some performers who are great at impressions – people who can really disappear into the voice and mannerisms of the person they’re trying to mimic.  People who have worked incredibly hard at what they’re doing.

I am not one of those people.

But!  It was yet another reminder of the simplicity of improv.  Despite all the rules, all the technique, all the things that we learn.  Committing to a fun idea will always lead to laughs.