via Improv Shop's Facebook page
Two of the recurring resolutions on many a list every year is to “try something new,” and “save money.” The Improv Shop is offering you the chance to do both on New Year’s Eve at their annual party. Come to their spot on Euclid beginning at 8 p.m. for a cover-free night of dancing and socializing (drinks can be purchased at the open bar) with members and friends of the greater improv community.
“We don’t actually do any shows during our New Year’s Eve party, it’s all just an opportunity for everybody in the improv community and any friends of the improv community to come out and celebrate the New Year with us,” says Andy Sloey, general manager of The Improv Shop. As he said, the night is not necessarily a meet and greet, but if you’ve had the thought of learning more about this special art form and maybe even taking a class, this is the night to come out of your house and chat up an in-the-flesh improviser.
Sloey himself is a two-decade vet of this special form of performance, made popular by the stars of Saturday Night Live, MAD-TV and other notable shows.
“I first got into it mostly in theater classes in junior high and high school and watching a lot of Whose Line Is It Anyway? One of my friends had a lot of WLIIAW on VHS tape, like the old English one, so I used to watch that a lot, and I was a theater kid, so I did a lot in class,” he remembers. “It just became a passion early on.” The Improv Shop itself had its own impromptu beginnings back in 2009, when founder “Kevin McKernan posted an ad on Craigslist and got a class of people together who wanted to take classes in long-form improv... and it just kind of ballooned from there to where we were performing at bars and we would teach classes at bars,” Sloey remembers.
In this interview, Sloey shares his thoughts on improv as a team effort, coming out of your shell (or, for some, getting back in), and why you should think seriously about adding improv to your list of New Year’s Resolutions.
What makes a good improviser?
What I think makes good improvisers is that they are truthful and honest and vulnerable. That’s where we mostly come from when we’re training people to be improvisers. When they’re up on the stage we want them to be 100 percent themselves, because they have very interesting things to say, they have very interesting points of view, they have very interesting emotional points of view about a wide range of different content. So what improv then does is, if you’re in a shell, it pulls you out of your shell. If you’re the person at the party that no one can get a word in edgewise, it teaches listening, so that you might shut your mouth once in awhile, and listen to the others around you and value the other people around you.
That’s the other great thing about it, is that it’s an ensemble-based art form, so it’s not one person calling the shots. It’s an entire team of improvisers on stage together where no one is leading—the entire group is leading. So it forces you to respect others in your group and listen to them. Because if you don’t, then you’re onstage with a group of people in front of an audience and you’re not listening to each other, you’re just arguing each other, and it’s not entertaining and it’s not fun to watch, and it’s not fun for you and it’s not fun for the audience. Having that audience there is the trial by fire—if you are fusing the core tenants of improv, which is agreement and listening and building off of one another’s ideas, you’ll have a much better time.
If you think about it, you have to do improv in some form every day, because you have to go through life and deal with each and every situation in the moment as it comes to you. What are your thoughts on that?
I’ve heard a lot of testimonials from people after taking classes with us or from taking classes in general is that they find their day-to-day interactions with other people around them to be [better]. They’re a lot less worried, they’re more willing to put forward ideas that they may have been uncomfortable putting forward in the past through the fear of being judged. So it makes people more confident and willing to put themselves out there, which I think is awesome.
So is there a chance that there just might be a breakout improv show at the party on Saturday?
[Laughs.] There’s always the chance! But usually the type of improv that’s happening that night is everyday life improv. People will be meeting new people, people will be dancing with people they’ve never danced with before. It’s more of the real life improv that night.
Why take a chance on Improv?
It helps you navigate your life easier. You’ll gain confidence, you’ll gain the ability to speak in front of other people, and you won’t worry about failing as much. That’s something we do all the time on the improv stage is we fail, and we learn from improv that these failings aren’t really failures. Everything that we do onstage is used. It’s one art form and a skill set that goes into that art form, but then it can expand out to impact your life in so many different ways from your working life with coworkers to your personal life with people around you. One thing that everybody shares is that we have other people in our life around us, and I truly think that improv practicing also makes it easier for you to move through your day socially with other people.
The Improv Shop is located at 510 North Euclid; note that they will be moving to the Grove this spring (more on that via The Riverfront Times). For all the info on Saturday's NYE event, visit the Facebook event page.
