Until a couple of weeks ago you would find me sitting in an improv class every Saturday.  That changed when our 501 class didn’t make.  Apparently, a class of two isn’t quite enough.  Our original 101 class, which started with 16 people had dwindled down to 3 by the time we reached 401.  We were lucky to have several of the local house performers volunteer to take the class along with us so we could still have that class.  Then finally we were left with only 2.   This meant I had a very unwelcome calendar of free summer weekends until a note appeared in my mailbox from a classmate Friday evening (the other 1 of the 2 to have signed-up for 501) which read, “free or deeply discounted classes through another theater, contact them for information” and that class happened to be on Saturdays at the exact same time as my original classes.  It was also only a few blocks away from the original theater; it couldn’t be more perfect.  Plus, it sounded like they needed me.  The class might not make if I didn’t show up! It would be wrong not to help!

What I love about improv and why I keep coming back – you start with nothing and from that nothing you work to create something.  The only props you have are possibly a few metal chairs.  You then work to discover who you are, what you’re doing and where you’re at.  I can look back at the stage and remember when it was a zoo or a gymnasium for monsters or a prison cell.  As our new instructor said yesterday, “it’s improv, we can put a Starbucks on the moon or drive a Bentley through the center of the world if we want to.” And I have to admit I’m addicted to it, which is why I went from being completely bummed about our classes not making and then completed excited by the idea that this new class appeared at the exact right time.

Yesterday, I watched as the stage moved from a computer store filled with tech hungry zombies, a ride through the Australian outback where one of the passengers had clearly forgotten his sunscreen on his walk about, a tense chess tournament, an  apartment with a very angry and upset drunk and a plane with an obnoxiously overly chipper passenger (yours truly).

So, for this Saturday, the creative thing I did was going to improv in a new space with new people and a great new instructor.  As for Sunday, I wrote about it. (And I changed the look of the blog, because I can and I use my powers for evil or something like that, but mostly because I can.)