First 50 Days

Okay, I know I just was away from the office for several days, but I thought I still needed to do this.  Keith Johnstone, one of the giants of our particular style of improv (short-form / game-based), was in Chicago to teach a 3 day workshop.  I opted to take it.

I could write pages on this experience, but here's the lesson:  if you're managing in a creative organization, take time to recharge your own creative batteries.  Johnstone's words and exercises gave me pages of ideas to bring back to our ensemble.  Yes, I lost 2-3 days of productivity, but I have material for 3 months of rehearsals, as well as a whole new (to me) way of looking at our show.

Now, I knew "about" Johnstone.  I had read his classic, Impro, and had leafed through Impro for Storytellers.  But, without direct experience of his concepts, I always held them on the periphery of what I learned in Chicago improv classes.  There's a lot that improvisers of all stripes could learn from this guy. 

(One warning if he comes back to the states to teach again:  he really loves having a couch on stage. He's going to mention it like 15 times a day.  But that's a small price to pay to be in the presence of genius... couch loving genius.)

Big thanks to Colleen Laliberte and skwalkingheads.com for bringing Keith to Chi-town!