A mysterious new project…

I’ll admit, it was a bit of a mysterious announcement.

Recently I offered a free improv workshop in a Facebook post. Not very peculiar, so far.

The description was deliberately vague: ‘We will play scenes, I will give you feedback’. A little mysterious.

Also, the prerequisite was: participants could NOT have taken classes with me before. Only improvisers new to me were allowed in. More mystery.

Lastly, I was recording the entire workshop so I had them sign a quitclaim. Before knowing what it was about.

Curiosity. Question marks. Mystery!

When the workshop started, the participants kept asking: what is this all for?

“Eh… I cannot tell you. Yet.

I will though. Trust me. “ (She said, the teacher that none of them had met before…)

Luckily, all of these Amsterdam players were nothing but lovely. And trusted me on my word.

After a few scenes, I let the cat out of the bag. I was recording their scenes plus the feedback for a new course ‘How to be more positive’. In it, I help improvisers play and teach more positive scenes.

I kept it a mystery so that I wouldn’t prime them into only playing overly positive scenes (because that is ugly too).

When I rewatched the recording of the scenes, I realized again how strong the pull towards negativity is. No matter if they knew the skill we were working on, or not. This was great for the purpose of the recording!

(Did it feel counterintuitive to be excited when the scene went into conflict? Yes, it totally did! But those moments did create the best video material.)

Luckily, these players also showed how well they could reflect on their improv, how easily they could make more positive scene choices, and how they were unafraid to share their process with a group of strangers, a new teacher, and 2 cameras.

How did the ‘mystery’ end? A few of their scenes are now part of the module ‘How to be more positive when you teach’. That looks something like this:

First step: you see a video with me talking about more positive improv teaching.

Second, you see a video of an actual improvised scene by 2 players.

Third, I ask what you would have done / said / side coached as a teacher.

Fourth, you see a video of what I -as a teacher- did and another try of the same scene.

It was an unusual, peculiar idea to record actual improvised scenes for an online course. But it turned out to be an absolute goldmine of content. I can highly recommend it.

By the way…

In case you are interested in taking this course How to be more positive (and get another 19 online courses from international trainers in that same package), click here to check out the Improv Learning Center!