Shad Kunkle is an improviser, actor, teacher, and comedian. He has been playing with the iO Harold team Carl and The Passions for 20 years, he toured with Second City and understudied the Main Stage. We talked to him about the importance of focusing on the other person, being selfless as an improv coach/director, and how he uses short form to help his long form.

As actors and improvisers, we deal with rejection on a regular basis. And even though I’ve been improvising and auditioning for a really long time, it’s still hard to not to take rejection personally, because I am still looking for outside things to put a big stamp of approval on my forehead.

When I audition for something and I don't get it, I say to myself that I am loser and I want to blame the script; the director; the reader; the casting director; my wife, Lauren; our cat, Coco; the traffic; the economy; the state of Illinois; and the state of the world for me not getting the part. Really, I am angry and full of shame, but I mask it as blame. Blame is drug I use to medicate my real feelings, which are hurt and sadness.

Last week my daughter, Betsy, turned two years old. She is now in the "I only want Mommy for everything” stage. I only want Mama to put me in my high chair, get me my yogurt, change my diaper. "No Dada, only Mama." The other day she got so angry at me in the kitchen when I tried to pick her up that she started physically pushing my legs and saying "No, Mama! No, Mama!"

If I am honest about my feelings, I felt a little angry, but mostly hurt and sad. I talked about how I was feeling with Lauren, some of my friends, in group therapy and in every 12-step program in the state of Illinois.

But no matter how much I talked about it, it still stung, and what I found interesting is that I did not blame her for “making” me feel angry and hurt. And even more surprising, I had compassion for myself, unlike how I typically feel after I fail an audition. Oh believe me, I still had my feelings. In fact, I still have some left over from a week ago, but I realize Betsy has nothing to with my feelings, and I also realize I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s really hard to take rejection personally coming from a toddler.

What I finally realized was that my feelings were not about Betsy. They were about the rejection I have experienced in the past. For me, it was rejection lite, all the taste of rejection without the shame.

This was something totally something new for me. Could I have my feelings of hurt, sadness and anger and not make it anyone's fault, especially mine? Could my two-year-old daughter actually be teaching me something about rejection in my career? That if I don't get something, there is a 99 percent chance it is not about me or my talent. And that I don't have to take rejection personally and use it to berate myself for living.

If I’m right about this, my daughter is lucky, because I won’t have to waste so much time blaming others when things don’t go right, and that means she’s going to have a lot more time to play with her Dad.

This summer, give yourself the gift of great scene work! Sign up for one of Jimmy's Summer Intensives, happening July 14-15, July 28-29 and Aug. 11-12. Sign up today!

Todd Milliner is one of the executive producers on CNN's original series, "The History of Comedy." He has produced such shows as "Hot In Cleveland," "Hollywood Game Night" and "Grimm." We talk to him about taking improv classes at The Annoyance back in the '90s, how "Yes, And..." works in L.A., and why it is important for people in improv to know the history of comedy.

Last Sunday, during my Jimmy & Johnnie show at Second City, John Hildreth and I invited Joe Bill, a well-known improviser and teacher in Chicago, to play with us as our special guest.

John and I have been playing together for almost seven years, but I have known Joe much longer, from my days at The Annoyance Theater. All three of us come from the same generation, and there is comfort in that for me these days. The show went really well. It was slow and dark, even a little deeper then John and I usually play, which is always a good thing.

And after the show ended and we took some pictures, I drove home thinking about how grateful I am to get to play with such great human beings who have become such an important part of the fabric of my life.

I realized that one of the reasons John, Joe and I had such a great show is because we have all played with each other for so long, and we all have a deep respect for one another. And those two ingredients form a foundation of trust that makes great improv happen.

This is not how I always viewed performing. In fact, when I was in my early 20s and I was performing on teams at iO and the Annoyance, and in an independent group called Jazz Freddy, I was so focused on trying to go somewhere that I never really appreciated the people I played with.

I was threatened and jealous by the good players and annoyed by the bad ones. I criticized all of them, regardless of talent. I was so full of judgement on stage that it killed any chance of being in the moment.

Kind of important if you are improvising.

I thought I was lot better than I really was.

I periodically did good work because I was fortunate enough to work people who were better than I was. But back then, I didn’t realize that you always have an opportunity to learn from anyone you play with. I was too filled with resentments to take advantage of those opportunities.

Over the years, I have changed, both on stage and off. I am a better improviser and much easier to be around. Today, I have deeper appreciation for the people I started out with. There is a bond there that always feels like we grew up in the same family.

If you are a younger improviser, my words of wisdom to you are this: Take time to appreciate the people you are playing with today. Spend time really connecting with each other – both as friends and as improvisers. Enjoy each other and laugh. Don’t worry about who you think is better or worse than you are, or where you are going. Because really, it is the people you meet along your journey who will matter in the end.

Make your summer memorable! Sign up for Jimmy's Art of Slow Comedy Level 2 class starting July 11, or one of his weekend summer intensives July 14-15, July 28-29 or Aug. 11-12.

I have a good friend who is an accomplished singer and actor who recently got a great callback for a play she auditioned for. She put a lot effort into the audition and she was excited about it, but a couple of days before the callback, she started to doubt whether she really wanted the part.

"I don’t know. Maybe I don’t really want to be in this show after all,” she told me. “I mean, it’s during the winter. Maybe I won’t want to drive to the theater in the snow. Maybe I’ll want to go to Florida at that time."

To me, this makes perfect sense. I can totally relate to wanting to back out of something even though she hadn’t even been offered the part yet. In my experience, the harder you work for something and the closer you come to achieving it, the more you want to talk yourself out of it.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten a call back for films, TV shows and commercials where I don’t even want to show up because I start telling myself that the process will be inconvenient for me. I’ll say to myself, “Ugh, why am I even going on this? They’re shooting in Atlanta, and I don’t want to go to Atlanta,” or “Maybe I shouldn’t even go to this callback. They’re looking for a chef, and I can’t play a chef.”

Sounds convincing, doesn’t it?

I have to constantly remind myself that the voice in my head that is telling me to quit is not the voice of my better self; it’s the voice of my inner critic. And that voice really does not belong to me. Maybe it belongs to your parents or to a teacher or a sibling that put you down. The hard part is we are convinced that that voice is really looking out for us. We think those doubts are our intuition. But let me tell you, the voice that is doubting yourself is not a voice that should be trusted.

Luckily, my friend did the thing that your inner critic hates the most, and that is to talk to other people about it. Your inner critic wants you to keep the secret to yourself so that you have better chance of not showing up for your big break. And when you talk to other people, they will remind you of what your true goals are.

Your inner critic will do anything to make you think that quitting is not only a good idea, but that you came up with it.

Of course if you really want to piss off your inner critic off, then keep going after something big. It will feel threatened. It will start kicking and screaming. It is like a trained actor who will try different tactics to achieve his wants in the scene.

My inner critic has become very clever over the years. Usually, when I am about to cross the finish line of something, my inner critic shows up as apathy. In this very convincing and concerned voice it will say, "That’s not really important to you; you really don't want that." Sometimes I can laugh at it. Sometimes I lash out, but most of the time it’s like an uninvited party guest who is there to ruin my birthday.

I think I have written about this before -- we think that that when we reach our goals, like being cast in a movie or in a play or on an improv team, that we will be jumping for joy. That has not been my experience. For me, when I achieve something, my first response is never joy. It’s usually fear followed by dread with a little doom mixed in.

Can I stop the inner critic voice in my head? No way, I cannot. It’s too powerful.

But what I can do is reframe it. I can be aware that the bigger the opportunity, the louder the voice will be in my head telling me to quit or give up. Sometimes today I look at it as a highway sign that says Success Town is four miles away. I have come to accept that is how my mind works.

Take your improv to new heights this summer! Spots are still available in Jimmy's Art of Slow Comedy Level 2 class starting July 11, and his summer intensives July 14-15, July 28-29, and Aug. 11-12. Sign up today!

Andel Sudik is an incredible improviser and teacher. She has performed all over the United States with The Second City Touring Company and in Europe with Boom Chicago, and she travels the world improvising and teaching. We talked to her about how she creates her wonderful characters on stage, what she learned about herself after being fired from the Second City ETC cast, and auditioning for Saturday Night Live.

Jimmy Pennington is one of the Annoyance Theater's most popular improv teachers. He has performed in lots of shows there, including Co-ed Prison Sluts, and is currently in Fish Bowl on Thursday nights. We talked him about how to "get out of your head" when you are improvising, how to improvise from the character versus from the scene, and the importance of doing the projects you love.

If you haven't heard, improv training has become quite popular in the corporate world. Thank God. It seems lately every book on business, sales and presentations I pick up has a chapter or two on the power of improv.

Today, when I go into a company or organization to teach improv, most people are not only familiar with it, some even know "yes, and..." If you’re working with a group of 20 to 25 people, it’s not uncommon that at least one or two of them have actually taken an improv class.

So, what is it that makes improv training so beneficial for people who work in organizations or businesses? The benefits are almost endless, but here are four of the best things that businesses can get out of improv training:

  1. Encouraging People to Play
    Play is still a hard sell for corporations. It’s difficult for them to measure the value of play, but I think encouraging people to play is one of the most valuable benefits for any organization on so many different levels.Play is essential to learning. Studies have shown that people can learn more when they are having fun, so encouraging people to play helps them retain more information. Having fun makes learning come easier and lessons stick longer.

    Also, play creates a lasting bond among the participants, something that cannot be achieved through a lecture, a PowerPoint presentation or a high-priced motivational speaker. Improv training occurs through doing, which creates this thing that has been a buzzword for years – team building. Since improv is at its core experiential learning, participants actually experience teambuilding when they playing improv warm up games and exercises.

    That is why companies are so eager to sponsor softball and volleyball teams for their employees. Sports is the perfect analogy for improv, because when you play a sport, you are playing a game with a specific set a rules that everyone has agreed to. The difference between improv and a sport, however, is that everyone can do it – you don’t have to be the best hitter or base runner to feel like you’re part of the group. Yes, some people are naturally better than others at improv, too, but everyone seems to have a moment when they make a contribution.

    I’ve been teaching, directing and doing improv training for more than 25 years, and my personal data supports that nothing will bond a group of people faster and bring out to their best potential better than hours of organized play. It’s like magic, especially in a corporate setting where no one is looking to get hired by Saturday Night Live. I have rarely seen it fail.

  1. Encouraging Listening
    A good salesman listens far more than he talks.A great leader says very little to get so much out of her people.

    An incredible presentation is constantly adapting to the temperature of the room.

    All of this is listening. Not only to the words, but to the body language, to the tone, to the energy of the room. Improv forces you to listen in a totally new way, one that screws with our usually “pre-planned listening” way of being. You know what I am talking about. Sarah goes to Ron cubicle's with an idea she has and as she explains it to him, Ron thinks he’s listening, he's even nodding his head, but the truth is he has already planned out what he’s going to say two minutes ago and can hardly wait to interrupt her with his brilliance. He is not in the moment. He cannot understand why he is never on the same page with her.

    This is how most of us listen, especially at our jobs when we are dealing with fear, politics and personalities.

    I really think the bottom line in any field, heck, in life, is we all want to be heard. We all want to be listened to. It makes us feel good. It makes us more productive. It makes us better people to be around. And improv is a great way of teaching how to do just that.

  1. Encouraging People to Say "Yes, and..."
    Here's the most popular concept of improv, the one that gets all the attention. If you have not heard of it, let me explain.When we are doing improv on stage we want to immediately accept whatever the other actor is saying and then add to it.

    For example, Lauren and I are on stage improvising. We are pretending that we are in the kitchen and it’s breakfast time. If Lauren says, "I could really go for some eggs this morning," as an improviser, I must say "yes" to that information and then add to it. I can’t say that we’re not in the kitchen and we don’t have eggs. Instead, I accept what she has said and add a specific piece of information. I could say: "Great, I am going to whip you up the best Denver omelette you have ever had."

    By saying yes, I am acknowledging Lauren's idea and in the process, building support and trust. My guess is by me accepting her idea, Lauren feels listened to and heard. And most important, we are learning to collaborate. We are learning to build off of the first idea and add something to it instead of saying no.

    No is the killer of creativity. It will crush the soul of innovation. It's a slow and silent death that is happening in far too many organizations today.

    Jenny has great ideas. She is young, smart and enthusiastic. She is one of those people who have hundreds of ideas and most of them are good. She goes to her manager, Ken, with one of her ideas the first week she is working at the company and he says, "No, it can't be done," or "Well, things aren’t done like that here." There are hundreds of ways to say no.

    Jenny is persistent. Each week she keeps going to Ken’s office with a new and brilliant idea. But Ken keeps finding different ways to say no Jenny's ideas. Guess what happens next? Jenny gives up. She stops going to Ken with any of her ideas.

    There are only so many times we can hear no before we get the hint and we give up. We say, “What’s the point?” And our ideas die and morale goes down because of it. Why? Because even more than earning money, what people really want out of their job is to feel like they are making a contribution. They want to feel appreciated and have a job that is fulfilling. The fastest way to take that away is continue to say big fat “No’s”. The funny thing about “yes, and…” is that corporations are always looking at the bottom line, and if they started saying yes to more people’s ideas, it may actually lead to an even more productive work environment. Just saying.

    I am realistic about the use of "Yes, and..." in organizations. There are specific situations where it doesn’t apply. I get it. But there are a lot of areas where it can be applied and can significantly change a company’s culture.

    If corporations used “Yes, and…” more in brainstorming sessions or for problem solving or for rehearsing for presentations, I think they would be far more creative and even more successful.

    The challenge is that we have all been wired to say no at such an early age. Most of the time, “no” is the safest answer, but it also can be the most dangerous one.

    The one thing I try to get across to people in my corporate improv trainings is that when it comes to ideas, quality starts with quantity. Say you are in a brainstorming session, you want to yes to every idea that’s thrown out, even the dumb ones, the impossible ones, and especially the funny ones. It never hurts to add a little levity to the seriousness of a brainstorming session, especially before lunch.

    Now you have 31 ideas up on the white board; 80 percent of them are ridiculous, unrealistic or just plain suck. But as you stare at the board, something will come to the group. Someone will realize that if you combine idea No. 4 and No. 23 you would have brilliance. Pure Genius. A Million Dollar idea.

    And there is no way in hell that life changing idea would have happened without the other 29 crappy ideas up on that white board.

  1. Enhancing Role Playing
    Role playing has become the new buzz word in cooperate training. And yes, it is very effective. If you are lucky and you have some outgoing, Type A personalities who are not afraid to jump up and do some role playing in front of their peers, it can be really useful. But if you don't, you may run into some trouble. Sometimes in role playing situations, participants feel scared, self-conscience and vulnerable. Doing improv exercises and games prior to the role play exercises can change that experience from making people feel like they’re put on the spot to making them feel supported, which makes more people open to participating in the role playing exercises.

Vernon Mina teaches and performs at The Annoyance Theater in Chicago where he is currently in Trigger Happy directed by Mick Napier. He also performs with the Second City Touring Company and has previously understudied for Second City’s ETC. We talked to him about the Annoyance style of improv, diversity in improv in Chicago and auditioning for Saturday Night Live.

I am a slow learner. And I’m conflicted about learning new things: My soul loves to learn while my ego hates it.

Last week, I wrote and performed a new solo piece for a storytelling night called Louder Than a Mom. It was about when I was growing up and we’d go out to dinner as a family and my mom would ruin it by embarrassing us.

The last time I did Louder Than a Mom, I felt I could have been better prepared. So this time, I really wanted to do a good job.

I was willing to put in the work, which meant doing things differently.

So, I found an open mic in my neighborhood in the back room of an Irish bar to try out the piece before going up at Louder Than a Mom.

The day of the open mic, I had the thought all day of blowing the open mic off, but I made the mistake of calling my friend Darryl, who talked me into going.

Walking in, I felt as terrified as when I did when I was 18, walking into my first improv class. By the time I got up there to do my piece, there were only about eight people left sitting in the audience in folded wooden chairs. I didn’t care. I told my story, and because I didn’t have it timed out, I had to rush the ending.

It was far from perfect, but I got a sense of what worked and what needed to be cut from the story for Louder Than a Mom. More importantly, I was proud that I did not bail on myself, a habit I’ve had since I was a kid.

A week later, I was on the stage at Louder Than a Mom, and the audience was packed and my performance went really well. The piece still needs work, but it was a huge improvement over the open mic.

I remember interviewing Mike Birbiglia for an episode of Improv Nerd and he commented on why creating a one-person show takes so much time. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what he meant. But now I do.

Writing is its own process. It’s pen to paper. It is controlled. But then when you take what you’ve written and put it up in front of an audience it takes on a life of its own, and hopefully, if you’re lucky, you will lose control of it.

When you perform something you’ve written, it shows you things you didn’t know weren’t on the paper. It will surprise you. It is exciting and scary, and mostly it is messy.

I had forgotten that you can’t find your authentic voice without putting it up in front of people -- that is where the courage comes in.

When you’re writing, very few people see your rough drafts. But when you’re doing solo work, hundreds of people see your rough drafts as you work out what the story is really supposed to be.

Recently I read a great quote from Micheal Keaton that he said during a commencement speech at Kent State University that summed up what I went through perfectly: "You have to take risks. Put yourself on the line. Don't be afraid to look foolish, makes mistakes, take chances. It is one of the best things you can do. And what that will lead to is self-discovery, and it will lead you back to your natural, authentic self. And I really encourage you as you get older to go back to who you were when you were a kid, because that was the most authentic you there has been."

What will make you stand out is your authentic self. That is the thing that will attract people and opportunities to you like magnets. And to get there, you must look foolish and make mistakes, which as improvisers we get, but when I do anything outside of the realm of improv, I have to be reminded of. And that’s why I’m such a s-l-o-w l-e-a-r-n-e-r.

This summer, give yourself the gift of play! Sign up for one of Jimmy's Art of Slow Comedy Summer Intensives to learn how to play in a new way. Only $229 if you sign up by June 30!