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March 8, 2016
How to Improve Your Side Coaching

If you’re an improv teacher, you’re probably familiar with the concept of side coaching, where you make subtle comments to your students while they are doing a scene to give them some direction. The concept of side coaching is to help your student see something they can’t see in the moment. Sounds easy, right? But […]

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March 1, 2016
Why We Have to Keep Learning

Let me tell you something that drives me nuts. A person does improv for five or six years and starts getting good at, gets on Harold team, maybe two, and he is killing it. Naturally, he wants more from his the career, which means he would like to get paid. So he saves up enough […]

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February 24, 2016
How Improv Workshops Can Help a Corporation Improve

Years ago when I first started teaching corporate improv workshops, other improvisers would give me crap saying I was selling out. Wow, have times changed. Today, corporate improv workshops are more popular than ever. And guess what? I still love teaching them, because I believe the concepts of improv are not just great on stage, […]

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February 18, 2016
How to Deal With Uncomfortable Situations in an Improv Class

There has been a lot of discussion in improv lately about classes where students (women in particular) don’t feel safe. And many people who teach improv are now thinking about what the best way is to handle these kinds of situations in class. Recently, Jay Sukow, who teaches improv classes in Los Angeles, received a […]

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February 10, 2016
5 Things To Make You More Creative

Recently, I read a wonderful article by Madeline Wolfson about award-winning playwright, actor, and sometimes improviser Tracy Letts. In it, he gave 10 pieces advice on how to live a more creative life. I liked it so much, I have included the link. Now, I’m no Tracy Letts, but I like to think I’m a […]

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February 3, 2016
6 Tips to Being a Better Improv Teacher

A lot more people are teaching improv these days than ever before. I could not be more excited about how many people are going into this amazing profession, and I also know that there aren’t many places where you can get advice on how to be a good improv teacher. So Jay Sukow, a former […]

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January 27, 2016
How Improv Inspired Free Hugs Day

I first met Paul Normandin in an workshop I was teaching at the Oklahoma Improv Festival, and months later I got to work with him again in Austin at the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. I always like seeing him. He's warm and friendly, and he is always a good reminder about how big the […]

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January 19, 2016
My Advice for Someone Starting Out in Improv Today

At the end of every Improv Nerd podcast, I ask the guest, “What is one piece of advice you would give someone starting out in improv today?” Often when I go out of town to teach a workshop, a very smart student who listens to the podcast will ask me the same question. My answer […]

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January 13, 2016
The Best Improv Books of 2015

Last year we saw a slew of new books on improvisation come out, and I wanted to share with you four of them that I especially liked. As you know, typically I write this blog a couple weeks before Christmas so you can ask for them from Santa, but with Lauren pregnant and the chaos of the […]

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January 6, 2016
The One Thing To Make You a Better Improviser

If you have been improvising for a while, you may start to get on autopilot when it comes time to doing shows. (I know I do). You get into the habit of rushing to the theater or bar, barely making your call time and then throwing your body on stage. When it's all over, you wonder, […]

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