An improviser is a true artist. And to be a true artist, it takes true humility. It takes more humility to be on stage than ego. When I improvise from my ego, and I still do sometimes, it's “Get out of the way, I am the best." And "I am the best" never leads to getting better. […]
If you want to get better at your art, you have to constantly stay open to learning. This has not always come easily for me. After a couple of years of improv classes, I thought I had it all figured out. I was done with classes. I was more interested in the results than in getting better. But […]
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 […]
We recently held a little contest to win a free spot in my upcoming workshop. We asked improvisers to tell us about a time that they had bombed, and what they learned from it. Like every improviser, I've had more than my share of shows where I have bombed. I have not only bombed on stage, […]
Growing up as a fat, awkward and insecure teenager, I had a dream of performing stand-up comedy. Over the last 33 years, I’ve gotten sidetracked from that by this thing called improvising. But recently I had been so burnt out on teaching improv that I knew I had to get back to doing something that […]