I Want to Quit Improv
If you are anything like me and you suffer any kind of disappointment in your improv career, you want to quit. Immediately. Change your phone number. Move out of state. Go into the witness protection program.
I am there right now. I suffered a big blow to my ego last week, and now I am struggling to keep it together -- teetering between shame and wanting to sleep. I want to completely give up on improv: stop performing, stop teaching, stop doing Improv Nerd, stop writing this stupid blog because all I can think is “What is the point?”
And there is nothing more that I'd rather do right now than to blame -- blame a person, a place, an institution or whomever for my problems and make them the reason that I throw it all away.
I see this happen all the time with improvisers here in Chicago, really talented improvisers who don't get hired at Second City or don't make a team, or their team gets broken up at iO and they end up quitting. And when you run into them a few years later at Starbucks they have a vacant look in their eyes and tell you the same sad story: "Second City didn’t hire me” or “Charna broke up our team."
And the story always ends the same: They don't improvise anymore, and instead they now sell copiers or work for a commercial real estate office out by O'Hare Airport. They’re miserable because they quit their dreams, and worst of all, they’re still bitter because all this time they’ve been blaming it on someone else.
I have been doing this my whole life. If a theater wasn't going to reject me, I would do it myself. I quit doing my one-man show I’m 27 and I Still Live At Home and Sell Office Supplies because they weren’t treating me with the respect I thought I deserved. I quit doing godshow at Second City’s e.t.c. because I thought they weren't treating me with the respect I deserved. And I left the Annoyance for the same reason.
It was always the same. I quit with a resentment because I would rather be a victim than be a success.
I didn’t realize it, but by quitting, I could stay small, and by blaming others, I could avoid taking responsibility for my own life.
Today, I’m beginning to realize that all of the times I quit something, it was never someone else’s fault. Same thing when I didn't get hired or my team got broken up. It was me who was stopping myself, not any person, place or institution. There is a lot of rejection in this business, and we need to learn how to accept rejection and get back up again. That being said I am still struggling with moving forward after my big blow to my ego.
God willing, I am bottoming out on this because I am tired of blaming the Charnas or the Second Cities or anyone else that I can conveniently use as an excuse to call it quits. I am the only person standing in my own way.
I wish I could tell you that knowing this makes it easier to keep going or makes the feelings of wanting to quit less intense, but they’re not. But there is hope.
This morning I yelled at my wonderful and supportive wife, Lauren: "I DO want to push forward, I am just having a hard time!"
And I am, but in the moment I was willing to fight for myself, and it surprised me. I don't know how I am going to push forward, I really don't, but I know one thing: I cannot do it alone, and as you know, I will keep you updated on my progress. Thanks for all your support.
This is beautiful. Thank you for saying out loud something so large and internally horrible. Very relatable.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Great post, Jimmy! Do not quit! You were the most inspirational improv teacher I have ever had. The work you got out of your students was by far the most honest and funny and real and heartfelt stuff I had ever seen. You teach actors how to be human and accept and use their faults in a beautiful way. Your honesty and vulnerability make you an invaluable asset to the Chicago improv community. All in all, you're doing great work.
Hey Jimmy! I love that you spoke your mind on the blog. That is important because you need to see all the great people who you have touched with your teaching. It's been 8 years since I was in Chicago studying/performing improv and the class that I took from you the art of slow comedy was hands down one of my favorites. The teaching was great, the improv was fun, but the personable responses and feedback that I received from you were priceless! Your a great Man, keep rocking it out and moving forward!
I so get this. I wish I had no idea what you were talking about, but I get it. please keep at it; if you can't quit, neither can I. Sending you laughter and company in the sadness.
Jimmy - I find your humility inspiring and compelling... it lets me and so many others know that we're not alone. I'm actually not part of the improv community at all.... I'm a semi-pro live musician from Cincinnati that happened to find myself in the audience of the Charna Halpern episode of Improv Nerd in late 2012, and I've been listening to the podcast ever since.
I greatly appreciate the level of candor that I rarely see expressed publicly in the music community here, probably for fear of harming business relationships or seeming "bitchy" or high-maintenance. I find so many parallels to my own experience that I am always intrigued. Your work is outstanding! Just wanted you to hear it one more time.
I feel this way all of the time. I remember your post a few months ago about feeling burnt out. It seemed to align with my feeling of being burnt out, at the same time. Please keep posting when you feel this way, and know you aren't alone! You are one of the go-to improvisors and knowing that you feel this way too is actually a great way to connect with your students. That is why people want to study with you. This is real. You don't always feel great about improv, and that is actually great. By posting about your real feelings it lets all of us know that as performers, it isn't going to be great 100 percent of the time! When you do suffer those ego blows, it makes the great performances all the better. Keep going, Jimmy. You are inspiring, and Improv Nerd has helped me to keep going with my dream. I know you aren't particularly fond of LA, but please come back and teach us again. We would really like it.
I'm facing a similar battle with my performance work. Granted, it's not improv but it's close. It's also my primary income; if I quit it, I'll need to make a living from something I love less.
I think we want to quit to see who would notice that we're gone. A way of saying to 'the world' "I'm too good for this! No see what it's like without me!". And maybe we hope that someone will come along invite us back. A bit like faking your funeral to hear what your eulogies would be like.
Fact is, it doesn't work that way. And it we continue to believe it does, we're going to be even more disappointed.
It can only get better as long as you keep persevering, and make every effort to get onto stage. Because that's where it makes sense.
You just made the list of my top 3 all-time-greatest live performances: "The Sisters Rosensweig" featuring Madeline Kahn at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, "Doubt" featuring Cherry Jones at the LaSalle Bank Theatre, and "Improv Nerd" featuring Jimmy Carrane & Dan Bakkedahl at Stage 773.
Sometimes when you go so high, the crash is severe. You wonder about feeling locked out of the Kingdom Of Heaven, whatever the Kingdom Of Heaven happens to be for you. Maybe it's performing as a featured player for SNL. Maybe it's performing as a main stage act for Lollapalooza. Maybe it's changing what it actually means to be the unifier of the people of god, like Pope Francis.
If you want to quit, Jimmy, I think quitting is a great choice. More than anything else, it's a choice. Sometimes you have to let go. Maybe you come back to it. Maybe you don't.
By the way, in all honesty, I'm not sure anything I'm saying here is helpful. So I apologize if it's not. Please know, my intention is to be helpful. But maybe I'm naive.
Okay, definitely I'm naive. All I can do is echo these insightful words: Are You Open To Feedback?
Anyone who can write so nakedly and honestly about themselves, and with such a high degree of eloquence and sensitivity, is obviously an uncommon talent. Your words are the words of many; at times they have been my words. You don't think I've felt passed over by, for instance, Steppenwolf? 12 shows between 1992-2006 and experience with almost every single ensemble member and when they add to the company they never add me. No matter, I try and work elsewhere; after all, it's the work that's important, not where I do it. As you so astutely point out, playing the victim is easy. Like most easy things, it's also weak. It is easier to deal with defeat than success, particularly if in any way your field is comedy (and this includes actors).
In short, you've given yourself the best advice possible which is, in essence, "Don't Stay Small. Be big. Dream big. Act big. You have absolutely nothing to lose either way."
Love ya, Jimmy, but just as importantly - I believe in you. It's always our funniest people who have the best and most frequent access to darkness. Go ahead and go there, that's where we get a lot of the funny from, that darkness; just don't live there.
Your ego is not running the show anymore.
My experience of the feelings and thoughts you describe here is familiar and that I am dying. Your authentic self is starting to grow beyond your ego. Like on the El when two trains run side by side and then you perceive you are going backwards. You're not.
Thank you for recording this. I feel your pain and I'mma gonna let it go.
Thanks for writing this, Jimmy. This really spoke to me today and was something I needed. I've been an improviser for as long as I can remember. I've been doing the same thing that you mentioned! Only recently have I realized that I have to fight for myself and stop blaming others for "not picking me". It's hard work. It's a practice, and it takes time and patience to keep doing your best work. But, I think it's worth it. I hope you think so, too.
Jimmy, this installment speaks directly to me.
A couple of thoughts….. As one who has quit on more than one occasion, I've always found my way back. The reasons why I quit were many. Not getting hired. Bad vibes. And just common garden variety burnout. I always found a way back, because improv filled my soul.
The truly difficult thing that I learned was that each time I "quit", some kind of bitterness was involved. My takeaway: bitterness and art do not mike for good bedfellows. The other emotions, anger, sadness even jealousy (if used right) are fine. But bitterness always leads to artistic squalor.
Jimmy: Your words resonate with me. I have been there, done that. But one day I quit. I have been thinking about doing some writing (I have been writing as a storyteller recently) about just that. When should you quit? W.C. Fields said, essentially that after a few failures, one should hang it up because "there's no sense being a damn fool about it". Okay, but I also understand the power of persistence -- and then again, I don't want to be like the Python's Black Knight about it - plucky, but preposterous, and pathetic. It seems to me that finding the answer of knowing when to quit and when to persist is an art -- a spiritual thing really. I guess while one can make a living playing foolish, no one is eager to play the fool. But maybe that's the secret - owning your truth - so what if you were "27 years old and living at home with your mother". Not to get too Zen here, but maybe the secret is to "be the joke". Owning it is weirdly empowering.
I've been right there with you more times than I'd like, yet each time (at least so far) something shifts in me and things start flowing again. I bet you're surrendering - and that's as scary as it gets. Requires a brave soul just like yours. Hugs to you!
Thank you for such an open and honest post. I wish more people were willing to share this type of vulnerability with the improv community. I will say, I quit improv about a year ago. After my 2nd failed audition to get into level 3 of the SC conservatory- I said fuck it and moved on. I was on a One Group Mind team at the time and could feel my confidence and desire to continue improv slipping away as I wasn't able to get myself to initiate scenes and had to force myself to participate at all. My anxiety was getting worse and my OGM team didn't have the supportive vibe of my conservatory class.
As someone who struggles with depression, I felt it creeping in and knew I had to make a change. I moved to LA about a year ago and I've never been in a deeper depressive episode. I will say, I don't believe it's because I quit improv. I do believe its because I quit pursuing my dreams. To act, direct and make people laugh. Maybe I'm afraid of failing again. Maybe I'm "just having a hard time!" Whatever it is... I know one thing. When I was in Chicago doing improv, it was the happiest I'd been in a long time. I don't think it's because I was born to improvise, but instead I believe it's because I was taking one route to pursue my dreams. There are many different routes we can take. Right now, I'm not acting, directing or making people laugh. It's no wonder I'm in a depressive episode.
Jimmy, you're blog has continued to inspire me throughout the years. No matter what, I hope you realize the impact you have on your community. You're a wonderful leader, teacher and voice of inspiration. I hope you do what makes you happy, as I hope I can manage for myself as well.
Right now, I'm going to get out of bed. It's a start. Progress not perfection.
Hey Jimmy! It takes a lot of guts to be honest with yourself and more to be honest with the world. Your blog is so inspiring and although I have not participated in your classes or seen anything of yours lately, I will always remember the things I learned from you. At the time, I was too immature to know what I learned from you, but now I use some of the tools you gave me in my endeavors.
You should know that you touch lives just like all the people you praise as being legendary in your blog. No matter how big or small you may be right now, you should step back and say did I touch someone's life today? And my personal belief is that you help many people every day in more ways than you even realize.
Jimmy you can't quit now you're in the Brainwarp podcast finale! WINNER
Wow. If someone who was in Jazz Freddy, the best improv show in history (IMO), wrestles with this, then it must really be universal and it must be OK to have these feelings.
I think quitting, in addition to what you mentioned in your blog post, gives us a feeling of power, however illusory and however fleeting. "Oh, yeah? You're not going to hire me? You're going to break up me team? Well, then, I'm going to take my ball and go home! I'll deprive the world of my talent! You can't make me keep setting myself up for rejection! You can't make me want this job/team/stage time/show/craft/art form/community!"
One way I've found (eventually) to hold on to that feeling of power while not sabotaging myself is to keep in my mind that I CAN quit improv. I can quit any time I want to. You're rejecting me? Fine, because I don't need this and I can always quit. So I don't have to quit now. I can keep pushing forward. Because I ALWAYS have the power to quit.
Jimmy, your general honesty has learnt me a lot about myself. If you need to quit, do it, but I hope you won't. Much love from Oslo.
Keep at it, Jimmy! Success takes many shapes, one of which is perseverence.
I love this blog. My favorite on improv. Last week I did not get cast in a Second City Hollywood premium sketch show and I was very upset about it. I gave myself time to grieve the loss and then I said, something better is coming my way and it's probably something I'm going to have to make myself. If not this, then something better, is now my motto. So something better, Jimmy, is coming your way. Also, I love how vulnerable and honest you are.
Damn! You always reveal, and with plain vulnerability which I envy. I honestly don't give a crap about how you feel (which is really cruel and cold and I'm ashamed to say it), because the directness with which you open up is so direct, simple, honest, compelling and remarkable. I do know how painful sadness, hurt, rejection, disappointment can feel. I guess I do feel sad about you finding yourself in this state, in real life. But when I think of you on stage, with this directness, you are mesmerizing!!! I'm envious of your power in being so transparent! That's what I love about you as a performer... and as a friend: the power you bring with your honesty. Keep up the good fight, Bro!!!!
It is true that there is an ebb and flow to everything. Sometimes even the the very things that enrich and nourish our spirits move in and out of our lives. If we really pay attention, we notice this happens just as we need them to, sometimes to make room for other things.
Improv is a gift in my life...one that I treasure each time i receive it. It teaches and inspires me when I most need it.
Don't go anywhere.
Thanks for sharing!
I have considered quitting dozens of times. "Then they'll miss me. Then they'll realize what they let slip through their hands." And I meant it. I believed so fully in my own abilities but not in the ability of my fellows or the universe to catch on because I was cursed or deserved to suffer. Usually, these feelings were followed by a huge growth spurt. Look out Jimmy, the miracle is just around the bend!
Fantastic, Jimmy.
I recently came back to improv in a small way. I had only done it once since graduating level E. I graduated in August of 2010. And, that was before SCTC made their rule that to audition for Conservatory you couldn't wait more than a year after graduating. So, when they did create the rule in 2011 I found out that I had to improvise on my own before I could audition. As a person who commuted from “the burbs” I couldn't do that without auditioning to be a part of an improv group with people I hadn't met and the idea that I wasn't even good enough to audition for Conservatory felt like auditioning of a team was completely out of the question. I didn't even consider it seriously. I am anxious about auditions and many things but the reality was that I didn't want to be on a team without a great coach after seeing how different my team's practices were when it was just us students and when we had Gellman editing. I didn't want to be a part of a team of people who weren't experts and any team that I could get on wouldn't be filled with experts. I had just barely had enough belief in myself to click the sign up button for my Level A class. I had to close my eyes and just do it after going to the page like five times. So, I didn't think anything good would come from those teams.
At the same time that I was thinking about Conservatory I also was exploring the Writing program over there and so I had an outlet that I could explore. So, I wasn't in need of going back to improv while I wrote sketch and was a creative non-fiction major in my local community college.
The change came recently after I moved to Los Angeles following my wife who got a job out here. I found myself without an outlet once again and checked out the Groundlings classes. I saw they didn't require anything to audition for BASIC on their "professional track" classes. And, I decided that I had to do it. First off, it was free. Second, it scared the shit out of me. And, I've found that most things I feel anxious about are the things I absolutely should be doing. So, despite the fact that I had not improvised at all for three years after graduating E, I clicked the virtual button and put myself on a collision course with an improv audition for a world class improv institution.
The day of my audition at the Goundlings was almost exactly like when I headed to orientation at SC. It was a drive to a place unknown, with a continued compulsion to just go back home. If I'd have encountered one more red light I might have gone home. Every conceivable chance I had to doubt myself was seized upon. I felt so arrogant to think I could walk in and audition for what is their conservatory level program like I'm the Captain Morgan of improv. It just seemed absurd to expect to do well. But, luckily I've taken enough classes now to know that the voices telling me no are bullshit. I had to remind myself that I'm just playing with other people for a while and if I suck, it doesn't matter that much. And, I can take different set of classes and get back in shape. That thought was able to push me past the forty-five minutes of almost uncontrollable anxiety shivers I had before the audition. And, as it turned out, once we circled up for the audition, the feelings were immediately forgotten. And, I got in.
I've been reading a book on Game Design called The Rules of Play out of the MIT press. And, in reviewing the chapters, I came across an equation that didn't immediately jump out at me when I read it the first time. The equation is:
Action > Outcome
And, they talked about how this equation relates to the molecule of choice that exists in games. In particular, how players tend to only make choices when the above equation is true. And, now I see it everywhere.
In the past, I stopped answering my phone because a collections company threatened me with penalties for not paying immediately and because I didn't have enough money to do that, it meant that all I had to do to not incur more penalties was never answer my phone. That meant that I annoyed family and friends who randomly called too. But, the act of answering the phone felt not greater than the outcome of incurring more penalties.
When I spent my first two years in college confused as to what I should do with my life. I told people I wanted to be on SNL, and they gave me a look. So, I told them that I wanted to write, and they gave me a less extreme look. So, I told them I wanted to be an English major, and they gave me an even less extreme look. So, I told them I was an Engineering major, and they gave me a different look. Then, I quit school because I hated what I was doing.
Most importantly, when evolution through natural selection occurs, logically it follows that the Action is always greater than the Outcome. So, syntropy, the action to opposes entropy in the cosmos, is nothing more than the summation of all Actions that were greater than the Outcome subtracted by entropy. That's pretty remarkable.
And, for me the most important observation, when I settled front and center on Wells street for orientation and heard the head of the Training Center say, "failure doesn't exist. There are no mistakes. There are only new unexpected opportunities," first off, I almost wept because in dropped out of high school seventeenth from last in my class, I had almost no belief in myself as a result, and I had just overcome fifty obstacles to getting to orientation to begin with that included talking to a police officer in order to figure out how to cross the Chicago Marathon that literally stood directly in between me and Second City as it went down North Ave and turned onto Wells. I literally had to run in a marathon to get in my seat and the worst part for me was that I had to ask that police officer how to cross. And he didn't hear me like three times and I almost had to yell at him to get his attention because there was a guy excitedly playing high pitched bells two feet away. And second, I was sitting in front of an organization that said that no matter the outcome all that matters is that you act and react.
Improv's philosophical core can be expressed as "Action > Outcome".
And, what I've realized now is that the perception of outcome that matters the most. We choose not to do many things in our life because we encounter moments when the outcome seems to potentially be terrible. We want to quit almost all of the time it's because we believe the future will hold failure and look at that failure as unacceptable. But, in reality, if we just press on past the failures, successes happen. And, when we create the condition of Action > Outcome in our minds even when "failure" is a likely outcome, we put ourselves on the trajectory to be successful.
Even now, as I've written this, I've had many worries about the appropriate length of a reply. I've worried about whether or not I have any authority to talk about improv. I've doubted myself to the point where I caught myself about to quit two paragraphs in. But, I saw that if I stopped writing this reply, then I'd never get to find out what I was going to write and that maybe if I wrote it, I'd discover something good along the way. I don't know if I've done that but I decided to press on because the scary future exists only in my head and I'm terrible at predicting the future.
The reality is that we are trying to relate with something we have a hard time predicting. We are relating with time. We are trying to predict the future. And, ultimately, we are bad at predicting the future. But, what we learn from improv is that no matter what happens next, we are going to react to it and keep moving in a new and unexpected direction no matter the outcome.
So, you can't quit improv. Even if you quit, you'll move on and no matter what you'll always be improvising. Even after you're dead. As your particles will eventually turn into dirt that'll be eaten by a worm, that'll be eaten by a bird, that'll be shot, put on a plate, and eaten by a distant and likely stylishly dressed relative in the future before his equivalent of a phone rings and he dodges a bill collector.
Sorry if this is way too long. And, either way, thanks for the inspiration. If I lived in Chicago, I'd definitely hit up your classes.
Thanks, Jimmy Carrane.
Keep working. We’re all better for it.
I also have experienced this same thing but in a slightly different way. I constantly feel I don't have people's respect in the field when I feel I deserve in in certain areas (not comprehensive at all but I've got some very choice talents that get overlooked). I try to find validation in others' assessment of my skills and never quite being happy with the outcomes. Then I remembered something from my first high school reunion.
When I graduated high school, I felt incredibly underrated by my peers (see a pattern?). I then used the energy from those feelings to turn them into action with the thought of "I'm gonna show you all!" I went to college, got a great job, moved to Chicago of all places from Texas, and had a pretty girlfriend/fiancee lined up. I was ready to rub all of their faces in my success. Then something strange happened when I got there.
Everybody was really nice and cool.
WTF? It threw me off. I heard a ton of "You know, Nelson, you were so cool back in high school. You always did your own thing. You didn't do what everybody else was doing." or "I wish I had your life. you had it so easy back in the day with band and math." I was like "Are you serious?! You were the dude shoving me in to the lockers on the way to 4th period!" I slowly realized that these people DID have respect for me all along but I was just to egotistical and childish to even see it. Maybe if I would just have allowed myself to believe I am "good" I would've seen through the bullsh*t and finally felt accepted by my peers.
The felling of quitting crosses my mind every day. However, the thought of "showing them all" does too and they're mutually exclusive. I'm still hellbent on succeeding where I perceive people want me to fail, but I also see that maybe I'm too cot damn hard on myself and that drive to be excellent naturally leaves artists feeling empty/not adequate.
Jimmy, I feel like a kindred spirit with you on this one. With the amount of love you're getting here and elsewhere, I'm definitely in awe of what you've accomplished on/off stage and the amount of respect you get. Slow down. Take the time you need to gain perspective on what you're doing/not doing and try to see JC through other people's eyes - then start "yes anding" their perception of you.
Improv is not a thing in my life, it is the thing. So whenever what I do on stage, in class or rehearsal doesn't work I feel a loss of purpose and worth. I have the urge to quit more often than I would like to admit even to myself. But I don't. Because this is my one thing. And even if I suck at it I would rather do that than not do it at all. For now. Because I have to believe it and I will get better at it. I have to believe I will become more consistent. I have to believe that my shitprov next week is better than the shitprov I did two weeks ago. I have to. I do however not always. I'm sure it will work out. But it probably won't. This has been my rant. It has now ended
Thank you for the post.
This is an encouragement . . . to those performers who didn't ASK for encouragement. To those of us who know . . . feel . . . KNOW that we have the chops, but didn't fit with a "certain group". THEY said we weren't good enough "for them". OTHERS love us, but that ONE GROUP pushed the buttons that damaged the fragile actor's ego that doesn't always heal quickly. Doing nothing wrong but not fitting a director's desire. BAM!!! Actor's fault. Director is concerned because YOU are stronger than director so you are "benched". BAM!!!
Hard to move forward in a word-of-mouth community, as the new "image" or "reputation" can be hard to either live UP to or could be damaging.
I'd like to get on stage and play without having to live UP to something or live something DOWN. Just . . . play. Peace.
Just stumbled upon this post and love it. I lived in Chicago and took a bunch of Second City classes, but I eventually gave up trying to find a decent day job to pay bills and moved back home to go back to grad school. That wasn't quitting improv exactly -- it was a casualty, though. Took me 12 years to get back to improv, but the point is I got back to it.
Oops! Sorry, jimmy! I accidentally responded under Jason's response. 🙂