The third and final entry on this round of brain dumps about God, work, and Improv. Have at it!
Improv
It’s incredibly cliche to say this, but yeah – Improv saved my life. I mean it! At around this time two years ago, I was, on a daily basis, seriously fantasizing about and contemplating killing myself. I would just sit for hours thinking about how worthless I was; exactly how I would kill myself; how my husband might react when he’d find me dead on the kitchen floor surrounded by blood; what I’d write in my note, and all sorts of other fucked up shit. I mean, I was incredibly sick. After years of my family pleading for me to look into medication, I finally began taking Prozac (so, whatever, Improv and Prozac saved my life). It took a little bit, but I started noticing that I was feeling better. I wanted to actually change out of my pajamas and maybe even take a shower! I started thinking about what I might want to do with my life. At the time, I was contemplating going back to school to get an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Performance Art, but after a while decided that wasn’t right for us – James and I had only been married about three months when all of this went down. I then started thinking about that first open mic I ever did the previous year during my last semester at college. I remembered how much I loved it, but also how terrifying it was.
Since childhood my dream was to be on Saturday Night Live. I wanted that more than anything in the world. I distinctly recall having my neighbour friends over and writing what we called skits, and then performing them for our parents. I can’t remember when the desire to be on SNL changed, but while I didn’t necessarily want to be on the show anymore, I definitely wanted to keep doing weird, funny things. I would create characters all the time.
My high school was part of an “Academy” programme. Not like “My Child Is A Wunderkind Ice Sculptor At The Academy of Fine Arts” bumper sticker kind of academy, but each school within the district would include more “academy” focused courses. There was the Engineering Academy that offered more specialized math and science courses, and mine was the Fine Arts Academy that offered more theatre, dance,and art courses. I was so overjoyed to take the Comedy/Improv theatre class one semester. I would later bring comedy into some of my Performance Art. I loved character work! In college, I met a girl who quickly became one of my greatest friends. She had a background similar to mine! She grew up wanting to be a player on SNL, but actually did something with it! She took classes at The Second City! She was so close, and then realized that she wanted to focus more on her Art work, so she came back to school. We realized that our lives were almost an inverse of one another! I don’t think that happened by accident. When I mentioned to her that I was thinking about doing Improv, she went on and on about how great she thought that would be for me. When I told my mother, she was incredibly supportive – even going so far as to tell me to talk with one of my good friends from high school who is doing something with her life by devoting it to Improv (and acting and her art work) in order to pick her brain on how she does it! My husband was so supportive of it, that he told me to start looking for classes that week; that he’d do whatever he could to make sure I could take classes!
With all of this support, I started looking for classes and easily found my comedy home. After one class, I was irrevocably invested in continuing to pursue comedy. It will be two years next month since I started learning Improv and Comedy under Shyla Ray (formerly with The New Movement; currently with Station Theatre), and it has completely saved and changed my life. I want to do this comedy thing with my life! Like I said, photography is my dream job, because I don’t have to work for someone else. But comedy is my dream.
It’s hard, because I tell myself “Well, Improv could be work for you! It could lead to things, if you let it! You should perform in festivals! Do everything you can!” But I hold myself back. I say things like “…but I can’t, because I need to focus on work so I can help support us.” or “…who am I kidding? Nothing’s going to happen while I’m living in Texas. I’d have to move out to Chicago, New York, or LA for anything real to happen, and we won’t be able to do that now that we have a family…and I’d miss my family too much.” But I think the real reason I hold myself back is that I’m afraid. I’m afraid of failure, even though I’ve been taught to bear hug it and smile. I’m afraid that if I were to say, “Yes! We can do this! We can move out to Chicago/NY/LA and everyone can be happy and live their dreams!” that if I fail, I will have put us into a situation from which we can’t recover.
BUT! I’m deciding to let that go! Things can always happen! Maybe not right away; maybe not for a long time, but I know I’ll enjoy the ride the entire time! I’m so ecstatic with my life in Improv! I’m now part of a house team that will run three months of different shows! August is a La Ronde every week; September is Improvised Wes Anderson; October is Improvised Stanley Kubrick! I’m so in love with this medium, and that will never end. I’ve never questioned how much I love comedy. I didn’t give a fuck about my college work for a long time. One of my favourite professors, Barry Stone, could tell that I had extreme apathy toward everything. He knew I didn’t give a fuck, and I knew that he knew that I didn’t give a fuck. I always told myself, “but if I could just get Barry to laugh, then I’ll be okay. He doesn’t just laugh at any old thing, so if I can make him laugh, I’ll be okay.” That thought of “if I can just make them laugh” has gotten me through so much hard shit with people. When I can get people to laugh, my confidence is untouchable! I feel like a (super)human.
I could go on, but the story stays the same: I’m in love with comedy, and I know it’s what I’m meant to do. I’m good at photography, and I enjoy it enough; but even when I’m not so good at comedy, I am so utterly in love with it that I don’t give a fuck. THAT is how I know I’m supposed to be doing this comedy thing.
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