Have Fun with Improv Comedy

Video Transcript

"Hi, it’s Les McGehee, I’m the guy that wrote that book, Plays Well With Others, a handbook of improvisation and play. I almost forgot the title of my own book, did you hear that hesitation? I have a question for you, do you recognize where I took the title from? Yes, you’re absolutely correct, it was on your report card when you were in kindergarten or first grade and it was one of the more important grades that you got. Did you or did you not play well with others? Well, as a grownup I would say that it not only still matters but that it matters even more than it did in the first place. Because if you’re not actively working on your reading, writing and arithmetic, then plays well with others is pretty darn high on your list of adult report card. I suggest you play. Now a lot of the clips we have put here on Expert Village that are instructional about improvisation, a lot of those are addressed to people that want to play games for business, or in their professional improvisation comedy show, or people who are just learning improv for the first time. But in the book, I also talk a lot about playing with your family and friends. Playing has a way of curring a lot of the problems that go on in the world and a lot of the social discomfort that everybody goes through and if you’ll play your find that, that makes you stronger. Things like a fair playing field and play fair, playing implies opportunity, creativity and shared belief systems or else it wouldn’t be play, it would be something else. And so if you play with your family and friends you’ll find it’s strengthening those relationships and also it’s totally fun in a way that’s additional to the fun that you have when you play with your fellow players in a professional environment. It’s also fun in a different way than the fun that comes when you play improv with your business associates. Because you can feel how it strengthens your communication and teamwork. So we are shooting today in my living room, because I think it’s one of the more important places that you will practice your improvisation. Play with your friends in the living room; a lot of these games came from children in the first place. They were children’s games and very often those same children’s games were adopted by people at like high school and college age who figured out a way to add alcohol to every single one of those games but they were kind of the same games and then professional improvisers, got a hold of them and professional trainers started developing them for their own purposes. But they’re the same games you knew as a kid. So you need to play and it will remind you of how you felt when you were younger in a less complicated world. So here, in my living room we’re going to do some playing. Look for the subsequent clips on this subject matter, playing with your own family and friends in your living room and we’ll see you in the next clip. "