What I learned from teaching Improv to kids

For the last four weeks I've taught an improv class to the 12 and 13 year old girls in my church.
I have been performing on stage since April 2011 and have been studying improv since September 2010. I got the idea of teaching the class because my improv team, The Third Thought, moved our practice nights to before our show on Thursdays freeing up Mondays. The thought of not doing improv on Mondays depressed me so much that the idea of starting an improv workshop just for girls came to mind. I knew I'd have to give it a shot.

Just as the idea came fully formed, I wanted to teach an improv class to girls, relying on recruiting them from my church,I also came up with my philosophy on teaching improv fully. I didn't have any interest in teaching them how to be funny or witty. I didn't want to teach them how to do "improv games" I wanted to teach them how to create full length plays with a group fully improvised. To me this is the height of improv theater, or as its usually called Long Form..

To each them this I needed them to develop the building blocks of a great long form improv show:
1. Listening Skills
2. Being very Specific and detailed
3. Plots\story line\hero
4.Characters
5. Space Work
6. Scenes
7. Edits
Click here for the detailed lesson plans.

My approach came from the many improv classes and workshops I've been in.
1. Don't Lecture
2. Let the class learn by doing.
3. Side coach
4. Each exercise must develop one of the 7 skills if not multiple of them.

The girls loved it. Each week I'd give them homework like pay attention to how you open a door or eat. Or watch movies and note their plot lines.

Each class was 2 hours and we didn't take breaks or rest. We went from one activity to the next. I think it was very intense, but the girls didn't complain. In fact I was surprised how good they did. I never even bothered telling them the rules of improv. I just side coached.

We started with one word story. (each person of the class adds the next word to the sentence which make up the story.) This let me assess where they were. I quickly realized that even though they were wonderful talkers and very imaginative, they were not good listeners. They also had no ability to put together a coherent story line. I'd have to stop and remind them about what had already taken place in the story.

Teaching to honor what the other team members have already added was a big lesson. I could see them starting to concentrate on listening. The next week they were much better.

Teaching them to be specific was my next challenge. I explained that the more specific the details are the better the story will be. To work on this we played a game called "Justify It." The members line up and the person at the top of the line walks down the line telling each person something crazy like, "I took all the water out of my pool and filled it with curtains." The second person must justify why they would do that like, "Of course you did because the chemicals in the pool water were drying out your rare skin disease and curtains are much healthier for you to swim in."

Teaching them to listen and honor each others ideas and to be specific really were the main things I had to work on with my class. By week three we started doing full long form sets and in week four we did two 30 minute sets. I was very impressed with my class.

Improv skills, Listening and honoring and specific are life skills. These girls will take what they learned in my class and use it in all areas of their lives. I am going to be teaching an improv class on the 22nd to the kids at Metropolitan Ministries, the homeless shelter. I hope the kids there will enjoy the class as much as I enjoy teaching it.

The Confession

Setting: Confessional in a Roman Catholic Church.
Woman enters.

Woman: Forgive me father for I have sinned.
Father: Oh goodness, what this time?
Woman: This time I've done some very sinful things.
Father: Get on with it; there are others who have committed real sins.
Woman: At church yesterday I burped really loudly, and everyone around me looked at me crossly.
Father: 1.5 Hail Mary's, Have a good evening.
Woman: Oh Father! I have several more to confess.
Father: OK Go on.
Woman: I went to the rest room yesterday and I tinkled on the seat and I was in a rush so I didn't clean it up!
Father: On my goodness! Really? 2 hail mary's
Woman: Then when I got home my sister asked me to come over and help her clean out her closet, but I lied to her and told her I was too tired, but I wasn't. I just hate seeing all her nice cloths.
Father: For goodness sake! That’s not even worth bothering Mary over.
Woman: Next I sat down and read 51 shades of gray, and I really liked it.
Father: Pffftt are you done yet?
Woman: Ok thats all. Just to let you know, I got here late today because I accidentally hit a young pregnant woman with her two small children who were crossing the street because I was texting.

Dinner in an African Village

Setting: Tiny mud hut in poor African Villiage.
Family sits around a pot of soup eating dinner.

Little Boy: Mom, I don't want the rest of my cabage water.
Mom: Eat it!
Little Boy: I want to go play.
Mom: Be Thankul you have food. Don't you know that there are children starving in Greece??