Improv hiatus...OVER!

I've been an improv recluse for the past couple of months year. It got so crazy for a second there, running my own improv troupe then deciding to no longer run my own improv troupe.  It was too much. Too much responsibility.  Too much stress.  Too much distress from trying to fund shows that were costing me more than they benefited me in terms of money and mental health.  Too much me being mean to people I should have been building up and supporting.  I tried it, and it failed.  I failed.

I distanced myself from improv in order to lick my wounds. Wounds that finally started to heal two weeks ago during a March Madness Improv show at Just the Funny when a director I had never worked with trusted me enough to do a two person scene with me. Wounds that continued to heal this past Sunday when I was invited to teach an improv workshop in Miami for Improv Rising. Someone I had never played with trusted me with his brand to teach an awesome group of up and coming improvisers.  Wounds that have fully closed and have left no scars after a rehearsal I was invited to last night with the Sick Puppies in Boca Raton.

Improv is hard to explain to people who have never done it before. It's a combination of terror and joy.  I've jumped out of planes, bungee jumped over a raging river, hang glided...and none of that even compares to the adrenaline that seeps into your body when you are about to head on stage with no lines, no blocking, and no idea what will be thrown at you by the audience.  There is nothing in this world that compares to the feeling you have after a great improv scene. It's like really great sex. You glow afterwards.  And you're pretty sore.

Last night was an orgy.  An intense, hysterical orgy of shared ideas, great characters, awesome jokes, and camaraderie.  I had met half of the people in the rehearsal before.  The rest were strangers. But it did not matter at all that we had just met and knew nothing about each other. What mattered was the art form. The banter. The back and forth. The emotional highs and lows created on the spot by people interpreting a word, color, sin, sensation into a scene for the amusement of others.

It was great. GREAT. I sobbed afterwards...you know, just like after really good sex. Happy tears. I didn't have a cigarette, cause cancer.   But I glowed.  And it's been a really long time since that happened.

Thank you, Just The Funny, Improv Rising and Sick Puppies. You are great.

Author's Edit: Negative Four Months hosted the March Madness event at JTF, so I should thank them as well.  I'm a jerk.