improv at the end of the world
Hi friends! Just a reminder that new classes are up and open for registration. Improv for Introverts is back after a fantastic first session, and I'm absurdly excited about The Tarot of Improv, a complete introduction to improv through the lens of the Tarot deck. I hope to see you in one of them.
Don't forget that forwarding this email to someone you think might be interested is a huge mitzvah that will incur my undying gratitude.
Also, I wrote something. It's a little dark, but maybe also a little hopeful? Read it or not, you know what's best for you.
Thanks either way,
John
Improv at the End of the World
I open the New York Times on my phone because I feel like I should know what's happening with the world, and what's happening with the world is that it's burning up and going fascist and genociding. It starts to feel inevitable: This is what we're like. This is what we're stuck with. This is what we're wired for.
I soak up my daily allowance of existential horror and then I close the app, because it's time to do my job, which is to convince people to take an improv class.
The marketing problem at this point is not "Why do comedy?" so much as "Why do anything?" Nobody knows what we're supposed to be doing, but playing goofy kids' games with other adults in a rented church classroom feels like an unlikely candidate.
And yet: to the extent that I still hold out any hope for humanity, a lot of it comes from the people who take my classes. Sure, they signed up to learn improv, and they're doing that. And that mostly consists of being silly and having fun, which is frankly all the justification anyone needs.
But they're also paying attention to each other and taking care of each other and connecting with each other in ways that they're sometimes not even aware of. Not all the time, but enough that it's always two of the best hours of my week.
I no longer trust people in large groups, because people in large groups are responsible for everything happening in the first paragraph. But people in small groups keep surprising me with how generous and creative they can be, and how willing they are to be fully present with their fellow humans. It's almost like that's what we're wired for.