Routine Breakdown: A Weekly Adventure!

November 11, 2016 Melissa Gerr

This blog is a weekly adventure about getting out to do that “I’ve always wanted to try that!” kind of thing.

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Listen. Agree. Add.

Barely an hour into my first improv class — yes, good Lord! (as in stand-up and do extemporaneous stuff in public with a group) — I turned to our fearless Baltimore Improv group instructor, Michael Hartman, and said, “You know, every politician in the world should learn what you just taught us.”

And what he taught us is simple. It’s the holy doctrine of group improv:

Listen — acknowledge what you heard

Agree — so as to remain open to growing the dialogue

Add — to the dialogue and the scene

Improv is not a passive endeavor; you listen with your ears and your eyes. It’s about empathically hearing what another person says and does, acknowledging the imaginary world he or she creates, then offering a whole different trajectory for the two (or more) of you to catapult toward, together.

Eye contact is crucial. It’s startling at first, when you really pay attention to what you ‘hear’ by looking straight into a stranger’s eyes. Then, body language builds an entire other level to the ‘conversation.’

Little did I know how much my passing comment to the instructor and the playful training we received would resonate so powerfully just days later, when I watched the slow-motion trainwreck of pundits’ massive miscalculations spread, blazing in blue-and-red graphics late into the night, creating the non-imaginary world of a country polarized.

Who has been listening? What was truly heard? What have we missed?

More importantly, can we actively listen to each other with intention and remain open to dialogue, so we might move along a trajectory on which we all want to travel?

Yes, good Lord, I hope so.