Audience Worry By Jim Karwisch, www.jackpie.com There you stand in front of the audience with your scene partner. Neither of you have the slightest idea what your show is going to be about. There is a period of time between the suggestion and the point where you feel that you know what's up in your scene and you get into a groove. This is universal for all improvisers. This time you have before it all "clicks" is the most valuable time in the entire show. It is precious creative potential for you to squeeze as much out of whatever happens first as is humanly possible. If you begin to worry during this time about whether or not your scene is going to be good enough for the audience and start to split your mental focus then you are not giving all of your attention to the stage and to your scene partner. If you aren't giving your focus to the right place then you aren't making full use of this vital time on stage. If you aren't giving it your all mentally then you are going to have a lower quality scene and if you have a lower quality scene then you aren't giving the best performance you can to your paying audience. The very act of worrying for the audience CAUSES the thing you are worried about TO HAPPEN. It's the stage equivalent of worrying so much that you will fall off a cliff that you aren't paying attention and fall off a cliff. You can also look at it from this point of view... If a writer sat down and didn't let himself type anything onto the screen because he was worrying whether or not people who read it would like it, he would never get the thing done. In most cases, during a first draft the writer isn't even worrying about pleasing the audience; At this point, he is focused on telling his story. Let the time between suggestion and "click" be your first draft. Understand that you need to focus on the story and allowing yourself to be inspired by whatever is happening at the start of your scene or you will have a self fulfilling prophecy of a crummy scene.

improv entertaining and training phone: 626.200.6993 - email: contact@paulbellos.com