Working with(out) a net: improvisational theater and enhanced well-being

Improvisational theater (improv) fits well into an academic definition of improvisation: “the process and product of creativity occurring simultaneously” (Lewis and Lovatt, 2013). The simultaneity in improv comes from the lack of scripting: players appear on stage, ask the audience for a suggestion, for example, “any object smaller than a breadbox,” and begin a frolic of their own that often lasts about 30 min. This article highlights several parallels between practices in improv and practices in several domains of applied psychology: body awareness and mindfulness, positive psychology interventions, and personcentered psychotherapy. What accounts for these parallels? Here I conclude that both improv and applied psychology practices aim to increase personal awareness, interpersonal attentiveness, and trust among members of the ensemble. The metaphor of “working without a net” certainly seems to apply to improv. For example, a respected improv manual says, “True improvisation is getting on-stage and performing without any preparation or planning. . . Strictly speaking, improvisation is making it up as you go along” (Halpern et al., 1994). Nervous anticipation of performing without a memorized script is the felt sense of working without a net. But there is more to the story than that; we return to a reversal of the metaphor at the end of the article. Spontaneity, like luck, favors the well-prepared. The virtuoso pianist who improvises brilliantly may be one who practiced more than 10,000 h as a youngster, on fire with a “rage to master” (Ericsson et al., 1993; Winner, 1996). Or perhaps not; there is dispute about the relationship between talent and practice at the high-end of performance skill in some fields (Epstein, 2013). Nevertheless, all forms of improvisation and competitive performance require basics to be learned and practiced until they become “second nature.” Improv actors practice their form repeatedly but don’t repeat or rehearse the content of their scenes. The concept of spontaneity needs to be considered in this context: spontaneous creative content is grounded in improv fundamentals that are practiced repeatedly. It is form, not content, that is rehearsed. Many of these practices, also called “games,” are also used by actors training for scripted theater (e.g., Stanislavski, 1989). Our inquiry is whether there is a positive relationship between improv practice and well-being in other life domains. There is a good reason to think so: important theatrical skills are represented, with different names, in the methods of body awareness and other meditations, applied positive psychology, and psychotherapy. If particular practices in these domains are psychologically healthy, then practicing them through improv might also increase well-being. Finally, because improv is unavoidably social, performers are always embedded in the social milieux of improv communities. There are transitions from classroom and small stage to what is after all “but a stage”: life itself.