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Chapter 1: What makes improv comedy a valuable skill for adults?
This is how to be a better human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. And one of my favorite things in the entire world is improv comedy. I know that is very much not cool and hip to say that one of my favorite things in the entire universe is adults playing make-believe together, but it is true. I absolutely love it.
And I think that one of the things that I love the most about it, whether it's watching it or performing it myself, is that good improv skills, in my opinion, are the same as good people skills. How do you listen really closely? How do you make other people look good? How do you deal with unexpected situations? How do you remember something that is fun and playful and bring it back later on?
Chapter 2: How can improv comedy improve your listening skills?
They're all skills that are kind of basic to improv, but they're also skills that make people the kinds of people that I want to spend time with, the kinds of people that I want to be around. And today's guest, Rick Andrews, is an incredible improviser. He is very much someone who I want to spend time with. But more than just being a great performer, Rick is an amazing teacher.
He has been teaching for years. He's taught so, so, so many people. And what he's learned is that we can all get better at playing, at improvising, and making our lives funnier, more exciting, and more of an all-around good time. We're going to talk so much more about how to do that. But first, we're going to take a quick break for a few words from our sponsors.
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Chapter 3: What life lessons can we learn from practicing improv?
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And we are back. Today, we are talking about improv with Rick Andrews. Hi, my name is Rick Andrews. I teach and perform improvisation. So Rick, You've been performing and teaching for a really long time. And I have been a fan of your work for a really long time.
Chapter 4: How does Rick Andrews describe his teaching philosophy?
From the first time I saw you and every time I see you, I'm always struck by what a talented performer you are. But I also am struck by the fact that your real passion, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, isn't actually about being on stage and getting the attention for yourself. It's really about teaching and sharing improvisation with others.
Yeah, I really enjoy performing and I find that very satisfying, but it feels like a...
uh i don't know it's like a sugar rush a little bit that kind of fades quickly and um i feel like teaching and watching people get excited and fall in love with something that you are excited about is like feels you know really um meaningful in a nice way and part of what is nice about improv is that i don't know it's not just about like being funny so i think if it was just kind of like i'll teach you how to be funny i don't know that i would feel
like deeply passionate about i think it's it's more about like the sense of like presence and creativity and being playful and being less self-judgmental i think a lot of those are things that help people not like freak out all day long certainly helped me that way so it feels like there's something meaningful that's being delivered in the almost by accident in the act of like learning how to improvise
Well, so for people who don't aren't already familiar with your work, I mean, you're too humble to fully brag for yourself. But I will just say from my perspective, you are truly regarded as like one of the the single greatest improv teachers in the world. And you have taught everyone from you've taught children. You've taught senior citizens. You've taught people in big corporations.
You've taught Ira Glass from This American Life. You've taught Zoran Mabdani, the mayor of New York, before he was the mayor. So you've... You've really taught this huge range of people and over many, many years. What do you think the biggest thing that a regular person, someone who is not interested in being a comedy professional, gets out of learning improv?
I think managing uncertainty. Improv is making up an idea, a scene, a story on the fly, right? And The inherent nature of that is that you cannot be in control of where it's going to go.
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of managing uncertainty in improv?
And I think people's brains do not like change and that kind of disruptive feeling. And so there's this like protective cognitive shell that we throw around where we lock into ideas or we kind of disconnect from what's, like, kind of actually going on. And I think it's not that improv, like, makes you better at, like, knowing what's going to happen.
I think if you watch where the good improv is, it kind of seems like they know where it's going. But you don't develop this kind of, like, clairvoyance. You instead just get very comfortable not knowing what's going to happen and, like, managing uncertainty.
But the extra anxiety on top of it of, like, managing that uncertainty of, like, all the stuff that I can't control, I think, becomes that, you know, like, turn it off entirely, but that voice gets quieter, I think. I've noticed that it's kind of not possible to be bored if you're hanging out with like three or four improvisers.
It's not really like, because if nothing's happening, well, it's kind of not really possible, right? Like you're sitting at the airport terminal and there's a delay. Like, you know, instead of people just like complaining all the time, I feel like people just like look around a little bit and they're like, hey, look at how that guy walks. That's interesting.
That sign doesn't make any sense, you know? Why do they call it Hudson News? You know, whatever. Like there's just a kind of curiosity about the present moment that I think does like translate off of the stage a little bit.
The way that we are talking right now is actually kind of a great illustration of what building the muscles of improvisation have allowed you to do, because we are talking like not around the day that you are moving across continents, but literally like you are doing this interview. And then in several hours, you will leave for the airport to move from the United States to Europe.
And you seem so focused.
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Chapter 6: How can improv help in personal and professional relationships?
unbothered by that. The fact that we're like talking now and then you're going to have to leave to the airport and bring your family to an entirely new continent. I would be, even though I have studied improv too, I would be like pouring sweat and so stressed. And yet you seem remarkably unstressed about the fact that you're about to do a transcontinental move.
I might be like missing a section of my brain, you know, but I do think that like I taught all my classes yesterday, like Sunday is a day that I teach and perform. And my classes were like, oh, when are you moving? And I was like tomorrow. And they were all like, why are you here? Yes, that's exactly right. I didn't understand the question, the reaction. I was like, well, I teach on Sundays.
This is our last class, you know? I feel like improv is like, I've heard from people, it's like, it helps on dates and job interviews or whatever. Not that that's like the purpose of it, you know, or like how, like why you should do it. But it is one of those things where anything, where you're in this situation where you feel a little nervous, you don't know how it's going to go.
Someone might ask a question you weren't expecting. It's a lot of like just managing that moment a little bit. And I think you're doing that through like an enhanced mindset
set of like listening skills a little bit like just paying attention being in the moment noticing stuff um but also like i think it builds self-confidence in a more genuine way you know it's not about like i don't know pretending to be this confident person it's like improv is a lot of as i'm sure you felt learning it and getting really good at it right it's like you are uh trying your hand at it and not great at it at first but you're doing this context where people are building off of every idea you say no matter how bad it is and people support you so you kind of get to prove your um
your idea's validity to yourself.
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Chapter 7: What are some fun improv games to try?
I feel like I constantly was having moments where I was like, I don't know what I should do, and then I would say a thing, and your scene partner's like, great. And then you're like, okay, yeah, that was good. It's like putting the bumpers up on the bowling alley lane so you can't actually get a gutter ball, and that's what improv feels to me.
In a lot of ways, it reveals... like a truth that we all know, right? Which is that you can actually only control the thing in the present moment, right? Like you only control what you're doing right now. You've acknowledged the truth that like a lot of us pretend that we don't.
Do I wish I had packed more earlier? Absolutely. You know, it's not that like you do, you like learn the skill and then you stop like planning for things. It's just like, no matter how much you plan, you can't control everything. And so planning is really good, but it's just, it's never going to go exactly how you think it's going to go. And it's never going to be
And I think some of that also, like, there's a reduction of anxiety. There's also kind of when you're so anxious and worried about it and it saps you from the present, you're missing out on all these really wonderful moments. We both have young kids, and I wonder if you felt some of this being with a little kid where they just stop and look at a leaf. Totally.
And they will sit there and look at a leaf for five minutes. And it's not an activity that I often do, like walking around.
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Chapter 8: How does improv foster creativity and collaboration?
But it's awesome. Looking at a leaf totally rocks. And I should stop more and look at a leaf, like, Thinking about all the 10 things I have to do, I'm kind of missing the thing that is happening. And in improv, as you're building scenes, that's where a lot of the joy and discovery comes from, that we get to figure out these fun ideas together.
And in life, it feels like when I remind myself to do that, I'm like, actually, I notice stuff. I notice things that are beautiful or sad or interesting or compelling or funny or whatever it is.
Yeah, well, one of the things that I think is so great about spending time with... a young kid, is they combine what we've been talking about, like that real presence in the moment, because they just live in the moment, but they also combine it with this silliness. And I think it's not always intentional with a kid, but I think as an adult...
This is the other flip side of improv is the silliness and play that I love. I mean, I was trying to think in preparation for this interview, what my first memory of you was. And it was watching you perform at an improv festival. I think it was in Boston. And you were in anthropomorphized clothes. A gumball machine. And you were performing as the gumball machine. And it was so silly.
And I just remember laughing so hard, like truly tears coming down my cheeks as I was watching you.
Sometimes doing improv, it's like it's like someone who like gets blackout drunk. I don't remember what they did. You're like, if you say so.
Yeah. Well, also, you've done this like thousands of times.
I would do that again if I if I did that. That sounds great.
Yeah. Well, but this is what I mean. It's like it was really fun, but it was also so silly. Like you were in the moment pretending to be that. But also, that's not something that like you could be very in the moment for your whole life and never pretend to be a gumball machine because there's a silliness there that is also like that.
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