The underlying mission of Improv is simply to teach the players to listen.
Back in early January, my church started an Improv group. Our pastor has written plays and acted on the side, for the majority of his adult life. My hubby and I have found over our years of working with kids and teens, that their favorite part of any curriculum that we bought, or created ourselves, was skits. We found that even when Sunday school attendance was at record lows, the kids would all show up to be in a play.
So, after a couple of meetings with our pastor, the idea of a Sunday Night Improv Group was born. We invited teens and adults to participate, two groups who often don’t mix. On the very first meeting, the pastor explained that Improv is simply about really listening to what your partner is saying. It’s not about thinking about what you will say next, but really listening to them. Right away, I could see some value here.
He went on to say that comedy, good clean comedy, humor, and laughter are gifts from God. The first night was fun, but everyone was kind of nervous. It’s been really cool to see everyone start to loosen up, which is also interesting, because we have different participants each week. We have some regulars, but we also have new people.
The really amazing thing is to watch the teens easily interacting with adults and some of the adults are a good deal older. But, everyone laughs and everyone, even new people, at this point, seem to be perfectly comfortable. We clap for each other. We laugh at each other and ourselves. Through our laughter and silly games, we are learning to listen to voice inflection and tone. We are learning to use and watch for body language. We are learning to trust each other.
Laughter is such an important part of life and comedy truly is a gift. As I was watching the 40th Anniversary of Saturday Night Live on Sunday night, they showed a clip of the World Trade Center which immediately caught my eye. We were all too sad to laugh for a long time after 9/11. There was no SNL for a while. It seemed like our entire country would be glued to our television sets in tears, perpetually. I remember.
But, at some point, we were ready to laugh again. We were ready to begin the process of healing. They showed the clip of Rudy Juliani and the creator of SNL making an announcement that it was okay to be funny again. True to SNL style, the clip itself was funny.
Laughter truly is great medicine. It has the ability to heal us and it has the ability to bring us together. It really is a gift from God that I am seriously thankful for.
It’s exciting to watch our little group grow and eventually, our pastor has a play he wants us to do. It’s a serious play about our journey with God and the highs and lows that are part of it. But, for now, we are playing and laughing and enjoying being part of a faith community. What a huge bonus, that it happens to be so much fun.
It’s a great reminder that God is everywhere, even in the laughter, and I find that amazingly reassuring.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
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