Improvising The World of Improv

Madison Weikle, staff writer

“Improv at its heart is the art of making the other person look good on stage. It is saying ‘Yes’ to everything that your partner and the environment gives you and then adding an ‘and.’ It’s filling in the context for the audience and your partner by hinting at Who What Where and When in every scene in some way so that each moment is filled with awe of possibilities and also grounded in the moment,” said Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Brad Stoller.

Stoller has been leading the Third Friday Improv Series at PVCC for five years. Workshops take place from 6-7 p.m. every third Friday of the month in the Dickinson Black Box Theatre. Stoller says it is all about working in the moment, no matter where, or when the moment is.

“It might be five hundred years ago in Shakespeare world with an aging queen barging into your bedroom to demand human sacrifice for the slanders you have written about her, or just a dog and his child playing frisbee on the beach while mom and dad fight over what to have for dinner,” said Stoller.

Third Friday Night Improv is open to everyone, students and non-students alike. Stoller said there is a variety of people who show up; there is not one “type” of person who does improv.

“I direct these improvisations with whoever shows up. I get senior citizens and middle schoolers. The retired professors and the drop-outs. They all want to learn to play again because almost universally we have lost that ability to drop our particular ‘mortal coil’ and grasp desperately to those things we know than fly to adventures we know not of,” said Stoller.

The next workshop will take place on Friday Feb. 22, 2019, from 6-7 p.m. in the Dickinson Black Box Theatre on PVCC’s Main Campus.

Stoller said, “Take a risk and ask for more. You’ll be surprised by how often the universe says yes back to you.”