Creative Confidence

When I hear a student already heightening, I read it as either a breakthrough or a sign of someone with experience. Other players may just laugh naturally at the added detail, while others catch that sudden ah-ha moment where a light bulb finally goes on. Polite agreement never builds momentum, and heightening is what actually moves a scene forward. The standard beginner class leaves students polite instead of creative. Beginning with just yes and tends to point students towa

Holding back feels like a small private decision that only costs you. It's neither small nor private, and you're not the one who pays. Someone hands you an invisible banana, and you say, "Oh, a banana, sure." The scene doesn't die right there, but something just happened, and everyone in the room felt it without being able to name it. The usual note afterward is that you dropped the offer. That's true, and it's the least interesting part of what went wrong. Half-committing is

Every improviser learns how to step out into a scene, but the harder lesson is learning when to stay put, and that one applies to a lot more than improv. Two people are in a kitchen scene. It's quiet, it's specific, and something true is starting to surface between them. Back line, four of us are watching, and I can feel at least three people reaching for the door. One of them goes. Big character, big voice, and the kitchen is gone. Here's the part I actually think about afte

Life moves fast, doesn't it? We're all in a constant sprint, juggling emails, meetings, and a seemingly endless stream of notifications. In this always-on world, there’s an almost involuntary urge to fill every silence, to respond instantly, to never leave a gap. But what if one of the most powerful tools for better communication, deeper connection, and even sharper decision-making isn't about what you say or do quickly, but what you don't? What if it's the simple, often-over

We've all been there, you're in a scene, or a meeting, or staring at a blank page, and instead of making a move you wait, you comment, you hedge, you interrupt someone else's momentum because it feels safer than committing to your own. That's not just an improv habit, it's a life habit. And improv is the gym where we unlearn it. The Cost of Waiting for Permission Every time you wait for someone else to go first so you can react, you're handing over the steering wheel. In a sc

The intentionality-as-bait concept makes sense on paper, especially for stand-ups, but it's only one door in. There's a concept floating around in improv teaching right now that I've been thinking about. The idea that intentionality, having a clear point of view, a want, a direction in your scene, is the hook that draws new people into improv. It makes sense on paper. Stand-up comedians, for example, already understand this because creating a set is inherently intentional. Yo

There's a moment in every improv show where the audience forgets it's not scripted. The scene is moving, the characters are alive, the story is landing clean. It looks like magic, like pure spontaneous creation flowing out of nothing. And that's exactly what the audience is supposed to think. But anyone who's ever actually done improv knows the truth. What looks like beautiful chaos on stage is held together by very specific frameworks. Beat patterns. Game moves. Status trans

I've been doing improv long enough to know that most people think it's just about being funny on the spot. And sure, there's some of that. But the real magic of a great improv set isn't spontaneity, it's structure. The same way a jazz musician needs to know the rules before they can break them, an improviser needs a framework to build something that lands. So here's how I think about putting together a successful improv set, and more importantly, how that same process can hel

My wife has ADHD. And I've taught enough improv classes over the years to know she's not alone in the room. A lot of the adults who show up to learn improv are walking in with brains that move different, and they don't always know that what they're looking for is a structure that finally fits how they think instead of fighting it. So when Chris Gethard's guest column landed in my inbox the other day, one line hit harder than the rest. He said improv unlocks ADHD in kids. He w

You're standing at a door. On the other side's something high stakes, a presentation, a first date, a difficult conversation, a stage. And in that moment before you walk through, you have a choice. You can walk through as a mask, a polished performance of who you think they want to see, or you can walk through as yourself, just a little bit bigger than usual. Those are the two doors. Every improv scene starts the same way. Two people step onto a stage with nothing, and the fi

There's a misunderstanding at the center of how most people think about improv, and it took me a long time to put words to it so I'll try now. The misunderstanding is that improv is about making things up. You get on stage and you invent a character, a voice, a personality, a whole person who doesn't exist. The audience laughs at the invention and the cleverness of it. That's the story we tell ourselves about what's happening, and it's almost entirely wrong. What's actually h

Here's the scene: you're waiting for a text back, the message was delivered, and the little checkmarks have been staring at you for twenty-three minutes. In that time you've written the entire next act of your life, they're mad, they lost their phone, they finally realized what a disaster you are, they're composing the perfect goodbye paragraph. You've rehearsed your counter-argument, your defense, your dignified exit. You've narrated the breakup, the makeup, the awkward sile

You've been on stage your whole life, you just didn't know it. That sounds like a line from an improv warm-up or maybe a philosophy class you slept through in college, but I mean it literally. Every single day you walk out your front door and you step into a scene that's already started, one with set pieces and supporting characters and plot twists you never saw coming, and the only question is whether you're going to play your part on autopilot or actually show up for it. I

Will Hines is an improv performer and teacher you might know from the UCB Theatre in New York or from his book How to Be the Greatest Improviser on Earth and his newsletter Will Hines Improv Nonsense which has become a kind of water cooler for improvisers who think seriously about what they do. He recently wrote something that stopped me cold. The Toronto problem is too much agreement and not enough direction. He was teaching in Toronto and noticed that players would agree be

I've bombed auditions. Real bombs. The kind where you walk out of the room and you already know, before the callback list goes up, before the email comes, before anyone says a word. You know in your bones. And that walk to the car is one of the longest walks there is. I've also gotten the call. The callback. The part. The yes. And I've learned something strange about those two experiences: I wouldn't trade the bombs for the wins. Not because the wins don't matter. They do. Bu

You know the ones I'm talking about. The people who tell you "you killed it" when you're pretty sure you barely survived. The ones who point out a strength you didn't even know was there. The ones who celebrate your show even when you spent the whole set chasing a tag that never landed. These aren't yes-men. They're not enablers. They're witnesses. And in improv, same as in life, that's a very different thing. The scene partner you deserve In a scene, the best partner doesn't

A few days ago, Lloydie over at Improv Chronicle published a piece called "When Dogma Dies, Improv Comes Alive." It's a good read. The central idea is that an informed point of view is worth more than one you inherited just because it's the only school you've ever known. And the pool metaphor stuck with me: you can't see the water you've been swimming in until you get out. I read it and nodded along. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized the real takeaway isn't just

If you've ever taken an improv class, especially Level 1, you've heard it: "Don't ask questions." It gets delivered like a commandment, usually right after someone opens a scene with a wide-eyed "What are you doing?" and the teacher gently steers them toward making a statement instead. I get why the rule exists. It's a training wheel. And training wheels serve a real purpose: they keep you from falling before you've learned to balance. But here's the thing about training whee

Here's something I've learned watching people walk into rooms where it matters. A job interview is an audition. A client pitch, a first day, a hard conversation you've been dodging, that moment when you raise your hand and say something you're not sure will land with all auditions. Same structure, same pressure, same voice in your head telling you to be better, be faster, will land in all auditions. The good news is auditions are teachable. Improv figured this out a long time

You are sitting in the waiting room. Again. Not a real one. The one in your head. It is the space between the thing you want and the thing you are afraid to start. The space between the stage and the wings, between the blank page and the first word, between the idea and the offer. Most people live their whole lives in this room. Improv taught me something surprising about waiting. In improv, we have a name for this. We call it being in your head. It is the moment before the s