THANK YOU, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – BLOG 2/01/09

The other night in a Laughter for a Change improv class, the students spontaneously created a parody of "King Kong!" That’s right, and in the third class of the session. And the whole piece, complete with final scene on the Empire State Building, lasted about a two minutes! It was hilarious.

In talking about it afterwards, I said that the only real problem was it was so noisy and there was so much screaming (the girl, the airplanes, the Great Ape) that it was a little hard to follow. Not enough listening, I said. One of the players said “But it’s improv. Isn’t the nature of improvising something that big and with that many people that it will be very noisy?” “NO.” I answered. “Not if you’re fully committed to the moment, as you guys were, AND listening to the other players and to the space at the same time. It’s like music.” I’ve thought about that moment a lot since then. Trying to put into words what exactly was necessary to really make that almost glorious moment truly glorious. Then this morning, Super Bowl Sunday, in the New York Times, there was an interview with Bruce Springsteen, talking about his performance later today at the half-time show and other big performances he does. “Those moments are an opportunity for a very heightened kind of communication” he said.

That’s what I’ll tell them next week when we re-stage our mini-epic improv version of "King Kong." It doesn’t have to be noisy. In fact, moments like that – in our little theater, in a two-person conversation or at the Super Bowl – are an opportunity for “a very heightened kind of communication.” Thank you, Bruce Springsteen, once again, for supplying the right words at the right time.