The week of July 20 at Unquowa was a magical one. Twentytwo children entered the school Monday morning, and on Friday afternoon, twenty two improvisers left. The week was full - with three guest instructors, as well as a co-director from the U.K., students learned about the core aspects of Improvisational Comedy, which culminated in a fantastic show demonstrating what they learned.

The transition from child to teenager is never an easy one.  Children become more self-conscious and worried; increasingly terrified that nothing they say or do will ever be considered “right.”  As we grow up, we listen more and more to the voices of society and less and less to the world around us.  Consequently, this world becomes dull, a machine which runs on conditioned responses.  That is why, to us, working with pre-teens was such an important challenge to undertake.  We wanted to harness childish freedom and the power of the young imagination.  We hoped to let these blossoming adults cherish all that exists outside of ‘the box’.

Improvisation is all about support, fearlessness, confidence and freedom.  Throughout the week we have watched children become comfortable throwing themselves into anything, often without knowing what that anything might turn out to be.  We have also watched friendships form. Children who, before Monday, had never met, began to trust one another and create together as a team.

It is so easy to become lost in the chase for self improvement-to see the education system as a battle to be top of the class.  Yet, by encouraging these young people to make their peers look better than them, and to forget their ‘selves’ we feel that we have created a troupe in which every member can shine in the light their fellows cast upon them.

Improvisational Theater is an exploration of our humanity. As people, we experience a broad spectrum of emotions in our daily lives, and these emotions lead us to act. It is through our interactions with one another that we are able to discover who we are. Improv is a unique distillation of that process; the nature of the art form encourages its performers to make their way out to the unknown and face our greatest fears, our worst nightmares as individuals and performers: that we are somehow different, odd, or strange. It is through teamwork, honesty, and trust in one’s self and one’s fellow team members that each child performing today stands on the precipice and looks out at what scares them to their core. When they took that leap into the unknown at the beginning of this week- and continued to again and again and again- each child found that they are, in fact, not alone. They have there with them a strong backbone of support in their team members, who just so happened to remember an extra parachute on the off chance that someone might need one.

Amy Hellman & Rebecca Gibson, Improv Clinic Directors