Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Last week it was Lawline’s! (insert rimshot)

I think my fellow astronaut remembers the crumbs I made in the space shuttle.

On the day of Spring Equinox while NYC was still covered in snow, John Timothy of the Upright Citizen’s Brigade arrived to conduct an Improv Comedy Workshop. While I had organized this event, I had never done improv and was afraid of looking foolish in front of my colleagues. Luckily, John informed everyone that we would not look or sound cool. That was quite a relief to hear. He started us out with warm-up exercises which were actually physical exercises in some fashion. We were using our arms, forming letters by body contortion, and running to find new partners constantly.

The “secret ingredients” for the pies were almost released.

Once John thought we were mentally ready, serious comical creativity poured out. In teams of four that varied each time, groups would take turns telling a story, conducting interviews, and pitching not-so-sound business ideas. We spontaneously created scenarios of a movie extra turned trapeze artist in love, an inspiring story of rehabilitated former confidence people turned pie bakers, and Apple executives selling cutting edge paper. In my experience with different colleagues, I left the US for London to only sneak back to the US, went to Mars via NASA making cookies, and tried to sell a vegan-only menu at McDonald’s. A wild genre of feelings was truly displayed on that day.

What I love is that everyone participated and had a turn, whether it was the CEO, Video Producer, or Developer. Workshops like these have a purpose to create team building, but we end up learning that we already have a strong foundation. It’s fantastic to work among people that are so comfortable to get silly with!

We were engrossed at the betrayal between the kangaroo and the mouse.

You can learn more about John and his work here: http://www.johntimothy.com/