Performing vs. Teaching

[B. Tribe]

...do you perfer teaching/performing/coaching?

I know directing isn't on this list, but directing a play is the most comfortable I think I've ever felt anytime anywhere in the world. I haven't directed anything in over 3 years and I'm FREAKING OUT.

I've coached only a handful of times and they've all been good experiences for me. I love to laugh and I get private shows where afterward I can tell people what I saw. I'm also trying to avoid the whole 'do a scene here are notes' coaching and instead finding trends of performance and offering new options. So that's up there too.

Teaching is something I'm pretty good at. I come from a family of teachers (both my parents and 3 of my 4 grandparents). I'm good at expressing my ideas and giving examples/analogies. I also like to encourage people and also find ways to comfortably but effectively give criticism. Those skills carry over into my directing and coaching as well.

I have to perform or else I feel like I'm not home. It might be my least favorite out of the four categories. I still love it though.

I also like being directed, coached, and taught by good people so I can get better at all four.

And has your answer always been that?

No, but I've been performing since I was a kid, so they wouldn't let me direct or teach NO MATTER HOW MUCH I STOMPED MY FEET AND HELD MY BREATH!!!

Directing was transcendent and changed everything.

Or did you also experience a complete shift in your priorities pertaining to improv?

Part of the reason why I do so much more improv than I do acting/directing is the ease of putting on an improv show. At it's simplest, a bunch of people run on stage, the lights are up, you get a suggestion, then you do a show for 20 minutes, and then the lights go down. You SHOULD rehearse and find a troupe and take classes and workshops and see shows, but you don't HAVE to. The shows you are in will most likely suck though.

Acting in a play requires rehearsals, costuming, lines, strict performance dates, tech/HELL week and a multitude of other factors. Directing requires choosing a play, finding a space, finding a stage manager, costumer, scene designer, lighting designer etc., and all that comes before you even get to casting the show. THEN you have to do all tech work while running rehearsals (with the help of an awesome stage manager) and basically doing/attending all the things the actor does above. All shows don't need or use all those positions (damn budgets) but it's still A LOT of work to get a show on stage.

So... all that leads to how improv has shifted my priorities away from theatre, not by being more satisfying but by being hundreds of times easier to do!

[happywaffle]

Of course I still love performing - but now it's really only as a means to improve my own improv skills so that I can become a better teacher. I think this is because I have realized the potential of improv to help people in a very real, concrete way - through both personal-development and self-reflection.

Ruby. You're, like, 20. Stop being so awesome.

I've only TA'd once, though I think about doing it again now that I'm back in the game. I definitely, addictively love doing teaching-type things: talking improv theory with newbie imps, sharing notes on what worked and didn't in a show, showing people new games and formats (and even warmups) they haven't done before. Damn, now that I've written that down, I suddenly want to be a TA. How do I do that? Ruby, do I just sit on people?

I have not yet been bitten by the director bug. The responsibility scares me and I guess I haven't felt the need to expand in that direction. Maybe I never will? Do any long-time imps still have no desire to direct?

Another category that's distinct from the others: doing support work (primarily, lights and sound). I've said before that if I didn't love playing so much, I'd want to do tech all the time. It's fun to have control over a scene and be involved while still being an audience member for the improv onstage.

[ratliff]

I just quit coaching two very good groups, mainly because I feel like I've hit a plateau and want to work on improving my own play. But I also think the plateau was affecting my coaching.

It's not that I had become a bad coach, necessarily, but I was giving notes that I hadn't yet integrated myself, and that felt a little wobbly to me. I'm pretty sure the ideas are sound, but the more I embody them onstage, the better I'll be able to convey them to other people.

I've only been performng improv for about five years. That's a ridiculously short period of time to claim enough mastery to tell other people how to do something. Because Austin doesn't have a very deep pool of more-experienced improvisers, I've been able to teach and coach, and I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity. But I like the status and the attention and the sound of my own voice WAY too much. Coaching and teaching are two of the great joys of my life but they're practically designed to amplify my never-too-far-from-the-surface megalomania to excruciating levels. Eternal vigilance is the price of not being a douchenozzle.

Fortunately, it seems like one way to get better at teaching/coaching is also the way to keep my head a reasonable size, i.e., start closing the gap between What I Practice and What I Preach.

(I agree with Kareem and Adam that teaching helps you analyze your own play. Unfortunately, it also helps you analyze everyone else's. One really nice and unexpected side effect of not coaching for a little while is that it's now much easier for me to watch a show and just enjoy it instead of picking it apart for notes I have not been hired to give.)

[mpbrockman]

...watch a show and just enjoy it instead of picking it apart...

And this is why I find 90% of live music excruciating.

[DollarBill]

I like performing more than teaching, but I really like teaching. I think I mostly like teaching so much because when I'm interested in something I wast to explore it more and more.
Teaching something offers the opportunity to see how someone else does and thinks about something. The more angles I can find to look at improv the better I'll understand it, and teaching it helps me see those angles.
Analogy: Improv is like a planet. And teaching is like a digital telescope. And all the students are like lenses and filters that help you see the planet through the telescope in different ways, thus gathering the most information possible.

Plus, I just like to talk about what I'm into, and teaching is another excuse to talk about improv.