Improv is most commonly associated with acting—but it’s not just actors who turn to improv to face fears and grow confidence.
Darren Held understands the potential of improv. As an actor, he knows how the artform can apply to drama skills—but as a teacher, Held has seen how the approach to performing benefits not just thespians, but people in general. On Friday through Sunday, Aug 15-17, Held is bringing an Improv Comedy Intensive to CVRep, filling a weekend with improv games and sessions where attendees can improve adaptability, cooperation and listening skills.
During a recent phone interview, Held explained how his theatrical background led him to create his improv comedy school in Long Beach.
“I was an actor for a long time, and I went to The Groundlings improv comedy school, and went through their whole program,” Held said. “I was living in Long Beach, and I started realizing that it wasn’t helping just my acting skills—but in my life all around. I was becoming more confident, able to try new things, and it was really helping me with relationship stuff, saying ‘yes’ to things and being more present in the moment. I started my own group in Long Beach about 15 years ago called Held2gether. I’ve continued to apply those aspects of agreement and saying ‘yes’ to things in life with all kinds of different groups of people, all different ages, for the past 15 years.”
The Improv Comedy Intensive at CVRep will turn rookies into performers in just three short days—and give attendees useful skills for their daily lives.
“It’s going to be an intensive learning situation for anybody, all levels, to learn the benefits of improv, and then learn how to do scene work, and … perform on the last day,” Held said.
A majority of the people who Held has worked with in improv classes are not actors or performers.
“I think people see improv comedy, and they think, ‘Oh, you have to be so smart and clever and funny to do that,’ but really, anybody can do it,” he said. “There are some rules to follow, and as long as you do that, you can be really successful. One of my biggest surprises is that I’ve had so many people who are engineers or accountants, or lots of left-brain people who come and try this out and find their creative side and be successful.
“There are also other people who thought, ‘Oh, I could never do that; I’m my 70s or 80s,’ and they come in, and they totally get invested and blow it out of the water. It crosses all barriers, and you meet people you wouldn’t normally have in your sphere. You see older people hanging out with younger people, and people from all different backgrounds getting to know each other. It’s a great way to build a unique, diverse community.”
The Improv Comedy Intensive at CVRep will pull from various aspects of Held’s experience.
“(Improv) crosses all barriers, and you meet people you wouldn’t normally have in your sphere. You see older people hanging out with younger people, and people from all different backgrounds getting to know each other.”
Darren Held
“This will be the first of its kind,” Held said. “I have done some one-day intensive workshops, some four-hour workshops, and I’ve worked with a lot of different corporations where they’ve had me come in and use improv skills for the company over weeks at a time or days at a time, learning different skills. This is the first time where it’s purely for the love of the craft, over an extended period of time, and with the opportunity to perform at the end of it.”
The workshop will focus on three key aspects of improv.
“Those are agreement, which is saying yes, so learning to accept things,” he said. “Then there’s collaboration—adding information—and then … your emotional commitment in it. We play games that focus on those individual foundations, and then we start to put them together, and that’s when scene work comes in. You start to create these things and see, ‘Wow, I can actually completely do an unscripted scene by just listening and applying these foundations.’ It’ll definitely be step by step to get people confident in that arena. There are different kinds of games that you can play and be successful at, too. Sometimes, it’s an unscripted poetry jam; other times, it could be an Oscar-winning movie monologue that you’re doing, and other times, it’s just two people having a scene, coming together, and realizing something about their lives. There are lots of different ways to find where people’s strengths lie, and it’s fun.”
One of the most famous and notable improvisers is Colin Mochrie, of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the show that helped popularize improv in the modern era. I interviewed Mochrie last year, and he discussed the importance of failure in improv, saying, “Failure is such a dirty word to everyone—and improv is kind of built on failure.” Held, as an improv teacher, often emphasizes this fact to his students.
“It’s a natural human tendency to want to be good at everything right away, and one of the great things about improv in general is it teaches that you always fail forward, and that there’s no one answer,” Held said. “Anything you do, anything you say, even if you feel like you make a mistake, you have someone right there to make you look good and say ‘yes’ to it, and that’s the direction. Creating an encouraging environment to support that is really important. Every time you go up, it’s terrifying and exciting, and you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I doing?’ … Then you realize, ‘Wow, I didn’t die, and it was actually pretty fun.’ I think it actually makes you want to take risks in other things in your life.”
Held said he’s often inspired by the people come to his improv classes.
“We stand in a circle and say, ‘What brought you here?’” he said. “So many of the times, people are saying, ‘I have a fear that I want to overcome’—a fear of public speaking, or of socializing, or feeling really introverted all the time. The first step is having the courage to say, ‘Hey, this is something I want to meet head on,’ and showing up. That’s the most inspiring thing for me. … It’s really cool.”
Speaking of Whose Line, Held said he uses the show in his improv courses to stress the importance of listening.
“Thank goodness for Whose Line Is It Anyway?, because now people know what we do,” he said. “The reason (the Whose Line performers) are so good and so funny is because they’re listening so closely. It’s 90% about listening. Listening is probably the greatest skill that comes out of it, and that’s something that’s so valuable these days, because there’s so much overstimulation and such short attention spans. When you become an active listener, people really feel it and recognize it, even if they can’t put their finger on it. It’s a special trait to have, so I’m a big believer in improv being really important today, with everything else going on.”
The Improv Comedy Intensive will run from Friday, Aug. 15, through Sunday, Aug. 17, at the CVRep Playhouse, at 68510 E. Palm Canyon Drive, in Cathedral City. Tickets are $195 for the three-day course. To register or learn more, visit www.cvrep.org.
