Everyone who has performed in a play, whether they’re still actors or not, at least occasionally suffers through some version of what’s commonly known as “the actor’s dream.”
I still have the dream every once in a while, more than 50 years after achieving the pinnacle of my thespian success: portraying Uncle Sid in the 1973 Winter Park High School Senior Class Play, Ah! Wilderness.
(Maybe it didn’t help that my best friend, Tom Nowicki—whom you may have seen most recently in the critically acclaimed streaming TV series Bad Monkey—played the ˆlead in Ah! Wilderness and seemed to be such a natural even then.)
Anyway, here’s the dream: I’m back in high school and have a role in a play. Although it’s opening night, I realize—just before my entrance—that I haven’t memorized my lines. Heck, I don’t even know what the play is about.
My drama teacher, the formidable Ann Derflinger, is (of course) watching in the wings. I desperately try to find a script so I can scan the pages and at least get a general sense of the story. But there’s no script to be found. Panic sets in.
Mercifully, before my humiliation is complete, I awake in a cold sweat. As I sit up in bed and as my heart rate slows, I’m reminded again why I find improvisation so terrifying (and amazing).
Every night, it seems to me, improv actors live out this scenario. The best among them—such as David Charles, the Rollins College professor and SAK Comedy Lab mainstay profiled by Steve Schneider in this issue—actually enjoy it.
While reading Steve’s story, I had a flashback to my one—and thus far only—adventure in improv. I was persuaded to attend a SAK performance at the troupe’s venue, a 100-seat theater at 45 East Church Street, back in 1991. (It’s now at 55 West Church Street in a 250-seat theater.)
The offering was Las Vegas Hospital, a full-length play that had a pre-determined premise but was largely improvised using audience prompts—along with, as it turned out, one unsuspecting audience member.
“We need a volunteer,” announced one of the actors as I slunk down in my seat and attempted to look inconspicuous. “How about the gentleman in the green shirt?”
I was, in fact, wearing a very green shirt. And I was a gentleman, or at least it must have appeared so. The “volunteer” would be me—how could I say no without appearing to be a bad sport?
Making matters more fraught, I was told that I would be onstage for the entire show. Mostly, I would lie prone and mute on an operating table. But I would be given opportunities to interact with my, er, co-stars.
Dave Russell, one of SAK’s co-founders, remembered. Well, he didn’t remember me specifically—after all, I wasn’t that great—but he was in the cast that night so I recently gave him a call to reminiscence.
“Well, there’s no real formula for selecting audience members,” he explained. “We look for someone who appears to be engaged and seems as though they might be open and amenable. Often, it’s a certain look we’re after. But we never know until the last minute.”
Although for me the Las Vegas Hospital experience is something of a blur, I distinctly remember the actors quietly putting me at ease between scenes and whispering such affirmations as “you’re doing great.”
I told Dave this, and he said that’s simply how improv rolls. Creating a supportive environment is crucial to having a successful performance.
“Improv is like life,” he noted. “People must work together as a team. In the case of this show, we were saying: ‘We are inviting you into our world. It will be an adventure. We don’t know exactly what will happen, but we will take care of you.’”
I also vividly recall that the show was hilarious from start to finish. Although unscripted, it unfolded in a distinctive and (mostly) logical narrative arc that was developed in the moment.
Audience prompts, some of which seemed thoroughly off-the-wall, instantly became integral to the action. Extemporized lounge-lizard-style songs were spot on, and every joke landed. I even uttered a few funny lines—although I can’t remember what they were.
I came to believe that these people—including Dave, Joel McCrary, Gary Rohrman, Morgan Russell, Clare Sera and Vance Sullivan—were geniuses. Only Dave is still at SAK, now running its burgeoning corporate training and custom shows division, while the others continue to work in some facet of showbiz.
I still can’t watch much improv because it makes me too nervous for the performers. I’ve got to get over that; after all, they’re pros, not stuttering amateurs like me. I’ve also got to finally get over the actor’s dream.
But how? I guess I need to talk to someone. But first I need to consult my script. It must be around here somewhere.
WE’RE WINNERS!
Winter Park Publishing Company was recently named a winner or a finalist in a record six categories of the annual competition sponsored by the Society for Professional Journalism’s Sunshine State Awards. The submissions earning recognition were:
• Winter Park Magazine: “Seeing Stars,” Bob Kealing (First Place, Light Feature Reporting, Long-Form)
• Winter Park Magazine: “Laurence J. Ruggiero, A Remembrance,” Michael McLeod (First Place, Obituary Writing)
• Winter Park Magazine: “Hard News,” Greg Dawson (Finalist, Profile Writing)
• Winter Park Magazine: Carolyn Edmunds (Finalist, Cover Design)
• ArtsLife: Inside Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (Finalist, Trade or Special Interest Publication)
• Living in Winter Park (Finalist, Special Publication or Section)