The Power of Improvisation

A creative prompt for play and laughter.

Welcome to the weekend edition Creative Fuel! These weekend missives are for creative inspiration, sometimes through prompts, sometimes through other means. Paid subscribers have full access to the archive of weekend prompts + inspiration.

Last weekend I got to spend a lot of time with my friend Sara McMahon, who works as an applied improv facilitator. In other words, she uses improv techniques to teach essential skills like playfulness, empathy, connectedness, and overcoming fear of failure.

I’ve never done any improv before—or any type of theatre or acting for that matter— but doing some work with Sara has me thinking of how powerful the generative nature of this art form is. I wrote yesterday about coming out of our heads and into our bodies, and many of the exercises that I got to do with Sara were exactly that.

The other night my husband and I sat down with Sara’s Playdate Deck, a fun deck with all kinds of prompts for improv games and exercises, and found ourselves laughing hysterically as we made things up on the spot.