When I first started doing improv, it was like falling in love. I think a lot of improvisers feel the same way, it’s intoxicating, you want to be doing it all the time and when you aren’t, you’re talking about it. Even alone, it has yes anded it’s way into your head, like a song you find yourself humming.
It’s an exhilarating time full of new possibilities, after all each show is different. Maybe not so much for your friends and family, who must endure at least one show if not many. For all the boundless excitement of the novice improviser, the skill is usually not there. The limits of love are tested in those beginning times.
Improv becomes like the boyfriend or girlfriend that everybody you know hates but they will not tell you how they feel. It is the true test of their affection for you if they come to more than one show.
You roommate might say, “You were the best one in the show.”
This is a lie, or if it is the truth it doesn’t mean you were good.
So why continue? For the money? All the anonymous sex? The inevitable Nobel Prize?
You do it because it’s love. Which means that you keep going, even when it’s bad and it will be bad. There will be struggles, both external and internal. But if it’s true love, you will persevere.
Then, and only then will the people in your life accept your improv significant other.
Maybe.
The Writings of Leo Byrne Jenicek 