A phenomenon that sometimes surprises me, though it really shouldn’t, is that of students who get so frustrated with their performance in a particular class that their brains shut down. It’s an infrequent occurrence with lower-level improv classes, and it’s usually a one-time thing that you can use as a string teachable moment. That often means that I’ve failed to adequately communicate that in improv, not only is failure an option, it’s a necessity.

Still, it seems like I’m encountering it in higher-level classes with greater and greater frequency. I’m running the replays of my own teaching in my head, and while it’s clear that I could stand to reinforce the notion of failure as a positive, I wonder if there’s more than that. As an improv community grows, as improvisers’ peers begin to join independent teams and house team, as the level of play rises, do students wrongly associate the classroom with the audition room? Are students feeling a non-existent pressure to perform tremendous feats in classes?

I’ve long held that classes are key to an improviser’s development. You can see shows until you are blue in the face, and you can be coached as part of a team, but an improv class is going to engage in activities and exercises that you aren’t going to get elsewhere. Seeing shows provides modelling, being coached provides practice and feedback, but classes are where the majority of the theory should be taking place. (That’s not to say that a coach won’t bring a heavy theoretical perspective– s/he should. But coaching tends to be a longer-term activity with one person, while classes tend to be discrete sessions, and improvisers should, in my model, be moving through multiple topics and levels with various instructors. Instructors teaching multiple levels should be varying lessons, philosphies, and texts depending on the level.)

It’s Cinco de Moustache! That’s right, May 5 is a bona-fide Mexican holiday. It’s the day that a whole country became united under one governing principal: the moustache. In honor of this great day, RossWhite.com is collecting pics of YOU with a sweet-ass moustache. Updates all throughout the day! So, I hope you’ve been growing your peachfuzz, trimming your goatee, or using magic marker to make a hot, hot ’stache.

Send me a picture of you with a moustache, and I’ll post it! The only catch– the picture has to be one you took today! Props go to groups of moustaches!

That’s me!

That’s Dave Reis, who not only got me started on the path to Cinco de Moustache, he moustached it up a day early!

He trimmed a little today for the holiday itself!

Corey, in an obvious yet legal photoshoppery.

Lisa’s in.

The Doctor is also mustachioed.

Andrew wasn’t sure if he counted, since he left the strip.

Drowatzky lookin’ fine.