Jill Bernard’s solo show, Drum Machine was my favorite show of the festival. I felt like I was taking Improv 101 all over again as I watched it, because Jill reminded me of so many things that I don’t always take into consideration, things that I take for granted when I get into scenes, and things that I knew I needed to work on for so long that I somehow forgot why I needed to work on them. Here’s two of them.

Lesson #1: Slow improv and energetic improv can and should be the same thing. Jill’s got a ridiculous amount of energy and positivity in her daily life, and she goes into hyper-energetic on stage. But her scenework isn’t frenzied, and her best moments were the understated ones that moved slowly. You can always feel something bubbling beneath the surface, though; the moments where the fourth wall is broken, even moves between characters, are so energetic that the pieces resonates. There’s an amazing aura of fun that she brings to the top of a show and unleashes on the audience, and the undercurrent of that fun, the promise that you’ll see it unleashed again… it enters performer and audience into a contract of positivity.

Lesson #2: Treat every second on stage as a gift to the audience. There is no moment before the improv starts for the audience. I learned this doing shortform; I forgot it doing longform. It’s not enough to run in, bounce a little energetically, and wait for someone in your group to get a suggestion. This is your moment to connect to the audience as yourself; for them, the show has already begun. Billy Merritt told a class to enjoy the opening, because that might be the last time they’d see their classmates as humans. And we should check in with the audience as we hit the stage; it’s the last time they’ll see us as one of them… but really, the performance is already begun. We should already be the them they want to be.