Zach Ward is back in town. People, get ready for a DSI INVASION.

In the last few days since the DCM invitations went out, I’ve seen a number of friends and acquaintances bemoaning the fact that their groups did not get into the festival in their online blogs and message boards. It’s cool to be let down about not accomplishing something that you hoped to accomplish, but I think part of the trick with being a professional improviser is to shout your successes and keep quiet some of the disappointments, simply because there’s a degree to which people will identify your performance with your attitude away from the stage. That’s not fair, sure, but it happens. Why? Because, in improv, we reveal ourselves onstage. And like it or not, people are looking at you offstage.

At the same time, I am all for journalling through your experiences, good and bad, as you undertake the practice of improvisation. I think you need to do some reflection on the practice of the art in order to excel. And I don’t think it’s reasonable to sugar-coat your feelings about your improvement, your confusion, your excitement, your disappointment. But let these be words about you, because ultimately, you can’t and shouldn’t be responsible for chronicling anyone else’s journey. If you want to be down in your journal, be down because you know you can be better. Be down because you expect to excel, and let that statement serve as your reminder that you can become who you want to be, and there is plenty in your power to change as you make yourself that person, that improviser, that actor.

So don’t be sour grapes. View disappointment as an indicator that there may be something you can do better. Everything in the acting world is slanted towards the unfair; you balance the scales by making everything you do superior.