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Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up

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This book was recommended to me by a friend who's an improv genius, but I was taken with how broad the Improv Wisdom maxims are to everyone's life.

Ms. Madson organizes the book into 13 maxims, each given its own chapter. Samples include: #1: say yes; #2: don't prepare; #3: show up. Sounds simple, right? Although Ms. Madson writes in a tight, easy-to-abosrb style, she also looks you dead in the eye. For example, for people (like me) who just can't remember people's names, she calls it laziness. If you can't remember someone's name, she says you're breaking maxim #3. She doesn't stop there - she gives real improv exercises to build strengths in each maxim. (I tried her approach at the dog park yesterday when I met some new dogs - and their parents - and it worked!)


Improv Wisdom is my favorite new book for how to lead a creative, full life. (Move over, Stephen Covey!) I'm buying copies for everyone I care about and strongly recommend it to anyone who needs a refresher course for how to show up to their own life.

I've had Patricia Ryan Madson's Improv Wisdom for a few months now. I keep re-reading parts and also buying additional copies for friends. It's enjoyable to read, but more enjoyable to use. My favorite chapter is entitled "Be Average," which sounds terrible (probably VERY terrible to the Stanford students who first experienced Madson's ideas) but it's freed me to write and do other things that waiting for perfection would have blocked. Moreover, the stress-reduction that goes with the principle improves the odds of being much better than average. It's a little book. Take it with you on your next trip.

In a world where management gurus and self-help coaches profess the necessity of intricate planning, Ms. Madson's book presents a refreshing counterpoint. As someone once said - Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans. Approaching life from an improv angle, making it up, with others, as you go along, is a liberating notion. Being open to the present moment and what it brings, accepting reality and not feeling constant disappointment at the way things should be, can only result in a calmer, and perhaps paradoxically, more productive life. I highly recomend this book for anyone who feels deficient for not owning a planner the size of the Oxford dictionary, or like me, who has bought at least four planners over the last decade, and have made enough entries to fill at most one letter-size sheet.

I found practical solutions to life-long problems, fun and inspirational ways to improve my talents and a twist of perspective on life that truly uses life's mistakes and challenges as fuel for even greater adventures. Forgiveness, compassion, acceptance, gratitude, action, attention, focus, productivity and let's not forget joy; all in a little book that's a seemingly easy read but packs a huge punch!

For the last ten years I have performed and studied long form improvisational comedy in different theaters in New york City and do so despite having no desire or aspiration to be a professional performer

a) because i love it and

b) because i have found it from the first day to be a wisdom tradition in its own right. I find it one of the most vital, delightful and challenging spiritual practices I have and have written on the subject myself - The 10 Commandments as Rules of Improvisation was a short piece a wrote a few years ago.

Anyway, Improv Wisdom is just great. While many of the insights and the revelations aren't new to me... some are.The book is a real charmer and very practical and as an improvisor I connected to what she meant. Madson's views are broad and take some of the "rules" of improv and good scenework and extend them into the world of experience and away from the small stage.

My own perosanl wish is that she drew a bit more deeply on the variety of long form improv wealth from Chicago - Del Close, Charna Halpern, Mick Napier, Joe Bill, Armando Diaz and improv's resident mystic Ali Farahnakian et al...because I think that the more explicit approach of long form improv serve the points of the book even more fully than TheaterSports does.

I guess I can sum it up with a recollection of how true this book is - My first improv teacher ever (this was in 1996) was Amy Poehler (now on SNL) at Solo Arts Stage in Chelsea. She said to us, with as much conviction as I have heard anyone say anything:

"The stage is my church and long form improvisational comedy is my religion and I want to practice it at every moment in my life. When I have felt most myself and most alive is when I have been living this way. Now, rock out with your cocks out." And she laughed.

Truer words were never spoken and Amy shows why this book is so applicable to everyone. It is fresh, open and available to meet you where you are, like any good scene partner.

Improv Wisdom is a list of life skills that are inspiring yet comfortable, like the author's favorite, fleece pajamas. Patricia Ryan Madson has spent her life teaching theater and exploring cultures and philosophies and she brings her observations, personal stories and the experiences of her students together in a book that is an easy, entertaining read. So often, self help books are overwhelming and academic publications daunting. Improv Wisdom is motivating and I find myself revisiting the chapters like mantras - always with a smile. I can't wait to give it as a gift to the people who make up the Improv of my life.

I am one of Patricia's students at Stanford, and I am not embarrassed to say that her class really did change my life. I never thought that a drama teacher would be able to have such a huge impact on me.
All of Patricia's best anecdotes, advice and words of wisdom are in this book. Read it if you're a drama student (it's amazing how much your acting will improve if you incorporate improv into your craft), but definitely read it if you're not. This book isn't so much about improv as it is how to lead your life. Trust me, if you follow Patricia's advise, your life will improve for the better. Really.

I have been carrying this small book everywhere I go for over a year now. I open it to any old page, and there I discover exactly what I need to read right then, right at that time and place. Is this magical? Perhaps.
It seems, though, that every sentence Patricia Madson writes is a psychological landmine: read it, and it trips a kind of explosion in one's mind. Is this book about acting? I would say that it is, in that acting on a stage is not so different from fretting and strutting upon the stage of life(did I just totally mash that Shakespeare reference? Oh, well.) What has been most useful to me so far is her comments on traversing the rocky road of life with the attitude that one might try approaching the inevitable rough parts of life in an improvisational manner: the open mind invites new experience instead of building a wall of anxiety against it. Actor and teacher Madson has certainly developed a wisdom that she communicates in a deceptively simple style, and I find every dip into the pages of IMPROV: WISDOM an expansion of my own thoughts about my spiritual journey, my work in psychotherapy, and my interest in performing. I would recommend this book to anyone who is bored with life, individuals who always open Door #1 and may find some surprises behind Doors # 2,3,4,5,6.....; writers, actors, therapists, politicians, professors, religious leaders, and everyone else, really.

"Improv Wisdom" assures us that we're not alone with our worries or problems while challenging us to pay attention and take action to live meaningful lives with a glad heart. Beautifully written, this refreshing book is a sincere invitation to stop obsessing about "what ifs" and outcomes and to focus in the present on our purpose, where we are, who we're with and -- most importantly -- what we're doing. The maxims Patricia Ryan Madson puts forward are simple, logical and authentic -- and truly helpful to anyone who feels overwhelmed at times by commitments at work, at home or by life in general. Unlike so many other "self-help" authors, Madson manages to balance warmth and compassion with a steadfast refusal to guarantee easy results (or even any results) from following her counsel. You may not know what lies ahead, but you will definitely have a much more interesting time getting there if you take this book to heart.

You're looking for something you can't quite name, the answer to a question you can't quite articulate.

Something else shows up.

It's on a different subject altogether.

And yet, for no apparent reason, it tells you what you needed to know.

"Improv Wisdom" is like that. I have no interest in improvisational theater. I doubt you do. But if you step back just a bit --- if you look at your life like a play that you improvise at almost every moment --- these 148 pages offer more in the way of genuine self-help advice than anything Dr. Phil can direct you to.

"Don't prepare, just show up." That's the book's subtitle and its message. Its radical message, because we have been so trained to plan and script and PowerPoint that the last thing to occur to us is just to dive in and make it up as we go along.

Patricia Ryan Madson, a professor emerta at Stanford University, used to be just like us. She had a career path. She did things that were "good" for advancement. She won awards. She got her dream teaching job.

Then her life fell apart. Her teaching "lacked intellectual distinction." She didn't get tenure.

How could this be? She'd been a good girl, she'd done everything right. Except, perhaps, one thing: She'd never done anything for its own sake, never taken a detour for the fun of it, never showed she was different from all the middle-level talents who grind out second-tier careers.

Patricia Ryan Madson got the message. She took up drumming, just because. Spent summers dancing and traveling. Studied Eastern religion. And, two years later, was asked to head Stanford's undergraduate acting program. She spent the rest of her career there, winning the university's highest teaching prize --- though she might say the crowning achievement of her decades in Palo Alto was the founding of a theatrical group, the Stanford Improvisers.

Improvising, she emphasizes, has "nothing to do with wit, glibness or comic ability." It is simply about saying "yes" to what is in front of you. And, therefore, you can learn how to do it --- how to listen, plan just enough, follow the plan but not religiously, and then trust yourself to get to a good place through improvisation.

It all starts with "yes." Are you prepared? No? Worry not. You're fine. Indeed, spend a day without planning --- see if it ends badly. Nervous about being out on a limb? Good! The only time you should really feel confident is after you've succeeded. Worried that you won't succeed? Lower the bar. Mistakes? They're often "results that we had not planned."

Along the way, Madson offers advice that seems to have nothing to do with theater or life. "Make a point of thanking people for thankless jobs." Write a thank-you note every day. Be a guardian angel to one person. Why? So you can be more awake, more attentive, more in the stream of life.

Since I finished this book, I've been living more with two hands, open ears and a relaxed mouth. I may not be making immediate progress on a long piece of writing, but I sure am taking more notes and writing more random paragraphs. I'm noticing who listens and who doesn't, and seeing how the people who don't hear what's actually said are blocking their own progress. And I'm feeling more pain --- other people radiate it, and maybe I do too --- but also experiencing more joy. In a word: I'm more alive.

This book alerted me to a better way just when I needed to hear it.

Maybe it's also the right time for you to get interested in improvisational theater.