Improvisation is Impossible

After a rehearsal, run-through, workshop or performance, it’s useful to take stock and analyse what felt good and what felt less good. We should aim to be completely honest and open about this if we are to improve.

However, in addition to the self-criticism, I often think it’s also useful to remember that everything we are attempting is, in an important sense, impossible. To begin from nothing, and then collaborate with your colleagues and with the audience to create an entire universe that we all inhabit, is a divine gift, which must be cherished. And every step along that suspended tightrope of disbelief is itself a little miracle.

What’s that you say? We can’t really perform miracles and create impossible universes? Not with that attitude, we can’t.

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