The Best Improv Classes In Fort Worth

I have always enjoyed visiting Fort Worth to lead improv based workshops for the office. The relaxed and approachable energy of the city lends itself to improv, which is a art form that rewards those qualities.

Once, a small Board of Directors for a non-profit reached out to me to ask me to lead a team building (or team camaraderie) workshop for them. The board had gone through some changes recently and there had been a budget shortfall in the last year that had left them not all on the same page. There had been some infighting and an important board member had resigned, which had only heightened hard feelings.

The good news is they were all from Fort Worth, so they started the workshop with a great energy and great attitude. Yes, the board was in disarray but they wanted to fix it and they were interested in the exercises that I could provide to help them collaborate more effectively.

We started off, as I normally do, with really simple exercises. I knew it was going to go well when we tried an exercise called One Voice. In this exercise everybody takes turns leading what the group is going to say next while also speaking simultaneously. It normally of starts off in a slow dirge, with everyone forming vowels or consonants together and listening to see which way the group is moving.

The group can only move of course, if someone makes a decision whether this or that initial sound is going to become Apple or if it Anyway instead. You need those next sounds to start emerging in order to know where you are headed, but you can't have them come out too fast or people won't be able to get on board successfully.

After we did the exercise a few times and after everybody was laughing and already having a great time, we thought about it. One Voice is kind of like leading an organization. People need to point in a direction so that everyone can add their energy and their efforts in moving the institution in that direction. But you can't change things so quickly that others don't have a chance to get on board and to help. If you do that you'll end up miles ahead of everybody else and no one else will get to participate and you may not ever get to where you're going.

Once we had done simple exercises it was time for something a little bit more challenging. We tried a game called The Advertising Game which is an exercise where everyone says yes to each other's ideas but they don't just say yes to the ideas... They celebrate them!

Each time someone says a new idea everyone treats it as if it was the best idea they ever heard and since they just heard the best idea they ever heard several times, the excitement and the enthusiasm in the scene grows and grows and grows until the entire class is in almost euphoric state.

This went over like gangbusters. They really knocked it out of the park. Just about eight people in this Workshop but they all committed hard and they all had a wonderful time.

I stayed in touch with them after the workshop and they've reported that the board is doing much better now. I won't say it's because of the improv workshop but it certainly didn't hurt. They determined their own future by wanting to fix the problems that they had on the Board and wanting to heal Old Wounds.

I was honored to be a part of that journey. Improve certainly lends itself to that type of journey as it is a collective art form that believes in supporting everyone and treating everyone's ideas as though they are absolutely critical.