What can you say, your scenes are funny. You were funny from day one. Something about your delivery, your aura, your personality, just makes you fun to watch. And nobody can copy your magicā theyād clearly be trying to do a weird impression of you instead of doing their own thing. Other people are sweating all these fine details of craft and technique. Who wants that? When you talk, people laugh. Thatās all you need.
Some people are naturals, to one degree or another. They find immediate success, at a cost. Laughter is our feedback mechanism. When people laugh, weāve done something right. When they donāt, weāve failed. Over the course of thousands of experiments we use this feedback to isolate the parts of our techniques and our selves that arenāt working, adjust them, and try again. When youāre really naturally funny, youāre robbed of this mechanism, and have no recourse to improvement. In improv as in all things, the silver lining of failure is that it lets us see ourselves more clearly.
There are two paths to becoming a truly great artist. Be born a natural, and find a way to master the rest of the techniques anyway by working with people who are skilled at Gyo and can help you. Or, master the techniques, then use them to find your voice.
I donāt yet have much advice to offer on finding your voice. When I speak, I can still hear in my head the voices of all the people Iām trying to be. Sometimes I can remember exactly who I just stole a sentence from, though thatās getting less frequent over time, which strikes me as both promising and sad. Iām still very much on this road. So instead, Iāll share the words of a true Yen Master, Jill Bernard, from her āSmall Cute Book of Improvā:
In the end, there are no schools of improv. The only Johnstonian performer in the world is Keith Johnstone. Even though he influenced nearly everyone, there was only one Del Close. Spolin was Spolin and you are not.
You are your own school of improv. You will spend your formative years becoming a crazy quilt of every teacher you ever have and every book you ever read. Then eventually you will become yourself. You will find your style. You will still collect best practices from everyone and you will still load up your tool belt from wherever you can, but you will be yourself. You will still have weaknesses that you work on, and room to grow, and you will grow. You will have your own rules. You will find others whose schools are compatible with your own and you will build teams together. You will be true to what makes you most happy.
Itās easy to get caught up and never become the improvisor you might be. You can spin your wheels for years just eating chicken wings at the bar and talking shit after another night of student improv that merely met expectations. Iām not going to judge, Iāve eaten my share of chicken wings. I will tell you this: itās never too late to become yourself.