Fun at Work

By Lauren Stein

This second edition of Fun at Work pushes the bounds of Art-As-Research by using the arts as the subject, the method, and the presentation of research. Improviser Extraordinaire Lauren Stein leads eight co-workers of a Toronto tech firm through explorations in improv, ranging from simple games to multi-character plays, asking them to journal their responses. Meanwhile, the author becomes pleasantly surprised by the effect this has on her world. Follow Lauren's journey of development in confidence, self-perception, balance, and empathy. Everything you need to know about the history of improvisational theatre, and comparative theories in therapy and theatrical healing, is artfully told between accounts of the six sessions. Discover the findings of Lauren's original research presented in an accessible, amusing manner you will not soon forget. Following up with her participants five years later, Lauren delights in discovering the long-term impact of her fun and deceptively simple workshops.

This is what they had to say: "I truly believe that improv has a huge impact on how people can work together.  For us, it was a fun way to play for two hours a week, and that was it for me. I went about my business. It transformed us in ways we didn't even realize."

"It helped me empathize with others, and see that I'm not the only one with imposter syndrome.  Because of the workshop, I'm more able to put myself in others' shoes. That's helped with my career, especially when I disagree with my boss."

Now that the corporate workplace has overwhelmingly shifted to people's homes, there's no better time to rethink corporate culture and what the office will look like when people return. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arboretum Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781777178369

Book preview

Lauren Stein

Arboretum Press

Fun at Work

TRANSFORM YOUR CAREER with Improv

Copyright © 2020 Lauren Stein

2nd Editon

© 2021 Lauren Stein

ARBORETUM PRESS, GUELPH, Ontario, Canada

www.arboretumpress.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the author, except for brief excerpts used in reviews.

ISBN: (eBook): 978-1-7771783-6-9

ISBN: (paperback): 978-1-7771783-5-2

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all my improv students

and all my therapy, counselling, and coaching clients.

I love you all.

Prologue

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2014

I wasn’t nervous until yesterday when my advisor pointed out that we still haven’t agreed on your thesis plan and research methodology. Before that e-mail, I didn’t realize that was a bad thing. I’ve done this hundreds of times. I know exactly what I’m going to do, even though that includes not knowing what to do. I’m just going to jump in and figure it out as I go along.

Maybe I need to explain something. I’m an improviser, and I’m writing my thesis. My method is to shoot first, justify later. My training allows me to think on my feet. I’m following my curiosity, and I trust the process. I’ll describe the theory behind it as we go along. That way, it’ll make more sense when we get to it. Besides, that keeps things more interesting.

Why should I be concerned with keeping my thesis interesting? Because, like flossing, the entertainment value of a thesis is often forgotten, but if ignored, you could develop gum disease.1 Okay... maybe not gum disease. But our brains experience a numbing effect if we are under-engaged, which does not lead to the desired outcome of learning something novel.

During the late Ming dynasty in China, a novel could be prescribed as an antidepressant.2 According to the preface of the Jin Ping Mei Cihua in 1618, while it may be its teachings that prevent illness in the long run, the clever construction of the story and the charming rhetoric are the sugar on the pill. The reader will be so enticed by the structure and language of the novel...that he may be ‘beguiled into forgetting his melancholy.’ This is preventative medicine. A medical book written later, during the Qing dynasty, claims that taking the drug [meaning novel] can relieve anxiety and dispel melancholy. It can dissipate sluggishness and open up the chest.3 So reading this thesis as a novel, or as creative non-fiction, complete with a plot and character development, could be potent medicine.4 Ultimately, I’m looking out for your health.

That’s why I write in a colloquial, accessible, humorous style. My goal is for this research to reach not only academics, but normal people, too. (Dear academics: That was a joke!) According to contemporary western science, emotions can have a powerful impact on memory.5  If this book arouses your attention, you are more likely to remember what you learn. This is true regardless of whether you feel positive or negative (valence) about my writing style, as long as you don’t feel neutral (bored), which is how I feel reading most research.

And I already know how I’m going to structure it. For each of the six improv sessions, I will write a chapter of what happens (chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8.) Wrapped around and interspersing those chapters will be the content of the traditional five chapters of a thesis: I will introduce the research topic, methodology, scope, and significance in this Prologue; give my literature review, comparing improv to different forms of therapy, in chapter 3; outline the 20th- century history of different forms of improvisation in chapter 6; share the reflections of my participants in chapter 9; and my analysis and discussion will be found in chapter 10. So if you’re specifically looking for only one of those things, you could just read that chapter. But if you’re in for the full ride, plenty of fun surprises await.

If this book succeeds in its purpose, it will activate the imagination and inspire readers to take action. To this aim, Expressive Arts Therapists will understand more about improvisational theatre, and how and why to incorporate more improvisation into their practice. It will equip them with a few games that they can use immediately; meanwhile, improvisation and drama teachers will understand the emotional impact of their work and can increase their capacity to be more therapeutically beneficial.

What assumptions do I bring to my research? To quote Borat, In my country, there is problem.6 While I agree with this assessment, I disagree with his conclusions. In my culture, there is disconnection. We are disconnected from ourselves, from others, from nature, from meaning and spirituality. In an era where we are manipulated by advertising, where we use medication to suppress the messages our bodies and minds are sending, we don’t trust ourselves or our senses. It is so common to use machines and screens as an intermediary that some of us lose touch with how to interact with other people. In urban life, nature seems an abstract concept, whereas concrete is concrete, and food comes from the supermarket. In circles where religious rites and observances are seen as primitive, we lack language and ritual for periodic transitions as well as for processing traumatic events. Between worshipping youth and denying death, we’ve lost our sense of place and meaning in our lives, and humanity’s role in the greater universe.

What if we undertake a group process that boosts our feeling of connection?

Would it enhance the impact if said process involves joy and laughter? Would that improve compliance, effectiveness, and have lasting results?

The aim of this project is to lead six participants through a process of reconnection. The goals are to gain the skills and experiences of connecting with others, through listening to, supporting, and building on what people say; to impart tools and resources to navigate unexpected circumstances; and to increase trust in ourselves by forming questions and seeking our own responses. By creating scenes and plays on the spot, participants will see themselves as part of a greater whole, as serving a greater story or exploration. And in the creation of interesting stories without conflict, we gain a felt-sense that life does not need conflict to be interesting.7

Questions that guide my research are:

•  What would motivate adults to take their silliness seriously?

•  Does having fun help people?

•  How does a series on Improvisational Theatre affect people’s relationships and emotions?

•  Can Improvisational Theatre be used as Preventive Therapy in an organizational environment?

I have designed a study with six three-hour sessions in improvisational theatre. The sessions follow a structure that combines the way I traditionally teach improvisation with the architecture of an Expressive Arts Therapy session. Unique to this research context are elements I’ve added to extract data and to test certain hypotheses.

When I teach improvisation, my workshops begin with a warm- up, which serves to break the ice, get our bodies loose, get our minds nimble, lose some self-consciousness, and bring us all present to each other and to this space that we share. Next we do exercises, when we get into the fun and the flow of improvising and develop our improv abilities. I see this like the rising action of a plot graph, which leads to the climax—creating complex scenes or improvising a play. Afterwards, we discuss what happened. Often I’ll ask a question that each person answers, such as What are you taking away from this? or What did you or somebody else do that you really like? When there’s time, I like to do a short denouement/cool-down activity, like pat everyone’s back or look up and scream.

Expressive Arts Therapy has its own structure, which we call the architecture of the session.8 It begins with the filling-in, when we talk about what’s going on in the expert’s life. And in case I didn’t explain that, we call the people we work with experts, because they are the experts of their own lives. Next we bridge into the decentering, which is when the art-making takes place. At the end of this process is aesthetic analysis, when we ask questions that reflect on our process and our artwork. We stay on the surface, focusing on what is and how it feels, rather than on interpretation. We give the piece a title, which honours it as a legitimate work of art. Finally, there is the harvesting, when we ask questions such as, If this work has anything to do with your situation, what would that be? This could end in giving the expert homework.

There are many similarities between expressive arts and improvisational theatre.

Expressive arts is intermodal, meaning we use all the art forms. Improvisational theatre also incorporates every sense and art form. It’s a performance art, a skilled extension of some of the art forms within the expressive arts field.

There are exercises, as well as play formats, that incorporate music, singing, movement, clowning, poetry, storytelling, and, of course, theatre. The format is inherently visual, and some improvisers incorporate sculpture and visual art to create or use masks, props, costumes, puppets, and set pieces. In my practice, I use exercises in which we create sculptures out of our bodies. I prefer to use the imagination rather than physical objects, for reasons that include (but are not limited to) degradation of the environment;9 increasing the expense of the program; logistics around storing and transporting the items; and often-painful discussions about what to do with the item afterwards. (Throwing it out being the most common decision. On behalf of the artwork, Ouch!)

There are ways that improvisational theatre is different from expressive arts therapy, although it would be fairer to point out that some teachers teach improvisational theatre more therapeutically than others. For years when I taught improvisational theatre, some of my students would call the last part the kumbaya circle. We

stood in a circle, and I gave everyone a chance to answer a question I asked. This was modelled after the example of my teachers at Impatient Theatre Company, who might ask a two-point question: What did you learn, and what are you taking away? This debrief is a one-step version of the aesthetic analysis I learned from Expressive Arts Therapy (EXAT).

In Expressive Arts (EXA), the change agent is not the expert; we often call ourselves the companion. She may be an expert with regards to her training and background, but she doesn’t necessarily have to behave like an expert. When you come to a class or hire a coach for your improv team, the professional is the expert. But not every teacher or coach acts that way. Now that I think about it, I rarely put on an authoritarian tone unless my students ask me about something. Usually I give them alternate ideas rather than critiques in my feedback, and I’m always open to their suggestions. So you could say I teach from a non-expert perspective.

Therapy doesn’t always make people better improvisers. But training in improvisation inherently has therapeutic benefits. According to Christine Lee Mannella,10 members of a group improvising together over time experience caring, trust, openness, respect, sharing power and support, having fun, communication, and increased self-worth. Earl Vickers writes11 that repeated practice of the ‘Yes, and’12 approach may encourage an attitude of receptivity. Improv requires being in the moment, accepting the partner’s offers, and avoiding blocking of one’s thoughts. He adds, Improv training can be especially helpful for relationships. By learning to accept and build upon the partner’s offers, interactions can become more fun, playful, and spontaneous.

For the curriculum of this study, we will begin with filling-in. Ideally this would be half an hour of discussion. If participants aren’t comfortable sharing so much with their co-workers, this can be done by writing instead of talking. I could invite everyone to write about whatever they’re bringing into the session.

For the next bit, I’m testing a theory. It’s akin to bibliomancy.13 But instead of using a book for divination, we improvise. My idea is this: You ask a question, then watch or participate in live theatre. Whatever happens on our stage happens to be exactly what you need to answer your question. This requires insight, imagination, and the ability to make your own connections. It’s similar to what we do in expressive arts, except in EXA it happens out loud, and the change agent can help guide the expert to find the connection to their life.

Because we are writing instead of discussing our discoveries, I’m testing the magic to see if participants make the connections on their own. I will ask participants to write down a question, forget about it during our improvising, and revisit it at the end to see if they get out of the art-making exactly what they need to learn.

After that writing we decenter, which follows the first three steps of my typical improv class: warm-up, exercises, improvised play. Instead of my usual debrief, I ask the questions that come from aesthetic analysis. The final step, the harvesting, will be ideally another half hour of sharing discoveries, insights, and resolutions with each other. Group members can hold each other accountable for these resolutions, decisions, or new behaviours in a following week. But if they’re not comfortable with that, or if we don’t have enough time, it can be done in writing instead of out loud as a group. If we still have time, I’d like to do a little closing exercise or ritual. I will observe the effects this series has on the participants in terms of trusting themselves more and feeling more connected to others. The participants work at the same company, a medium-sized tech firm in Toronto. I have worked with this company in the past, delivering two improv workshops, years apart. For reasons of confidentiality, we will give this company the fictional name of BeetRoot.

My contact at BeetRoot sent a company-wide e-mail to gather participants to take this freely offered course. Because his e-mail made no mention of journaling nor of my training in therapy, the self-selecting respondents are only interested in taking an improv class. They may or may not recognize a need for therapy or introspection, and they may or may not be willing to share anything personal with me.

The invitation was open to people at any level of improv experience, including no previous experience. Eleven employees, including my contact, signed up. As of today, two have bowed out (including my contact) because of time constraints; five have confirmed; and I’m waiting to hear from four participants. My intention was to limit the sample size to six participants. However, because I still