Behaving foolishly

I did not plan to make a fool of myself on Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day. I thought I would listen to presentations, observe, ask questions and engage our students, as I have for the past 11 years on this special day set aside for students to show their work.


But I had never met Joey Hamburger, a theater major, actor, writer and comedian. Joey also is an E-Scholar interested in learning the business side of theater. I stumbled upon his presentation thanks to Judy Shank, secretary for the Myers Chair and the Clemens Chair. She saw me wandering the hallway in the Henrita Academic Building at CSB, pointed me toward Joey’s presentation and assured me he is funny.

Great! I thought. I could use a laugh.

I was a few minutes early. A personable young man, Joey introduced himself and we chatted about the connection between theater and the E-Scholars program, which is operated by the Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship.

Joey explained that, for his E-Scholars project, he wants to develop an improv workshop for a corporate setting, to help people gain skills in public speaking and presentations.

The next thing I knew, Joey started conducting an improv workshop for everyone in the room, a group consisting of me and approximately a half dozen students.

The first rule of improv is stay out of your head, Joey explained. It’s a nifty way of saying don’t overthink what you are doing.

We began with a series of interactive, physical exercises, and I discovered I could not stay in my head and do the exercises at the same time. I had to set aside any self-consciousness I felt so I could concentrate on Joey’s instructions – which, by the way, were pretty goofy.

The exercises helped put us at ease with each other and ourselves as we mimicked each other, made strange sounds and behaved foolishly.

Then we moved on to actual improvisation. As someone who tuned in to watch the original SNL cast, I felt like I was being initiated into a secret society. It turns out the mystery of improv is pretty simple.

You and your fellow improvisers create a scene, create conflict, escalate it and resolve it.

That’s it.

Well, it’s a wee bit harder than that, especially since I struggled with the urge to sneak back inside my head. For a few precious moments though, while celebrating creativity in a classroom with CSB and SJU students, I overcame that temptation and lost my head.