I Can't Believe I Just Did That!
I can’t believe I just did that.
Almost three years ago, I took my first improv class at a training center in my city. I’ve been taking classes and performing regularly ever since.
In March of this year, I started to dabble in musical improv. It is what it sounds like. It’s improv… but with singing. You make up songs on the spot, and sometimes you even rap or beatbox
I took a few workshops and even performed in a few musical shows with several other people. (It was thrilling and terrifying!) I was usually a backup singer, energizing the chorus and the one making up background choreography (it’s what I do best).
But last night… oh my goodness, LAST NIGHT! I was scheduled to perform in a two-person, 20-minute longform set (not a musical). It’s pretty challenging to carry an entire show for 20 straight minutes with only two performers. But it’s definitely its own kind of fun. My scene partner and I had performed on some larger teams, but this was our first time performing just the two of us.
Then, in the middle of our set, my scene partner (who is a regular musical improviser) turned to me and said,
“I think we should sing about that.”
I did my best to hide my deer-in-the-headlights feeling. I’m pretty sure I was grinning from ear to ear as they started the first verse, and I was thinking (screaming!) in my head, Are we really going to do this?
We did it. We turned a straight set into a musical. On the spot. No planning. No rehearsing. Zero practice.
Oh, and did I mention it was in front of a live audience?!
After the lights went out at the end of our set, we laughed. We cheered. We high-fived and we hugged. Absolutely delighted.
But y’all, I still cannot believe I just did that!
Something else I can’t quite believe? I have a second book coming out in October!
Somebody pinch me and wake me up from this dream we call life.
“A Thousand Tiny Paper Cuts provides manna for the journey toward a life unbounded.”