Life Lessons Learned in Improv Class

You can find the inner humor in yourself. The ironic characters that are living in you. The black thoughts that can turn to wit.

First, though, you need to meet yourself.

Welcome to the improv classes of Chelsea’s Magnet Theater.

Improv is the seemingly chaotic, spontaneous brand of theater that springs from actors with no scripts. Well, actually, there may be a minimal story line, but the skit goes wherever the quick wit of the players can take it.

Despite the freewheeling approach, as you might guess there is a great deal of structure, thought and study behind the chaos of improv done right. So achieving spontaneity on stage is a bit like comedian Eddie Cantor’s take on fame — “It takes 20 years to make an overnight success.”

Actually, great improv takes work, but it doesn’t take 20 years to achieve it in the classroom laboratories of the Magnet Theater, where, as they modestly put it, “we’re giving a whole new generation of talent a place to take risks, be heard and blow minds.”

Theater founders Armando Diaz, Ed Herbstman and Alex Marino teach the art as they learned it — by bringing in masters of comedy to teach others the methods behind their madness.

At the Magnet Training Center, the goal is to make students successful immediately with some hands-on improv basics, then move on into more sophisticated group support, comedy techniques, scenework and game playing. Every class is all-in, with students learning by doing in a culture of mutual support and risk taking that’s designed to bring out the inner personality in anyone.

There are advanced classes in the Improv Conservatory that are geared toward creating consistent stage performers, all the way down to corporate workshops in improv and storytelling — a great workplace bonding experience. And it’s not necessarily all about comedy. You can study musical improv, storytelling and sketch writing as well.

The basic goal in all of it, as the Magnet website puts it, is to teach you “how to take a crowd by surprise and make them care, how to be real and truthful on stage, and how to discover and communicate the real meaning behind your experience.”

You can learn more about the Training Center’s class lineup or take in some of the theater’s latest performances on NYXT.nyc’s Magnet Theater page.  Check the theater’s regular podcasts for audio takes from some of its performers, or take in a show at the theater if you want to see how improv is done really well.

Or, if you’re feeling too lazy to go shopping, here’s a piece you can see right now.