How to Tap into Untold Creativity

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Sound Stories and inspirational podcasts for creative professionals and storytellers who want to improve their lives at home and at work. I’m Stephanie Ciccarelli, your host and co-founder of voices.com. From shows like Saturday Night Live to Whose Line Is It Anyway, comedy writing can inject both humor and thoughtfulness into the narratives we use to describe life today, but you don’t have to be in a funny business to benefit from the practices that comedy writers use when crafting their stories. Improv, in particular, can be quite useful in character development and team building. Joining us today to talk about all of this is Brandon Rudd. He’s the founder of London, Ontario’s improv comedy troupe, Shut the Front Door. Welcome to the show, Brandon.

Brandon Rudd:

Thanks for having me.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

All right, so just to make sure we’re all on the same page, can you describe to our audience what improv is?

Brandon Rudd:

So improv is derived usually from theater and is used as a training technique, but also as a performance vehicle as well. And improv is basically making it all up on the spot. And it’s usually done in at least a pair, if not a full ensemble or a group. Most people are somewhat dumbfounded by the fact of an ensemble getting onstage and taking a suggestion from an audience member or say Twitter or Facebook, and being able to develop scenes, characters all based on just that one word or that one suggestion.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

It is a little unnerving for most people. I remember watching Wayne Brady and all of those wonderful people, Colin Mochrie, just up there and they’re literally at the mercy, whatever is happening to them in that moment. And there has to be, I guess, some ability to adapt, to be quick, to think on your feet, but also to be able to relate to those situations and make it seem like this could really be happening.

Brandon Rudd:

Absolutely. And the names that you just mentioned are absolutely the top echelon of those performers. And it really is exhilarating. It really is exciting about when a bunch of folks get onstage you’re given that word or that sentence or that that relationship to try and develop something. And we find that our audiences are very receptive to things that they can identify with, as well as the performers. A lot of times I tell my performers, “Have fun, go on stage, be creative, just be in the moment,” and by doing so, they create some of the most creative and interesting characters, storyline, dialogues, and sometimes if we’re lucky, they tie all together. As far as having that talent, it’s working with with the people. It’s just being able to look across the stage and know people trust you and people have your back. And if you’re having an off night or you’re having a great night, it doesn’t matter because as an ensemble, we all help each other make something great.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

I’ve been in choirs before and certainly understand the whole notion of being an ensemble and someone else having your back and possibly, even knowing the other people’s parts, being able to sub in, or to at least be connected enough in and invested in what that person is doing so that you can help to bring them along. So could you maybe share about how teams can use improv when they’re brainstorming? Maybe they’ve got this new service or product and they’re trying to hammer these details out, how can we use those same skills and techniques that come from improv to help us create something really wonderful?

Brandon Rudd:

I think first and foremost, the number one thing that you need to have in that room is trust. Improv is amazing and so freeing when there’s a culture of trust there. So my focus initially, if I were going into workplace or going into a group would be to emphasize that we trust each other in the room, that we trust that the ideas that are being shared may not be polished and may not be the most perfect version of what we’re sharing, but at least let’s, as a group, examine it or explore it, or at least accept it, accept the gift which we call an improv is when improvisers give information on stage or they provide what we call a gift. And that gift is to their partner, to the scene, to make it evolve into something better. So thinking in terms of brainstorming sessions and groups, you have to develop trust first to allow that creativity to open and allow all ideas to be heard, maybe not all ideas are what’s going to solve the problem or going to get you to your end result, but having that process and respecting the people and the process will take you in a much more successful direction, I believe.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

All right, so this whole notion of having trust ahead of time is very important, you can’t just expect to fall into someone’s arms when they catch you at first and in this situation. Because if you’re not used to listening to everyone’s ideas and giving them the same amount of respect at first, this could be a very difficult exercise to embark on. So what can someone do to help build trust before they find themselves in this situation? I want to make sure that if they take these ideas from the show today that they can actually run with them really successfully, or at least think of how they can make sure that their team is prepared for creating an environment where people do feel safe.

Brandon Rudd:

One of the things I would recommend is if you know you’re going to go down this path of wanting to, to start having more creative sessions, more wide-open brainstorming sessions, different from what you’ve maybe previously had, I would start saying, incorporate icebreaking games, get to know people games. And these are all part of the improv community. You can find these readily on the internet through various literature, et cetera. And you can just do these, start incorporating them in your normal meetings and you’ll start to see a shift, or at least hopefully see a shift, in sort of the culture of, “Okay, well that was silly, but I got to know coworkers better,” or maybe, “I’m always professional. I’m always political. I’m always well polished,” well, let’s try and do something that the group accepts if you’re not.

Brandon Rudd:

And once you start kind of peeling back those layers of what we feel we need to do in those environments, we find that we can really get some great ideas and we can really get that team dynamic. Because the other thing that makes the peeling back the curtain on all of this is improv works with group mind. The idea is that the group that you’re performing with, and in the case of improv, all has an idea where people are going, what they’re doing and they sense it. It’s not a look, it’s not a hand gesture. It’s a sense. And so when you have that, if you have that in a brainstorming session or a creative session, you are in a great spot. Now it’s just coming up with, “What are we trying to solve and how are we going to solve it?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh, so would that be the feeling that you get on a team when you’re jelling, when you feel like, “Okay, well we’re really in this together. This is something that I can trust this person. I know that if this happens, it will be okay and no one’s going to laugh at me or my ideas.”

Brandon Rudd:

Yes. It’s that feeling of inclusion that jelling that… I was just thinking that same idea. I always know that teams are doing well when it was just they slap their knee and say, “Ah, you beat me to saying that.” And that’s actually something that we see frequently on stage. So it really is that, exactly that jelling feeling, but it’s, I would even say it’s at a higher level. I would say that to get to where improvisers need to be, to feel comfortable with each other and performing on stage, that you actually need to take it one step further and say, “We’re not only jelling, I can almost sense where you’re going with this or where you might explore, and I’ll be right there to help you explore it too.”

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Like being on the same wavelength, maybe that’s another way of putting it. So we’ve established that there definitely needs to be trust in the room. So what else helps improv to go well?

Brandon Rudd:

First thing, as soon as we establish trust, when we do classes and seminars and workshops, is establishing the yes, and. And in essence, yes, and is agreeing with what has been given or presented the gift that has been given and elaborating or adding something to it so that your partner can then continually accept it and add to it. If you do this correctly, it is amazing how far you can go and how creative you can get. And I’ve seen it from students, I’ve seen it from performers, I’ve seen it from starting with the most obscure word or suggestion and somehow it turns into a 45 minutes scene or a variety of scenes. So we definitely want to emphasize the yes, and. As part of yes, and, it also has two, what I look at is two additional arms that it serves. One is to make your partner look good. Again, when you’re up there and onstage, or you’re doing saying in a group session or a group setting, a brainstorming session, you want to make sure that we make each other look good.

Brandon Rudd:

It helps build that trust, it’s also in an essence of saying, “Yes, and,” to ideas and exploration, but it’s so rare sometimes in this day and age that we actually focus on making others look good and other work and other ideas shine. So for us, that’s a big one, understanding the fundamentals of why you want to make somebody look good. The third piece to that is basically heighten and exploring. Heighten and exploring is when we have trust, we’re yes, anding, we’re making each other look good, and then we’re looking for the idea. We’re looking as a group on how we can find that idea, that character, that point of view, that story, that angle, and really as a group solve whatever problem, or create whatever product or story we want.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

I like what you did when you highlighted the fact that we want to make each other look good. And that is not necessarily a natural human response, because a lot of being just who we are is very egocentric and it’s about me or what I can do, or you hear someone talking to you, you’re having conversation, but you’re really not listening to them, you’re thinking about, “How am I going to answer what they just said to me?” So this is kind of a neat idea because this whole social media, you’re posting your highlight reel, all this is very, very much focused on the self. But I do enjoy that you’re elevating someone else that you’re bringing them up. Maybe not saying they are better than me, but saying, “We are equals,” and this is why this works.

Brandon Rudd:

Absolutely. And part of that is this is the subscription to saying that I believe as an improviser and if you’re an improviser that we understand that we’re playing by the same rules and our objectives are the same. So the trust is essential, going back to what we were saying before, is essential because I trust that we’re subscribing to this. So if I’m making you look good, I have the confidence and trust that you’re doing the same for me. We, when in performance, that’s an easy forum to do that, but you see it creep into your personal lives. You see it creep in outside of that forum and you start going, “Wow, I’m getting better results in my personal life. I’m getting better results in another endeavor,” or something like that. “I have better relationships with my kids or my family,” and it really starts to creep in that way.

Brandon Rudd:

And so it just becomes normal. It just becomes a part of your life is now making people look good. And it’s amazing how many roadblocks and how many even creative blocks can happen when you look across the room and you see somebody who’s waving your flag, who’s saying you’re the best, your ideas are ones that I want to listen to and explore with you, not just great clap from a distance, but back to me. And it’s so refreshing, especially now, as you highlighted, with social media and PR promo reels and self promotion. And I really think that, especially now, this is something that we really, really need to focus on.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, it sounds like the entire process there that you’ve described does work to bring out the best in all of us. But what I like is that, that whole idea that we are improvisers and what it means to be an improviser is that I have ideas, you have ideas, we’re working toward a common goal, and I value what you have to say. So I wonder what would happen if that were applied, not just corporately, but when you go to work on a project with another creative team or something, and you maybe have competing visions, but really ultimately the vision should be, how do we make the best commercial? How do we create the best film? What is it going to take for us to make something of value for this end client, and how are our unique strengths and abilities going to play into that? I think that just the elevation and the talking to people on that same level would bring more unity, but it would also bring more cohesion to that vision of what actually needs to be done.

Brandon Rudd:

I absolutely agree. And I’ve had my fair share of time in corporate environments as well, just to speak to that. And the one thing that I think this process shows is an undeniable commitment to producing something that the creators are proud of, that the creators feel that putting their brand or their name on is something of a reward and valued for their hard work. But I also believe that as we have hierarchies in our organizations or even as freelancers, we still, at the end of the day, we still are looking for results. And once we start proving that in a consistent rate and using the given structure within improv and how that process works, I really think it becomes almost undeniable for your management or for that hierarchy to take notice and recognize that this is a valuable tool, it doesn’t have a large overhead cost, it’s something that you can do, whether you’re five years old or 105 years old.

Brandon Rudd:

And so it really helps a variety of initiatives, whether it be corporate, whether it be personal, whether it be professional, and anything in between. So I really agree with the fact that I would love to imagine a world that started with improv and started with the principles of improv, and see where we go and see where we can go together. And again, the keyword there is together, because if we don’t in the absence of trust, in the absence of making each other look good, and saying, “Yes, and,” and heightening and exploring together, we’re going to inherently going to have those, those roadblocks along the way.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, definitely I couldn’t have said it better myself. So I’m just going to lead us in a little bit of a different direction now. Now for storytellers out there, and of course, everyone listening likely as a storyteller of some kind, whether you’re a script writer, video game creator, or filmmaker, or marketer, as we said before, we’re all responsible for creating something and sometimes it is a campaign of some sort. Now, how can us, they, we, as creators use improv for character development?

Brandon Rudd:

Really, really, really, really great set of tools and improv, in essence, when we’re teaching our students, we always say that it’s a tool set. You start 101, you may have had no experience whatsoever, we give you an empty tool belt. And by the end of everything that we’ve taken you through, all the journeys we’ve taken you through all the ups and downs, we hope that you have a pretty full tool belt on your way out. And when we say out, we just mean out of the instruction, but into the community. And it really is a strong community. With that being said, for having a community of storytellers and how we can do character development, it really, there are a lot of games and a lot of techniques that we use because we have to onstage find characters, relationships, scenarios, what we call beats, or game of the scene very quickly.

Brandon Rudd:

We have to communicate, number one to each other, but also to our audiences who we are and why you should care about us. So I think that translates well to storytelling and character development. We have a bunch of exploration tools to find points of view, to dig deeper, to really think about our characters. And so sometimes it starts just with a voice, or maybe on stage we lead with a body part, or maybe we saw somebody on the bus today, or walking down the street that we thought, “Caught my eye. Wonder if it would catch the eye of somebody on if I started a character using a trait.” And sometimes we fall into the trap of falling on stereotypes, or traits, or things that we think everybody will know, and that’s fine. But I think a lot of times the exploration, if we just did a little bit more exploration heightening, we would find a different type of character.

Brandon Rudd:

And those are the characters that draw me when I’m watching entertainment or listening to entertainment, is I really want to see a character I haven’t seen before, or if I’m going to see a character that I’ve seen before, I want something different about them. I want something that draws me in. If there’s an absence of that, I usually say, “What else can I be drawn to?” Which is a lot of times relationship, which is a huge, huge piece to improv.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

The think you had mentioned a game and yes, we’re going to try this live here on the podcast. Oh my gosh, I threw this around, I thought, “I’m on the podcast with an improviser and we better just see, the proof is in the pudding here.” So why don’t we play a game? I’m going to let you pick the scenario, what the rules are, just explain what we’re about to do to everyone, and then we’ll start.

Brandon Rudd:

So one of the games we like to intro with is yes, and. Because it’s one of the most important pieces to improv and understanding improv, we feel like that’s a game we debut with all the time. So yes, and is played this way. Anything I say you, anything we say to each other you’re going to respond with, “Yes, and,” and after the “and” you’re going to add something that I can play off of. So for instance, if we were in the park, the first sentence, obviously doesn’t have a “yes, and” but so we would open with, “Oh my goodness, that tree is so lush.”

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes, and there’s a bird in it.

Brandon Rudd:

Yes, and the bird seems to be singing a song.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes, and that song is somewhat familiar.

Brandon Rudd:

Yes, I believe it’s Lionel Richie.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes, and my goodness, is that Bette Midler singing with him?

Brandon Rudd:

Yes, I just heard that high note in Wind Beneath My Wings., And I think I’m ready to cry.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes, and we’re going to teach the world to sing aren’t we?

Brandon Rudd:

Yes, in the highest octave possible at the loudest level.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes, and have you got the Coca-Cola.

Brandon Rudd:

Yes, I bought five for all of us.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh, yes, it’s going to be wonderful.

Brandon Rudd:

End scene.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

There, okay, so that’s interesting. I was just watching an ad campaign from Coca-Cola, teaching the world to sing. It’s funny because different influences in your life that maybe you’ve just picked up on little creative things here and there can actually influence what you might say next, as we just saw in this little piece here, and it’s funny because we have a Lionel Richie mug in our office, I don’t think you know that, but it-

Brandon Rudd:

There’s that group mind coming in.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

I know, I know.

Brandon Rudd:

I just tap into your mind. I thought, “Lionel Richie, something we can play with here.”

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Wow. Okay, so that was one, is there another game we might be able to try?

Brandon Rudd:

Yeah, one of our central games that we play even, five years into all of this before our shows is a game called 10 things. And what this game really is focused on doing, especially in character development, is taking, is as quickly as possible giving somebody or endowing somebody a word and having them say 10 things, the first 10 things that come to mind when they think of that word. Where this comes in for character development and point of view is it helps you get away from the easy ones. It helps you get away from the stereotypical, and it gets you thinking past that line. So we like to play that, to make sure that we have a nice collection of items if we’re given that character and trying to make sure that we don’t play the same character over and over and over again.

Brandon Rudd:

So the way works, again, I’m going to give you, maybe you might want to start by giving me a character type. So it could be, for instance, I would say a grandmother, you might say something else. And then once you give me that character, I, as quickly as possible, have to give you 10 characteristics, items about that character.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

How about this one? College professor.

Brandon Rudd:

College professor, nerdy, glasses, curly hair. I would say he probably wears cumber buns to formal events, probably parks really close to the university, but not close enough for his or her liking. Well-educated. Probably likes watching documentaries about whatever they’re fascinated with, is part of a country club. Definitely has a family. Definitely has a family, a couple of kids. And has taken aviation lessons all their lives. I don’t know if that was 10, but it seems like it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

I’ll take it.

Brandon Rudd:

I’ll take it. So now I will give you a character in mind. Let’s go with rockstar.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Loves to be on stage, wants to be the center of attention all the time, has a few quirks to them, maybe a couple items they want to give up the next time that they decide to make a New Year’s resolution, for instance, they really, really love their guitar, they’ve named it Keith Richards. They love being on the road, but don’t like to drive. And they also really love this one t-shirt and they really should get rid of it because it’s old and it stinks.

Brandon Rudd:

See? So that’s great, that’s great. That’s awesome that you were able to dig deeper. You actually did a great job because a lot of people would just name off things that they would find on a stage. So that’s awesome. What we find with that, especially for first time improvisers is five’s real easy, five through 10 is the challenge. Because the five easy ones are what everybody knows. So this really can help you dive deep into your character and say, “Great, first five are things that I’ll present early on, but as we get into the character and their point of view, and what they care about, and what influences them, and really make that character jump off the page or the screen,” then that’s where those five to 10 items come in and you can really get creative with that.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

It’s like creating a backstory, we all know that these characters should exist before they’re in the stage, and then after, they can’t just be in that little tiny moment, because otherwise there’s no depth to them, you don’t really know who they are or even care, frankly, as an audience. Right?

Brandon Rudd:

Exactly. And that’s the whole thing. I’d even challenge those who are getting tired with 10 things, 15 things. You can always up it. You can always up the challenge level. I want to know what high school this rock star went to, I want to know what kind of person they were. Maybe they were the class president, maybe they were boyfriend and girlfriend with the librarian. Who knows? You never know and that’s where these activities really can open your mind and the opportunities to develop those characters, to get a clear understanding so that you as the writer, you as the producer, content producer, can help the reader feel that.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, all of these tools and exercises for creatives are awesome. So let me thank you for that right now. I’m sure everybody’s got ideas that they’re just dying to try with their group there, but I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t ask about the humor side of improv. So is there a formula to being funny?

Brandon Rudd:

Well, you’ll be surprised to know that one of the things we teach day one is don’t try and be funny. It’s kind of counter intuitive to what people think and what we teach. And why we say that is because if you’re focused on me as the improvisor, making a joke or setting up a joke and delivering it and getting a laugh, it actually interrupts the flow of the group trying to produce together. And so why our shows are funny or why improv is funny is because a lot of it is relatable, a lot of it has this excitement of live, on you’re on the edge of your seat, because we’ve just come out on stage, put our hand up and said, “For the next half an hour, 45 minutes, however long, we are going to take a few words, we’re going to take a few suggestions, and we’re going to make it up on the fly.” Automatically your audiences respect that, automatically they go, “I am so glad I’m not doing that. I am so glad, but I’m really glad I’m here to watch what could happen or what might happen.”

Brandon Rudd:

So as far as the comedy, the comedy happens organically because people are subscribing to the system. People are taking real life situations, and taking the suggestions from the audience is also so imperative because when you do that, we’re talking about what you did today, what influenced your day to day, maybe people, places, or things that are in society and in our media that’s top of mind. So now we can parody them, we can explore them, we can make a bunch of assumptions and heightened and explore all in a safe environment and a comedic environment, and those pieces come out. We play one game called first date and it is by far one of my favorite.

Brandon Rudd:

You literally sit a couple down and you interview them for about 10 minutes learning about their first date, and if they’re married, and if they have children, and pet peeves and all this great content. Then we do a day in your life of what they’ve given us and throwing in assumptions and heightening, exploring. And we’ve had ones where our performers have barely been able to get through it based on what people have shared. They’ve just given us such great content to work with.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Wow.

Brandon Rudd:

It’s been great to do that, but the comedy happens because of the subscription to the system, working together group mind, and trying to create something great together. And really that is the essence at the end of the day of improv.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And isn’t it funnier, when people are funny they’re not really trying to be funny, or I’m trying to say you’re just saying something that might be obvious or true, but just the way you’ve positioned it or the way it happened to come out of your mouth makes it funny.

Brandon Rudd:

Absolutely. It’s recognizing, and it’s all the lanes of traffic that go through your head as an improviser, you have to constantly be active listening, every little detail you have to try and capture. On top of that, you have a responsibility of interacting, whether it be physically, whether it be with an emotion or a timely sentence, sometimes you’re endowed to come onstage and be a grandmother or a sister or a boss. You got to be ready to play those characters at a drop of a hat.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Wow. So if someone isn’t ready because maybe they’re not as, I’m a fan of Myers-Briggs, I’ll just put that out there. And my second letter is I’m a sensor. So I’m very much in the real, this is happening right now is concrete, I can feel it, and all my senses pick up on things. Not everyone is like that. And so it may be harder for them. So how can someone who maybe isn’t an extroverted sensor be able to live in that moment and to pick up on all these little nuances that they may otherwise miss, because they’re not used to doing it, it’s not something they naturally would pick up on?

Brandon Rudd:

Great question, actually. We actually have a lot of people that go through our programs and that come into our community with exactly what you just said. And what we focus on is building that trust. We actually had, to be honest with you, we had a student that was very shy, would interact in very, very little, and now she’s in her own troop. And I could not be more ecstatic for her, more proud of what she was able to accomplish by having that sense of trust, that sense of community, that sense of support. What we do, there are some techniques that if you get on stage, just to break the ice. We always say, “If you’re having a bad night or you don’t feel like you’re in your head, or you just don’t feel like you’re on the ball tonight,” a lot of times you just come on in, and you do something like mirroring, you just mirror whatever somebody else has offered because the audience, what they can recognize in their brain is seeing a pattern.

Brandon Rudd:

We’re all programmed to understand patterns. So if I’m chopping lettuce, you come in you’re chopping lettuce, great. We yes, anded by using those actions. And now we’re saying, “Yeah, we’re all doing the same thing,” and moving it forward. And so it creates that sense of as the person who may be reluctant joins that scene and does that, it’s building that confidence and saying, “You have my back, you’re making me look right. Heightening exploring will happen organically but right now you have my back, I have your back,” and a collective sigh. And it just, those moments built up over time and experiences will eventually help to make it easier each time.

Brandon Rudd:

The other thing is having, is coming to in producing improv, you want to obviously produce to win, as I call it, and put things that get people involved early. So we’ll play a game called freeze tag at the start, which is basically just two people start a scene. There’s four, several performers in the back. They can yell, “Freeze,” at anytime, come in, tag one person out, frozen in their position and start a brand new scene. So that’s a way of breaking the ice as well, and getting you in the mindset of improv and getting you feeling supportive.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Wow. Well, it’s all about trust, as you said. And I’m just so happy that that came up as the main point here because it really is about relationship and feeling safe, and in any creative environment, you want to know that you’re valued, what you’re bringing to the table will at least be considered, and that you’re building toward the same vision, ultimately, as those you’re working with. So for anyone who would like to know more about you, Brandon, where can they go to find you?

Brandon Rudd:

Well, for me, it’s shutthefrontdoor.ca, I have a profile up there, all of our information is there. We’re in our fifth year now and we’re super excited to be expanding some programming later this year. So we’re constantly growing, we’re constantly happy with how things are going in our community, and always trying to grow it and get everybody involved as much as possible.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, it was great to have you here.

Brandon Rudd:

Thanks so much for having me, I appreciate it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Thanks for joining us. If you haven’t done so already, I think you really, really need to go to iTunes, subscribe to the podcast. You can even find it here on our website, voices.com/podcast/soundstories. If you get a chance, please give us a rating and let people know what you think. Once again, I’m your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli, and I really hope that you’ll join us for our next Sound Stories Podcast.