For Your Eyes Only 2

Another dose of James Bond madness is here. First and foremost, per your requests, I've attached my players' three different sketches of Margaret from part 1. Andy's is the femmebot. Kara's is the alligator monster. Carolyn's is the tree. They sketched these while not missing a beat on the high speed hijinks improv comedy.

This is apropos of nothing, but as a personal anecdote, I want to relay how much of improv is really practice makes perfect. When I started the reroll all these many years ago I would have considered myself a fine improviser, I mean, I very much did consider myself a fine improviser, and that's one of the reasons I started the podcast. But at the time I was much more of a straight actor, and getting into improv mode, and feeling comfortable with the format was something that took work. And in those early days we edited a lot more because we were still in the process of figuring out what worked and what didn't. How to play in this kind of a world.

Since then I've been doing this show on the regular, and I feel like we've gotten better at it, and we're facing other problems: how to keep it fresh; how to keep the spark of chemistry alive; how to find new ideas for this format. But I don't really think about or worry about just the process of getting into the mode of improv.

It'd also been a long time since I'd really done any shows with heavy improv outside of the reroll. And this week I'm in a play that really tests your improv ability, and I have to say that 10 years ago, before I started the reroll, I probably never could have done this show. But now, having done this once or twice a month for nearly a decade, it feels incredibly easy.

That's just to say that improv is an incredibly fun and rewarding experience when it's working, but there's a high barrier to entry. A lot of people just don't feel comfortable in that form. It's hard to get started. And it doesn't feel like a skillset that can really be practiced; by its very nature, it's different every time. But it's all practice. It's all just training your brain to sit in that mode and just say what comes to your head and go with it. Pull a thread and just keep following.

If you're at all interested in improv: Do it. Take a class. Join a club. I promise you once it clicks it's one of the most fun things you can do. Ok, and with that I'll leave it be. Enjoy Bond. This adventure has been so much fun for me.