Brad isn't clever. 30 minutes. Unfiltered. Every day. Rinse. Repeat.

Am I having fun as an improviser right now? Definitely. However, I’ve noticed a common thread in the vast majority of my best and worst improv shows: I perform at my best when I shut off the internal mechanism I have that worries what everyone else thinks. I performer even better than that when I can eliminate the filter in myself that worries about producing only quality content.

It’s the same filter that causes me to produce a mere 750 words in a blog post over an hour. I can write at a much faster clip, but I frequently censor myself or correct things. I like word economy, but sometimes I like it so much that I spend a minute or two figuring out how to shave off an extraneous phrase or word. That’s great when trying to meet a word count or poring over rewrite details, but not when I’m forcing myself to spend 30 minutes writing.

This is an exercise in creating content, not editing it.

I’ve written some fantastic papers. I’ve also created some phenomenal improv scenes before, but I can’t guarantee that kind of quality every night. In fact, worrying about that quality while in a show almost always condemns me to a mediocre performance.

“You know what they say: the one thing good shows and bad shows have in common is that they’re both over.” Asaf shared this piece of advice he heard a long time ago with me in the minutes following The Starter Kit’s show at the Out of Bounds 2009 Improv Festival. For some reason, our set tanked and it was particularly frustrating. The Starter Kit had been executing at a high level, producing some of its best shows yet. However, our show that night sucked. We all wanted to put on a good show for our fellow improvisers in the audience, and we were unable to deliver.

It’s frustrating. I know The Starter Kit can do great things with shows because I’ve been there. It would be fantastic if the good shows happened in front of the best audiences, but that’s not always the case. As far as my favorite shows go, very few happened at the most opportune times.

When I pitched the concept of a murder mystery show, I had no idea our first show on stage would probably be the best one we did in the run. It would have been great to tape that show instead of the two shows following it. Instead, when The Starter Kit has to include a taped performance in our festival applications, we are stuck with B or C grade material (comparatively).

I saw a LOT of improv as a participant in the last three Out of Bounds festivals. Though other improv festivals occur in town, none are as big. It is only now, sitting at a table in a coffee shop, that I realize some of the improv I thought was god awful could have been a bad show. A rare down night for an otherwise solid troupe.

After our show at OoB last year, I must have had some look of disgust and/or embarrassment on my face. The show wasn’t awful, but it was far from the best work we’ve done. It didn’t quite go where we wanted it. One improviser from out of town approached me after the set and offered additional words of comfort: “The mechanics… the improv was solid. I could tell all of you are talented individual improvisers capable of executing much better shows.”