What’s the difference between an improv show and a play? The play has a script, of course, but what I’m interested in is what the script gives the actors and how we can give it to ourselves without one. A script gives the actors a sense of purpose and the...
Failing is Okay In improv we are taught that failure is not a bad thing, even something to be celebrated. The reason is that we want to overcome the fear of failure. Humans are naturally risk averse (thanks brain!) and this fear causes us to be cautious, and to count less...
I’m excellent at self-deprecating humour (hereinafter SDH, because I’ll use the phrase a lot, and Britt gave me a word limit). No one knows how I suck more than I do, and I use that knowledge as skilfully as anyone. It feels like a necessary skill. In the UK, we...
The first time we visited the Nursery Theatre Broadgate, it was a store room. Or rather, two store rooms and a dentist’s office. And what is now the bar outside was all open plan cubicles. Dressed in hi-vis jackets Jess from Theatre Deli showed us around a very unassuming space,...
Just before going to university, I realised that working during the day for thirteen pounds an hour was better than working during the evening for six or seven pounds an hour, so I forged a CV and took a CELTA*. I was a teacher at the age of nineteen. Then...
One of my favourite exercises to begin a session with (any session, beginner to advanced, committed hippy to fancy law firm) is ‘permission to move’. If you are familiar with it, skip to the end of the paragraph, but if you’re not, this is what it looks like: the group...
This October (dear god in heaven) will be the tenth year of the Nursery. Across four different buildings and countless classes, shows and events, the plucky little leaf is almost a decade old. It if also the fifteenth year of the Maydays and the sixth of Impromptu Shakespeare. I like...
It all started by accident. Robin met Judith at a drama school audition (they happened to be from the same city in the Netherlands). Robin and I were at the Guildhall School together and shared a pig-headed independence. Paddy and Sam were at LAMDA with Judith. We had shows we...