Books About Improv!
Here's the best book I know about improv and about education. A life changing book by one the the founders of the Art. You won't be sorry if you take the time to read: Impro by Keith Johnstone.
As I grew up, everything started getting grey and dull. I could still remember the amazing intensity of the world I’d lived in as a child, but I thought the dulling of perception was an inevitable consequence of age---just as the lens of the eye is bound gradually to dim. I didn’t understand that clarity is in the mind.
I’ve since found tricks that can make the world blaze up in about fifteen seconds, and the effects last for hours……….Keith Johnstone - IMPRO
Why would a book about improvisation be named one of the best spiritual books of 2005? Check out the Improv Wisdom Web Site and then Buy the Book. It is clear, inspiring and encouraging.
"I know that improvisation has nothing to do with wit, glibness or comic ability. A good improviser is someone who is awake, not entirely self-focused, and moved by a desire to do something useful and give something back and who acts upon this impulse. My students wanted to know the password for joining the society of such people, to play fearlessly, and to work with greater ease.
Here is the password--it is yes!".....Patricia Ryan Madson in improv wisdom Don't Prepare, Just Show Up
Free Play is a wonderful book about the creative process in all art. It is written from a musicians point of view, but is valid for all improvisers. Free Play is an inspiring read. You may also want to check out the Free Play Productions Site. check out the
"I have never ceased to be astounded at the power of writing, music making, drawing, or dance to pull me out of sadness, disappointment, depression, bafflement. I am not talking about entertainment or distraction, but of playing, dancing, drawing, writing my way through and out. This process resembles the best in psychotherapy. We don’t go away and avoid the troubling thing, but rather confront it in a new framework. The capacity to personify, mythologize, imagine, harmonize is one of the great mercies granted in human life†. Steven Nachmanovich in Free Play
Truth in Comedy by Charna Halpern and Del Close, and Art by Committee, A guide to Advance Improvisation" by Charna Halpern are great guides to Long Form Improvisation.
"If we treat each other as if we are geniuses, poets, and artists, we have a better chance of becoming that on-stage." - Del Close
Reading about Improv is not a substitute for doing improv, but it can help get you off the dime and perhaps move you to action. Here are a few more books I steal from liberally.
Impro for Storytellers by Keith Johnstone
The Improv Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Improvising in Comedy, Theatre, and Beyond by Tom Salinsky and Deboarah Francis-White.
Other good handbooks include: Improv for Actors by Dan Diggles and Acting on Impulse by Carol Hazenfield.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.