Theater and entrepreneurship shared space in an “Improv for Entrepreneurs” workshop at the Dyer Center on Tuesday.
“Doing improv workshops can help build self-confidence, public speaking, skills, collaboration, team building and all of those kinds of skills are things that you’re going to take with you no matter what you do,” said theater professor Melissa Livingston, who led the program.
The workshop was required for Dyer fellows to attend. Livingston began the event by explaining the basic rules of improv and then led students through a series of activities.
The first exercise was called “the one-word story.” Every person at the workshop said a word one after another in succession to form a sentence. The sentences often formed were a jumble of incoherent words, but one attempt formed a sentence about a group of friends at the beach playing a game of chess.
One attending student, Olivia Mackey ‘27, described improv as “a really great way to practice skills like adapting and being willing to change and listen to other people.”
The next activity, “yes, and,” required players to accept and build upon their partners, responding with “yes, and” at the beginning of their lines. Scenes included a salesman trying to sell a Saudi Arabian prince a vacuum in the middle of the desert and an ant convincing an anteater not to eat him.
“’Yes, and’ in your life and see how you can take an idea and build it in your life,” Livingston said. At the end of the event, she emphasized that the selected activities involved active listening and reaction to presented situations.
Matt Bednarsky, the program manager and fellowship coordinator at the Dyer Center, believes that the skills used in improv are “really helpful for growing the entrepreneurial mindset.”
“We deal a lot with helping students develop entrepreneurial mindset and qualities and the skill set derived from doing improv, being adaptable, being on your toes, pivoting, embracing ideas,” Bednarsky said.
“Improv is something we sort of do regularly in our everyday lives, not something we do consciously,” Mackey said.