Imprology

The roots of all human tragedy: we can't tell truth from beauty.

In impro, as in life, some people find it really hard to be part of a scene that isn't about them.

We've made our Status page better on the website.

Status "Humans evolved in hierarchical societies and most of us acknowledge that status-seeking is a common, if sometimes regrettable, driver of human behaviour." - Steven Johnson, Wonderland

Nihilism has a bad press. Here are three positives:

First, nihilism can be liberating. By rejecting intrinsic or absolute meaning, individuals are free to create their own values and purposes, fostering personal autonomy.

Second, it can promote honesty, as nihilism forces a confrontation with illusions, encouraging authentic, clear-eyed reflection on existence.

Third, it can foster creativity and innovation, since without an inherent blueprint, people can imagine and invent new ways of living, thinking, and acting without constraints from traditional frameworks.

Wishing you an interesting day.

A new study out of the University of Tokyo looked at what's actually happening in improvisers' minds during a scene.

Two things stood out.

First: improvisers hold multiple perspectives at once. Character, actor, writer, director. All live, all active. They measured it. This echoes the three brains theorie our students will be familiar with.

Second: the pauses are doing something. In Japanese theatre, there's a word for it, ma. The researchers found that silence between performers carries intention, reading, and possibility. The gap is full. The moment you stay with it, it starts filling you.

We've understood this in our bodies for years. Now there's data. Thank you! Link to abstract in comment.

Hughes & Kudo (2026), Improvised Theater and Consciousness, CiNet-Kobe International Symposium.

The character for “ma”, below, combines the characters for “gate” above with “sun” below, an image of light beaming through the empty space of a doorway. Its Japanese meaning is not easily translatable, but it generally denotes a pause, gap, or negative space.

The energy we waste on hiding.

“I was educated once. It took me years to get over it.” – Mark Twain
Formal education can sometimes suppress curiosity and independent thought. True learning begins when dogma is questioned. Twain critiques systems that reward conformity over thinking. Wisdom grows through skepticism.

Does this sound correct to you, and do you have any experience you can share about the first one?

The first Chicago tradition originated from the Compass Players and early Second City in the late 1950s and 1960s, with notable figures including Paul Sills, Viola Spolin, Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Barbara Harris, and Severn Darden. Scenes began in behavioural ambiguity: the audience felt power, intimacy, or conflict before knowing who the characters were or where they were, with meaning often arriving only at the end and reshaping everything that came before.

The latter Chicago tradition originates from Del Close and iO (ImprovOlympic), which was developed with Charna Halpern and formalised through structures like The Harold and The Armando. Here, the intro focuses on fast clarity: establish where, who, and what is strange early so that large ensembles can share, edit, and heighten the same material across multiple scenes.