Last night I performed at an Improv comedy jam at a new hole-in-the-wall venue in Portland, OR, called the Kickstand Comedy Space. Participants signed up and then were randomly put together by the host.

I was paired up with a lady named Tonya. I had never met or even seen Tonya before. Later, after the show I would find out that she was a student of improv who had been training for a few years. In contrast, I teach improv and have been performing for 15 years. None of that mattered when we stepped onstage together.

As we were called up, we shook hands, said hello, got our suggestion from the audience, and away we went. We performed an 8 minute scene that got wall to wall laughs. We started as scientists conducting experiments and ended up floating through outer space in a new universe that we had accidentally created in our experiments. In the end our bodies were fused together in some sort of freaky cosmic event, and the lights blacked out after I yelled, “You’re still sexy, though!”

As I wrote that description just now, I realized what a great metaphor that scene was for improv in general. Two people conducting experiments with unknown results, creating and exploring a new universe, and ultimately coming together as one.

Now, as I said, I don’t know Tonya. She seems nice but I’m not entirely sure that had we met under different circumstances we would have “hit it off” or had instant chemistry. And yet, we performed improv together as if we had been comedy partners for years. Why? How? Because we both knew, and adhered to, the fundamentals of improv.

We took turns giving each other ideas and reacting strongly to each other. We created patterns (physical and verbal) and explored them and played with them together. We created ideas, that maybe if we were sitting around a table attempting to write a good show would have been tossed out immediately, and supported them wholeheartedly with a sense of wonder.

We did all that and more. And this is what I love about Improv. When two people come together, regardless of their collective backgrounds, and utilize good fundamentals of improv, they can immediately create something great. It doesn’t have to be an improv comedy scene. It can be a piece of writing. It can be a business plan. It can be a political agenda. Improv can be used in anything.