In over 50 years, I have taught thousands of people. Some were adults, and some were children or young people. What strikes me is how positive and fun most people are. There are a few mean-spirited or downright negative types, but the vast majority are genuinely interesting and brave.
Being able to laugh, especially at yourself, is a gift that carries you a long way. Who wants to be around someone who never laughs? And curiosity. Don’t you just love people who are open to new ideas? Who don’t prejudge everything, and welcome the chance to be challenged and see things a different way. People like that are fun to work with, and you don’t know where it will go. The sweet spot is probably being able to be both funny and serious sometimes in the twinkling of an eye.
I’m not attracted to show-offs. Who is? But I usually find that there’s a different person underneath. In fact, it’s a joy finding that there’s more to people than you thought, that there’s another side to them.
I like kindness. Who doesn’t? Often it shows in little things like how a waiter takes your order or how you are served in a shop. Like laughter, kindness makes such a difference.
What I’ve loved about teaching the performing arts is having the privilege of seeing people, young or old, as they are. After a few years, you get used to seeing something beneath the surface. Sometimes they are unaware of their creativity. It could be a sensitivity or just their way of looking at things.
Willingness to be playful opens a lot of doors in the mind. Some people are nice but fearful of what will happen in a class. It’s great when they open up and say or do something silly or deeply meaningful. I’ve always loved that look in someone’s face when they are on the spot, and they don’t know how to react. Then they discover that you can offer up practically anything, and it works. Just go for it.
In an improv, there’s a rule about saying “Say yes to things.” It makes such a difference. If one person says, “I just won the lottery, £2.6 million”, and you say, “No, you didn’t “, or “I think you are having me on”, you kill the idea, and you get a boring argument about whether it happened or not. But if you say “Wow, so what’s happening”, you open it up. People so fear losing control, they don’t take the risk of saying yes to ideas and follow where it goes.
Humans are full of surprises, and that makes us endlessly fascinating. We meet in the middle, and that’s true in life as it is in the arts.
