I’ve spent the past two weeks locked in a room training with my improv team, Master Sword. And we’re only halfway through. The forecast for the next two weeks: 100% chance of “Battlestar Galactica” references; 0% chance of vagina.Actually, this is just our first month of coaching. All serious improv teams constantly have someone training them, and we’ll move on to a series of new coaches. But for now, we lucked into an improv legend – Miles Stroth – who just happened to have an opening in his schedule.
The most legendary improv instructor of all time was a guy named Del Close. He taught everyone big, and was brought in from the very start of “Saturday Night Live” to coach the cast.
To get to Del Close, everybody first had to train with Miles, our coach. That’s him, above. He schedules our breaks during training around his nicotine fits, he doesn’t quite know our names and he flat-out tells us we suck. It’s an honor, albeit a demoralizing, emasculating one. But in the end, we will be a kickass team. Or we’ll shoot up a DMV. Or both.
