Cynical Idealist
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Washington State, USA
Gender: Male
Age: 34
Posts: 1,339
I'm one of those people some of you talked about who can perform fine on stage without much more than butterflies, but fail miserably in a more intimate, face-to-face setting. There's a couple things I've attributed it to. One is that in a regular performance setting (not improv), all the lines are already given to you, so figuring out what to say isn't an issue. However I've taken an improv workshop before (enjoyed it very much) and found I could do it at least as well as everyone else. So two, I'm finding that if the focus isn't on me, my life, my experiences, I have no problem putting myself in front of people. People are judging my performance, not me as a person. Social situations tend to be very personal; I think I tend to be embarrassed about my person, constantly thinking I'm not good enough in every way, whereas onstage I'm very confident in my performance capabilities.
I'd love to take a full improv class though. It might help me to think on my feet better, something maybe I could apply to real social situations.