Yes, and

lol yeah I finally wrote about improv

Third Coast Comedy Club is raising money to move to a new location! It’s been a literal home away from home the past three years when improv unexpectedly and inexplicably became my life. Consider donating here.

I started Level 1 improv classes at Third Coast on October 12th, 2022. I repeated “everyone is a beginner” out loud to myself the entire 20-minute drive. It was pouring rain, and as I got on the interstate, a rainbow appeared. A good a sign as any. I was shaking in my dress and checkered Vans as I walked in. I’d learn upon arrival I’d need to start wearing pants.

Duke was confused as to why I wasn’t dripping bathwater and also leaving the house

even torrential downpour won’t stop me from risking my life for a picture

To say I was in a season of heartbreak would be an understatement. The boy I loved gave our relationship a finite ending over email with the line, “I have no clear plans to return home”. My two best friends had moved away. I was living at home. My hobby was taking baths and lying naked in the fetal position, soaking wet on the carpet, which was very itchy.

My days were quiet, and my nights were lonely, and I stared at my phone a lot waiting for another email from him with a scheduled flight itinerary.

My dad had encouraged me to take improv classes for about a decade but I hate when men tell me what to do (jk I love it). Honestly, the thought terrified me. I don’t like doing things I’m not good at. I hate rejection. I hate feeling stupid. I hate being a fool. But in October of 2022, I was all of those things. I had nothing, so I had nothing left to lose.

The small theater I walked into for my weekly classes was black and red in a garish way I didn’t like. The people didn’t look like people I would be friends with and it calmed me down to think they felt the same about me. There was a man in the class who was old enough to be my father and the first note I wrote down in the gifted moleskin with the Third Coast Comedy Club emblem was, “story idea: you take improv to try and have three hours without your ex occupying your mind only to find out his dad is in your class”.

I had to bite back tears. I had to swallow a laugh. I hadn’t even gone five minutes without thinking about him. I was fucked.

But I went back (wearing pants). Every Wednesday, my phone put away, I let myself completely let loose. There was something holy about being around people different from me. It allowed me to be unabashedly myself, which I hadn’t been in a while.

I had lost myself in my relationship. I didn’t laugh as easily; I wasn’t very silly. I cared a lot about looking in control. Growing up, I’d always been considered hyper, but somewhere my hyperness turned into hyperawareness. It was hard for me to let go because I was holding onto something so tightly that wasn’t even mine; all my energy focused on that grip.

I looked forward to Wednesday nights. At first, it was an escape, but then it slowly became sanctuary. I would leave every week a little more myself, a little more healed. On Wednesdays, I had laughter and I had friendship.

I’m really good at reading; both books and a room. I’m really good at being a friend. And slowly I learned, I was really good at improv.

It would be rather boring to give you a timeline of everything I learned and who I met during the 14 months of six levels of improv and one elective. I mean, I want to; a favorite diatribe of mine is emphatically insisting everyone take a Level 1 improv class. How it makes you more vulnerable and humble; how it teaches you to have grace with yourself and others. How it restores a sense of play. Improv has made me a better person. I have more patience with others, more patience with myself. I’m more inclined to go with the flow.

I think about that nursery rhyme where you hold your hands, your fingers interlacing to make a church, so when you open the doors (hands), you scream “see all the people”. Third Coast is the church, steeple, people for me.

While not necessary, it’s encouraged to take all levels of improv with the group you started with. After six months with my group, I only disliked two of them, which, for me, is a rather incredible statistic. As we started Level 3, a few more joined our class, including Jason. Jason was tall and blonde and handsome with a thick southern accent and a great smile. I remember the first time he smiled, and I felt like the sun was shining on me.

At this point, our group was tight-knit and I was nervous for the new people to join us. Our bond felt impenetrable, but Jason’s goodness was easy to let in. His energy was the confidence we needed. He was quick with a compliment and first to say he was confused by an exercise. He was untethered to ego, which allowed us all to be a little less proud. I breathed a easier around Jason; we all did.

My first show was with Jason. I had on a pair of white Converse and he ran out to his car to throw his on to match mine. I was nervous to perform but he hugged me and said, “You’re so good at this, Andrea. And I’ll be right there.” I remember getting a really big laugh that made me feel on top of the world, and I was glad Jason was sitting beside me.

twins

When auditions came around, he encouraged me to go for it. “You’re the best of all of us, Andrea,” he said. And while I was confident he said that to every person in our group, I chose to believe him. And when we auditioned, I was glad Jason was sitting beside me.

twins

In October 2022, I was the worst version of myself. Mostly because I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t easy to be around; I was hollow. But improv saved me. The strangers I started with became a force field of energy I surrounded myself with. Some of them knew the inner workings of my heart, but even the ones that didn’t understood me on a visceral level. Every week, we each had to let down our guards.

By June of 2023, I was more myself than I had been in a long time. I had a community of people rallying for me that I also got to rally behind.

I made my first improv team that July, imposter syndrome nipping at my heels. Most of our class came to my shows, but Jason came to every one.

He was a fixture in the community, a smiling face, a loyal comrade. Jason would do anything to make us laugh. He signed up for every elective. Even Musical Improv, which I’m still terrified to do. He sang on stage, which I still refuse to do. (As of publishing, I’ve now done it once, and it was humiliating.)

Last March, we lost Jason. Our teacher called each of us individually on Easter morning to deliver the news. It was the hardest thing I could think of someone having to do. To call a group of adults and tell them someone they loved was gone, one by one. A kindness I’ll never forget.

Our group continued to cling to one another. We congregated at my house, where I’d only lived for three weeks, and shared stories of Jason. Laughed for him. Cried for him. Only three months earlier, we finished our final level. We each got on stage, one at a time, to sit in a singular chair and share our experience. I watched as each of my friends wiped a tear from their eye, their armor removed. We all started those classes because we weren’t ourselves, each of us wanting to emerge from a hole we found ourselves in. But in my house, we found ourselves with some of our armor back on. We’d lost a brother in arms, and we wondered silently what could have been done to help him make him feel less alone, just like he made us feel time and time again.

When I auditioned again, a few weeks later, I imagined Jason was sitting beside me. And when I had my first show, I imagined he was there too.

Third Coast continued to be there for me. Saving me from myself. But this time around, I got to carry Jason’s spirit with me, to help make others feel less alone.

When I first started improv, I wanted at least one night a week to have plans. I wanted to make acquaintances. And now, three to five nights a week, I have improv. I have friends who have infiltrated my group chats. I think some of them would like to go back to being acquaintances. (JK JK JK Alex and Gabe you can never leave me!)

Most of my interests have developed for someone I’ve loved, but no one I’ve dated has come to watch me do improv; a major indicator that it’s just for me. Every heartache I’ve experienced the past three years has healed faster because of improv. All the tears I’ve cried I’ve had to wipe away before going on stage. A lesson in resilience, a lesson in exposure.

I do enough self-promotion on Instagram stories, so I’m not going to beg for you to come to a show (honestly, I hate my outfits when I perform, so I’d prefer you not to come), but again I will promote Third Coast’s quest to raise money for a new space. Come out and see a show (when I’m not up there wearing jeans). I promise you’ll laugh. I bet you’ll think “maybe I should take a class”. I bet you’ll look around and think, “I don’t think these would be people I’d be friends with”. But improv is also a lesson in being wrong. And for like the first time in my life, it feels really good to be wrong.

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What I’ve been into:

• scream crying Free Now by Gracie Abrams in my car

• making my friends kiss my labubu

• complaining about how boring my summer is

• watching my hummingbirds play in the yard

• 15 minutes of TikTok in the morning that turns into 30