"My Take (Robert Shelton) - The Magic on Stage"

As improv performers take the stage a miracle happens. We zero in on the scene before us and it becomes our primary focus. Now, that isn’t to say that everything else disappears. For the most part, the audience stays in our ear. Every laugh (or silence) is registered, analyzed, and adjusted upon in an instant. The course corrected. All the while, being well aware of what the others on the stage are doing, maneuvering around the platforms, we find ourselves in a puzzle only together we may solve. The inmates are running the asylum. On the good scenes (I mean the ones that leave the biggest smiles on the faces of the audience, who shake their head in delight, all the while trying to figure out how to exactly describe what they just experienced at work tomorrow)—to those scenes, it feels like a car crash that almost was.

Time will slow down. We find ourselves turning and spinning on premises that we thought were going to take us somewhere but have somehow shifted direction (sometimes multiple times). We are not lost. Instead, we steel ourselves and look to our comrades on stage. Together, through many hours of practice, the trust in each other, our instincts, and just enough luck, we make miraculous magic appear from nothing. Anyone that’s almost had a car accident, but somehow snuck through it unscathed knows this feeling. I think everyday life essentially works on the same premise. In life, as on stage, if we trust in each other, our own talents, and, with just little bit of luck, I think we’ll see more magic in our lives each day.