This school year, many students have used their self-selected advisements to pursue interests they would not normally be able to in class. Drama teacher Jake Dreiling’s theatre-centered advisement offers an improv course as part of an outreach program run by Dad’s Garage, an internationally recognized theatre company that specializes in improvisational comedy. Each year, Dad’s Garage sends a professional improviser to teach at Grady. This year, the class has been taught by Whittney Millsap, a performer at Dad’s Garage who has taught improv at other schools twice before.
“I always just try to relay the basic building blocks of improv,” Millsap said. “Every week I try to have something different to work on, whether it’s relationship and connection, or spacial awareness and miming, or narrative and story building.”
Each Wednesday, a group of students from Dreiling’s advisement participate, playing games and learning how to perform using their minds rather than scripts.
“I find myself looking forward to Wednesdays because I’m excited for advisement,” said sophomore Dhruv Mehra.
For many students, the class was their first time trying improv.
“I’d done a few improv workshops before, but nothing else,” junior Jamie Panarites said. “I thought it seemed fun, but I also felt like it would be hard to overcome my mental barriers and actually do it. At the beginning of the year, I was more hesitant because I didn’t want to look stupid. I’ve become more open to just going with whatever is happening in my head and in the scene.”
Junior Blake Fowler said that the class has not only helped him onstage but has also impacted other areas of his life.
“Improv really helps you become comfortable with people,” Fowler said. “It’s a really good team building exercise because you have to accept other people’s decisions and run with those. It’s taught me to be more accepting of people.”
Millsap said that getting students to come out of their shells is the biggest challenge she has faced while teaching high school.
“A lot of kids are really tentative when they begin, because they don’t want to look silly in front of their friends, or say the wrong thing,” Millsap said. “By the end of the year, once there’s some trust established, you can see students open up and accept their own creativity a bit more.”
Mehra said that Millsap’s teaching style has kept the class environment relaxed and fun.
“I like laughing,” Mehra said. “I like when we can create something that’s funny enough make people laugh. The coolest part is the fact that it’s all being made up on the spot and that’s what makes it so funny.”
At the end of each year, students from Grady and other schools perform at a showcase at the Dad’s Garage theater to demonstrate the skills they have learned in class.
“The showcase is always fun,” Dreiling said. “It’s a really cool opportunity to get to improv with other schools, which doesn’t usually happen, and you get to do it at a professional theater, which I think is pretty cool.”
While Grady’s drama program offers multiple theatre classes and other opportunities to get involved outside of school, students have relatively few opportunities to participate in improv. In past years, the Dad’s Garage class has been taught as part of Grady’s Advanced Drama class; this year, it was moved to Dreiling’s new theatre-focused advisement.
“I’ve especially enjoyed teaching at Grady because the class is built into the school day, so I always have a large number of students,” Millsap said. “We have a lot of time to work with, so you really get to see progress over the ten-week period.”
Fowler said he encouraged any students curious about improv to consider joining similar programs.
“Anyone can do improv,” Fowler said. “It’s not something you have to try to do or learn to do, it’s something that you have to just get up and do.”
