Walls Down: How Improv Changed My Life
American Threads
It was 2011 when I slapped Elia in the face.
“Slap him. Now. Hard,” my theater teacher whispered in my ear.
Elia and I had been paired during a three-day intensive workshop. The task was to perform a single line from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We were Hermia and Lysander, two lovers entangled in a four-way love story. At that point in the play, that one line had to carry the weight of their entire journey—the love, the betrayal, and the breaking point.
We had just a couple of days to transform from strangers into lovers and bring all that intensity to the stage.
Elia was a brilliant actor, but we had no chemistry—not even a spark. Yet, I had to get emotionally intimate with someone I had no desire to connect with.
Was that what acting was really about? Getting to a place where you truly felt your character’s emotions? I quickly learned that summoning the feelings I had worked so hard to bury wasn’t as easy, or as comfortable, as performing other tasks you dislike, such as washing dishes. At least, not for me.
At the time, my heart was still piecing itself back together after a breakup, and on top of it, I’d been judged harshly by people I once called friends—for behaviors that, in their eyes, were unacceptable simply because I was a woman. I’d spent years building walls, locking my emotions away, and now, I was being asked to tear them down, to bring love, pain, and vulnerability to the surface for a stranger—for art.
I wasn’t ready. No way was I putting my fragile, raw emotions on display.
And that was it. Instead of pursuing the theater academy in Milan, I chose a Master’s in Social Entrepreneurship in San Francisco. I put the arts aside, channeling my energy into corporate life’s dry, lifeless grind.
Creativity disappeared from my life, but my heart quietly ached for that spark… a spark that only art can ignite.
Then, in January 2022, eleven years later, during the depths of the pandemic, I saw a poster near Berkeley’s oldest Peet’s Coffee shop: Improv Auditions at Pan Theater.
I’d never even heard of improv before. I knew it was different from traditional theater, but I liked that Pan Theater wasn’t selling dreams of Hollywood fame as some other theaters did. It felt intimate and local, and the desire to get out of the house was so strong that I put the fear aside and auditioned—and got in.
To this day, I’m not sure what David, Gladys, and Jeff saw through that tiny Zoom square, but I’ll always be grateful they gave me a chance.
Ultimately, we moved from screen practice to real-life rehearsals, and there I was, terrified, armed only with my corporate vocabulary, being asked to make things up on the spot—not only in a language that is not mine but also to tap into my emotions at a moment’s notice. I was asked to listen, be present, be open, go with the flow, and let go of control.
“I’ve never played this game,” I remember asking David before a show when I saw my name next to a game I’d never heard of before.
“Isn’t that awesome?” He smiled.
No, that was everything but awesome.
I wanted to be prepared, to know what I was doing. I wanted to look good. But I did it anyway, and the more I got on stage and did something I’d never done before, the more some of those walls of ice and fake perfection started coming down, making space for courage, grace, and laughter.
I was in awe of my fellow players; I had found people unafraid to be seen as raw, goofy, and flawed. People eager to co-create, individuals who trusted one another and had each other’s backs.
Little by little, I began (and still am) tearing down my walls, rethinking their purpose.
I started channeling my emotions—not as myself, but through the characters I played. And I didn’t know I could be so many things and feel such complexity; I’ve been a little girl reunited with her mother through a book, I’ve been a CEO, a pirate, an alien, a chicken, the president of the United States, a tree, an ATM machine, and so much more.
Improv taught me powerful lessons that will stay with me forever, and that I want to carry into the world:
You look good when you make your partner look like a star.
We are complex; light and darkness are parts of ourselves, and we get to be all of them (even if we pretend we don’t have them).
Go before you are ready. Go before you have a plan and trust your partners, they have your back.
And now, I find myself more courageous in saying yes to new things and being myself more than ever before. That courage has opened doors—writing more, performing on big stages at The Moth, and even shooting a short movie.
When I feel scared because I’ve never done something, I channel my inner David and ask myself, “Isn’t that awesome?”
And the answer, every single time, is yes.
With love,
Simona
I’ve always wanted to try this
Ah so cool! Love your “Isn’t that awesome” realization and approach :)