I’m in The Athenian Room, perched at a small table next to the exposed brick wall, underneath a mural of a sunlit blue and white hand-painted Greek fishing village. It’s morning in the mural. But outside the front window at The Athenian Room, it’s a warm summer evening, with people strolling through the soft twilight of Webster Avenue.
Alex, the owner, looks out on the room, nods at me, and accepts a nod in return. I wave away his offered menu. His eyebrows rise, I acknowledge the gesture, and he leans over the front counter to tell the grill man the order is for gyros, fries, and a coke.
Getting hungry, I close my eyes and imagine I’m a fisherman from that mural on the wall. Looking down on The Athenian Room. Remembering just a few of the threads that spooled out and connected this happy place to eat with Chicago’s homegrown cultural force — improvisation for the theater.
In my mind, Tina Fey is about to walk in the door. She will be ordering the Greek chicken.
In the time it takes for her to order and eat a meal, I could barely even begin to make the connections that play out from Improvisation for the Theater. I could just get started on the scenes that would wind their way off midnight stages set only with two chairs, past Second City alumni lists, Saturday Night Live reruns, memories of John Belushi, and Stephen Colbert just last night. Scenes that settle in the corners of everyday lives far from show business. Such a presence, such performances can save people, change them. Getting us to celebrate the connections between people. Prompting us, after a lot of hard work, to join in to what’s at the beating heart of Improv.
The essence of Improv is Truth.
I have been around The Athenian Room since the early years, before there was grey in Alex’s beard. In those years, as the sun rose over the lake and I finished my overnight shift, I would jump off the shuttle bus on Halsted Street, grab a newspaper from a machine, and find — before taking my seat — my coffee poured and Alex making the $1.99 two eggs, toast, and bacon breakfast.
Lost in thoughts of those brighter days, when sunlight poured through the third-floor window of the tiny apartment in the yellow brick building, drinking in Saul Bellow, Mike Royko, and Bill Brashler as if they and all the other Chicago writers all rode in on the morning light.
With my head lost in the books, and my memory entwined with imagination, I might not have even noticed the three people seated at the round table behind me. I didn’t know when they came in, what they looked like, or anything about them until they stop talking.
That’s when I notice the intensity of the silence. Dropping a napkin, I shoot a look. Framed at the table are two young women and a man. Their conversation had been bubbling over with laughter, when all three do something remarkable. They all listen. Listen to each other as if listening was a contact sport. That silence you hear is the echo of someone listening. Listening like it was a thing you could put on the table right next to the Greek fries smothered in the juices of the gyros and flavored with a touch of vinegar.
Listening like no one else listens is the first key to improvisation. Imprinted on my very soul.
I hear one of the women is called Tina. But I can’t really get a sense of who these three are, so I shift my chair. My second glance shows something else at the foundation of improvisation for the theater. There are no stars. Not here. Not now. Learning the craft demands that there be no stars. Because every action depends on someone else. The three fellow diners conversationally bounce off each other like three silver pinballs. But no one is a star.
I look again and swear one of the women notices me noticing. And is giving ‘a look’ back! I put that down to wishful thinking, but I had seen in her eyes a unique kind of intelligent awareness. Intelligence that comes from not being scared.
Now the boundaries of imagination, memory and time are gone. There is only me and the trio at the other table.
Their conversation deepens. I listen harder. I begin to hear names that are rarely, if ever, tossed into the spotlights of Saturday Night Live. I hear the name Neva Boyd. A woman born in 1876. Friend of the pioneers of social service, Julia Lathrop and Jane Addams. Neva Boyd, who figured out that encouraging children to play games with each other made for deeper, richer lives.
Imagine what it would be like to live in a time when people didn’t know that? Oh, maybe they knew it about their own kids. Neighbor’s kids. But not about the children of the immigrant, the children of the vulnerable.
The laughter at the table next to me stops for a moment as the food comes and you hear the gasps of awe. Years from the night I last sat at that table, another author and I would co-write a book on customer service. That book was shelved in favor of another that became a New York Times best seller. Maybe a good business decision? Not so good for me. Good thing I could improvise with what came next.
As I listen to the three at the next table, no one is talking about ‘me.’ You hear the name Viola Spolin, author of Improvisation for the Theater. She took Neva’s work to the next level. Spolin’s son, Paul Sills, pushed it forward. The Compass Players, that University of Chicago troupe which evolved into The Second City, put the work on stage. Tossed across the table in a quiet awe, I hear the name Jo Forsberg. Del Close is mentioned and somebody laughs. Charna Halpern, Linnea and Eric Forsberg, and Tim O’Malley all draw smiles. Now heads around the table are all nodding. The names keep flowing, the circle of community expands and it becomes clear that the third key to improvisation for the theater is the deep history of this cultural force. Chicago’s only real claim to have developed a unique cultural force. First listening, then working without stars, then acknowledging history. A superstructure springboard that spawns and nurtures talent.
Tina Fey, bubbling up with unquestioned inborn talent, has a river of history behind her. She can trace that all the way back to a woman born in 1876.
The sun is starting to go down on Webster Avenue. The people at the next table are finishing their meal. Alex looks over to me with a glance that says, “Hey! I need the table.”
All are back out on streets of a city summer night.
Just a few blocks north on Lincoln Avenue is The Players Workshop. This place is for those not destined for the main stage of Second City on Wells Street. At Players Workshop, you can pay to learn the craft of theater improvisation. And maybe, even if it’s just for a moment, feel the art. Feel some truth. Feel some history.
I step up the pace so I won’t be late for my class. Now arriving and opening the door, I am early. Thirty some years early for a Tim O’Malley Workshop from the future. A future that is happening right this very moment. As if a door through time has opened up for my friends and I to create something out of nothing.
Improv is alive!
Scene.
She was the baby from the train that fell from the sky.
Ernie Banks died tonight. And in the summer green fields of heaven, they are playing baseball. Later on, I’ll go listen to Steve Goodman sing “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request.” But not right now.
