Interviews with Professional Improvisers, Part One

At the heart of Unscripted’s curriculum is using the fundamentals of improv to teach life skills. As someone who has been improvising for about 14 years, I know firsthand how the lessons learned onstage can be used in so many different facets offstage. I have used skills I have gained from improv — such as comfort with uncertainty, confidence, and collaboration — throughout my education career, in every job I have ever had, and in my personal life, too. 

I wanted to sit down with some professional improvisers based in NYC (where Unscripted recently expanded!) to chat with them about how they use the skills that they gained from learning and performing improv. For my first interview in this series, I sat down with an incredibly talented improviser from the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB), Brandon Dzirko, to ask him his perspective.

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Tell me a little about your improv background.

BD: I started in elementary school because there was this club I did called Odyssey of the Mind. It was a worldwide creative problem-solving competition. You would work with a team. One of the components was “Spontaneous.” It was kind of like improv in a way because I was given something and now I’m giving a response to that that I’m making up on the spot, and I want it to be funny. Then watching Who’s Line Is It Anyway, and when I got to college I ended up joining a shortform (improv) team at Carnegie Mellon. We were a ragtag bunch of misfits! I did that all four years. I knew I wanted to do comedy in some way post-college, so when I graduated, I came to New York. I googled improv in New York City, and I found a couple jams (the improv equivalent of an open mic)… then I ended up taking classes, one at Magnet, and then I found UCB and raced through all four levels and auditioned (for UCB house teams) several times. And now, I do Harold Night, Rumpleteaser which is musical improv, and I’m on Asssscat.

What skills have you learned from doing improv? 

BD: Especially since (I was) a young age in those spontaneous competitions, “how do I communicate with people in a scenario…” It's funny because people say “I could never do improv,” and in reality, we all do improv every single moment of our lives! I think about having to talk to people I normally wouldn’t have talked to. How do I respond? What do I say to you? Then as you go through life… it’s like “maybe if I’m more accepting of people’s ideas or maybe if I'm more of a collaborator, communication will be smoother.” Even if I have my own ideas, maybe if I’m on a team, I can work with people.

How have those skills helped you in everyday life? Do you have any examples?

BD: Sure, I can think of a couple. When you’re giving a presentation at work sometimes the tech fails, or sometimes a slide isn't right, or it is out of place and you have to adapt on the fly to contain yourself and remain composed, but also keep pushing forward. It’s like "I've been thrown a curveball by either the elements, or technology, or myself in the past, and now it’s: how do I keep going without looking shaken to the people I'm presenting to?” Especially in college or when I was working in an office environment. Something would happen, I was getting new information, how can I keep pushing forward? 

How easy is it for you to put yourself in new or different social situations? Has improv helped?

BD: I think now it’s easy; I think in the past it wasn't. I do think that improv has helped me because the confidence I have gained from it has allowed me to feel like I can enter a space and insert a joke here and there, which has been honed through improv. How comfortable I am in a social situation has improved as I have gotten older, and I attribute that to doing improv.

You get in there, you listen… my brain likes to make connections and find the humor, so I’ll listen for a bit and then have something to contribute… listening and reacting: the core of improv. The most basic form is to listen and react. And that is what that is: maybe I don’t know these people but I am going to listen to what everyone is saying and then react, and that is as core as it gets with improv. 

How has improv helped with dealing with uncertainty?

BD: Meetings! One-on-one meetings with bosses or seniors who have power of some kind… Like when a boss is like, "can we have a call in twenty minutes?” Okay, I have no information now… hopefully it’s good; it could be bad, but I'm just going to go in and take what is given to me, assess, and move forward.

What about fear of embarrassment?

BD: I think honestly I haven’t had a fear of embarrassment since middle school, and I do attribute a lot of that to Odyssey of the Mind — doing characters and being silly, and also doing drama in middle school. I think I recognized from a young age that if I want to make people laugh, you have to go out on a limb, and you may embarrass yourself… sometimes you miss, sometimes you hit: you have to take a chance. Improv is great for embarrassment! 

Why would you recommend taking an improv class?

BD: One, because it is my favorite thing in the whole wide world, but I think there are so many good skills. You don’t necessarily need to go through the whole curriculum or join a house team and audition, but I do think those earlier levels have so much of “I’m going to put myself out there,” and you’re in an environment where it's safe to put yourself out there. If you take an improv class, you have a teacher looking out for you, maybe 15 other classmates who are all doing the same thing, and if anyone were to bully you in any way, you have a teacher who has your back and probably other classmates. It is a safe and controlled environment where you can put yourself out there, talk, try and deal with embarrassment, and try to get over a shame of being silly, which is something a lot of people have. It is a safe place to find that sense of play and fun.

Anything else?

BD: I can’t praise enough taking an improv class and having some fun, playing pretend again when maybe your life hasn't afforded you that lightness. Just being in a class where you can make believe or get away from whatever’s troubling you… there is a lot of value in that.

You can follow Brandon on Instagram @Bdzirko and TikTok @BrandonandShane.