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Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up |  | Author: Patricia Ryan Madson
Publisher: Harmony/Bell Tower
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $7.80
as of 11/23/2009 06:54 CST details
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New (30) Used (17) Collectible (2) from $6.94
Seller: book-a-lot
Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 32542
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 160
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 1400081882
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9781400081882
ASIN: 1400081882
Publication Date: May 3, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In an irresistible invitation to lighten up, look around, and live an unscripted life, a master of the art of improvisation explains how to adopt the attitudes and techniques used by generations of musicians and actors.
Let’s face it: Life is something we all make up as we go along. No matter how carefully we formulate a “script,” it is bound to change when we interact with people with scripts of their own. Improv Wisdom shows how to apply the maxims of improvisational theater to real-life challenges—whether it’s dealing with a demanding boss, a tired child, or one of life’s never-ending surprises. Patricia Madson distills thirty years of experience into thirteen simple strategies, including “Say Yes,” “Start Anywhere,” “Face the Facts,” and “Make Mistakes, Please,” helping readers to loosen up, think on their feet, and take on everything life has to offer with skill, chutzpah, and a sense of humor.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 34
 Best For Improvisers, Good For All October 28, 2009
Caroline@SixFigureStart.com
I have to love the book that introduced me to the term, bricolage, or as Madson puts it, "use what is there artfully." Improv Wisdom by Patricia Madson is a must-read for improvisers but still a good read if all you know about improv is Drew Carey in "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"
Madson, chair of the undergraduate acting department at Stanford and creator of the Stanford Improvisors, lists 13 maxims of improv and coaches on how these relate to life at large, not just on stage. The subtitle of the book, "Don't Prepare, Just Show Up" are two of the maxims. Bricolage was in the chapter on Make Mistakes, Please. Other insightful chapters include Be Average, Face the Facts, and Stay On Course.
You will likely enjoy the book more if you have improv in your experience because Madson doesn't take too much time explaining the concepts. But her ability to draw parallels between what could be seen as pithy improv rules and important life concepts is impressive. This book is a fast read, thoroughly enjoyable, and incredibly deep.
 An Energizing, Inspiring Approach to Your Life July 4, 2009
Enamorato (Rockville, MD United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
While the reviews for this book mention Patricia Ryan Madson's involvement with improvisational theatre, I was more familiar with her work as a teacher of Constructive Living - a Western adaptation of Japanese psychotherapies by clinician David K. Reynolds. Reynolds' aim is to help his students learn to live a fully present, action-oriented life in a world where problems are just as inevitable as successes and suffering just as much a part of life as joy. "Improv Wisdom" is actually closer in vein to a Constructive Living text than a book geared for improvisational theatre: the focus is not just on theatre, but on making the most of life no matter what one's circumstances. In Madson's words, this is "Saying Yes!" to life. Even just the IDEA that our lives are fully improvised - that we're making it up as we go along - can be a truly life-changing concept for many of us who have been brainwashed into micromanaging and planning every detail of every moment of our careers, family life and even our leisure time.
Reynolds' classic Constructive Living (Kolowalu Books) is still in print. It is a concise, elegant little book that has provided me much help that I highly recommend. Madson's work, however, takes a creative and fascinating departure. Being a clinician, Reynolds' approach was aimed at outgrowing one's emotional obstacles, and while this emphasis certainly appears in "Improv Wisdom" (see in particular, Chapters 5, called "Be Average", and 12, called "Take Care of Each Other"), Madson's incorporation of Keith Johnstone's work on reawakening to spontaneity results in an approach that truly inspires an appreciation for every second of life.
Like Reynolds' book, "Improv Wisdom" is realistic, engaging and extremely energizing to read. As a whole, Madson has a more joyful, exciting tone that is a welcome counterpoint to Reynold's hard-edged pragmatism. The two books complement each other well. Some of the chapters are particularly refreshing: Chapter 1 ("Say Yes") thoroughly has the potential to open one's life up in surprising ways; Chapter 6 ("Pay Attention") wakes one up out of the trance of autopilot and self-absorption; Chapter 10 ("Make Mistakes, Please") is a welcome antidote to the art of not only making mistakes, but learning to use them in creative ways.
There is a lot of important insight in this book that will improve one's relationship with life itself. It would make a wonderful graduation present as well as a great read before a trip. I read it before a yearly camping outing along the Potomac River. It completely subverted my tendency to obsessively plan activities for every minute of the day and allowed me to be present and spontaneous in ways that I hadn't been since I was a child. My friends appreciated the change as well, as I was also more open and present for them than before. Highly recommended on its own, or as a compliment to Reynold's "Constructive Living."
Live Your Life As Art April 11, 2009
Praveen Puri (Chicago Area)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When you add improvisation to your life, your life becomes a high Work of Art. This book doesn't teach you to be impulsive and not make plans.
Instead, the idea is that you can sketch out an outline of goals and plans, but you are open to spontaneously modifying and creating the details, and changing direction when necessary.
Life becomes effective, successful, and fun when you are doing this structured improvisation.
Ideas to Live by January 23, 2009
BooksFoodFilmTV (New York, NY United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I bought this book after taking an Improv class. The ideas that appealed to me in the class -- and how they relate to life -- are reflected eloquently in the text: how to be open to all experience ("Say yes"), how to genuinely interact with people ("Pay attention"), etc. As you read, you feel the force of the author's years of wisdom, experience, and soul-searching behind the precepts -- as simple as they seem, they are not fluffy or empty, but tap into the precious things that are often forgotten in our busy lives. I'm re-reading it...
It's Not About The Improv! September 29, 2008
Sarah Buer (San Francisco, CA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Don't worry. If you've never: met a professional improviser, yourself taken any improv classes, attended an improv show, and/or didn't even realize that Improv was anything besides a word meaning, `movement that is created spontaneously,' this book will still be relevant to your life. 'Improv Wisdom' is much less about the art of improv than it is about the art of living.
The idea behind Improv Wisdom is simple: learn to listen to others (really listen) and to trust yourself (and your ideas). Yeah, sure, you've heard that before - but you haven't heard it in this simple, brilliant, and compelling way. Divided into 13 chapters, each driven by a `maxim' for doing good improv (read: for living a good life), Improv Wisdom provides a roadmap for finding the way to that ideal state of being, the one in which you can understand and appreciate people the right way and at the right times, live in the moment and love yourself, but in a completely understated and non-cheesy way. Each maxim is summarized, explained, and supported with examples - all score top marks for clarity and relevance. Patricia Madson's voice is warm, encouraging, and laced with humor. Reading the book, you begin to feel as though she, if you were perfect, would be the voice your subconscious mind, offering you help, direction and maternal support whenever you needed it most.
This is not a self-help book, but if you pay attention it will probably change you, and it will change you for the better. It was, for me, perhaps the most formative and developmentally important book that I read during my four years of undergraduate education. Senior year - when I was trying to figure out exactly who I was, what I believed in, where I was going, how I would make it through job interviews and indecision and the ambiguous future - I started reading it, and by the time I'd finished the first chapter, I knew that this book would provide some guidance. And it did. It taught me to listen to my subconscious and it gave me the direction, courage, and reason I needed to become - and to become happily - a better, stronger and more complete version of myself.
Read it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 34
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