Episode #112: Improv Brings Out The Best Featuring Kelly Leonard
“I think you have to be fairly bold to get up in front of an audience with absolutely no script, and then try to entertain them and create content and create characters and everything it takes.”
Kelly Leonard
Author | Speaker | Second City Executive Director of Insights & Applied Improvisation
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To have any measure of success in the field of improvisation, you have to first be prepared to make bold choices, afterall its those daring choices we make in the moment are what will stand out most in people's minds.
Many don’t immediately make the connection to the fact that improv can assist us in our everyday lives. Improv can improve our ability to focus on what's in front of us which in turn helps us to remain present and stay in the moment. Our ability to recognize the subtle cues increases and we naturally develop an awareness of our surroundings. We listen better, we become more creative, we collaborate effectively and we learn to play better and enjoy the moment and the list goes on and on.
While we may no exactly know where we’ll end up when we start the journey of improvisation, we’ll never get there until we take that brave first step forward into the unknown.
“We talk about the idea that you bring a brick, not a cathedral, to the conversation to the scene to whatever you're doing because you don't know in this act of co creation, you're just not sure what's going to happen.”
Kelly Leonard began his Second City career in 1988, eventually becoming producer of Second City in 1992 and Executive Vice President through 2015. He has produced hundreds of original revues with talent such as Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Keegan Michael Key, Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler. His book, "Yes, And," received rave reviews in Vanity Fair and the Washington Post. He co-leads a new partnership with Booth School at the University of Chicago that studies behavioral science through the lens of improvisation. He is a popular speaker, appearing at Aspen Ideas Festival, Chicago Ideas Week and TEDxBroadway and hosts the Second City Works/WGN Podcast "Getting to Yes, And."
He joins Audley on The Audacious Living Podcast to discuss the Yes…And concept, why being a natural disruptor is so difficult and how being at Second City for the last 33 years has impacted his life.
Kelly Leonard is up next on The Audacious Living Podcast!
#Improv #Improvisation #Collaborate #Stage #Ideas #YesAnd #Motivational #BestLifeEver #AudaciousLiving #BeAudacious
