19th
Ah. The dreaded Improv Rut. I think I’m coming out of one myself so I totally relate. In Jill Bernard’s Small Cute Book of Improv (which I just finished reading), she talks about the Sine Wave of improv, of alternating between peaks and troughs. It sounds like you’re in the middle of a trough.
How to get out? First, be patient. You’ll come out of it eventually. It can be frustrating but there is an end. Second, try new things. Push your physicality, try stronger characters, use bigger emotional reactions (don’t be phony, just amplify what exists), play with your environment. Don’t force anything but find inspiration in new things. Finally, don’t get down. This really happens to everyone and it will happen repeatedly.
My theory on this is that your old tricks don’t work because you find them boring and so you find yourself boring. Find something new that engages you in the scene and play with it. And while I won’t tell you to stop beating yourself up over it (we all do that), I will tell you to just accept failure (real or perceived) as part of the learning process. It’s the people who can best accept failure and rejection that keep going through the troughs to the other side where gold and glory lay.
-fv
