Spur of the Moment by Theresa Alan Read Free Book Online

“forward,” and they’d go back through the scene backwards or move forward again from whatever point in the scene she yelled out the command. No matter what the basic story line was, the scene inevitably invoked laughter, mostly because the actors tended to forget what came when, and seeing them fail was often more fun than seeing them succeed. (Unlike stand-up comedy, where the audience sat there, arms crossed, with an attitude of “yeah, we’ll just see if you can make me laugh,” with improv, the audience was rooting for the actors. When the actors messed up, the audience thought it was pant-wettingly hilarious.) She could also yell out “fast forward,” and seeing someone race around on stage was also somehow intrinsically funny.
    Ana ran offstage, straining to catch her breath. She poured herself a large glass of water from the pitcher they always brought from the bar downstairs. Improv could be sweaty work, and all that talking, singing, and shouting took its toll on performers’ vocal cords. Everyone, except Chelsey, drank gallons of water between skits. Chelsey was addicted to Diet Red Stallion and inhaled it by the case, a fact her Spur buddies teased her about it relentlessly. They called her Bullsy, after the alleged fact that one of the ingredients in Red Stallion was synthetic bull piss or some such notion.
    Ana had done well, and the audience had loved the scene, but she felt unsatisfied. This was getting too easy. She needed new challenges.
    Ever since she, Marin, and Chelsey had flown for a weeklong training at Second City in Chicago a few months earlier over the summer, they’d learned about the other things they could do with improv—like long-form improv instead of the short-form they did night after night—she’d become restless. They’d tried several times to talk to Steve about letting them try a few new things, but all he said, over and over again, was that what they were doing now worked, it paid the bills, and you don’t fix what’s not broken. Ana spent her days at the office getting her ideas shot down, and even here, in her creative space, she was being boxed in. It made her crazy. Shake it off, shake it off, she admonished herself. Moments later, she ran on stage as a smiley three-year-old girl accompanying her mother to the zoo.
    The five players on the stage knew each other well. Ana knew that with Marin and Ramiro, no matter what she said, no matter what ideas or plot twists she threw out, they would be sure to go with it. Chelsey, Scott, and Jason weren’t quite as reliable. If Ana went on stage as a man, Scott and Jason were always turning her into a woman. Once she came on stage wearing a hardhat and flannel shirt. In her mind she was a male construction worker. Then Scott had called her mom, and she had to deal with that, though for a second it was very disconcerting. Improv works because you instantly become a new character. You know what to say next because you know your character and how he or she would respond in such a situation. But when you threw something out only to have it twisted by a fellow performer, it made you feel less safe on stage. Having to deal with a sex change in two seconds flat was unsettling indeed.
    The next time Ana went on, it was with Ramiro again. Chelsey had asked the audience for a “thing,” and the suggestion she got was “can of spray paint.” Immediately Ana and Ramiro began feigning spray painting a wall. Ana was the first to start pretending to chew gum with extravagant gusto, but it only took Ramiro a split second to notice what she was doing and join in.
    â€œLike, I don’t know the big deal is. We should be able to, like, express ourselves. To decorate the world around us,” Ana said in an Hispanic accent.
    On stage tonight, Ramiro said in a falsetto voice, “You said it, girlfriend. People act like graffiti is all illegal and bad and shit. It’s