Is Improv Really About Thinking Quickly?

People imagine improvisers sprinting mentally, constantly coming up with genius one-liners at lightning speed.

But personally, when I’m performing, it doesn’t feel like I'm trying to think quickly. It feels more like I’m allowing my thoughts and reactions to rise to the surface and trusting them when they do.

So, is improv really about having a “fast brain”?

Well first, let's consider what we think of as being “quick”.

What is “quick thinking” in improv?

There are people who show up to their Level 1 improv class already “quick-witted”. They might spot punchlines everywhere, make clever connections under pressure, and drop “fun specifics” without even really thinking about it.

It’s easy to look at these improvisers from the outside and think that they have the superpower of a speedy brain. However, I believe it’s actually about familiarity – they’ve just been solving that particular kind of puzzle for a long time.

Maybe they grew up in families who liked to joke, or their friends have always communicated in “bits”, or maybe they’ve simply loved watching every comedy show under the sun since they were kids.

Whatever it might be, they’ve been training their comedy instinct for years before ever taking an improv course.

The good news is: this is a skill you can get better at. Watching shows, taking classes, getting lots of reps, and practicing noticing “fun specifics” and moments in life are all ways of honing these connections in your brain.

But, regardless of how “quick” a performer might be, it’s important to remember that being fast at saying funny things is not the same as being a good improviser.

So, is good improv actually about thinking quickly?

You can be quick to jump in and always ready with a quip … and still be bad at listening and supporting your scene partner, or weak when it comes to building a coherent world.

In fact, at a certain point, being “quick” in the wrong way actively makes shows worse. You can bulldoze a game, trample someone’s emotional move, or shout the punchline before the scene has earned it.

When teaching advanced classes, I find I’m more often telling students who are already funny that reacting honestly is the better route to more hilarious scenes.

And that’s the aim of training: to move you from conscious, effortful, panicked thinking – which can feel like trying really hard to think quickly – into something like a “trained instinct”: where something pops up and you trust it.

When something hilarious happens, it’s less that the improviser has thought of something at lightning speed, than they’ve tapped into a little bit of honesty or trusted their own idiosyncrasy.

Practise this enough and you may find yourself being surprised when the audience laughs at something. It will look like you’re being quick ... but really you were just saying the next reasonable thing.