Morganton Improv hosting youth workshop at Burke Arts

A therapist enters a room full of coworkers or students, prepared to teach communication, empathy, and flexibility. However, there are no questions like “How does that make you feel?” or “Tell me about your father.”

Instead, Tracy Scott asks participants to act, to listen, and to collaborate. Instead of therapy on a couch, Scott invites them to say, “Yes, and …” through improv.

On Jan. 26, Scott, also of the Morganton Improv Troupe, will lead a free workshop for middle school students, ages 11-13, at the Burke Arts Council to explore the art of improvisation.

“As a person or kid, to just be able to go ‘BLAH’ is kind of silly, but it’s also being expressive,” Scott said.

Scott views improv principles as a set of guidelines for life, calling them a “Yes, and” mentality that reinforces a balance between structure and spontaneity.

“I think a lot of students have experienced that as well,” she said. “You can come into a classroom and step into the middle of a circle and say something, or sing something, God forbid. That experience of doing that and being accepted — damn, that’s powerful stuff.”

She noted that one of the biggest benefits she’s heard from students is a newfound confidence in making themselves heard.

“When you go back to your job or to your home, and you’re struggling with being assertive — assertiveness comes up a lot,” Scott said. “As well as the other end of the spectrum: You step in a lot, kind of overly much. Now, you’re hearing and seeing first-hand your impact on this group. But generally, my experience has more been the stepping out and having that confidence to make a move and know that it’s accepted.”

The therapist got involved with Morganton Improv in 2018, when she read a news story about a meetup for people interested in the performance art.

“I had actually been in a play a few years before that,” Scott said. “In my bio of the play, I said, ‘I want to start or be in an improv group in the next five or 10 years.’ It was a very conscious goal. I knew that there was something there.”

“I (was) just going through a lot of changes in my life at the time, when I started doing it,” she said. “It just — it sounds like a weird word to use — it ministered to me. It was like therapy for me to be able to go and have my own thing.”

These days, Scott said she leans on the Applied Improvisation Network as a source of support for ideas and networking. The network “cultivates community and professional excellence” to apply the techniques of improvisation across a variety of contexts, according to the Applied Improvisation website.

“They meet up on Zoom every week, so I try to make some of those meetings,” Scott said. “They share ideas and do breakout rooms and try different things or pose, ‘Hey, I’m working with this group, and I want some games to specifically deal with this issue,’ and people will share. It’s a super cool community and way of working with folks.”

Past the youth workshops, Scott said she’s open to assisting leadership teams and working on collaborative team building. The games and scenarios she introduces in workshops help to break the ice across all ages.

A popular exercise is “Late for School,” a game some late-night TV watchers might compare to the show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

One participant acts as the teacher, while one student is sent out of the classroom. Several others are given scenarios, or reasons as to why they’re “late for school.” The outside student comes back and observes the others acting out their “reasons,” trying to guess why they’re late with hints from the teacher.

“The two people miming it, playing it out, get that practice, too — the creativity of, ‘How do you act out (that) I was abducted by aliens?’” she said. “That’s one short form, fun game. There’s lots. There’s endless improv games … There’s more than enough material to do this every week, forever.”

Scott said the hope of the troupe is to expand classes if the youth workshops draw enough interest.

Middle school students can join the workshop on Monday, Jan. 26, from 4-6 p.m. A high school-age workshop is also planned for Monday, Feb. 23, from 4-6 p.m. Both are free.

Registration is at https://www.burkearts.org/childrens-classes/youth-improv-jan. Tracy Scott can be reached at rootedandwingingit.com.