Plastic Tubes and Pots and Pans

I had a thoroughly enjoyable interview this morning with a company which sends actor/teachers to schools to perform science programs. Though I am intrigued by the prospect of a second interview, I can't honestly guess whether they are more interested in an actor or a teacher.

In a group interview (only two this morning), I sat across from a charming young woman who'd recently graduated from San Diego State University. She was obviously on the teaching track and had ready answers to the classroom-related questions our interviewer asked. As an actor, I had no such ready answers. Though I have performed for and interacted with both large and small groups of children, I have never experienced the one-to-twenty (or more) ratio of the classroom -- the position of being the only adult in the room, responsible not only for educating and entertaining children but also for maintaining order. How do you discipline an unruly child? What do you do when an experiment fails? One question is easier to answer than the other.

Handed a bottle of water in which a packet of ketchup was floating, I was asked to present an impromptu lesson on Density -- to explain why, if the water bottle is squeezed, the ketchup packet sinks. I quickly worked over the problem and improvised a two-minute demonstration while the interviewer provided child-like obstacles. In the end, I felt good about what I had done with very little prep time. Whether I'll take from that performance a job offer remains to be seen, but I did take away from the interview a wholly new hypothesis of my own.

I had begun my demonstration asking the "kids" whether they liked to go to McDonald's, thinking this would be surefire kiddie lure that would lead me naturally around to ketchup. Jeff, my interviewer, spoke up that he preferred Jack In The Box.

Oh! That's good, too! Do you get fries when you go to Jack In The Box?
Yes!
Do you like ketchup on your fries?
No. I like mustard.
Mustard is good, too. Does your mustard come in a little packet?
No, the top kinda peels back....
Oh, good. Does anybody else put mustard on their fries, too? Yes? Does your mustard come in little packs? Yes? Just like this ketchup packet here?

Even though I eventually had to abandon Jeff's character and move to one of the other 99 fictional children in the room, I realized that my natural tendency was to make the child who spoke feel as though his answer was a good one and to work with it without denying what he had said. My natural tendency was to take what the child had said, accept it, and incorporate it. My natural tendency was "Yes, And."

"Yes, And" -- if you don't know -- is the first basic rule of improv: take what your partner is giving you, accept it as truth, and build on it. It is not something that, in game play, feels remotely instinctual. I discovered in the real world today, though, that it absolutely is. When one is dealing with children.

Thus, the new hypothesis: For good improvisational work, actors should imagine they are dealing with children.

As most actors are overgrown children to begin with, testing this hypothesis would seem a relatively easy task; however as most actors also have a tendency toward childlike temper tantrums (referred to as Diva behavior), the tests could prove dangerous. A scientist in the field would have to tread carefully and never allow his subject to know the experiment was being performed.

I'm not really a scientist; I just play one in job interviews. And I'm not really an improvisational actor, either; I'm just playing one during a fund-raiser. Therefore, I leave the testing of this hypothesis to someone more brave... er... qualified than I.