Improv and Laughter in Grade 8 Drama

Carly Heffernan is a writer, actor, and director. She ran an improv workshop for Grade 8 drama students on October 3. Phoebe Starnino wrote about the experience.

By Phoebe Starnino (‘23)

It was amazing to have Carly in our class. She was full of energy and she taught us all so much. She got our attention and full participation within seconds of the class starting, a bit of a challenge with 19 teenagers who are full of energy. We started with a simple name game that proved to be more difficult than we originally thought. Most of the activities were pretty challenging, but fun too.

She gave us all an opportunity to make our own improv scenes based off of keywords or without speaking at all. We all spent the whole time laughing, smiling and learning. Carly taught us the rules of improv, one of the main ones being that there are no rules. Through many different games and skits, she taught us that it’s important to both make mistakes and be confident in yourself and the decisions that you’re making on the stage.

We were all having fun throughout the entire class, especially when we got to each make our own scenes. We were each given either a situation, emotion, colour, object, or place and along with a partner, we performed an improv skit for the rest of class. We had scenes ranging from a cashier and customer at KFC, to people forgetting their sunscreen. No matter what happened on the stage, everyone was involved and supportive.

A highlight was an incredibly fun game of “Rock, Paper, Anything!” Instead of choosing either a rock, paper, or scissors, we chose anything or anyone. We chose to be everything from Mean Girls (after all, it was October 3), to Hamilton, to a mom. The hour flew by and we left the class happy and much more confident in our improv skills. Having Carly in our class was so much fun. It was a great experience!