Ammon Arave (00:00.142)
Did it count down on your side too? Okay, that's what I wanted to know that just for future people I could tell them all right it's gonna count down and then we're gonna talk okay cool. All right so Wade if no one had ever heard of improv and that's what we're gonna be talking about right? Improv, how would you describe being involved or improv community or groups to someone who knows nothing about improv?
Wade Arave (00:16.11)
Yeah.
Wade Arave (00:22.415)
I would say improv is the art of, thinking on your feet and, building off the ideas of other people without pre -planning, right? So, oftentimes it's set in a comedic setting, but it doesn't necessarily have to be, but it's, it's about accepting the ideas that are presented, and running with those ideas, and just building upon the things in front of you, which.
I was going to say describing it that way feels very esoteric and probably not what most people would assume improv is, but that's how I would describe it. That's how it works for me.
Ammon Arave (00:54.54)
Yeah.
Ammon Arave (00:59.565)
Yeah, okay cool. So almost my first thought that comes to mind when you're talking when you describe like that is it almost seems in a lot of ways like that is outside of a theatrical definition. That was my first thought is like you're describing this almost like outside of my perspective of theater first then explaining a piece of theater within that right it almost like you. Does that make sense? Interesting.
Wade Arave (01:12.815)
Totally.
Wade Arave (01:23.727)
Yeah, no, I would say that's right. Because I would probably argue that most people are improvisers without recognizing that they're improvisers. Yeah, I mean, it's a skill that we all kind of develop. It's just whether or not you develop, how deep you go to develop it or how much you practice that development. Yeah, and it's one of the things that I really like about what the art is, that it's...
Ammon Arave (01:34.699)
Good plan.
Wade Arave (01:54.351)
is where you can utilize those skill sets.
Ammon Arave (01:57.227)
Yeah, so that's a good point. I hadn't thought about it specifically like that, so that makes a lot of sense. So is there something in the past, how did you get involved in it? Was there a significant event or something that occurred in your life that kind of sparked your interest and pushed you towards it?
Wade Arave (02:13.872)
Yeah, so my high school drama teacher was a professional improviser. So during the summers, he had a little improv team that he would travel around with and do shows. And so we did a lot of improv when I was in high school. And honestly, I thought it was a bit of a joke. Like I thought my teacher did know what he was doing. I thought it was kind of a worthless skill. I wanted to do quote unquote, real theater.
in high school and really kind of looking down on the whole thing. I mean, I remember making jokes about him being a beatnik and like, again, not really knowing what he was doing as far as professional theater goes. And go ahead. Yeah.
Ammon Arave (02:52.298)
What, can I stop, just to expand on one thing before you get into that, what specifically about it made you think that it wasn't real compared to what you had been doing in theater? You know what I mean? Like why would you say it that way?
Wade Arave (03:04.081)
Yeah, because it's often framed as a game. There's a really great book called Improvisation for the Theatre where this... Gosh, I'm trying to remember the name. Spolen is her last name. Anyway, so she wrote this book and it was specifically designed to help people develop their theatrical skills.
Ammon Arave (03:13.098)
Mmm.
Wade Arave (03:29.361)
And so she calls them games and it's often set as games and many drama teachers, especially high school drama teachers that don't have a lot of experience in a professional improv setting will use games as a way to help transition students, right? So it's like, we have five minutes left. What do we do? Let's throw an improv game out there. And most theater professionals don't see improv as a valuable skillset or something that they necessarily know how to train. It's a very specific kind of training.
And it's a very specific kind of skill set and it often isn't utilized to its fullest capacity, right? There's some real subtleties to it. And so because theater is a specific kind of thing, right? It is a script that was pre -written, you memorize lines, that is what the art form is, is character development, like there's all those things. That is what I was wanting.
Ammon Arave (04:14.666)
Yeah.
Wade Arave (04:26.834)
Right, I was wanting a very traditional approach to theater and improv really kind of turns out on its head by approaching it in a way that allows people to drop their inhibitions and learn how to drop their inhibitions, which actually makes them more open to subtleties in their own body, to responding to other people.
And that makes the performance more authentic and genuine, and it makes the experience more authentic and genuine. But without understanding that, you assume that it's just a cheesy form of entertainment, right? Because you think about whose line is it anyway. Yeah.
Ammon Arave (05:07.754)
Yeah.
Just gonna say that, like you picture that show, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which kind of put it, I feel like they put it on the popular map of the world. In my experience, in my timeline, I guess, I feel like, yeah. All right, that makes, yeah.
Wade Arave (05:15.217)
Totally.
Wade Arave (05:22.354)
Totally. Totally. Yeah. And if you look at the history of improv, like there's two kind of approaches. There's this, swollen approach and then there's theater, theater games or theater sports, which is that game approach that whose line is in any way approach. And they're kind of there again, there are two very different approaches, which, which led to the, the, the, the event that really kind of dove me dove into this where I was like, this is a very real thing. when I got into college and was auditioning for shows,
Ammon Arave (05:36.746)
Get out.
Wade Arave (05:52.626)
I got into callbacks and so if you're unfamiliar with how an audition works, you do an initial audition and then you kind of get shortlisted into callback to read for specific characters. And it was actually in that setting that I was like, my improv skills are really, really valuable. Cause what you can do is in a short period of time as you can start to experiment, like whether you'd read the script prior or not, you could go in and.
and get a sense of the dialogue and just, and then, and then read off the other person a little bit of like, how are they approaching this? And again, you can kind of create some authentic, authentic interaction because you're reliant, because you're open and willing to just be like, let's play with this a little bit. Let's experiment with this a little bit. I kind of know the lines and, and you're able to, to kind of drop the rote memorization or the concern about
Ammon Arave (06:24.042)
Yeah.
Ammon Arave (06:40.01)
Right.
Wade Arave (06:47.795)
Did I get my lines right? Or is it, you get a, you get a sense of that. And so at the end of the day, the lines don't necessarily matter. it's the interaction, it's the humanity inside the interaction of the two, of the two people on stage. And it was then, cause I started landing parts that I was like, this is. This is a really, really valuable skillset in the direction that I want to go that I just had no idea. And then I was like, my gosh, my teacher knew what he was doing. And I just had no idea. Right? Like all of those things are going to come.
Ammon Arave (06:50.314)
Mmmmm
Ammon Arave (07:14.506)
Ha ha.
Wade Arave (07:17.33)
started to come about.
Ammon Arave (07:17.77)
So you participated in this process and up until that point in college you still kind of thought it was a little bit of a joke and ridiculous even though you were involved in it. I mean involved enough that it clearly made you better at what you were doing. You just didn't click that it made you better until that moment in college. That's super interesting.
Wade Arave (07:27.538)
Totally.
Wade Arave (07:35.828)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, yeah, I, yeah, I didn't connect the dots until the rubber hit the road and I was like, that's
Ammon Arave (07:43.978)
this actually is pretty good. Which is pretty crazy that it took like kind of a lapsing of time and then a moment that it finally kind of all clicked. I guess learning is like that sometimes. It takes a repeat a few times and then something to happen that you really get it. So, and yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I know you've been involved and done a bunch of stuff after college and stuff. So like looking forward in the future, are you?
Wade Arave (07:46.291)
Yeah, this is super valuable, right?
Wade Arave (07:51.508)
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. Totally.
Wade Arave (08:01.684)
Yeah
Ammon Arave (08:10.602)
intending to do more improv, planning to do an improv, like how do you plan on incorporating into future, your future life?
Wade Arave (08:14.983)
Yeah, so one of the things that I do love about improv is that it's less time consuming than traditional theater. And so there's a way that you can participate without having to do weeks on end of rehearsal, long, you know, four, eight hour rehearsals. And you can still get that sense, that sense of performance and the sense of community inside of that without the time commitment. So as a person who's involved in lots of other things,
Ammon Arave (08:28.362)
Mmm. Yeah.
Wade Arave (08:39.989)
but still wanting to put my foot in the door or keep my foot in the door of improv. That's a really great way to do it. Yeah, so I really appreciate that. The other thing that, another light bulb moment for me for improv as a skillset was when I was in grad school and doing a ton of writing, especially storytelling and dialogue and things like that, is that I would hit these strides while I was writing where like my improv brain would kick in and I would stop and I would just have these dialogues between
Ammon Arave (08:46.41)
Hmm that makes a lot of sense
Wade Arave (09:09.141)
between these two people in my head and I was able to write that out, right? But it always took me 15 or 20 minutes to get to that point of like slog writing of just like, yeah, let's do this, do, do. And then it was totally, totally, totally. And then after that point clicked, then it was like, the improv, the improv would kick in and I could just let the two characters dialogue in my head. So again, the same skill set just in a completely different context. And so it's.
Ammon Arave (09:17.258)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Almost like getting into that state of flow that you picked up from that almost kind of vibe. Yeah. Cool.
Ammon Arave (09:31.914)
Yeah.
Wade Arave (09:36.501)
When I can get into that mode with writing, it is also, so that's another future involvement, right? That I really, really kind of appreciate.
Ammon Arave (09:41.921)
Yeah. It seems, honestly, it seems like a really valuable just practice, almost like, you know, like a meditation or a daily something, just keeping into the practice keeps you exploring and open to new concepts. And that's cool. That's that makes a lot of sense. And it does make I think it seems cool. I've never thought about the idea of it being different than theater that you could continue involvement without the extensive time commit that it would be a traditional play or musical or whatever you'd be involved.
Wade Arave (09:50.964)
Sure.
Wade Arave (09:58.484)
Yeah, for sure.
Wade Arave (10:11.508)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Ammon Arave (10:12.16)
That's cool. Well, that's awesome. Thanks, man. I appreciate you taking a minute to talk a little bit about that. And just last question, your experience with Naked Bell, you've tried to, what has been your experience?
Wade Arave (10:17.972)
Yeah.
Wade Arave (10:24.118)
Yeah, you know, the thing that's always surprising, that was surprising to me about it is that when you wear a traditional belt, which I typically wear a belt, right, like to work, I like the way that it looks, I like the way that it feels, but with the naked belt, that whole experience just kind of disappears. And so you get the benefits of wearing a belt without the experience of wearing a traditional belt, right? Like the weight, the weight of it is gone.
the bulkiness of it is gone. The thing that I hate the most is like bending over and having the cold belt buckle hit my belly. Like that's the worst. And that experience doesn't exist, right? Like it doesn't happen with the naked thought, which is, yeah, which is pleasant, right?
Ammon Arave (10:57.12)
Yeah.
Ammon Arave (11:03.584)
Nice. That's good. That's good. That's a great description. I love that. Yeah, that's awesome. And I appreciate you sharing that. So yeah, again, thanks. Really appreciate it. That was cool. That was fun. Fun 10 minutes. All right, I appreciate it.
Wade Arave (11:16.725)
Yeah, no problem. Yeah, thank you.
Did it count down on your side too? Okay, that's what I wanted to know that just for future people I could tell them all right it's gonna count down and then we're gonna talk okay cool. All right so Wade if no one had ever heard of improv and that's what we're gonna be talking about right? Improv, how would you describe being involved or improv community or groups to someone who knows nothing about improv?
Wade Arave (00:16.11)
Yeah.
Wade Arave (00:22.415)
I would say improv is the art of, thinking on your feet and, building off the ideas of other people without pre -planning, right? So, oftentimes it's set in a comedic setting, but it doesn't necessarily have to be, but it's, it's about accepting the ideas that are presented, and running with those ideas, and just building upon the things in front of you, which.
I was going to say describing it that way feels very esoteric and probably not what most people would assume improv is, but that's how I would describe it. That's how it works for me.
Ammon Arave (00:54.54)
Yeah.
Ammon Arave (00:59.565)
Yeah, okay cool. So almost my first thought that comes to mind when you're talking when you describe like that is it almost seems in a lot of ways like that is outside of a theatrical definition. That was my first thought is like you're describing this almost like outside of my perspective of theater first then explaining a piece of theater within that right it almost like you. Does that make sense? Interesting.
Wade Arave (01:12.815)
Totally.
Wade Arave (01:23.727)
Yeah, no, I would say that's right. Because I would probably argue that most people are improvisers without recognizing that they're improvisers. Yeah, I mean, it's a skill that we all kind of develop. It's just whether or not you develop, how deep you go to develop it or how much you practice that development. Yeah, and it's one of the things that I really like about what the art is, that it's...
Ammon Arave (01:34.699)
Good plan.
Wade Arave (01:54.351)
is where you can utilize those skill sets.
Ammon Arave (01:57.227)
Yeah, so that's a good point. I hadn't thought about it specifically like that, so that makes a lot of sense. So is there something in the past, how did you get involved in it? Was there a significant event or something that occurred in your life that kind of sparked your interest and pushed you towards it?
Wade Arave (02:13.872)
Yeah, so my high school drama teacher was a professional improviser. So during the summers, he had a little improv team that he would travel around with and do shows. And so we did a lot of improv when I was in high school. And honestly, I thought it was a bit of a joke. Like I thought my teacher did know what he was doing. I thought it was kind of a worthless skill. I wanted to do quote unquote, real theater.
in high school and really kind of looking down on the whole thing. I mean, I remember making jokes about him being a beatnik and like, again, not really knowing what he was doing as far as professional theater goes. And go ahead. Yeah.
Ammon Arave (02:52.298)
What, can I stop, just to expand on one thing before you get into that, what specifically about it made you think that it wasn't real compared to what you had been doing in theater? You know what I mean? Like why would you say it that way?
Wade Arave (03:04.081)
Yeah, because it's often framed as a game. There's a really great book called Improvisation for the Theatre where this... Gosh, I'm trying to remember the name. Spolen is her last name. Anyway, so she wrote this book and it was specifically designed to help people develop their theatrical skills.
Ammon Arave (03:13.098)
Mmm.
Wade Arave (03:29.361)
And so she calls them games and it's often set as games and many drama teachers, especially high school drama teachers that don't have a lot of experience in a professional improv setting will use games as a way to help transition students, right? So it's like, we have five minutes left. What do we do? Let's throw an improv game out there. And most theater professionals don't see improv as a valuable skillset or something that they necessarily know how to train. It's a very specific kind of training.
And it's a very specific kind of skill set and it often isn't utilized to its fullest capacity, right? There's some real subtleties to it. And so because theater is a specific kind of thing, right? It is a script that was pre -written, you memorize lines, that is what the art form is, is character development, like there's all those things. That is what I was wanting.
Ammon Arave (04:14.666)
Yeah.
Wade Arave (04:26.834)
Right, I was wanting a very traditional approach to theater and improv really kind of turns out on its head by approaching it in a way that allows people to drop their inhibitions and learn how to drop their inhibitions, which actually makes them more open to subtleties in their own body, to responding to other people.
And that makes the performance more authentic and genuine, and it makes the experience more authentic and genuine. But without understanding that, you assume that it's just a cheesy form of entertainment, right? Because you think about whose line is it anyway. Yeah.
Ammon Arave (05:07.754)
Yeah.
Just gonna say that, like you picture that show, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which kind of put it, I feel like they put it on the popular map of the world. In my experience, in my timeline, I guess, I feel like, yeah. All right, that makes, yeah.
Wade Arave (05:15.217)
Totally.
Wade Arave (05:22.354)
Totally. Totally. Yeah. And if you look at the history of improv, like there's two kind of approaches. There's this, swollen approach and then there's theater, theater games or theater sports, which is that game approach that whose line is in any way approach. And they're kind of there again, there are two very different approaches, which, which led to the, the, the, the event that really kind of dove me dove into this where I was like, this is a very real thing. when I got into college and was auditioning for shows,
Ammon Arave (05:36.746)
Get out.
Wade Arave (05:52.626)
I got into callbacks and so if you're unfamiliar with how an audition works, you do an initial audition and then you kind of get shortlisted into callback to read for specific characters. And it was actually in that setting that I was like, my improv skills are really, really valuable. Cause what you can do is in a short period of time as you can start to experiment, like whether you'd read the script prior or not, you could go in and.
and get a sense of the dialogue and just, and then, and then read off the other person a little bit of like, how are they approaching this? And again, you can kind of create some authentic, authentic interaction because you're reliant, because you're open and willing to just be like, let's play with this a little bit. Let's experiment with this a little bit. I kind of know the lines and, and you're able to, to kind of drop the rote memorization or the concern about
Ammon Arave (06:24.042)
Yeah.
Ammon Arave (06:40.01)
Right.
Wade Arave (06:47.795)
Did I get my lines right? Or is it, you get a, you get a sense of that. And so at the end of the day, the lines don't necessarily matter. it's the interaction, it's the humanity inside the interaction of the two, of the two people on stage. And it was then, cause I started landing parts that I was like, this is. This is a really, really valuable skillset in the direction that I want to go that I just had no idea. And then I was like, my gosh, my teacher knew what he was doing. And I just had no idea. Right? Like all of those things are going to come.
Ammon Arave (06:50.314)
Mmmmm
Ammon Arave (07:14.506)
Ha ha.
Wade Arave (07:17.33)
started to come about.
Ammon Arave (07:17.77)
So you participated in this process and up until that point in college you still kind of thought it was a little bit of a joke and ridiculous even though you were involved in it. I mean involved enough that it clearly made you better at what you were doing. You just didn't click that it made you better until that moment in college. That's super interesting.
Wade Arave (07:27.538)
Totally.
Wade Arave (07:35.828)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, yeah, I, yeah, I didn't connect the dots until the rubber hit the road and I was like, that's
Ammon Arave (07:43.978)
this actually is pretty good. Which is pretty crazy that it took like kind of a lapsing of time and then a moment that it finally kind of all clicked. I guess learning is like that sometimes. It takes a repeat a few times and then something to happen that you really get it. So, and yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I know you've been involved and done a bunch of stuff after college and stuff. So like looking forward in the future, are you?
Wade Arave (07:46.291)
Yeah, this is super valuable, right?
Wade Arave (07:51.508)
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. Totally.
Wade Arave (08:01.684)
Yeah
Ammon Arave (08:10.602)
intending to do more improv, planning to do an improv, like how do you plan on incorporating into future, your future life?
Wade Arave (08:14.983)
Yeah, so one of the things that I do love about improv is that it's less time consuming than traditional theater. And so there's a way that you can participate without having to do weeks on end of rehearsal, long, you know, four, eight hour rehearsals. And you can still get that sense, that sense of performance and the sense of community inside of that without the time commitment. So as a person who's involved in lots of other things,
Ammon Arave (08:28.362)
Mmm. Yeah.
Wade Arave (08:39.989)
but still wanting to put my foot in the door or keep my foot in the door of improv. That's a really great way to do it. Yeah, so I really appreciate that. The other thing that, another light bulb moment for me for improv as a skillset was when I was in grad school and doing a ton of writing, especially storytelling and dialogue and things like that, is that I would hit these strides while I was writing where like my improv brain would kick in and I would stop and I would just have these dialogues between
Ammon Arave (08:46.41)
Hmm that makes a lot of sense
Wade Arave (09:09.141)
between these two people in my head and I was able to write that out, right? But it always took me 15 or 20 minutes to get to that point of like slog writing of just like, yeah, let's do this, do, do. And then it was totally, totally, totally. And then after that point clicked, then it was like, the improv, the improv would kick in and I could just let the two characters dialogue in my head. So again, the same skill set just in a completely different context. And so it's.
Ammon Arave (09:17.258)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Almost like getting into that state of flow that you picked up from that almost kind of vibe. Yeah. Cool.
Ammon Arave (09:31.914)
Yeah.
Wade Arave (09:36.501)
When I can get into that mode with writing, it is also, so that's another future involvement, right? That I really, really kind of appreciate.
Ammon Arave (09:41.921)
Yeah. It seems, honestly, it seems like a really valuable just practice, almost like, you know, like a meditation or a daily something, just keeping into the practice keeps you exploring and open to new concepts. And that's cool. That's that makes a lot of sense. And it does make I think it seems cool. I've never thought about the idea of it being different than theater that you could continue involvement without the extensive time commit that it would be a traditional play or musical or whatever you'd be involved.
Wade Arave (09:50.964)
Sure.
Wade Arave (09:58.484)
Yeah, for sure.
Wade Arave (10:11.508)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Ammon Arave (10:12.16)
That's cool. Well, that's awesome. Thanks, man. I appreciate you taking a minute to talk a little bit about that. And just last question, your experience with Naked Bell, you've tried to, what has been your experience?
Wade Arave (10:17.972)
Yeah.
Wade Arave (10:24.118)
Yeah, you know, the thing that's always surprising, that was surprising to me about it is that when you wear a traditional belt, which I typically wear a belt, right, like to work, I like the way that it looks, I like the way that it feels, but with the naked belt, that whole experience just kind of disappears. And so you get the benefits of wearing a belt without the experience of wearing a traditional belt, right? Like the weight, the weight of it is gone.
the bulkiness of it is gone. The thing that I hate the most is like bending over and having the cold belt buckle hit my belly. Like that's the worst. And that experience doesn't exist, right? Like it doesn't happen with the naked thought, which is, yeah, which is pleasant, right?
Ammon Arave (10:57.12)
Yeah.
Ammon Arave (11:03.584)
Nice. That's good. That's good. That's a great description. I love that. Yeah, that's awesome. And I appreciate you sharing that. So yeah, again, thanks. Really appreciate it. That was cool. That was fun. Fun 10 minutes. All right, I appreciate it.
Wade Arave (11:16.725)
Yeah, no problem. Yeah, thank you.