All in the Mindset - and the Body

Other case studies deal with anxious teenagers, marginalised students, adults with dementia and workers in the humanitarian sector learning improvisational activities to make more successful impacts in meetings and conferences. It’s a rich range of applications, and the stories are accompanied by clear step-by-step descriptions of activities that readers may wish to introduce in their own settings.

There’s a game, for example, picked out by the editors at the start, which many of us know as ‘You!’, though McLure renames it here as ‘Complexity‘. The group works in a circle, going through increasingly intricate iterations of pointing sequences. In the debrief, the players discuss how they managed the potential overload of information, then consider how they might apply their learning in work settings.

It’s a great activity, but is it actually Applied Improvisation? Well, Yes and No (and maybe Yes Again). First ‘Yes’, because it’s in the book and it’s well-known in workshop settings.

Then ‘No’, because it’s not theatre-based, which for the editors and publisher is the locus and source of AI. Lacking any audience/ player distinction with attendant requirements or pressures to perform, or any role element (other than being oneself), it’s no more theatre-related than another super activity suggested – drawing one line of a portrait of the person opposite, then moving along so that the next lines are contributed by successive neighbours.

A rigorous academic approach to AI will need to discuss meaningful distinctions between comparable but different or overlapping disciplines, such as experiential learning, dramatherapy, psychology and business studies, any of which might make equally welcoming ‘homes’ as the theatre department.

It’s noticeable in the chapters how few of the activities are strictly (or even loosely) theatrical, though many of the authors favour the language of ‘scenes’ and ‘performing’.

Indeed, if we start philosophically from the ‘natural language’ use of the word ‘improvisation’, then the topic suddenly escapes the confines of theatre and makes more appealing, intuitive sense. Something is improvisational because it presents a challenge which demands a novel response in the moment. The most useful skills for meeting those challenges are being ready, alert, flexible and in flow. For groups, we add elements of collaboration, co-creation, turn-taking and so forth. Koppett describes ‘Improv as the gym’ in her chapter title, which serves as a good metaphor as long as the improv is experienced only in workshop settings. When we’re improvising in life, then improv is no longer the gym; improv is the thing itself.

While the practical work descriptions are often inspirational, some of the authors’ forays into theories of learning and theories of change (including organisational change) are less impressive. We hear, for example, that a child learning to stand and walk ‘fails and fails and fails’. To Gunter Losel’s credit, he recognises that while this may be what’s noticed by many improvisers (who are schooled in the minimal-consequence-for-mistakes environment of theatrical workshops), it’s an unrepresentative ‘counterculture’.

I checked this with a couple of mothers of toddlers who felt that their offspring were learning via a path of ‘succeeding, succeeding and succeeding’. Quite! If it were not the case that the successes were outweighing the failures, how would these children be getting any better each day at standing and walking? The parents found even applying a concept of ‘failure’ in such an important context of development was rather odd. The child was ‘having a go’, finding some things that worked, some that didn’t, and kept reapplying the small improvements – of balance, limb control and positioning - to master the ultimate skill.

Going to the title of the book and considering how AI practitioners might want to present themselves in the academic and organisational realms, I wonder if ‘mindset’ is the best choice of metaphor for improvisers, who - you’d imagine - are not so concerned about what happens in the head (or the mind) as with what can be readily observed and transformed in the tangible and interactional world. Perhaps ‘Stance’ - or even ‘Attitude’ - would serve better, while still allowing for everything they want to say about improvisation. 

‘Mindset’ feels rooted in the tradition of Cartesian dualism, with its fateful split of mind from body. ‘Stance’ is contrastingly adaptive, fungible, connected to the ground, with the possibility of movement. It’s embodied, rather than hidden in the head, and allows for immediate and improvisational pivots. For anyone other than a psychologist, a mindset has to do the extra work of manifesting itself in some way. In which case, the important part isn’t this invisible ‘mindset’ but the observable behaviour - the ‘offer’ that the responding improviser can now work with. 

Yes, this may be ‘just’ a question of linguistic and metaphorical preferences, but we are increasingly realising how much our language and our choices of framing carry significant consequences for understanding, teaching, and practice. 

If this book serves to bring more improvisational stances into the project of transforming organisations and communities, it is most heartily welcome.

Book Information

Title: The Applied Improvisation Mindset: Tools for Transforming Organizations and Communities

Publisher: Methuen Drama (August 12th, 2021)

Paperback: 352 pages

About the Author: Paul Z Jackson

Paul Z Jackson is editorial advisor and editor of the Applied Improvisation Magazine and author of books about improvisation, including Impro Learning, 58½ Ways To Improvise In Training and Easy: Your LIFEPASS to Creativity and Confidence. He is cofounder and former board member of the AIN. Paul lives in Oxford, UK.

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(Last Updated: Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026)