Dare to Fail: Why the Improv Class Is Built to Make You Fall

This is the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast, where we discuss the connection between life and acting. Okay, welcome back everybody to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. My name's Matthew Dearing. I'm here with Shea Toepel and Joey Sweeney. What's up, guys? What's going on? Life is good. Man, we had a good class last night. Yeah, it was really, really good. Probably your best class ever. What? Yeah. I mean, I didn't want to bring it up just so you could compliment me, but I mean, go ahead.

It's fine. So Matt went into the class. He had actually spoken to Joey and I beforehand, and he was like, hey, you know, we're going to fail and fail big tonight. I was like, okay, cool. And Joey and I were lucky enough to actually be in the class, taking the class. And it was so cool because he had prefaced this class with, we're going to go in and we're going to make a lot of big mistakes tonight.

And if you guys haven't been to the Dearing Acting Studio before, you know, Joey and I hearing it, I think you would agree, Joey is exciting for us. But we're around this all the time. This idea that failing is great and this is a fail ground. Totally. So it's not as surprising to us. Yeah. For a lot of people, it would be jarring for somebody just to tell you you failed right off the bat.

And you're searching for failure because it's one of those things that's very foreign to a lot of people. You know, you, you grow up your whole life trying to not fail classes and not fail things. It's not the goal. And that's exactly what Matt said last night is he goes, he made a gym reference. And I love when Matt, I love when anybody uses analogies because I feel like we're on the same page because I'm a big analogy girl.

She's a big analogy girl. Big analogy girl. And Matt was like, you know, he was like, if you don't get to failure, then you can't grow. So if you don't fail at something, then the transformation doesn't come. And he, he made this great statement and what he did was he prefaced it. So that way all our students in the class were actually excited to attack the stage and get stage time and get repetitions in so we could learn more.

It was, it was probably, it was a difficult class for sure. Um, but it was super, super helpful in terms of learning the ins and outs of failing on stage and how you fix it and how you can stick in a choice and stick in an action and figure out how to move on from there. And actually transform and, and, and make a better move. Totally. And a big part of last night was also listening to literally everything.

So not only just the words, but the subtext, the mood, they were saying it in what you think they were trying to say to you under the line itself. And all of that you had to listen for while doing these drills at a heightened level. So that made it that much harder because, you know, we, we get into the speed drills and we're thinking at least for myself, I'm like, all right, let's go out.

Let's have a strong initiation. Let's go. And we're going to like rifle through it like a drill sergeant, like kind of monotone, you know? And then he's like, nope, sending you down. Cause you weren't listening to the mood or the subtext. And then it's like, oh, well, I'd never really thought of that one before. Well, so I always believe that you should stack your lessons on top of each other.

So when we go back to doing a basic drill, if you know something else additionally to that, then you should always be adding it. You should always find a way to do your very, very best. And so, yeah. I also liked when, when we were, I would just zap people for the smallest things, the things that I saw, right? Little, little tiny moments. And what was interesting is I had said this last night that you, I was purposely trying to put pressure on the students because I feel like that's my job as a coach is to put pressure on you when there is no pressure to put the perceived pressure on you, because eventually you're going to have pressure.

You're going to be auditioning for something. You're going to be on set. You're going to be on stage in front of a crowd and you're going to feel pressure. So if I can recreate the pressure and even ideally make, make you feel more pressure than you're going to feel when you're in a pressure situation and you learn how to get through it, then the scary, the fear goes away.

Right. And so last night, what happened was if you got buzzed, your whole team came down. Nope. So nobody wanted to get buzzed at first. They were a little worried about that. Then the whole team would come down. Everyone would get back up almost right away. Yeah. So then what happened? Then all of a sudden you didn't want to wait on the sides anymore. Nope. Because someone on your team might buzz you down and you never even got to go.

And you're like, bummer. Yeah. So people started attacking the stage and the fear started going away. Which is one of the main things that comes up with our improv is people waiting on the sides and thinking about what they're going to do before they come out. And when that's taken away from you, then it's really spur of the moment. We saw people kind of run around stage.

We saw whole different kinds of space work that I've actually never seen in classes before. And it just like brought out that creative energy. And I was like, all right, let's roll. This is dope. I thought it was kind of thrilling. Last night was one of the first nights that I really started to think about how thrilling it is and how freeing it is not to have an idea when you're walking out on stage.

It was kind of like, for me, it was like, let's take a risk and see what I can come up with when I get out there. Instead of trying to figure out. Well, I'm going to reframe you then even more. You've got to take the word I out in everything you do. So it's not, let me think what I can come up with. Instead, it's, let me see what comes up between whoever I'm out there with.

And that's the whole idea is, yes, it's thrilling. I mean, it's absolutely thrilling. It's more fun and it's going to be better than if you had an idea. Because if you have an idea, you're going to force that idea no matter what happens. If you come out and allow yourself to feel and change and be adaptable immediately, even if no one comes and joins you, then yes, something will come from internally.

But even the fact that nobody came out to join you, that was something that should affect you. Totally. And then that becomes however you start to react. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big deal. I mean, like when, that's one of the biggest fears of doing improv too, is being left on the stage by yourself and dealing with that. That's happened to me a couple of times where it's just like, what am I going to do?

You know, and so then you have to like paint your space all by yourself. And then you trust that your team's going to come out eventually. But you had to get over that initial panic moment of like, oh no, I'm, I'm by myself. Like, and you're trying to look at the sides. And you talked about that last night, actually, because that happened to somebody. And you were like, you don't have to worry about them trying to come in on the sides.

You got to worry about where you're at and trust that they're going to come out. And then it always comes back to the trust. Well, and I'll put this back on you, Joey. So if, if that's, and that's something you said you've dealt with. And then if the aftermath wasn't good for whatever reason, you probably were looking to the sides and you probably were thinking to yourself, where's my team?

Totally. Yeah. Instead of saying they're not coming out, I trust them wholly. There's a reason they're not coming out. It's a gift. What do I do with this gift? Yeah. And then that's when you start monologuing to the audience or you find something new and, and, and then them not coming out becomes the greatest gift ever. And it's just, it's just expecting the best in everybody is, is all that move is.

And then later you talk about it if you, you know, if you want to and say, hey, what was going on here? Okay, cool. I expected the best in you, which is why I made the choice I made. Yeah. Cause I figured you weren't coming in on purpose. Cause you, you thought that I should monologue here or something. Totally. I think it's, uh, we were talking about names ahead of time.

Um, it's, it's so important to remember people's names and I'm not remembering a name right now from the class. I can, I can help you. Isn't that annoying? Yeah. The extended laugh track. Oh man. Oh, it's great. So I, you'll know his name, but we, we have a, an, an ex ASU football player in the room. And I won't, I won't, I won't mention his name anyway, just because I shouldn't do that.

I almost just, I know. Yeah. Don't do it. But what's, what's crazy is it's, that's literally on my, it's on my goal sheet. Like, it's one of the things I want to chalk off is I, here's the thing. I've been, as a kid, I grew up watching ASU football. I went to the Rose bowl when Jake Plummer was slinging the rock. Um, I got to, uh, I got to, I got to attend ASU.

Uh, I went there for many years, too many. Go devils, go. My dad went to ASU. My mom went to ASU. My grandfather was a fan of ASU, had tickets, passed them down generationally. I mean, I'm a fan and I've always thought that what I do, the, the, the way that I teach people to listen would really help the football team. Right. So that's something I wanted to do.

And I love that there's this football player in the room and I can tell that he, he gets it. Oh, totally. And he's excited about like learning and going, oh, I've never listened in this way before. And I'm like, I know you haven't. And I just can't wait to teach the team about that. Yeah. And he picked it up so quick too. Like, I think a week or two ago was his first week ever doing it.

Like his second week. And he just freaking let it loose. Like he was, he was daring to fail and, and out there on stage. And, and every time you had a, uh, question that you proposed to the class, like he was, he was willing to throw in his two cents, whether he was right or wrong. And that's, that, that has a big deal to do with like the team factor.

I think, I think he really understood that because you talked about that a lot last night as well as like how we're all a team and how we can work to help each other, you know? Well, from day one, if you think about it, I remember this guy walks in, I don't know him and he's got a notebook. And when, and when something comes up that's, that's of interest in the class and then someone's growing, that dude's got his notebook out and he's taking notes and then he's asking good questions and he's fully engaged in the course and he wants to grow, wants to fail, is excited to grind it out and is excited that he found a place that, that is going to challenge him in this way.

And, and, and that takes a particular human being. And those are the people that we're trying to attract here and that we're trying to develop here because you don't have to be that walking in, but you're going to have to be that to stay here. Yeah. He, it's funny too, cause I, on the back end of things, um, on his first week, he showed up right after the teen class ended.

So he was like a half hour early and I got to sit and I got to chit chat with him and, and, you know, always my first question is what, how'd you find us and what made you interested in this and trying to get a little bit into their background? Cause, um, was it, was it my headshot? Yes. A hundred percent. Yeah. Okay. Oh, I'm like making the face.

I wish you guys could see it right now. The Matt Dearing headshot. Oh, it's so good. And, um, thank you, Scott Foust. Hey, shout out to Scott Foust. Um, but, and every, every student that comes in, they've got a different, they've got a different why, but a lot of them have the same reason he did. And he said, well, you know, I played football and I did this and that, and I was an athlete and just wanted to try something new.

And that's always such like a, a fun thing for me because I smile and I'm smiling right now because I, I know in my heart that they have no idea what they're doing. What they're walking into and that they have the courage and the excitement to just do it and just to sign up for something that they wanted to do to try something new and had a slight interest in it.

And then they come back and they go, okay, like this is way cooler than I thought it was going to be. Well, and when, and when we get to be the first touch point for someone like that, that's also really neat because we get to redefine any past conception they might've had about the craft of acting. And anyone who comes in for their first class at the studio walks out and says, wow, I didn't understand.

I never knew how deep it was and you're not necessarily going to get that everywhere. So it's really cool for us to be the first touch point and help redefine somebody's mind so that they can start to prepare the rest of their career in a certain way. And that's, I mean, you can take me for example, and I've been training at this for a long time and I've been trained by a lot of different people and have a lot of knowledge in it.

And then I show up as a trained theater actress and everything was just kind of flipped in front of me. And I couldn't tell you, there's a lot of things that I've learned, but I couldn't tell you anything that was, that has stuck with me, like what I've learned here, because it's, it's all so simple and it's all so complex at the same time. But every time I tried, I, every time Matt teaches me something and I am able to give the gift of teaching that to someone else in my head, it seems like a duh.

Like, of course, this is how we should be doing it, but there's not a lot of other people who are doing it the way that we're doing it. Yeah. That's, that's an interesting point there. So, um, has it always been that way, Matt? What do you mean? Like, have you always had the viewpoint you have now on acting since you opened in 2007 or has it sort of adapted over the years?

Like, where are you at? So in the beginning, here's the deal. I've, when I first started teaching, it was, it was pretty early on in, in me being an actor, I started teaching. I happened to fall into that. And I remember saying to a class one time when I was much younger, I said, I don't know why I know what I know, but I just know. And I'm like, I, I hear the notes.

I can hear it. The music. I hear the music and I know how to help you make it better. And you just got to trust me that I can hear it. And if you try this thing, it's going to work. And then, and then I remember also early on, I, I had students who would graduate four years from a college with a degree in acting and come in and say, I learned more in one class from you than I did in my four years of training.

Which is nuts. And, and I've, and I've heard that several times over, over my career, but, but yeah, early on I was hearing that too. So definitely we've upped our game and definitely we're connecting into people's lives in a whole new way that we, that we weren't before. Um, but the core foundation stuff was always there and, and I've just always been hungry for learning and hunger, hungry to, to grow and, and help.

And, and basically as I learn things that I've, I've always done this as I learn it, I teach it. I don't try to hold anything in for myself. I don't try to be like, Oh, let me, let me hold onto this because I want to make sure I'm better than you. Yeah. I'm always say, Oh, if I learned this and it worked for me, let me try it on you.

And then, and then usually that's what I'll do. I'll try it on you and then I'll try it on someone else. I'll try it in a few private lessons. And if it works, then I go, Hey, studio policy, we're going to try this now because if it works five times in a row, it's probably going to work for everybody. Yeah. And that's like where it comes back to the power of, I don't know too, because like if you're willing to, as a coach say, Oh yeah, I don't know, let's try it.

Or I don't know the answer, but I'm going to help you figure it out together. That's so much better to hear than a know it all, you know, than somebody who, who gives you something and, and pretty much lays down that that's the law and that's the way it goes because then there's no gray area there. You don't get to explore with it. And I think that's what's so cool about the approach of, I don't know is it's like, okay, so maybe that did work for me, then how can I build on it?

You know, there's, there's not an end. It's, it's just a process that you keep going down. And like you said, you'll, you'll swap out exercises and you'll find better ways to do things. And then you don't hesitate on using the better way, you know, and that's, that's really cool. Yeah. And that's why I don't believe in a one-on-one. Like, I don't think, I don't think it's needed.

Um, one-on-one. Yeah. So class. So let's take our football player. Okay. Okay. So he comes in and what does he have walking in the door? He has, however many, let's, let's call it, he's got his 10,000 hours or 8,000 hours in confidence building and, and in building discipline within himself. He has that in another area that translates, that translates over. You, Shea, had your X amount of hours, however many getting, getting through college and learning about acting.

You have a lot, you came in with a lot of knowledge. And so I don't believe that you need to come, somebody has to come in here and take our beginning process because it has to start at this one spot. Right. I believe you walk in, let me throw you in the middle of the ocean and then teach you to swim from there. And when you, when you start to sink, I just grab you and pull you up and say, okay, cool.

Try, try this. And then if you need a life vest or something, I throw it out there for a while and then we take it off again. Yeah. I want to speak on that. Matt said last night, something that I've never heard before. And he said, we're going to throw you, we're going to see if you can swim when you're already in the water. No, I said, yeah.

I said, we're going to throw you in the water and teach you to swim from there and teach you to swim from there. And I thought that was so interesting because it's, it's this difference between, um, you should always use sunscreen. I'm using this in terms of an analogy. It's the term of putting on sunscreen, putting on your life vest while you're still out of the water and putting on all of your shields to make sure that you're not, that you're, that you're still in a bubble when you get in the water.

Well, let's, let's put it this way. Let's, let's actually watch what it, what it is to teach a kid to swim. Okay. So if, if you put a life vest on them or let's call them floaties. Yeah. If you put floaties on a kid and you hold onto the kid and you teach them to swim from there, they're going to still be afraid. And when you take the floaties off, they still can't swim.

Right. And you're, and they're, and they're terrified. Right. If, and when you take a program and I've seen this happen, there are programs with that within two weeks, they can literally throw a three-year-old or a two-year-old child who can barely walk into the middle of a pool. The kid will flip themselves over, float, get themselves to the side and get themselves out of the water. They throw them in the water and they teach them to swim from there.

And, and, and you can't one, you can't 100% help somebody get over their fear unless you're willing to let go. Right. And see where they're at. Right. Yeah. And that's a cool touch point on something that happened in the beginning of class too, which was the idea of when we were in our circle, everybody was getting comfortable, which is that idea of like putting on your shields before you get in the water.

So we got a little crazy with the pass the clap and we were like going around the room and then all of a sudden Matt broke the energy and like totally flipped the script and he started doing like a football pass the clap and like most of the circle sat there. And so then, so, so, so, so hold on. So just so you guys know, I, I've now have officially technically played football with an ASU football.

Right. I'm just saying, okay, sorry, go ahead. Pass the clap football. There was an ulterior motive to last night's lesson plan. Let me just, let me just, that's for you. Thank you. That's for you. Wow, Matt. Nice job, Joe. I mean, I caught, I caught the, the, the cat, the clap football. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty cool. Yeah. Anyway, so, uh, anyway, so, so, so it was crazy because then you had to come back to the circle and talk about like, why is everybody being so comfortable?

Why aren't you going to go out and break the energy and have fun? And so, so let's, let's brainstorm right now. Like what would have been, what would have been best choice for our, for, for our class? Oh, we could have lined up in a huddle. That's exactly right. Yeah. There should have been a line. There should have been a center. The center should have had the clap.

The quarterback claps it in. The receivers go out. There should have been defense. I mean, literally it could have been so. There could have been all of those things. Cool. Yeah. If we just said yes and said, Hey, this is a cool idea. Here's an interesting game. How do I play this? How do I heighten this? How do I keep it going instead of, Oh, that was really cool.

Now let me go back to safe. Yeah. And then, you know, figure out something else to do. Visually I'm picturing if, if we were in the kids class, right. And you stood in a circle and you said, okay, there are no rules go. They'd all run and they'd start screaming. Right. And they'd run around and they do because they have no inhibitions in there. And, and, and for once for children, there's a place that where we celebrate that.

Yeah. And there's, and there's no rules to follow. Because we do, we say, Hey, there's no rules. Go. Now come back. Now let's, let's, let's. Let's refine it. How to use your, your complete inhibition. But you do that in an adult setting and you go, okay, there's no rules go. And we're all waiting to see who goes first. We're all like, we like the circle. It's comfortable.

Which goes back to your, you know, the thing you were saying, Joey, about the, me adding and nitpicking on those basic exercises. When you, when you think, Oh, I get to come out and just do it monotone. It's like, no, I don't want you to come out and be right. Yeah. There are no rules. I don't want you to come out and do it the way you think the rule should be.

I want you to make the best choice, no matter what it is. And if you defy me to make the best improv choice, I'm going to go, yep, good job. I was wrong. Yeah. Well, and it takes one. That's such a powerful thing to hear from a coach. Oh, so cool. Like I was wrong. You were right. And then you don't care. You know? Yeah. And then you can, who cares if you're right?

And then you can hear, you can take my direction again the next time. Yeah. Because you know, you can trust me because I'm not trying to be right. Mm-hmm. You know, like, like, let's say you're, let's say you're a quarterback and. Oh, that would be great. The coach, the coach calls the play in and then you audible and the coach is pissed. Like, man, I said, I, whatever.

And then the play works and you win the game. Right. The coach would say, good job. I, not, not what, if you, if you, if you were right, if you go against what I say and you're kicked off the team, like, that's stupid. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, I was reading the coverage. Your play wasn't going to work. And it comes back to trust, you know, you have to be willing to trust your players to trust the, the team, the, the class, whatever.

And they, and they got to trust you too. Yeah. Cool. Well, that is all for today. Wow. What a, what a way to end it. Joey. Like that was a smooth, like there was. We're still learning. We're still learning over there. That is all for today. Unless someone. It got to the point where I think we're going to stop. Matt's got a meeting. Yeah. Joey's trying to help me out and get me out of here.

He is. Thanks guys for listening today. We love you all. Have a blessed week and remember to be kind to one another. And don't forget, have a deering day. Every time.