Why the Want? What a Good Improv Question Taught Me About Listening

I own and run an acting studio in Phoenix, which sounds just as strange to me when I say it out loud as it does to you. One of my favorite things to teach is improv, because I enjoy the challenge of not knowing. Improv is about finding confidence, and a lot of that comes from listening and learning to ask good questions. Here’s a good one, and the afternoon it was asked.

A good improv question

Every day on my way out I stop by each team member and ask, “How’s the day going, anything I can help with before I leave?” They know I trust them completely, and the question is mostly a polite goodbye. I do want to know about their lives. But they also know I’m on a need-to-know basis, and most of the time I don’t need to know.

So one afternoon I’ve just finished a lesson, bag on my shoulder, keys, water and coffee balanced in one hand, and I reach for the door and ask Rachel, one of our instructors, my leaving question. She takes a breath, shifts in her seat, and says, “Actually, I do have a question for you.”

“What’s up?”

She glances at her notebook, looks for the words, and asks: “Why the want?” My hand comes off the door. “When we add the want in an improv scene. Who, what, where, want. What’s the purpose?”

I turn around, put the water, keys and coffee down on the couch, and sit. This is a good question. If one of my teachers doesn’t quite understand the purpose of an exercise, that falls squarely into need-to-know. And I’m trying to hide my excitement, because she’s clearly been working on her lesson plans or the question wouldn’t have come up. “Good question,” I say. “Why do you think?”

“I guess the want gets us to a place where we can talk about more interesting things?” It’s as much a question as an answer. “That’s true,” I tell her. “More interesting things do get talked about. But that’s a result. It isn’t the why.” She waits, and I explain.

Life and acting run in parallel, and in life we always have a want

Look at the conversation we’re having right now, I say. “Actually, I do have a question for you.” That phrasing acknowledges that she knows I’m expecting to leave. Her body language says she’s sorry to interrupt, but her want is stronger than her desire to be polite. Rachel’s want: to understand a concept so she can teach it well this week.

“What’s up?” My phrasing is open without committing to a conversation. Taking my hand off the door says I’m listening. My want: to leave. Specifically, to go home, eat lunch with my wife, jump on the trampoline with my son and play dolls with my daughter.

Then she asks exactly the right question, and what happens? My want to leave is overpowered by my want for my teacher to understand. I still have a want; it just shifted. And notice what the shift did: the excitement moved me, and without deciding to, I turned and put everything down. That non-verbal move told Rachel she had my full attention. I didn’t jump up and down. I was excited enough to forget about going home, and all of it happened by instinct.

Life is acting. Acting is life. As actors we’re trying to recreate truthful moments under imaginary circumstances. In life you don’t need a huge character choice or a big display of emotion when you trust the other person to pick up your point of view. So those choices are unnecessary in acting too, as long as the actors are listening. Rachel and I were each sensitive to the other’s want, and the subtext under the dialogue wrote the conversation. We’ve earned that skill through daily training in this building. We don’t take listening for granted.

Wants create point of view, and point of view creates subtext

Rachel nods, and wants to know more about subtext. So I give her an imaginary one. She’s at the front desk, and a man walks in. “Hi, my name’s Phil. I wonder if you could help me grab something heavy out of my car.” Then I add: “If I told you his want was to kidnap you…” She holds her breath and grips the chair. Exactly.

In that scene, her response might be entirely non-verbal. If she’d discovered his want, she’d be scanning the desk for something heavy and mapping the door. Her want is to survive. She might mask the terror with politeness while she palms the scissors and dials 911 under the counter. The problem on stage, and the whole reason we do the exercise, is that it’s hard to listen deep enough that your response is an instinctive reaction to the other person’s subtext. Saying the want out loud forces us to understand the subtext, which makes us feel real emotion, and then, yes, we start talking about more interesting things.

Rachel looks up from her notes and smiles. “Thank you.” Her face tells me she’s got it. I pick up the water, keys and coffee, and, knowing the answer this time, ask, “Anything else I can help with before I leave?” “That’s it. Have a great day.”

Trust, listen, stay curious

I walked out feeling great, and not because I’d had the answer. Rachel had opened my eyes to a better way of teaching the concept. If one teacher was confused, others probably were, and our students certainly would be, and now I had a plan. My excitement came from realizing I’d failed to communicate something, finding a better way, and getting to share it. It came from growth. Her curiosity, my willingness to listen, and the trust between us made the improv program better that afternoon. Trust, listen, stay curious: it’s how we run our classes, our shows and our corporate training, and it will change your acting, your work and every relationship you have.