To many of us, improv is simply a performance with no time to rehearse. But to Buena Vista University (BVU) senior Austin Dean, improv is much more.

“Improv is life,” Dean said.

Dean, an art major with minors in graphic design and theatre, says improv is similar to everyday life in that we are presented with situations and have to respond.

“Typically, improv is much funnier than your life, but it’s still the idea that you’re given a situation that you ‘live,’ and you have to do what you can to make the best of it,” Dean said.

Dean, who is actively involved in theatre productions at BVU, didn’t begin his acting career in improv at all. Rather, it began with his first grade class production of Fred the Frog, when he was cast in the lead role of Fred. It was a role he got by simply raising his hand slightly faster than the other kids of his class. But, the role is what set him on the path of theater, and eventually improv.

Dean’s first experience in improv was in third grade, when his parents signed him up for an improv class at a local college. Throughout high school, he used improv as an outlet for his creative side. Now, in college at BVU, Dean leads the campus improv troupe, Sawtooth, which gained its name after Buford T. Beaver’s famously sharp teeth.

Although he has been doing improv shows for a long time, Dean says still gets stage fright occasionally but that for the most part, the nerves have gone away.

“Typically, butterflies don’t really hit me anymore, which is a weird state to be in,” he said. “When they used to hit me more it would be like a big freaking eagle charging, and my gut would hurt.”

Dean says that for him, the key to great improv is commitment, and it is also the number one thing he has learned through improv. Whether it’s committing to doing a joke or committing to a project, Dean believes that if you commit you will succeed. Therefore, when he does a show, he commits all his energy to ensure the audience has a good time.

“I’d like to get out of a performance without falling over afterwards, but that still hasn’t happened. When I’m on the stage, or I’m doing improv, I typically give more than I have energy-wise. So, I’m usually very tired or very loopy after an improv show,” Dean said. “It means, to me, that I did my part. It’s like an athlete sweating and hurting all over after a game.”

Dean also says he loves that improv makes people laugh, and laughter matters. Dean worries we too often take laughter for granted and subsist on little chuckles to ourselves. Collective laughter in the theatre is something much different, and for Dean, much better.

“When you can get a big group of people all laughing at the same thing at the same time, it’s a different experience than laughing at something on your phone. You’re laughing at something you may never see again but might remember for a long time. I want to make the audience feel that energy of the improv,” he said.

Sophomore Dalton Machholz noticed the energy Dean brings to improv immediately.

“During the first time I met him, I was drawing comparisons between him and Drew Carey,” Machholz said. “Just the type of humor that he produced, and the way he presents himself during the shows, made me think of Drew Carey and the kind of energy he has.”

Deans says it’s a different comedic actor he sees as he role model though– the late Robin Williams. Dean says he sees Williams as someone who, both on and off stage, attempted to bring joy into the lives of the people who surround him. That’s what Dean strives to do.

“He always put the needs of others first. The idea that I might be having a crappy day, but someone else might be having a worse day, and putting your energy for them rather than for you, typically cheers both people up,” Dean said.

While preparing for a show, Dean attempts to clear all thoughts from his mind and gathers “improv energy.” He says if you go on stage with a scene in your head or a joke you want to say, it will cloud your mind and make you unable to come up with new material for the scenes the audience suggests. After all, improvising is the whole point of doing the shows.

“Improv energy is important,” he said. “I recognize it by a looseness of the body and an openness of the mind. Your body feels open to anything. It feels ready. It feels limber. It’s ready to take whatever suggestions you get from the audience and just run with it.”

Before shows you can witness Dean and his troupe preparing by playing a warmup game called “HA!”

It begins with Dean picking up an imaginary “HA” and warming it up in his hands. Slowly he raises the HA over his head, and with the precision of a martial artist, throws it at an unsuspecting fellow actor, while yelling “HA!” That person then catches the invisible HA and raises it over their head. The people on either side of the catcher must attack the catcher’s ribcage as they throw the HA to someone else and scream “HA!” A person is out once they either miss the HA or don’t attack the person with the HA. This continues until there are only two people left, and those two people begin the next game. Dean hasn’t lost a game of HA in over two years.

As a leader in Sawtooth, Dean has been training many new students on the art of improvising. One of his favorite things is to do improv with people who are new to it.

“If I were given a choice of anyone in the world to do a show with, I’d probably pick the [new] people who aren’t the best at improv. Because, there are always great people doing improv but if you only have those people, you are going to know their characteristics, jokes and traits. But if you can train people who aren’t strong to be that strong, and I think that would be more rewarding in the long run. So, I’d pick the new people,” he said.

Dean has made huge transformation between his first performance as a frog named Fred, to a successful BVU improv artist. He says hopes that his work on the improv stage can provide a break from all the stresses in life, so people can enjoy the feeling of laughter.

Photo courtesy Austin Dean