Being Spontaneous with Santa
Improv Queensland is proud to offer corporate improv workshops. Recently, two of our teachers, Natalie and Becky, found themselves running a workshop for a large group of Santas-in-training. Because it’s never too early for some Christmas spirit, below we present Natalie’s account of the day for your reading pleasure.
Running a one hour improvisation workshop for a group of Santas-in-training is one of the more unique corporate requests we’ve had, but on a recent bright Brisbane winter’s day, we were ready to… sleigh.
I’d had a phone consultation with Viviana from Scene To Believe to establish the nature of their day overall, and what she hoped the St Nicks would get out of improv.
So we knew going in our session was part of a Santa tester and training day, with a mix of old hands getting back in the red velvet, along with some Santa-curious newbies.
I had prepared an outline of the class, which I then ran through with my co-facilitator Becky Gethen, one of Improv Queensland’s newer teachers, but an experienced actor who works in therapeutic play. Together we agreed on a simple but solid plan to get the most out of our 60 minutes. What we didn’t realise until we arrived is that most of the Santas attending the session would be wearing their uniform!
Seeing a massed army of Santas all in one place like that definitely left my brain discombobulated for a few seconds, because shortly after arriving in the conference room I noticed veteran Channel Nine news reporter Bruce Paige dressed up in the red-and-white Santa suit of his own.
“Wait, Bruce Paige is a Santa now?” I whispered confusedly to Becky, before realising Bruce had a camera operator and producer with him. “Ohhh, he’s here doing a story!”
Mystery solved, we went into the main conference room, where a couple of toy reps were finishing up their talk on the latest and greatest gifts that kids would no doubt be asking Santa for this holiday season.
As a quick transition before our session, one of the Santas led the others in a hearty rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”. Becky and I realised this group of Fathers Christmas were enthusiastic and willing to give things a go, which was a great starting point for improv.
When you only have an hour, you have to work quickly but methodically. We began with a simple warm-up exercise, which was having the Santas move around the room saying hello to each other. We instructed them to use whatever tone of voice and style they liked, but just to be generally positive.
They embraced the direction, and the room got very animated as several dozen Santas all shook each other’s hands, smiled, and laughed. It helped set a tone of good-natured fun, which was helpful for the next section.
An exercise we use in our beginner improv course turned out to be extra perfect for this group of Santas. Called “Presents”, we instructed pairs to take it in turns giving and receiving gifts - with the catch being only the receiver gets to say what the gift is. We tell our participants the gifts can be anything - don’t try to be clever, or funny, just say the first thing that comes to mind. It’s all about removing your self-censoring side, and just being playful.
The Santas were surprised and delighted to receive a variety of gifts, from new gym barbells, to a jet ski, a puppy, and a number of bottles of alcohol (clearly Santas appreciate being left a wee dram on their Christmas Eve drop-offs!).
We then moved into an exercise in which pairs take it in turns to plan a party. This exercise has three iterations, which moves the participants through different ways they can both give and receive ideas. After moving through the series of challenges, we then stopped to reflect on how each iteration felt. The upshot of this exercise is to impart the key improv wisdom of “acceptance”.
As Santas, it’s best practice to beam positivity wherever they go. By having them experience both negative, neutral and joyful interactions with ideas they suggest, we give them an insight into how children might respond when their ideas are treated with respect and enthusiasm. For many, this is a clarifying moment - it’s giving a language to something they intrinsically want to do as the character.
As you can imagine, 50 jolly Santas in one room does not make for a silent night! With most of the participants in their 60s and above, we had plenty of “Dad jokes” thrown our way, with a few of the Santas showing the kind of cheek Mrs Claus would rap them over the knuckles for.
Finally, we jumped forward to a concept that we generally keep for our level 2 improvisers - that of “status”. It’s a core Keith Johnstone principle - he devotes a whole chapter to it in his seminal book “Impro”.
I wanted to introduce the Santas to a particular type: that of “Happy High Status”. We often think of a “high status” person as someone who might be rich, or distant, or upper class, or act like they’re better than us.
But a “Happy High status” person is someone who may have things like money, but equally might not. Status is more than the sum of our “achievements”; it’s about how we behave in each interaction we have. So a Happy High Status person is the kind of person you want to be around, because they want to share their light, and they see yours.
If there’s a better way to describe what Santa Claus should be, I’ll eat my floppy pom-pom hat.
We spent a little bit of time demonstrating some physical and behavioural tricks that might help them infuse their Santas with this concept, including Becky role-playing as a Santa with one of the participants acting as a child.
We had planned to wrap up the workshop with another round of greetings, to key in that concept of the “Happy High Status”.
But then something extraordinary happened.
One Santa put his hand up and asked “I don’t suppose you have any ideas how to answer the hardest question of all… can you bring my Daddy back for Christmas?”
The room fell silent, and this particular Santa had tears in his eyes as he described how, with little idea how to respond in a way that would soothe this child, he told them whenever they looked at the brightest star in the night sky, it would be their Dad watching over them.
More Santas started tearing up - an extraordinary experience for instructors who had been watching these Santas laugh and joke just moments before.
As improvisers, we are not psychologists. We are always upfront with our workshop clients that what we do is honed from a performance perspective, and while it may have use in your life and relationships, it’s not a substitute for professional help.
I realised I had to be honest. “Thank you for sharing this,” I said. “I have to admit I did not even think of these questions when preparing my material. I thought of things like ‘How do you get into everyone’s house?’ and ‘How do you get around the world in one night?’ I can only say listening is a key element of improvisation, and clearly it’s key in these situations. Does anybody else have advice?”
I was honoured to watch as a number of other Santas opened up about their experiences with the “difficult questions”, and the group shared advice with each other. Kids dealing with family breakdowns, financial stress, and the emotions of missing dead or absent loved ones: all of them made these older men - who we as society often see as distant or uncaring - feel pain and the responsibility of trying to make things just a little bit better at Christmas time.
It wasn’t the way Becky and I predicted the workshop would end, but it was a moving moment, and it certainly gave our experience as instructors a new richness.
As we wrapped up, Bruce Paige and his camera team got all the Santas together so he could record a piece-to-camera for his news report. The opportunity to cheer and mug for the camera - as well as their impending lunch - brought the merriment back into the room.
However we got some lovely feedback from some of the Santas who rushed up to express how fun the class was, and how they hoped to incorporate some of the philosophy as they spread joy this Christmas.
Hopefully that means Improv Queensland makes it onto the Nice List this year!