TAMARA KEITH, HOST:
It's been a rough year for federal workers. Many were fired. Far more retired or resigned. All told, hundreds of thousands left government jobs. One improv troupe is offering free classes to help. NPR's Ava Berger reported this story with a hearty yes, and.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Beep.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Beep.
AVA BERGER, BYLINE: It's a Thursday evening in December at the back of a coffee shop. Fairy lights twinkle across a small room. Paper snowflakes hang from the ceiling. And in the middle of the room, about a dozen people who used to work for the federal government or still do are creating an imaginary machine.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Ah, it's the transmorgmigrifer (ph) machine from "Calvin And Hobbes."
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Yeah.
(APPLAUSE)
BERGER: The transmogrifier is not real, but the 90-minute free improv workshop for former or current federal employees very much is. Washington Improv Theater started the workshops in July. It's part of their Laughing Matters series.
MELISSA GEDNEY: Laughing Matters is about helping people in the D.C. area find resilience, connection and joy through improv. So we like to say we're fighting uncertainty with optimism and play.
BERGER: Workshop leader Melissa Gedney has been doing improv since 2014, but these classes also hit close to home for her.
GEDNEY: I worked for PBS Kids. I was funded by the Ready-to-Learn grant from the Department of Education, which was terminated earlier this spring.
BERGER: Now she's a kindergarten and first grade ESL teacher.
GEDNEY: That's a very different environment than my previous job, but kids are also some of the best improvisers in the world, and this training and thinking flexibly and saying yes has certainly benefited me in this moment of transition.
If you're looking for a deep breath, let's take one now.
(SOUNDBITE OF BREATHING)
GEDNEY: And we're here. You made it. What a cool thing you decided to do on a Thursday night.
BERGER: The improvisers are going around in a circle, picking a food and saying their name. The food must be the first letter of their name, and then they do a fun movement.
ANTOINE: Avocado Antoine.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Avocado Antoine.
KAZU: Crazy Kazu.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Crazy Kazu.
MAGGIE: Mango Maggie (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Mango Maggie.
BERGER: After each game, Gedney asks everyone, what do you think? What did you get out of this?
GEDNEY: Any other burning stories you want to share before we move to the next one?
NANCY BRATTON: Generally, I had to practice letting go, which is hard. But it just feels like a muscle to practice.
BERGER: Nancy Bratton is a 53-year-old independent graphic designer. She gets a lot of her work from the federal government, mainly the Smithsonian Institution. The government shut down this fall during her busy season, so she started showing up at the improv workshops.
BRATTON: I feel like it really does give me a sense of community, and this time in particular, with the theme of federal workers, that just helped to see some faces and people going through the struggle together.
BERGER: Bratton may come off as quiet at first, but in the workshop, she becomes more animated and more confident.
BRATTON: Can I put my surfboard in the back?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: Yeah, there's space. Do you want to teach me how to surf?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Yeah. Can you teach me?
BRATTON: Yeah. That would be..
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Yeah.
BRATTON: ...Totally awesome.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Yeah.
BRATTON: I can do that 'cause...
BERGER: That pivot is what John Windmueller says improv classes teach you to do. Windmueller provides improv trainings for working professionals. He's the director of Washington Improv Theater at Work.
JOHN WINDMUELLER: Improv lines up incredibly well with when you list, what are soft skills for professionals? - that's Improv. The venn diagram of that overlaps completely.
BERGER: Skills like communication, collaboration and creativity - Windmueller has even done workshops for the FBI's hostage rescue team. He said improv can help anybody, especially people facing life changes or looking for another job. But for Nancy Bratton, the best part of the class is forgetting about work.
BRATTON: I felt like it just really gave me the chance to unwind. And for an hour and a half, I didn't think about my usual worries, which felt really good. But what surprises me is that in a short amount of time, a group of strangers can come together and laugh and sync up and really connect.
BERGER: For these participants, the session might not provide any certainty about tomorrow, but an evening of play and flexible thinking together can help them prepare for the challenges ahead.
GEDNEY: Give yourselves a round of applause.
(APPLAUSE)
BERGER: Ava Berger, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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