I left my theatre the Loose Moose almost twenty years ago, and I hardly ever go back. Sometimes I go back to do a Mask class. They're doing more of this than I was doing when I left. Often it's the same improvisers but they're older. And now, they don't care if the theatre's full or not.
Keith JohnstoneYou can sort of trick people into being really good. Even if they didn't know anything.
Keith JohnstoneI see a great lack of stories around. I bought six literary magazines and looked through them to see what people were doing. There wasn't a story in them. They were all about how poetic the feelings of the author were.
Keith JohnstoneAs I grew up, everything started getting grey and dull. I could still remember the amazing intensity of the world I'd lived in as a child, but I thought the dulling of perception was an inevitable consequence of age - just as a lens of the eye is bound gradually to dim. I didn't understand that clarity is in the mind.
Keith JohnstoneMany teachers think of children as immature adults. It might lead to better and more 'respectful' teaching, if we thought of adults as atrophied children. Many 'well-adjusted' adults are bitter, uncreative, frightened, unimaginative, and rather hostile people. Instead of assuming they were born that way, or that that's what being an adult entails, we might consider them as people damaged by their education and upbringing.
Keith JohnstoneWhen you want to have entertainment, it must be a waste of time. I don't like that. I don't like improvisation being pointless.
Keith JohnstoneIn my school, the library was forbidden. I was accused of turning on the radiator so that the [class]room was uninhabitable and the ceiling came down below; I'm pretty sure I didn't do it. But then we were moved to the library. And there was a really boring history thing, about the Spanish Armada: how could you make that boring?!So I reached my hand out, and slid a book off to read under the desk, and it opened at King Lear Act Four Scene Six. I was astounded. I'd never seen language like it. I was awestruck. I think that may be one reason why I got involved in theatre.
Keith Johnstone