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Many teachers think of children as immature adults. It might lead to better and more 'respectful' teaching, if we thought of adults as atrophied children.

Keith Johnstone

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Keith Johnstone
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: February 22
Actor
Dramaturge
Film Director
Improviser
Playwright
Theatrical Director
University Teacher
Devonshire
Think
Lead
Atrophied
Thinking
Teaching
Playfulness
Teacher
Immature
Thought
Boldness
Better
Respectful
Might
Teachers
Many
Curiosity
Children
Adults

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I was crazy about silent comedy - in the old days, and crazy about Japanese movies.
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Most people I meet are secretly convinced that they’re a little crazier than the average person. People understand the energy necessary to maintain their own shields, but not the energy expended by other people. They understand that their own sanity is a performance, but when confronted by other people they confuse the person with the role.
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If it weren't for fear, I wouldn't have to teach you a damn thing
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There are people who prefer to say ‘Yes’, and there are people who prefer to say ‘No’. Those who say ‘Yes’ are rewarded by the adventures they have, and those who say ‘No’ are rewarded by the safety they attain.
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The best laughs are on the recognition of truth.
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Some people in this life think they're worth something, or that they have a right to things. I never thought I had a right to anything 'cause of the way I was broken as a child. And therefore I was sort of floating around and would get sucked into things.
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Where if you're in a universe where you have to accept ideas, you'll never know if your partner wanted the garbage you're handing them. They have to take it.
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In life most of us are highly skilled at suppressing action. Bad improvisers block action often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.
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Imagination is as effortless as perception, unless we think it might be ‘wrong’, which is what our education encourages us to believe.
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I think my brain is much more intelligent than I am...so I tend to trust it.
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Trying to do better is trying to be better than you actually are, and I don't think you can do that.
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I don't even think you should tell the audience you're improvising. It's like an apology in case it's bad : 'we're just making it up' If the improv isn't better than the rehearsed stuff, then you should just rehearse it.
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I'm not against work, I think work is great, I work a lot but if you want to play, the consequences must not be important.
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If you have a good idea, open your mouth and say something else.
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Suppose Mozart had tried to be original? It would have been like a man at the North Pole trying to walk north, and this is true of all of the rest of us. Striving after originality takes you far away from your true self, and makes your work mediocre.
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The improviser has to understand that his first skill lies in releasing his partner’s imagination.
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I tell people not to do their best. I don't know when that started. Quite a while ago. Because I . . . when they're doing their best I don't get their best. So I try to persuade them to be average. Because if you're wonderful and you're average, you're still wonderful. If you're a bad improviser and you're average, you're what you are.
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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.
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The improvisation had to be in public, because you only get value playing to strangers.
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Every theatre worth anything has somebody in the middle of it who is driving it like Joan Littlewood with her theatre.
Keith Johnstone