Minisode 9: Using Improv in Your Virtual Holiday Party
Leaders, do you need a fun and unique idea for your virtual holiday party? How about a little HA-liday cheer? On today’s minisode, one of our improve it! improvisers, Andy Junk, is here to talk all about how you can use laughter and improv to spark joy this holiday season.
Listen in on this fun and insightful conversation.
About the Guest: Andy Junk is an improviser, actor, and teacher who hails from Chicago, where he is a member of the Improvised Shakespeare Company. He studied at both the iO Theater and the Second City Conservatory, and was an instructor at the iO. His work is primarily on the stage, but his television credits include roles on "Joe Pera Talks with You", "Chicago PD," "Shameless," and more.
Connect with Erin Diehl:
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
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Minisode 9 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Welcome to improve it! The podcast!
Erin (00:10):
Hello friends. Welcome to the improve it! Podcast live. I'm so excited for today's guest. We are going to be talking all about how you can use laughter and improv for your next virtual walk holiday party. Our friend is here. The one, the only Andy Junk. Come on in.
Andy (00:40):
Here I am!
Erin (00:40):
Oh my gosh. I am so excited to see you.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
It's good to see you too. How you doing?
Erin (00:46):
Livin dreams livin dreams. How are you doing?
Andy (00:49):
I'm great, doing great yeah.
Erin (00:52):
It's been like a couple weeks since I've seen you in, in real life!
Andy (00:56):
Which is a rare occurrence in these days, but it's, it's always a pleasure to see you.
Erin (01:00):
No, it's always fun. And I'm so excited. You're here because this is where on Instagram live. This is the improvement podcast. We're doing a double whammy. We've got friends joining us. We've got an audience joining us. So Andy Junk, I had to have you on this ship, but thank you real funny. Okay. and all the improve it! Team is super funny, but I wanted to have you on, because when you're talking about using improv or laughter in your virtual holiday party. So before we get started, tell everybody who you are and what you do here at improve it.
Andy (01:38):
Sure. well, my name is Andy junk, as you said so perfectly procrastination was on point. Yeah, and I'm an actor and improviser in Chicago. And I also work with improvement as a co-facilitator. So I help when we, when we have different activities with corporate clients, I will be there and help you know, engage the people there as well as I perform on the last breaks with, with the crew there as well, which is great.
Erin (02:03):
It's so fun and you improve it and improve it. There's lots of improve it and we are just, you have been just a shining light this year. And I think for all of us laugh, so let's stop there. Tell everybody in your words, what is a laugh break?
Andy (02:20):
Sure. So you know, we, we're all on zoom a lot. These days, a lot of corporate entities have spread themselves out over the United States of America and beyond. And on these zoom meetings, a laugh break is sort of an opportunity to plug in a little joy and level levity into what could be a very boring corporate meeting where us, the crew will show up and do you know between 15 and 25 minutes of improv for you and, and hopefully just create some laughter and some positive vibes for the rest of the day.
Erin (02:52):
That's it, that's it. And I have to say this too. Andy, you're always one of those people. I always say your first and last name. So you're always Andy junk. So I just sent Andy, it felt weird for me. I tried, it didn't feel right. But you have just been with us since almost the very first last break. And we just been able to shed this laughter levity positivity to so many teams over the course of this pandemic. We're still in it. So you know where we are still doing them weekly, monthly. So how, let me ask you this. Why do you think laughter and doing something like virtual improv for your team is needed right now?
Andy (03:36):
Yeah, I mean, I, I think you'd be hard pressed to find, so in our divided country it feels like one thing that we all agree on is that things are tough right now. And it's nice to have laughter because laughter is like this unifying force and and, and, and the act of laughter and the act of, you know, it's like you smile and you actually release endorphins. You actually do feel better when you're laughing. So I think that when you have an opportunity to, you know, reward your team or like help coalesce your team by injecting some laughter you know, through improv or another means, but last breaks are what we're hoping people do. Yeah. If you have an opportunity to do that, it's, it's, it's like it's a reward, but it also helps build the team together, which I think is really nice.
Erin (04:21):
So how have you seen people really come together through laughter through virtual improv? Because I will tell you this for free at the beginning of 2020, if anybody would have ever told me we would be doing short form improv over zoom, I would have been like, you could book us almost like an Uber 48 hours in advance to come on your zoom meeting. I would have never thought possible what we're actually doing today. And I actually love it because I sit at home and my yoga pants and sometimes no shoes, sometimes my bedroom slipper, you get to make people laugh every day at work. So how have you seen what we do using laughter and improv really bring teams together, connect them virtually. What are some of the things that you've witnessed?
Andy (05:09):
Yeah, well, you know, I think, I think anything that breaks up the monotony of a day, especially when we find ourselves again, sort of stuck at home a lot, or we're sneaking out a little bit here and there, but the days can kind of blend into each other. And so I've, I've seen that just having a laugh break in the middle of a meeting or an sort of an unexpected joy again, you can do it like last minute, like Uber, it's a nice way to kind of mark that day as special. It's a nice way to, to, to re engage yourself and like, you know, turn off autopilot and get back into it. And I've seen that with the people cause you know, people chat during our laugh breaks. Cause you know, obviously we can't have anybody un-muted and cracking up hysterically at all of our hilarious jokes, but we will see chats and people engaging that way, which is really nice.
Andy (05:54):
And it feels like there's a whole conversation happening in the chat window between the people get inspired and they see us cracking wise and they want to have fun and make jokes too. And then like you see, there's like sort of two performances happening like us on the zoom. And then the chat window is so great. And you get to see maybe some of you didn't realize was so hilarious making a joke that makes you laugh out loud, which is so fun. And it's nice to kind of I've seen just teams suddenly see each other as like sort of three-dimensional beings as opposed to just again, literally two dimensional on a zoom screen.
Erin (06:26):
Yeah. Oh, I love that. And the chat you're so right, because we use it for virtual laughter. We use it for suggestions, spoiler alert. If you're here on the live today, we're going to come to you in a minute for some suggestions. But it is such a really cool and unique thing. And I think that in my opinion, I want your opinion on this. What I've seen and noticed is it's Def it's definitely different improvising to a virtual audience. And somebody just said, Andy junk is such a beautiful human being. And I agree with you, James Allen likes music. He is such a beautiful human being, but it's, it's just so interesting to watch people who don't typically speak up when they're in a room of people. So in person really come alive in the chat box because they have that extra layer of the computer screen. They're able to type, they're able to connect. And that's been really interesting to watch too, because a lot of times I think when we see team dynamics, people who are usually the more outspoken people get to talk more. And so you're seeing the one beautiful silver lining in my opinion, is being able to see everybody connect and use that chat function as a way to laugh and to share positivity and connection. What do you think about that? Do you agree that that's today?
Andy (07:38):
I mean, absolutely. And I think, you know, to your point if you think about sort of like going from being like the sort of shy, introverted person to the person presenting at a meeting is a pretty large jump. And I feel like even like that chat window or that engagement creates a little step for them to, to make that not quite the golf that they thought it was. And then so suddenly you, we can do workshops as well in person and virtually, and that's another step too. And then there's like ways to sort of soften the, the learning curve from being an introvert to a, a presenter or a contributor that helps in meetings.
Erin (08:15):
That's it? That's it. Okay. So I want to share a little bit of what last breaks feel like. So this is, this is where you've got this nail it, so no pressure. It's mostly going to be no, I'm just kidding. So normally I host these, I'm going to jump in with you. We're going to do a couple. This is called 185. So this is something we do at the end of the last break, just to kind of show some fun punny jokes. And we have a lot more games on top of this, but this is a tried and true improv game that we love to play. So we come to you in the chat, we ask you for suggestions. So everybody joining us on this live today, we're going to need your suggestions. And this live the right now I do whatever this is. I'm an Instagram like whatever this is.
Erin (09:01):
Okay. So give us a suggestion of your favorite work from home snack. Your favorite work from home snack, put it in the chat as we're waiting on some chance to come in. And we're just going to kind of set this up. So this is a line game. Normally in the last break we have up to four players. We have a host and three improvisers. And so anybody can jump in at this point, we've got the entire team watching us on zoom and they're all on video muted. And we are literally asking them for suggestions in the chat box. We're asking for laughs in the chat box. This is the last thing we do. And it really does help set that tone all. Thank you. We have a suggestion. Okay. This is from Fallon. Thank you, Fallon lens. We're going to go with 185 popcorns. You'll see how this works in just a minute. Either one of us can start. We'll go for just a few and I'll call it a D. Here we go.
Andy (09:56):
All right. Okay. 185 popcorns walk into a bar. The bartender says we don't serve popcorn here. And they say, well, what if I butter you up first?
Erin (10:05):
Oh, what's happened to give him some love in the chat. I'm just going to read 185 popcorns walked into a bar and bartender says we don't serve that a hundred popcorns here. And the popcorn says, well, I thought this bar was popping
Andy (10:24):
185. Popcorns walked into a bar. Bartender says we don't serve popcorns here. And the bartender says oh no, sorry. Then the popcorn says, well if if you won't serve us popcorn here or knows what service cocktails here, then I'll have to go to a different place. Or, oh man,
Erin (10:51):
I got 85 popcorns specialty popcorns walk into a bar. Bartender says, oh, we don't serve your kind here. And those specialty popcorns look at the bartender. And they say what? Every day I'm truffle. And I had thrown a dance move. He can't see it on the podcast.
Andy (11:14):
185 popcorns walking to a bar. Bartender says we don't serve popcorn here. Popcorn says, well, that can at least get some salt around the rim.
Erin (11:22):
Okay. 185 gummy worms. Let's change it up a hundred eighty five, a hundred eighty five gummy worms. I'm just going to go walk into a bar. Bartender says we don't serve gummy worms and gummy worms. Look at the bar tender and says, that's very gummy. So bad, so bad, so bad.
Andy (11:49):
All right. A a hundred, 185 gummy worms walk into a bar. Bartender says we don't serve gummy worms here. They say, well, come on. Just give me one piece coat sour.
Erin (12:01):
Okay. Let's okay. 185 gummy worms walk into a bar. Bartender says we don't serve your kind. And the gummy worms say all that sour patch. Alright, nailed it. All right. So this is, you can tell, we get each other's back. One of us struggling. We pick a new suggestion, but it's just so funny because we incorporate the suggestion of the audience. Andy, did you have fun?
Andy (12:34):
I have a great time. Anytime. I'm with you. I have a fun time anytime.
Erin (12:38):
Oh, I know when we it's so fun. Cause our team gets to play. And for a very long time, there was no stage for us to play on the zoom was our stage and still is our stage. And if you have a laugh back, if you're listening today or you're watching or you have, if you have a laugh break, if you have a virtual holiday party and you're looking for something different, we did so many of these last year we worked, we have worked with teams like Warby Parker, Pfizer pay last city, and the list goes on, but we launched this in August of 20, 20 fun fact. We have done over 92 of them today since August of 2020. So yeah. Fun facts here. So yeah, we want to just share with anybody listening. You can book a laugh break, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes for your next holiday party. And for anybody listening today who wants discounted tickets to our live, you can see us all in action. On November 16th, you can check it out. It's going to be a promo code for you. We'll have the link at the end of the show notes on the podcast, but the promo code is laugh with us and that'll get you discounted tickets on November 16th for laugh break live. Andy Junk, thank you so much for joining me today on this last break live slash podcast slash all the things
Andy (14:02):
Erin Diehl. Thank you for having me. It's been a true pleasure as all.
Erin (14:06):
Oh gosh. All right. And for everybody listening, keep failing, keep and pray because the world needs that special that only you can bring. Thanks everybody for joining us. Andy junk is adorable. All right. Have a good one. Thanks so much.
Erin (14:29):
Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to improve it. I am so happy you were along for the ride. If you enjoyed this show, head on over to iTunes to leave us a five star review and subscribe to the show. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Now, if you're really feeling today's show and you've improved it even just a little bit, please take a screenshot and tag me at keeping it real deal on Instagram and share it in your stories. I'll see you next week, but I want to leave you with this thought, what did you improve today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I am rooting for you and the world needs that special. It that only you can bring see you next time.