Jeff Katzman - Life Unscripted

Jeff Katzman, MD, and Dan OConnor

Life Unscripted teaches essential life lessons learned from years of improvisation that highlight the beauty of the unplanned. Through stories that reveal deep respect for the process of living a more improvised life, this book shows us how much one might miss if they only stuck to the directions printed in front of them. By weaving together elements as seemingly disparate as comedy, psychology, philosophy, and science, the authors create something remarkable: a bridge between fundamental neural mechanisms of human ingenuity and pragmatic prescriptions for living a fuller, more enjoyable, and altogether better life.

Charles J. Limb, MD, Francis A. Sooy Professor of OtolaryngologyHead and Neck Surgery and chief of the Division of Otology, Neurotology, and Skull Base Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco

This is a lovely, wonderful book, perfectly balancing play and knowledge. If youre looking for an approach other than the traditional serious self-help book, and you want to increase your mental health then this might be the book for you. The chapters offer just the right amount of psychological theory to support their ideas, but the emphasis is on creating change in your life by helping you use play to be more present, more forgiving of yourself, and more pleased with your personal relationships.

Jay Glickman, LPCC, Gryphon Counseling

[Life Unscripted offers] a wonderful tone, terrific examples, citations, and anecdotes in both professional areas, and a number of fresh takes on applied improv. This is a lovely addition to the canon.

Kat Koppett, author of Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques for Trainers and Managers to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership, and Learning

Life Unscripted invites us to drive a different way to work. A delightful welcome through arts and science, stories real and imaginary, and both group games and solo prompts to listen, connect, and play. Life Unscripted has helped me feel more alive and connected to others.

Michael Huff, medical student at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine

Life is indeed unscriptedwe dont know what blessings and complexities are going to land in our laps. We need to be able respond nimbly and creatively to the opportunities and challenges that come our way. In Life Unscripted, Jeff Katzman and Dan OConnor offer us tools for living more dynamic lives through improv. The transformative power of improv invites us to demonstrate greater presence and engagement, which are essential to living more meaningful, fulfilling, and responsible lives.

Laura Lindenfeld, PhD, director of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and professor in the School of Journalism at Stony Brook University

In this deliciously readable and unique contribution, Katzman and OConnor have intertwined the worlds of improvisational theater and psychotherapy. The takeaway from their volume is that too often we are held hostage by our personal scripts. Ones which fail to provide the comfort, safety, control, and predictability we expect from them. Instead, they frequently rob us of our nascent humor, spontaneity, playfulness, and joy. The authors mission is to teach us how to unscript ourselves. Chock-full of psychological insight, this book provides artful anecdotes from both psychotherapy and improvisation along with useful takeaway tips and exercises. Together they teach us to revel in, rather than recoil from, our everyday mistakes. This volume is wonderfully instructive for anyone interested in improvisational acting, in psychotherapy, and especially, if interested in both.

Philip A. Ringstrom, PhD, PsyD, senior training and supervising analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and author of A Relational Psychoanalytic Approach to Couples Psychotherapy and Three Dimensional Field Theory: Dramatization and Improvisation in a Psychoanalytic Theory of Change

Copyright 2018 by Jeff Katzman and Dan OConnor. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

North Atlantic Books
Berkeley, California
Cover design by Jasmine Hromjak
Cover photo YUU-ME/Shutterstock.com
Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Printed in the United States of America

Life Unscripted: Using Improv Principles to Get Unstuck, Boost Confidence, and Transform Your Life is sponsored and published by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data is available from the publisher upon request.

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Dan: To my wife, Edi Patterson OConnor, who is my heart.

Jeff: To my wife, Joanna, and my three incredible kids, who teach me about love and life every day.

And from Dan and Jeff: To improvisers everywherepast, present, and future.

In memory of Ellen Idelson, who always welcomed and delighted everyone.

From Jeff:

First to Dan for the decades of coffee, teaching, collaboration, and friendship and for bringing the spirit of improvisation into my life.

To Sam Mollo, who stood in line with me before jumping in to audition for our Second City school class.

To our little groupNectar, Jerry, Spencer, and Jilland to Second Citys Mina Kolb, who showed us how to become curious about whatever comes your way.

To Leonard Bearne and Tom Krapu for years of unwavering encouragement to live a fully authentic life.

To Robin Kissell, Joel Yager, Mike Gitlin, and Norm Tabachnick, who all encouraged me to live a full and balanced life as a resident at UCLA.

To Bob Stocking for the years of friendship and wonder, and to Jim Bennett, with whom I had the good fortune to get stranded in an African rainforest.

To Phil, Nate, John, and our growing non-Duffy play group.

To staffers at Stanford Sierra Camp, who really taught me how to play.

To Doug Montoya, Kristin Berg, Alex Knight, and others at The Box Theater for teaching me to play as a grown-up.

To Bill Shuttleworth for pulling me into the world of improvisation in the academic setting.

To Richard Larson, Amy Overby, Joe Alberti, and Joe Carney for helping us make our projects happen.

To Alan Alda, Valeri Lantz-Gefroh, and Laura Lindenfeld at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, for the demonstration of how improvisation is a critical skill for scientists.