The Full Circle Improv Comedy Train Process

Here’s the funny thing about improv: what I tell a brand-new student on day one and what I tell a seasoned pro are almost the exact same thing. Stop thinking. Stop trying to be good, stop trying to be clever, and quit trying so damn hard to impress everyone in the room. Just get out of your own way. Throw the ego and insecurity out the window, kick the overthinking to the curb, and get back to the part that actually matters—having fun and letting yourself play.

Stage 1: Just Have Fun.

Day one is all about removing the blocks. Don’t try to be good. Don’t try to be great. Don’t even try to be funny. Just get off the couch and start. Honestly, you don’t even need to sign up for a formal class right away. Just hit up an open jam session. Go watch a couple of live shows. Grab a few friends at school and mess around with games you saw on Whose Line Is It Anyway or pulled out of a book. The whole point here is ignition. Fall in love with the craft, get excited, and drop the fear of looking like an idiot. Just do it, just start, and just play.

Stage 2: Become a Technique Hawk.

Now, when you decide you actually want to get good—when you’re serious about doing this for real as an actor or a comedian—that’s when we talk turkey. That’s when you double down on craft. You become a technique hawk. Learn how to build real characters. Work on your physical performance. Take classes in stage combat, pantomime, speech, diction, and enunciation. Learn how to deliver lines like a pro actor. Go read Shakespeare, read classic plays, go see regular theater, and try some stand-up comedy. Take creative writing classes and remember everything you ever learned in English and language arts about crafting a story. Don’t just exist on stage—become an active student of life and put all that technique right into your bones.

Stage 3: The Pro—Stop Thinking Again.

When it’s time to perform for real as a working artist, you have to go right back to day one: stop thinking. After years of training, the technique is already baked into your body. Trust it. Trust your training and let it go. When the lights come up, you can’t be up in your head calculating your career, trying to be clever, or stressing over whether a joke lands.

The hardest part about doing this professionally is avoiding burnout. When the pressure to find work and pay rent hits, it’s tough to hold on to the love of being on stage. It’s like a marriage or any serious relationship—it takes real work and commitment to stay in love with it. If you don’t love it, do something else. But if you’re in it for life, you have to remember why you started. Never stop studying the craft offstage—keep reading about acting, keep learning about directing. But the second you step out there, you aren’t telling, you’re showing. You aren’t thinking, you’re doing. You have to lose yourself completely in the moment.

With over 30 years of experience in theater, comedy, and television, Walt Frasier is the Artistic Director of Improv Theater LLC, a leading edutainment center known for its high-impact comedy shows and workshops. His extensive career includes performing comedy sketches on MTV’s Stankervision, Late Nite with David Letterman, TruTV’s Friends of the People, and HBO’s Pause with Sam Jay. As an actor, Walt has appeared on NBC’s Blacklist, CBS’s Blue Bloods, USA’s Royal Pains, Netflix’s Lilyhammer, and NICK’s Naked Brothers Band, in addition to numerous commercials, industrials, and live performances worldwide.