Mel Rubin on Creativity, Silence, and Being Nice to Yourself

This week's episode features Melanie (Mel) Rubin.

Mel Rubin is a tech support specialist, hip hop improv performer, instructor and beatboxer based out of New York City. She studied long-form improv and musical improv comedy at the Magnet Theater (NYC), and is a performer on the hip hop improv team North Coast, who has been featured in The New York Times and Time Out New York. Mel is also an active performer, workshop facilitator and public speaking coach with Freestyle+ and loves to travel across the country bringing the joy of improv to anyone who will let her.

During this episode we discuss…

• Mel’s improv origin story — why she started taking improv classes
• How improv improves creativity
• How bringing yourself and versions of yourself to characters is a way to practice skills you want to get better at in life and work
• How you can get better at something when there’s no wrong way to do it
• Breaking rules
• Acceptance
• T-shirt ideas
• A funny story about a time Mary was struggling to play the scene she was in
• The challenge of society to be present
• Shadow characters
• Setting boundaries
• Expanding our capabilities and character range
• Rebranding “straight man” to “grounded human”
• The best skill to have if you want to be a great conversationalist
• First Word, Last Word — a great improv exercise to improve listening
• Pre-improv Mary versus post-improv Mary
• Improvising TED talks
• Sitting in silence
• Improv as social meditation
• Competing for space in a conversation 
• Listening different
• A Without the B — a great improv experience to improve creativity and quick thinking
• Being nice to yourself
  

From Mel, when asked how improv has improved her life offstage, “It's given me the super power of my very good memory, I'm sure of it! The active listening element has translated into my real life and I have such a visual and detailed memory because of it. It's also helped me be so much more present because if you think too far ahead, you miss what's right in front of you (just like in improv).”

Connect with Mel on LinkedIn and Instagram @melrubin2

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