I first experienced the force-of-nature that is Laurie Carlos when I was in high school and she was an original cast member of the Broadway production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Even in high school, when all I cared about was ballet, that show moved me to the root, core, and crown of my being.

In the process of unpacking my visceral response to that show, I learned there are two polar opposite kinds of learning. The first is conventional: you know what you’re supposed to learn (math, basket weaving, ballet, etc.) and you proceed to learn it. I call that the forward kind of learning. Then there’s the backward kind of learning when you have an experience that affects you in a way you don't understand and you “learn backwards” from there to figure out what it all means.

When I was 16 years old, For Colored Girls blew me away. Now, almost 50 years later, I’m learning backwards to understand what happened. Now I understand that production was a catalyst awakening my capacity to identify with someone — many someones — other than myself. By the end of the show, I so totally identified with the character of Crystal that I forgot myself. This wasn’t your typical kind forgetting; it was, in fact, a new kind of remembering in which I re-membered or reassembled myself in a way that was more inclusive, more stable, and self-aware.

I think that's the difference between empathy and vicariousness. Empathy wakes you up. It engages your senses and mind and enlarges your sense of self. Vicariousness does the opposite. It puts you to sleep. It has a kind of anesthetizing effect where you forget about yourself and live through someone else. It’s not that vicariousness is bad; sometimes I crave that kind of escape but it’s good to know which is which.

Over the years -- and particularly looking back on my response to Laurie’s show — I’ve learned that empathy is the nuclear power of theater. When theater does what it has the capacity to do — when it works for you — you experience a kind of aloneness that is, in fact, an upgraded sense of connection and a kind of connection that is an upgraded sense of aloneness.

Fast forward about 25 years and roughly 2 years after Tony died, I was alone muddling my way through life and desperately trying to understand Tony’s approach to improvisation, when I heard that Laurie was coming to Maine to teach a workshop. I signed up.

Laurie's workshop at the Celebration Barn Theater c. 2005. That's Kavi Montanaro, Tony's son, second from the left.

In class, Laurie asked us one question over and over again, “What is your experience?” One time, after she explained an improv exercise, I said, “I have a question.” Before I could ask my question, Laurie demanded, “What is your experience?!”  She said it so forcefully that I was taken aback, but I immediately answered, “I am confused.” Laurie nodded as if to say, That’s better.

Later I realized that the key to understanding “Tony-style improv” hinged on Laurie’s question: What is your experience? In other words, What are you going through? What’s happening inside of you right now? Tony used to say, “What-you’re-doing is not as important as what what-you’re-doing does to you.” He and Laurie had their own way of saying the same thing.

WHAT IS YOUR EXPERIENCE?

I’m pretty sure that Laurie’s question changed my life the way a little yeast leavens a whole lump of dough. On its own, the question didn’t get far but when Laurie interrupted me and insisted that I shift gears — that’s when the light came on. Laurie’s interruption felt like a rebuke. It shocked me. That shock momentarily derailed an age-old habit of thinking that what happens outside of me is more important than what happens inside of me. In fact, they’re equally important, but the inner experience is the horse that leads the cart. The signs-of-success are outside of us, but the source-of-success is within.

Here's an example of what I mean. One day I was taking a ballet class and one of the exercises involved a relevé from 5th position into a passé balance (that’s a one-legged balance with the standing foot on 3/4 pointe). All of us dutifully performed the step and, sure enough, most of us were unable to hold the balance. The best we could do was move through the position and on to the next step. When the exercise was over, there was a lull in the action while the teacher started looking for new music for the next exercise. (Sometimes this took quite awhile.) During this lull, I tuned in to my experience. I wondered, Why am I standing around doing nothing when I could be practicing that balance? I realized that, tucked away in the corner of my mind, sat the unchallenged belief that this balance could not be mastered; that it was a hit-or-miss kind of thing. I also noticed an aversion to practicing the step out in the open where everyone could see me fail. This was a “road to Damascus” moment for me. As soon as I “saw" the thought-forces governing my behavior, they instantly fell away. It took some courage, but I consciously stopped caring if anyone saw me fail. (Or maybe I just acted as if I didn't care.) I was going to practice this tricky move until I mastered it! Within a few months of constant practice, I succeeded. I could go into that plié, relevé-passé and hit the balance 100% of the time.

Now I understand that the move was not the important thing. The move was merely an opportunity to banish a few self-defeating beliefs and be better for it.