Exercise: Lisa Antonucci

Pulling names from real life

My mom recently showed my kiddo the 1946 young reader, Fun with Dick and Jane. The book is saccharine as well as inane. So now they have an inside joke, giggling about how terribly exciting the adventures of Dick and Jane are. Here’s a page. To set it up, Mother and Father and Dick and Jane and Sally take their car to the auto shop. They leave their cat and dog (and teddy bear) inside and send it up on the hydraulic lift with the windows open.

Pretty great stuff, huh?

When new improvisors in New York name a child in an improv scene, they most often default to “Little Timmy” and “Little Sally”. While there are still people named Timmy and Sally, those names are drawing on a very old and very white tradition. They don’t in any way reflect the names of kids we actually know.

Here are real names of some kids I know; Henry, Amora Jo, Emerson, Ivy, Ethan, Adelia, Zuri, Benjamin, Asher, Eli, Zoe, Willow- each of these names is endlessly more interesting than Little Timmy. Little Timmy is the boy from Lassie. He’s nobody we know.

I often have a hard time coming up with a name on the spot and I know new improvisors do, too. Mindfully listing real names will make recalling them in scenes even easier. Here’s an exercise to work that muscle.