How Improv Saved My Life

On June 14th, my and O.J. Simpson’s lives changed forever. O.J. ran from the police, and I ran from a bullet.

We were both caught by our perspective pursuers. I was shot in the back on the South Side of Chicago and left for dead—a case of mistaken identity, leaving an already shy introvert to recover and withdraw from society even more.

It happened so fast. Someone came up to me and hit me in the face. I ran and heard about six shots ring out. My leg locked up, and I hit the ground. The air had been knocked out of me. I couldn’t breathe, and I felt a burning pain in the back of my right thigh.

I didn’t realize I had been shot until I heard the cop who responded to the gunfire call for an ambulance.

I had been shot twice: one bullet grazed my shoulder, and the other hit me in the back and traveled through my body—hitting every organ (except my heart and liver) before ending up in my leg. I was shot with a .22, and those bullets tend to bounce around. I made it to the hospital, and they inserted a chest tube because my lung had collapsed. I remember the kind nurse who held my hand while they inserted that tube in my side and another down my nose that went all the way down to my stomach and made me throw up the blood that had gathered from internal bleeding.

I remember my mother leaning over me and telling me to fight.

I just wanted them to knock me out and fix me up, and they did. It took eight hours of surgery, and I didn’t wake up until a day later with twenty staples and four tubes in my stomach. I was alive, but what was left of my innocence and any zest to explore life was not.

After close to three weeks, I was released from the hospital and expected to just go back to normal life. As a very shy 17-year-old growing up on the West Side of Chicago, I’d had a very good friend, Jerry Brown, shot and killed a couple of years earlier. I’d had many acquaintances shot or killed throughout my young life, making me very cautious and very withdrawn and making it hard for me to get to know people or explore this precious life I was given a second chance at.

Add a violent act like getting shot in the back, and you get complete shut down. I recovered physically, but not mentally. I feared everything and everybody. Fear chased me everywhere, keeping me from enjoying my life.

Fast forward twelve years. I’d been working at the Post Office for close to 10 years. TEN YEARS! I was making $50,000 a year; I had benefits; I had my own apartment and a new car… and I was miserable. I spent most of my time isolated and pretty cut off from society. I would work the night shift, come home, smoke weed, eat, sleep, and then wash, rinse and repeat.

Something was missing from my life. My body and soul were tired, and I yearned for something, anything, to validate my life being spared. Then one day, I was reading the paper and saw an ad for the 2006 Chicago Improv Festival featuring cast members from MADtv. I loved comedy. I watched SNL religiously and MADtv was also a favorite of mine, so when I saw they would be performing, I decided I would go and see them.

I loved it. A fire was lit in me that had been extinguished a long time ago. I quickly went home to my dial up internet (it was 2006) and looked up “improv, comedy, Chicago, school.” Second City popped up, and I saw they taught classes. I decided to sign up for the writing program because I was too shy to do stage stuff. I remember getting off the subway and miscalculating how far Second City was from the stop, so I walked sixteen blocks from downtown to the theater to register. It was a hot August day, and I was super sweaty when I finally reached Piper’s Alley. As soon as I signed up, I felt this amazing release. Without really knowing what to expect, I felt like I finally found what I should be doing.

I started doing the writing program and quickly decided I wanted to try my hand at improv. Reading sketches in class and taking on different characters made me feel alive. The support I felt from my instructors and fellow classmates made me feel the most comfortable and welcomed I’d ever felt. I signed up for Beginning Improv classes as I neared the end of the writing program and signed up for improv classes at iO, as well.

“Yes, And” became my life mantra. I watched shows every night. Resident stages, student shows, Harolds, anything I could see. The deeper I got into the improv scene, the more alive I felt. Whatever that bullet took from my life, improv gave it back. I became more open to do things.

I stopped fearing people and talked to them. I began going out more and started making friends. I no longer wanted to stay at home, blocked off from the world. I was given the precious gift of knowing how short life is and that I needed to live it. I soon started doing shows, and when I was on stage, I felt at home. At peace with myself. I wanted more, and pretty soon I was either seeing or doing a show every night of the week. So much so that it interfered with my job at the Post Office—or should I say, my job at the Post Office interfered with it.

I decided to pursue comedy full-time, which led to me quitting my well-paying job with benefits, giving up my new car and moving out of my apartment. I couldn’t afford those things anymore, but I also couldn’t afford to be miserable for the rest of my life. Improv saved me; Second City saved me; iO saved me; the community as a whole saved me.

I take what I learned in those classes, and I apply it not only to when I’m on stage—but off the stage, as well. I’ve had some great experiences. I’ve traveled around the country, met amazing people from all over the world and made life-long friends. I even visited the location where I was shot and let go of all the fear and anger that I’d stored up about that night. I can talk freely about it now, as you can see.

Instead of letting fear chase me away, I followed it. I followed the fear.

Patrick Rowland is a contributing writer for SCN and is currently performing aboard the Norwegian Gem. Learn more about Patrick at www.patrickrowland.com