Ensemble!: Using the Power of Improv and Play to Forge Connections in a Lonely World

Drawing on a combined expertise in improvisational theatre and psychiatry, author team Dan O'Connor and Dr. Jeff Katzman show readers how improv skills are the perfect antidote to loneliness and isolation.

I know what you're thinking: Hold on…improv? Like getting on a stage in front of an audience? What if that's not my thing?

Don't worry: this isn't a book about becoming an improv theater expert, and it's not really a book about performing. It's a book about loneliness–about our feelings of disconnection and isolation, ones that we may have been experiencing since long before the pandemic. More importantly, it's a book about becoming unlonely–by borrowing from the collaborative and creative tools of improv.

Authors of Life Unscripted Jeff Katzman, a professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, and Dan O'Connor, multifaceted actor, writer, and director, have created a process they call Ensembling that helps us build an ensemble of relationships in our lives and more deeply enjoy the groups we already belong to. This is a process of becoming a little vulnerable with each other, and of embracing the moment in which we find ourselves. Drawing on concepts from narrative improvisational theatre and depth psychology, the authors present us with the skills we need to connect with each other more actively and meaningfully. To ensemble or not to ensemble–that is not a question. With the rise of loneliness and isolation in an increasingly virtually connected society, we must find ways to come together. We must ensemble!