Winging It - Improv's Power and Peril in the Time of Trump

Summary

In these pages, Randy Fertel offers a tour de force exploration of improvisation and its many uses, beginning with what most people would associate with “improv”: a distinctive form of theater perfected by Chicago’s Second City troupe. But the author then demonstrates how the concept of improvisation touches many other areas of life and society and has immense creative and destructive potential—and he goes on to show why the latter is especially salient in today’s political climate. Indeed, for Fertel, one of the most significant applications of improvisation is in the political arena, where it has the most potential and is the most perilous. While explaining the dark places that former President Donald Trump takes improvisation, Fertel suggests that “his improvising gave him the authority to break norms (and laws).”