What people are saying...

Read Jesse Kornbluth’s May, 2007 review of IMPROV WISDOM. His website, HEADBUTLER.COM is a must read. You’ll enjoy his candid and compelling reviews of current books, films and music.

Patricia is one of "Tom Peters' Cool Friends." Read the interview on this business guru's web site. (Week of February 15, 2006)

Listen to an interview with Patricia by Justine Toms of New Dimensions Radio (October, 2005)

How can Improv Wisdom help the businessman? Listen to a review by business blogger, Johnnie Moore (mp3 file)

Stanford Designers rave about the book:
Ambidextrous Stanford Design Review, Winter 2006 "Where Theater and Design Intersect: How Improv Wisdom can be a tool for designers".

From: PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Starred Review. Drama teacher turned self-help advisor Madson learned the hard way that playing by the rules doesn't always mean you win-despite doing all the right things, she was denied tenure in the job of her dreams. The acting teacher learned to jettison the script and improvise her life-and she ended up teaching at a much better university: Stanford. If you improvise, she says, you "will make more mistakes" but you'll also "laugh more often, and have some adventures." Here she offers 13 maxims to guide the fledgling improviser. "Say yes" with the ecstasy of Molly Bloom: it will open up new worlds. "Don't prepare": in focusing on the future, you might miss the present. "Start anywhere": take any entry into a problem, and once you get inside you'll have a better perspective. Madson offers little exercises drawn from improv acting that are easy and eye-opening, such as look at a familiar environment and notice something new in it. Or make a list of important places in your life, put down the book and just go to one of them. Madson's prose radiates the joy of living, the pleasure she has found in taking things as they come. Most self-help books offer a forced sense of inspiration; Madson is genuinely inspiring. "Say yes" to this book.

From: Spirituality and Health review "50 Best Spiritual Books of 2005",

Book Review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show UpPatricia Ryan Madson
Bell Tower 05/05 Hardcover $16.00
ISBN 1400081882

All of us are making up our lives as we go along. We improvise in our daily conversations, our parenting, our work. Whether making a meal or fixing a tire, we do the best with what we have. Patricia Ryan Madson has taught drama at Stanford for three decades, worked as a creativity consultant to corporations, and served as a private counselor. She and her husband, Ronald, direct the California Center for Constructive Living, based on the work in Japanese psychotherapies of David K. Reynolds.

Madson writes: "A good improviser is someone who is awake, not entirely self-focused, and moved by a desire to do something useful and give something back and who acts upon this impulse." We live in times when people are desperately seeking security and a life of as few risks as possible. This is precisely the time, says the author, to savor the pleasures and delights of an improvised life. She has come up with thirteen laws of improvisation along with exercises for each. They include: say yes, don't prepare, just show up, pay attention, face the facts, act now, take care of each other, and enjoy the ride. Together these laws spell out a flexible and spontaneous spiritual practice of play. For Madson winging it is not terrifying; it is a pathway to adventure. Try these exercises, and you will find that paying attention, being present, using your imagination, and acting joyfully will come more easily.

From: Library Journal

May 15, 2005
SECTION: REVIEWS; Social Sciences; Pg. 126
HEADLINE: Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up
BYLINE: Deborah Bigelow

Madson, Patricia Ryan. Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up.

Bell Tower: Harmony: Crown . May 2005. c.160p. ISBN 1-4000-8188-2 . $16. SELF-HELP

Madson, a Stanford University drama teacher and professional improviser, puts a different spin on living the good life. Partly based on Eastern psychology, the art of improvisation, and personal experience, her 13 maxims for saying "yes" to life refreshingly encourage readers to be average, expect insecurity, and make mistakes. Her exercises are easy: thank people for thankless jobs, drive a new way home, and create a new habit. It's a great little book that will get people thinking, and the somewhat unusual title will generate interest and circulation. Recommended for most public libraries.

APPLIED IMPROVISATION NETWORK (posted by Johnnie Moore, March 26, 2005)

The publishers sent me a review copy of Improv Wisdom, by Patricia Ryan Madson. She is senior lecturer in Drama at Stanford and a long time practitioner of Improv. I've not met Patricia, but I think quite a few members of our community here have done.

I struggle to finish most non-fiction, but this book passes with flying colours. It's concise, well-written and down-to-earth. Patricia sets out 13 maxims drawn from Improv and applies them to life - partly inside the theatre but mostly out there in what is sometimes laughingly called the real world.

The great thing about Improv principles is that, while simple on the surface, they have great depth. I particularly enjoyed Patricia's way of looking at ways of interpreting them as guides to daily life. My favourite chapter is "Be Average", echoing Keith Johnstone's "dare to be dull".

Patricia is a big advocate of action and the book is full of to-dos. I'd suggest treating these as a menu of offers and pick the ones that appeal. Several that struck home for me were in the Chapter "Wake up to the Gifts". I loved hearing about her Zen retreat:

"I was there to do some bookkeeping. My task was to focus on three questions: What had I received from others during my life? What had I given back to them? What trouble or bother had I caused them?"

Just a moment's reflection on those questions has an impact on me. I found several of those moments reading this book.

Patricia is greatly influenced by Eastern, especially Japanese, philosophies and gently works this into her themes.

And there's a great epilogue, with a delightful and humble twist in the tail that I absolutely loved. I won't spoil it by revealing it here but I found it authentic, appropriate and a wonderful way to close the circle on the book.

The book is out in May. I see you can get it for $10.88 at Amazon. That's a bargain I reckon.

(Link to review)

"A marvelous guide to freedom and delight. Improv has become a wisdom tradition of its own and Patricia shows how its lessons can bring out the best in us."

–John Tarrant, author of Bring Me the Rhinoceros

"Patricia Ryan Madson is one of Stanford's truly inspired teachers; she has changed the lives of thousands of students over the past twenty-eight years. In her smiling book, Improv Wisdom, she reminds us that being alive is like riding a bicycle–we always feel a little off-balance and insecure, but 'in the act of balancing we come alive.' She makes you want to get up and do something–try it out, make mistakes, laugh, play, and try it again."

–Charles Junkerman, Associate Provost and Dean of Continuing Studies, Stanford University

"Reading even just a few pages of Patricia Madson's book might change your life forever. That's what has happened to me. These pages are chock-full of wisdom, clarity, and helpful techniques on enhancing spontaneity in everyday life. Read this book–you will be glad and so will everyone else in your life."

–Nina Wise, author of A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life

"I have witnessed Patricia Madson's magic touch in both her classes and her performances. Her students often describe her as a 'goddess'‚ but that may be an understatement. I rejoice that her wisdom is now available to new audiences."

–Philip G. Zimbardo, author of Psychology and Life and Shyness

"The premise of Patricia Madson's book is astonishing: to practice the basic rules of improvisational theater is to walk a path toward a spiritually satisfying life. Her underlying claim is simple and sound: if you are willing to be completely present, making full use of whatever happens, you will find goodness in any situation. This is a lucid, wise, and free-spirited book."

–Norman Fischer, founder and teacher of the Everyday Zen Foundation

Read the full text of Mary Rosendale's review on her web site The Constructed Life