I'm Alan Alda and this is Clear and Vivid. Conversations about connecting and communicating.

This conversation is with actor, writer and producer and amazingly talented person Tina

Fay. You know Tina of course we work on Saturday Night Live for best selling book or

movies and also for creating and starring in 30 Rock. My conversation with Tina took place

in front of a live audience at the 2017 World Science Festival.

Good evening. Hi everybody. Hi Alan. How are you? Nice to be here on such a great day for science.

Tina was supposed to be interviewing me about my new book but like many interviews, many, many good

interviews it turned out to be just a conversation between the two of us. I think one of the key attributes

of good communication is people paying attention to each other but I mean really paying attention,

really listening, not just having doling monologues. I'm kind of fascinated by the idea that a

fundamental tool used by actors, a kind of deep listening, can be used by anyone. The way I

learned it was by studying improvisation and although anyone can apply these principles, it's always

fun to run into someone who learned it the way I did. It turns out that Tina Fay and I both began

our careers in the field of improvisation and in fact with the same company the second city.

Tina worked in the Chicago Company of Second City and I worked in the New York Company and we

were both trained in improvisation by the great Viola Spolan but Viola's improv training was not

to teach us how to be funny. Instead it was all about relating and connecting which of course is

the subject of these podcasts. At one point in our conversation I told Tina what a profound effect

Viola Spolan's improv training had had on me and not just as an actor but in my whole life and I

wondered if she'd felt the same way. I did. I felt that it was completely transformative.

The one of the core ideas in improvisation is to agree to say yes and to agree is the yes

and then the and is to contribute something of your own and it's something that once you get in the

...