Executive Director, Spontaneous Mind
I met Jaime Rich in 2018 in my first Improv workshop. Cool chick, wears lots of concert t-shirts, does some good accents, awesome at improv. At the time, her job was with a non-profit doing lots of presentations, leading trainings, and loving it.
Jaime first started taking improv classes in Berkeley – which is not geographically convenient to where she lives. When a neighbor introduced her to Funny Bone Productions (Randy Wight) and improv classes in Martinez, Jaime found more than just a new place to take classes. In short order, she was a member of the Act II improv troupe and became their Creative Director in 2021.
As the area started to emerge from COVID, Jaime “retired” from her non-profit and started to teach improv classes. She then partnered up with Randy to launch Spontaneous Mind – an educational non-profit with the mission of promoting “the art of improvisational theater as a tool for personal growth, creative expression, and community building.” Along with classes for individuals, they offer corporate training programs that support team-building and communication skills.
With multiple classes a week, Jaime spends much of her time preparing and teaching. Next on her list of things to do is outreach to potential corporate clients. And as she’s still the Creative Director for Act II, regular shows – benefiting local non-profit organizations – need to be put together.
The most common misconception about improv is that it’s all for laughs on the stage. The first rule of improv is “Yes, and.” The idea of “Yes, and” is the acceptance of whatever comes at you and then building on it. In theater, this frequently leads to something funny happening. In life, however, automatic acceptance is hard; building on it is even harder. “Yes, and” is not the same as “yeah, but.”
Even people who join an improv class for fun end up leaving their comfort zone at some point. By definition, that is not a comfortable process, and Jaime loves being a part of it. And, even when people are not comfortable, there is a happiness component to learning and performing improv that is undeniable.