Berkun’s right, these improv people aren’t funny. They also aren’t creative or good with dealing with change in an unstructured environment.

Improv classes used to take charming misfits and train them to channel their energies into creative performance. But the classes were cheap then. Today improv has become like the rest of the education establishment: more interested in its own needs than that of the students.

These classes are really expensive, and the people who can afford more than one or two typically come from upper-middle-class background and typically have some family money behind them. Improv classes are structured to make sure these folks keep buying more classes, and that’s done by turning them into awesome experiences, but not training them in anything per se. As far as I can tell, no one whose check doesn’t bounce gets told they can’t cut it.

As Berkun admits, improv classes are really just an expensive Romper Room for the otherwise painfuly dull and conformist.

Real comic talent is developed elsewhere these days, but many truly talented people do serve a stint as imrrov instructors, so it’s not like it contributes nothing.