Pick a Lane

“Pick a lane,” my acting coach says. Repeatedly. So often, in fact, that I’ve started to hear it in my dreams. Apparently, “pick a lane” is shorthand for: “Have a feeling. Any feeling. Just pick one and commit to it.”

It’s become a bit of a theme in my life lately. In scene work, I tend to respond like I’m applying for the position of Reasonable Human in a Crisis. I take bad news and immediately start issuing solutions. No visible reaction, no dramatic gasp, no slumping to the floor. Just a calm, measured, vaguely upbeat response.

Take a recent scene: my partner (playing my husband) announces he’s just lost his job. I nod sympathetically, offer a few solid job search ideas, and plow right into problem-solving mode like we’re co-hosting a podcast called Let’s Get Through This With Grace and Efficiency. It turns out I violated two cardinal rules of improv:

1. React. This is, after all, supposed to be news. New news. Unexpected news. News that might merit surprise, anger, fear, or at the very least, a slightly raised eyebrow.

2. Don’t fix it. Not in improv. The whole point is to explore the mess, not sweep it up. Go bigger. Go weirder. Make it worse, even. Say the unexpected thing—the thing that makes the audience lean forward and think, “Well, that’s not what I thought she’d say.”

Improv, as it turns out, isn’t just about being funny or fast on your feet. It’s about emotional honesty, presence, and yes—creativity. It stretches muscles we don’t use much as adults, especially those of us who pride ourselves on being composed, rational, and perpetually unruffled. It makes you listen more deeply—to tone, to timing, to the pause after the line and what isn’t being said.

Now, I’m not suggesting we start heightening every minor mishap in real life into a full-blown soap opera. You don’t need to turn “we’re out of oat milk” into a tearful monologue. But there is something to be said for reacting—for being present enough to feel something and let it show.

So maybe that’s the real takeaway: not just “pick a lane” for the sake of performance, but for the sake of connection. Because flatlining your emotions might make things easier, smoother, tidier—but it also makes things duller. Less human.

And in both improv and life, being a little more emotionally honest might just make the whole experience richer. More vivid. More… alive.