English majors discover a creative home with No Bears Allowed
By Sophia Lazo
The skills that English majors learn can be applied to numerous creative activities. Florida State University students can choose from a long list of student organizations and clubs to find one that matches their interests and what they love to do.
The improvisation troupe No Bears Allowed formed in the fall of 2011, according to the organization’s Facebook page. Current and former English students have participated in weekly open workshops as well as regular shows to showcase their skills.
Dylan Fishman has been a part of this troupe since he was in his first year at FSU. Now a sophomore, Fishman is currently studying English in the Creative Writing Program. He has enthusiastic feelings toward the major.
“I love it,” says Fishman, who is from Boca Raton, Florida. “It’s something I’m interested in and something I enjoy putting my time into. There’s a lot of freedom on what I can do with my assignments.”
Fishman carries over the creative freedom he has in his writing courses to his improv work with No Bears Allowed. When he first arrived at FSU, he went to an NBA showcase event and was awed by the talent.
“I liked that there were people that had the same sense of humor and had a space to put these ideas out there and create,” he says. “So, right after the show, I signed up for all of the improv troupes and clubs.”
Through his experiences in both NBA and his English courses, he says he can draw connections between the two and use those links to the best of his ability.
“In improv, I use the storytelling techniques I learn in class, and in class, I turn off my brain sometimes and just see where the story goes and trust myself and my instincts,” Fishman says. “I just don’t overthink it.”
Lauren Olster is an FSU alumna who graduated in 2018 with her English-Editing, Writing, and Media degree. She was a member of No Bears Allowed for three years when she was a student.
“The biggest lessons I think I learned from No Bears Allowed were to be very open to new opportunities and, while improv is very much a team effort, to make decisions independently,” says Olster, who currently lives in New York City. “In other words, the people you meet will inevitably shape your experiences and you should embrace that, but don’t let them interfere with your life in game-changing ways.”
She is a member of an improv team made up of four people, and two of them are also FSU/NBA alumni.
“We’ve been performing together for a little over a year now and we were on Brooklyn Comedy Collective’s ‘Home Teams’ for several months, which meant we were selected to perform in a weekly show with some of the best improv teams in Brooklyn,” Olster says. “We’ve also performed as headliners at BCC’s Fun and Dumb Improv Festival as well as Boston’s Union Improv Festival.”
Olster says she followed her passion for comedy and improv after her NBA involvement, which taught her that it is OK to break out of her comfort zone. Along with learning those lessons, Olster takes the knowledge she acquired in her English courses to develop her comedic skills and her confidence when it comes to performing and writing.
“It made me a better writer, editor, listener, and reader,” she says. “It taught me how to consolidate my writing, which is super helpful when writing jokes, and to sometimes suck it up and scrap everything I write in order to make something better, something I learned in a poetry class.”
Fishman and Olster are just two examples of English majors finding a creative path and making the most of the discovery. They pursued an education in the English department, they are drawing on what they have learned, and applying those practices to what they love: improvisation comedy.
Sophia Lazo is an English major, on the editing, writing, and media track, with a minor in political science.
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