I enrolled in a two month weekly improv acting class and had the first session Wednesday September 23. It is organized by Jet City, who I sometimes go see perform at the Historic University Theater at 55th and University Way. I have been watching these folks since about 2003 when I remember seeing them do live movie dubs at various art galleries and the summer movie series in Fremont.
My class has 18 students totally and it was a nice surprise to find that many of them, like me, have no desire at all to do entertainment improv. I enrolled in the class because I already do so much interview work and I see myself doing more continually and indefinitely. While I do not feel I have any particular difficulty doing what I do within the context of a research environment, there are a lot of situations when I need to do interviews in more casual environments and I sometimes feel flat in those situations.
I went to AIDSwalk, an awareness event organized by Lifelong, this last Saturday September 26. We met at Volunteer Park where there with booths set up for relevant non-profit organizations, then we walked 5k around the neighborhood and through a Capitol Hill’s business district and back to the park. I was walking with the Fred Hutchinson HIV Vaccine Trials unit recruiting for the new research study, so I held a sign and passed out cards.
I walked a bit with one of the staff recruiters before the event. The drill was to find small groups of males age 18-45 (the target recruitment demographic), give them a 20 second pitch, then leave them with cards in their hands so that perhaps they would call to set up an appointment. It can be a hard sell. Jason’s lines were something like, “Hello, we are with the Fred Hutchinson HIV Vaccine Trials Unit and we are looking for volunteers to participate in an HIV vaccine research study. You cannot get HIV from the vaccine and volunteers are compensated for their time. If any of you are interested, please check out our website or give us a call.” The business can be depressing, because a lot of people have no idea what to say to this. They take the cards and very few people ask any questions at the time or call us later. And we do not want to bother people, but on the other hand, there really are a lot of people who want to be in studies like this one if only they knew about them.
I met another recruiter, Tino, who just started doing this work. I was thinking that I would like to join them on the street sometime, because this is a new study and we need participants now and I want to learn with them while they themselves are learning work works to recruit and what does not. Tino said that I should join them, and I plan to make arrangements to do this soon. And it seems like relevant practice to go along with what I learn in the improv class, because there is not much that requires more improvisation than randomly going up to strangers on the street and asking them to volunteer to receive experimental vaccines.