Yes, but
Our teacher Mallory splits the room in half. The people on the right will walk up and establish the who and the what of the scene. The people on the left will establish the who and the where. Then we'll trade places and continue.
We hear a loud of thump, and our classmate has fainted. This is not part of the bit. The paramedics show up. The class jumps back into improv quickly. In fact we are on to the next scene as a classmate is laying on the ground (awake and okay though), and we continue through the Paramedics arrival.
Not one to miss out on the fun the EMT creates their own improv and says "who hit her". Of course it's not funny, but fear not because apparently in improv the goal isn't to be funny the goal is to be in the moment and listen to your scene partners. Allegedly the act of trying to be funny makes everything not funny. Exisistentially we don't know what the audience wants, but likely there's some element of going to watch improv for the comedic elements.
At work where my role is kind of far removed from creative aspects I was described as a yes, but person (which I agree with). This is in contrast to the mantra of improv where you are supposed to build a scene with a yes, and attitude. In our first class when we were being asked what a "but" effectively is I almost answered that it's an and.
In the spirit of "explore the cave you are in" (a piece of improv advice we've received) I'll highlight a few other lessons from improv! Exploring the cave you are in refers to the idea that wherever you are in the scene there is a lot to explore there, and you should be curious about that instead of having to venture out to 10 different caves or in a more extreme sense go to space!
Another valuable idea is that a story should have a begginning middle, and end. This is particularly pressing when we are standing in a circle building a story one word at a time, one person at a time, and there's a tendency to try and explore new ideas, and not really establish the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
A helpful related idea is focusing on what happens next. Often times we'll be overly fixated on building the world or scene which is still important, but we do it at the expense of losing the action and moving the scene along. The other secret here is that we know what happens next! This means instead of saying "what's in your hand" we say wow that's "an amazing red shiny orb in your hand". Making statements moves the scene along, allows our scene partners to add on to things, but doesn't burden them with answering a question!
On the surface it may seem understandable to not ask questions, but it gets tricky. In one scene where we were paragliding I decided I was going to be afraid of paragliding and started saying "Why did you make us do this?", and "What the hell?" and was told to make statements which I struggled to do afterwards. In another scene I wanted to know when I would get promoted, but had to form that into a statement after mistakenly asking "when am I going to get promoted".
Ultimately a lot of this advice centers around good storytelling. Although we all love to laugh we probably love a good story even more. In fact, Mallory tells us the role of a good improviser is to have an interesting life, and share it with their scene partner. In typical yes, but fashion I want to ask "what's interesting"? Surely genetic research can be very interesting, but can it easily be shared via an improv performance? The answer might be that you can, and certain projects such as Dance your PhD explore this idea.
At the risk of not having a nice ending I want to emphaisze the importance of play. As children we spend so much time playing. We get to use our imagination! Improv brings me back to what I think the childhood joy of playing is. As adults it often feels that play is more structured. You aren't going to take out your toys, your imaginative land will be grounded in reality, and in many contexts the idea of play may be inapporporitate.
But alas yesterday I had the privilege of showing two friends Burp Castle, a whispering only bar in NYC. My friends eyed the bathroom in the back, and said everyone could probably hear you fart in here. Then they started talking about Fart House an alternative reality to Burp Castle. As it turns out these friends constantly construct alternative realitities where they are different animals who have to hide from their cat who is trying to eat them. Surely play isn't dead even for adults it's likely that I have to do more to cultivate it!