Clifford Henderson and Dixie Cox, founders of the FUN INSTITUTE, have a combined total of over 30 years experience teaching improv, acting, and teambuilding skills. They have taught workshops for high-tech businesses, university educators, retreat centers, psychotherapists, incarcerated women, a Zen community, stroke survivors, and the public at-large. Their home base is the Actors' Theatre in Santa Cruz, California. They are also the creators of the popular two-woman show, Detour Ahead: the Clifford & Dixie Show. Both are founders and coordinators of the popular Santa Cruz event, The Improvathon, now in its 15th year at Actors' Theatre. They are familiar faces on and off the stages of Santa Cruz.
topdog@funinstitute.com
831-427-4008
FUN INSTITUTE
PO BOX 861
SANTA CRUZ, CA 95061-0861
Dixie Cox and Clifford Henderson improvise life
By Gwen Mickelson
Sentinel staff writer
Responding quickly and unhesitatingly to a cue from an offstage voice, Dixie Cox gazes with big eyes into her fellow actor's face and utters, in a tremulous voice, “It is … fertility season!”
It's just such goofiness, fun and spontaneity that help keep the fires stoked for improvisational theater duo Cox and her life partner of 15 years, Clifford Henderson.
“It's not the money, that's for sure,” said Henderson, 48, whose given name, now considered masculine, has been handed down as a legacy among the females in her family.
“We always say, ‘We make tens of dollars!’”said Cox, 50, with a laugh.
The pair started the Fun Institute, an improv acting class company, in 2001, and have been one of the main forces behind improvisational theater in Santa Cruz since 1992.
So if it isn't the money that's driving them, what is it?
“It's so satisfying,” said Henderson. “Our love is watching other people take the jump of being onstage. That's such a beautiful moment to see.”
By all accounts, they're good at what they do.
“Clifford and Dixie have affected so many people in such a positive way,” said Kari Hansen, 53, of Santa Cruz, who's practiced improv for eight years. “I've seen people change through improv — become happier and more creative.”
The hallmarks of the craft — connecting with and being seen by other people, trying out new roles in safety, flying without a script, expressing creativity, laughing and, most of all, failing without consequences — are all things that “open people up,” said Henderson. “Whatever damage they've hidden away, you see the onion peel back.”
They say a supportive community has evolved around improv, but the practice also enters the couple's relationship.
“We work out our problems through improv,” said Cox. “It's just being playful.”
“I love that,” said Henderson. “And I love that you're the storyteller and the actor and the director. It just challenges me completely.”
Cox and Henderson rent space for their classes and workshops from the Actors' Theatre, and Cox sits on the non-profit theater's Board of Directors. Their Saturday drop-in classes can attract up to 25 people at times, and they say they've taught “hundreds” of students over the years.
“Half the time we feel like we built a steamroller, and we're running in front of it,” said Cox.
“But it's so fun, too,” said Henderson. “We're mostly amused that this has become our life.”
reproduced by permission of the Santa Cruz Sentinel.