Accepting

 

Category

These are exercises to teach Accepting^K .

3 some

Game

Association

Warm-up

Accepting Circle

Game

Accepting

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

Notes

Also watch/listen for little moans or sighs that players might make before or after their turn - these should also be taken over by the next player.

Actor's Nightmare

Game

Limitations

Performance

Notes

Whoever gets the script should not forget to play/act - only her lines are defined, not what she does, or how she does the lines.

Also known as Playbook^G.

Aerobics

Game

Characters

Exercise

Introduction

Look and Listen

Place all players in a line. The first player starts walking around the room, walking a large circle. The second player starts following the first one, and tries to move like the first player. After a few rounds, the first player goes to the back of the line, and the third player starts following and imitating the second one.

Notes

Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves

Game

Concentration

Energy

Warm-up

One person starts making a gesture to this rhythm, say, tapping your head with you left hand. When the sentence is repeated, the player next to her takes over this gesture, while the first one starts a completely different new gesture. Third time the sentence is done, player three does the first gesture, player two does the second gesture and player one invents a new one again. And so on.

This is also a concentration game, though it's not really difficult. All one has to do is watch the previous player, and next time, take over her gesture. When you're watching what everyone else is doing you're going to get lost though.

Alien Tiger Cow

Game

Exercise

Group

Warm-up

Everyone in a circle. There are 3 things a player can be:

• An alien: hold you index fingers up next to your head, as little antenna's and say 'Bleeb bleeb', bending inwards into the circle;

• A cow: bend forward, hold your right hand on your tummy and go 'Moooo'

• A tiger: push your right hand forward, imitating a claw and roar.

On your sign, every player decides to become one of the three. The idea is for everyone to become the same, which obviously won't be the case, the first time. We re-do this until everyone is in sync.

Variations

Play 'majority wins': animals/things that are most in the minority drop out. Also known as Rock Paper Scissors^G.

Alliteration Introduction

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Introduction

Everyone in a circle. A player starts the game by introducing himself by making a gesture, and alliterating to his name, e.g. "I'm Wonderful Wendy" or "I'm Smart Steve". The next player point to the first, repeats the previous player's name, attribute and gesture, and does something similar about himself.

And so on. Game ends with the first player having to do each other player's gesture, repeating their names and attributes.

Alliterations

Game

Association

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

Notes

Variations

Alphabet Circle

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

Everyone in a circle. One player starts by throwing an 'A' to another player. That player throws as fast as possible a 'B' to someone else. And so on.

If you work with a large group, you can divide them into 2 circles, call 'em Team Gold and Team Silver, and time how fast they can get to 'Z'.

Variations

Alphabet Game

Game

Audience Participation

Die

Performance

Verbal wit

Players that hesitate, or use the wrong letter 'Die', and are replaced by another player. The replacement needs to take over the character of the player she replaces.

Notes

Animalistics

Game

Association

Characters

Exercise

Performance

Notes

Also known as Totems^G. - this can be played as an exercise: write totem names on slips of paper. Give every player a totem before they play a scene. You can extend the animal name; make it more specific. Play with things like Bald Eagle rather than Eagle; or Silver Moon, Sitting Bull, etc.

Animals

Game

Characters

Exercise

Then give a number of activities, which the animals perform. Try

• Eating. Eating when you're really hungry

• Drinking. Drinking when you're really thirsty

• Lovemaking

• Grooming

• Fighting

• Sleeping

Variations

Armando

Game

Long Form

Performance

The format starts with a storytelling-style monologue, based on an audience suggestion. After the monologue, players play scenes inspired by the monologue, and the monologue may even continue, later on in the performance.

Artist Model Clay

Game

Exercise

Group

When done, let the model inspect the artwork and see if details fit.

Variations

Asides

Game

Performance

A scene is played, which any player can stop at any time by yelling freeze. At that point, the player steps out of the scene, and tells the audience what his character is really thinking, after which the scene continues. The other characters of course are not supposed to know what players are thinking, but the players do, and should use this.

Notes

Gimmick: characters may actually have other things on their minds than what's going on in the scene. E.g. a driver stopped by a cop may be thinking about the groceries his wife told him to get at the supermarket.

See also Commenting^K . See also Scene Painting^G for another game that uses a similar technique.

Variations

Assassin

Game

Warm-up

Game starts, and everyone tries to protect themselves from their assassin, by trying to keep their bodyguard between themselves and their assassin.

After several minutes of chaos everyone reveals who was picked for what.

Association Jump

Game

Association

Exercise

Group

Warm-up

The other players watch our subject jump into a position, and then build around that player, inspired by whatever the frozen position out subject jumped into. The end result is a still scene.

Tip: precede this exercise by Jump^G .

Audience Warm-ups

Game

Performance

Warm-up

• Do a Mexican wave (audience making fluent waves with their hands above their head).

• Have he pianist/keyboard man make all kinds of sounds and have the audience imitate them

• Ask the audience to stand up and do some physical warm-up. Have them shake their arms and legs.

• Have the audience introduce themselves to strangers, tell a secret their spouse/partner doesn't know about to a stranger, have them hug a stranger

• Do an interview with the audience, where the MC is one character (say, a headmaster) and all of the audience another (say a naughty child). The audience needs to reply to the interview in one voice (all saying the same at the same time - see One Mouth^G ). Not an easy one, and if the audience does not feel like doing this it really sucks. When it works it's a real thrill.

• divide the audience in 3 or 4 groups, and give each group a sound. Rehearse the sound with each group. Then tell a silly story, and use these sounds as sound effects. (We saw a pretty gruesome one in which one group was a car (roar), another a dog (bark) and the third group got a kind of splashing sound. The poor dog got run over by the car... not exactly nice but the audience had fun with it)

• Do a cheering competition between the men and the women.

• Rehearse different kinds of applause (from the 'polite' applause when a scene sucks, over an 'ooh' applause for a touching scene, to a wild roar for a hilarious scene). Have them rehearse voting for a team by cheering the team name (if that's your format). Rehearse a 'Die' ( see Die^C ) if i you're going to be playing scenes in which the audience can decide to throw a player out of the game.

• Give the men and the women a different sound and play with that. Tell them they are members of a wild tribe, the women go 'Ugh' when you raise your left hand and the man go 'Hagawaga' when you raise your right hand.

Automatic Storytelling

Game

Exercise

Narration

Split the group in 2. Half of the players leave the room while you explain the game to the others: we are going to make stories in pairs. We will tell the other players that we came up with a great story, and they have to guess it. The catch is that they can only ask yes/no questions, and we do not really have a story. We will answer 'no' to every question that starts with a vowel or with a conjugation of 'to be' (or some other criterion). In addition, after having answered 2 consecutive No's we will always answer a yes.

Let the other players back in and pair them up with the others. Each couple starts guessing the story, unknowingly creating a story as they go. Continue till they get it.

Origin

Back Dancing

Game

Exercise

Group

Trust

Balladeer(2)

Game

Long Form

Performance

SingSong

Balladeer

Game

Performance

SingSong

This is actually group story-building, as the players are inspired by the what the balladeer sings (obviously) but also, their actions can/should inspire the balladeer.

Notes

Origin

Barney

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Spontaneity

Warm-up

BarPro

Game

Format

The (slightly negative sounding) name is attributed to Keith Johnstone^R and refers to shows consisting of short games, played in small rooms, like bars and tiny comedy clubs.

In this simple format, a limited number of players (4-6) play improv games, introduced, and usually directed by an MC. In certain troupes the players take turns MC-ing and/or directing.

There are usually no judges, no score boards and no prizes to be won. Suggestions are taken from the audience, drawn out of a hat or provided by the MC.

Due to the lack of space, there are usually no props or attributes, except for perhaps a coat hanger with clothes and a couple of hats; players typically mime their props.

As far as we know the name BarPro is not copyrighted.

Bartender

Game

Performance

SingSong

See also Three Melodies^G .

Become

Game

Association

Exercise

Spontaneity

Ask the players to become

• A jar of mayonnaise

• A pack of cigarettes

• Dentures

At first, this will probably not lead to much. Add side coachings, like:

• You are a jar of mayonnaise. Opened or not? Full or empty? Fresh or not? Show it.

• You are a pack of smokes. Empty or full? Filter cigarettes or not? Where are you? In someone's pocket or on a shelve in a shop? Show it.

• You are a flower. What kind of flower? Blooming or not? In a vase or in a field? What color? Freshly picked or not? A present to a lover or at a funeral?

• You are water. Still or not? In a glass? A jar, a puddle, a lake or an ocean? Fresh or dirty?

• You are stone, air, sand, fire.

• Your are blue, red, green. You are a clock. Big Ben or grandfather clock? Working or not. Is your time right or not? A watch? Who is wearing you? A nun or a pimp? How could you show that?

• You are French fries. McDonalds or Wendy's? Hot or cold? Any ketchup? On a plate or in a cardboard box? Eaten or not? Yummy or yuck?

After a while, players should be able to come up with the side coachings for themselves. Encourage the players to try out different kind of stuff, see what they come up with.

Bidirectional Satellite TV

Game

Exercise

Look and Listen

Big Booty

Game

Concentration

Warm-up

Bippety Bop(2)

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

Other possibilities are:

• Just say 'bop' if anyone else reacts, that person becomes 'it'

• Say 'Elephant', after which 3 players build the elephant: the player picked does the trunk (hold nose and squeeze your other arm through) and her neighbors doe the ears. If any of the 3 players screws up or does not react he or she becomes it.

• Say 'mixer': the player in the middle becomes a mixer, holding arms up in the air, sort of horizontally, while her neighbors position themselves under her hands, and turn around their axises

• Say 'toaster' : the player in the middle becomes a slice of bread, and her neighbors become the toaster, by 'building' the toaster with their arms around the bread. The slice of bread pops up an down too when done!

Feel free to invent other objects (suggestions can be found under Bippety Bop^G ).

Bippety Bop

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

The player you're pointing to, and his 2 neighbors, need to build an elephant in less than the time the middle player needs to say 'Bippety Bippety Bop'. An elephant consists of a trunk, made by the middle player, by holding your nose with one hand, and extending your other arm through the arm that holds the hand that holds the nose (does this make any sense?). The neighboring players each form a big ear, using both arms. Don't forget to attach the ears to the elephant's head.

Any player that cannot get his/her part done by the time the middle player does 'Bippety Bippety Bop' becomes 'it' and takes place in the middle of the circle.

Variations

• a car, with 2 wheels and a set of wind screen wipers

• a cow, with an udder and 2 horns

• a washing machine, with 2 players building a 'box' with both arms, and the middle player waving her arms in a circle in front of her. All go 'rumble rumble'

• a bunny, with 2 paws (middle player) and 2 rabbit ears (neighbors)

Also known as Also known as Bappety Boo^G. . See also Bunny^G . See Elephant^G for a more elaborate version of the game. See Bippety Bop(2)^G for a variation that goes by the same name.

Black Box

Game

Performance

The other player enters and asks if he can play with the box. Player 1 agrees, but adds something like "Whatever you do, don't push the red button".

Player 2 begins to play with the buttons, controlling player 2. Then, we slowly work up to the use of the dreaded red button, which will make player 2 do something not-so-obvious. This can be anything, but it should not be preconceived. The red button might become a Mood swing button, a Start Screaming, Start Giggling, Sing Opera, or Switch-to- Gibberish^C button.

Blind Association Circle

Game

Association

Exercise

Look and Listen

• first tap: players close their eyes but continue the free association, sticking to the rhythm

• second tap: everyone starts walking around (carefully!), eyes still closed.Players have to recognize the voice of their ex-neighbour in the circle to know when it's their turn.

• Third tap: all players, still eyes closed, and still associating, try to reconstruct the circle.

Blindfolded Scene

Game

Limitations

Performance

Trust

Variations

Blind Freeze

Game

Association

Exercise

Performance

Warm-up

Many groups find this game more exciting than Freeze Tag^G , as players don't know when they get pushed in the game, and hence are less prepared, and crazier, more exciting stuff tends to happen.

Blind Harold

Game

Exercise

Limitations

Long Form

Look and Listen

Performance

Basically, this is a Harold^G , played with all players sitting down with their eyes closed. For a performance one would turn all the lights off in the theater.

See also The Bat^G .

Blind Lead

Game

Exercise

Group

Trust

Also known as Airplane^G. A helpful reader offered us an explanation for the name 'Airplane': The blindfoldee (or just eyes closed) is led through a maze composed of furniture and the other actors. He is an "Airplane" lost in the fog being talked down by the "Air Traffic Controller", who must remain in his/her "Tower". Standing on a chair/rehearsal block lends visibility for the controller. The airplane also only has a limited amount of fuel left (1-3 minutes, whatever) to reach a safe landing (arriving at the Tower). The airplane is also allowed two "brushes"-limited contact with an obstacle. The third brush or a direct hit or stepping on something directly causes a "crash". They may step around, over or under the obstacles. Also, the airplane can only fly forward. It can turn in any direction, however. The directions must be given from the pilot's point of view; a good exercise for fledgling directors. You can also destroy all the trust you've built up in your class by completely clearing the deck and torturing the Pilot. Believe us, someone will suggest it.

Also known as Obstacle Course^G. See also Fingertips^G for a similar exercise.

Blind Line Up

Game

Group

Introduction

Warm-up

Notes

• This is more a group exercise than Group Order^G (which is more about agreement), so initially you probably want to take it easy on the silly stuff, like line up by order of mental health...

• Always interesting to see what strategies the group comes up with.

• You can't really use alphabetical order if the group does not really know each other.

Blind Musical

Game

Performance

SingSong

Try to integrate the info on the slips into the story, of course!

Variations

Body Hide

Game

Exercise

Group

Introduction

Trust

It's great fun for the other students to watch and try and find uncovered pieces of person. Don't tell them they go next, with one person less.

Variations

Boris

Game

Exercise

Narration

Performance

And then we have Boris, who is a nasty, huge, but invisible thug assisting the interrogator. Every time the interrogator does not like the suspect's answers (and also when the suspect does not incriminate himself enough), the interrogator calls on Boris to torture the suspect, prodding him to confess or incriminate him even further.

Notes

• we do not establish the crime beforehand

• the suspect mimes being tortured by Boris

• the investigator can tell Boris what to do (break his leg), but it is more fun to leave the choice of torture up to the suspect

• if the torture does not go far enough to the investigator's taste, he can always call in Boris' evil twin brother, Igor (also invisible)

• as a gag, the suspect can also incriminate Boris (who can turn out to be a witness/accomplice to the crime).

Origin

Bunny

Game

Energy

Exercise

Warm-up

Play this game at a high speed. Mumbling 'bunny bunny' en masse gives a nice energy boost.

Variations

Alternatively, you can really invent any object or create or replace the bunny, as long as you invent a sound along with it. Try

• a car, with 2 wheels and a set of wind screen wipers, going 'vroom vroom'

• a cow, with an udder and 2 horns, going 'moo moo'

• a washing machine, with 2 players building a 'box' with both arms, and the middle player waving her arms in a circle in front of her. All go 'rumble rumble'

• an elephant, with 2 big ears and a trunk, making an elephant sound (if you don't know what an elephant sounds like, just invent a sound).

See also Bippety Bop^G . See also Killer Bunny^G .

Cards

Game

Performance

See also Actor's Nightmare^G .

Card Status

Game

Endowment

Limitations

Look and Listen

Performance

Status

4 players. Ask an audience member to pick 4 cards out of a deck, and attach a card to each player's forehead, so that players can see each other's card, but not their own. Use a rubber band or a piece of string for that.

The idea is to play a scene, in which the status order of the characters is defined by the cards. Evidently, players don't know their own status, so the other players will have to endow them.

Notes

Variations

• players can only see their own card, but not the others'

• give players multiple cards, and let them switch cards in the middle of the scene. Statuses (statii ??) should change accordingly.

• as an exercise, let players play a scene and then ask them to line up in status order to see if they 'got' their ststus right.

Cat and Mouse

Game

Energy

Warm-up

Catch'em

Game

Concentration

Energy

Exercise

Warm-up

Also known as Bear of Poitiers^G. (see Games for Actors and Non-actors^R )

Circle of Knots

Game

Exercise

Group

Variations

• Try a line instead of a circle

• Try with eyes closed or blindfolded

Circle Sitting

Game

Group

Trust

Warm-up

If well done it's even possible to make the circle walk. Indicate which foot to start with ;-)

Clap Snap Association

Game

Association

Exercise

Warm-up

• Slap both hands on your thighs

• Clap your hands

• Snap your left hand fingers

• Snap your right hand fingers

Variations

• You can use this for both Last Letter^G games or Free Association Circle^G .

• Try this with two circles. Have one circle associate freely, and another circle on Last Letter^G . Whenever a player misses a beat she should switch circles.

Notes

Clap Snap Stamp

Game

Concentration

Warm-up

Once they get this, we replace the 'one' with a 'snap' (snap your fingers).

Once everyone is into that, we replace the 'two' as well, with a hand-clap.

Finally, we replace the 'three' as well, with a stamp of the right foot. Play at high speed!

Click Bang you're dead

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Introduction

THE SECRET: It really doesn’t matter who is pointed to, what is said, when they are pointed to, who it begins with or who it ends with, it just depends on who speaks first after the clicks and bangs are done. So the person who begins (the one that knows what’s going on) will declare whoever talks first dead by saying “you’re dead�. That person isn’t “out� or anything, it’s just for effect. The game continues until the players catch on. If somebody thinks they get it, the leader gives them a chance to say the clicks and bangs and they get to announce who is dead; the leader will then be able to tell if they understand the secret if they announce the right person as being dead.

Make sure that once the players begin to catch on, they don’t spoil it for the others by letting the cat out of the bag. Also, the game is best if played with ten or more people.

Contributed by Jeannie Smith from Hawai. Thanks for that Jeannie!

Columbian Hypnosis

Game

Exercise

Trust

Switch sides and partners after a couple of minutes.

Notes

Variations

Origin

ComedySportz

Game

ComedySports was started by Dick Chudnow in 1884 in Milwaukee. It's a format of competitive improvisational comedy that resembles Keith Johnstone^R 's Theatresports^G . The format is currently played by a dozen-plus teams all over the USA, united in the Comedy League of America.

In a ComedySportz show 2 teams complete for points given by the audience. A referee oversees the match, times the games, calls fouls and gets audience suggestions. A match consists of something like 7 to 12 games, drawn from a repertoire of over a hundred games (you'll find most of these games in the Games section of Improv Encyclopedia).

In terms of gimmicks, you have the 'brown bag foul', which is a brown paper bag placed over the offending player's head.

Coming Home

Game

Characters

Environment

Exercise

• The environment: what does that person's house look like? Is it neat and tidy or is it a mess? Big house or small apartment?

• What does he do? Does the character change clothes or showers or has a beer first? Does he eat? If so, what? Microwave dinner, carryout, pizza delivery or cornflakes?

• What mood is that character in?

• How was work today?

Variations

Complete Bodies

Game

Exercise

Look and Listen

As a next step, do the same, but tell a story, one sentence at a time, providing a sentence every time you move.

Concentration Circle

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

Players that fail (if they did not recognize their own number) or that break the rhythm become the last player in the circle, and that changes the numbers for a bunch of players. Restart with player one. See also Big Booty^G .

Confessions

Game

Performance

Verbal wit

Then players line up. One player steps forward, and gets a confession from the host. Player utters the confession in a character, and immediately another player jumps in and offers a witty reply. Do this as long as players have ideas for replies. Then replace the first player by a new one, give her a new confession and repeat ad libitum.

Continuing Emotions

Game

Continuation

Performance

Continuing Styles

Game

Continuation

Performance

The platform and the story need to continue flawlessly.

CopyCat

Game

Association

Exercise

Performance

Variations

Rather than just stepping in and repeating a line, you might want to call 'FLIP' (or freeze). This variation is known as Also known as FLIP^G. .

Crabtrees Conundrum

Game

Limitations

Performance

For instance. Christine, I think you are as sick as a dog!! What'd you say? I said I think we should go for a jog, it's a really nice day.. and so forth.

Cross Circle

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Introduction

Warm-up

Everyone in a circle. One person (A) starts by calling another person's name (B). At that point, A starts walking towards B. Before A gets to B, B needs to call another name (C), so B frees her spot in the circle, for A to take. C then needs to call yet another name and start walking, so B can take C's spot.

Variations

You can have more than one cycle going, if the group is big enough. Also known as Name Game^G. Also known as Shriner's Warm-up^G.

Cut

Game

Format

Long Form

All scenes are interrupted this way, and the idea is that all scenes come together in one story. Cut scenes can be continued later. Usually, every player sticks to one character.

This game can be played with or without a director. Also know as Also known as Soap^G. .

Variations

• Soap series, like The Bold and the Beautiful, Dallas, Eastenders

• Hospital drama, like E.R.

• Cop drama, like Hill Street Blues

• Romantic Comedy, like The Love Boat

• Crime series or murder mysteries

Dating Game

Game

Endowment

Performance

4th player gets to ask 3 questions, and each of the others answers it. After the questions player 4 should guess what the endowments were.

Day in the Life

Game

Audience Participation

Performance

See also Ding Dong^G .

Death and Retriever

Game

Exercise

Group

Trust

Dead players scream when they are killed, keep their eyes closed and stand still. When the retriever bumps into someone that does not move (a dead body) she can revive the dead by rubbing them with the towel.

When the retriever gets killed, she screams and stops moving. When another living person bumps into the retriever (recognized by the scarf), the retriever is revived, and the one that revived the retriever becomes the new retriever.

Play till everyone is dead or bored.

Death in a Minute

Game

Limitations

Performance

Timed

Notes

Deconstruction

Game

Long Form

Performance

• Characters return

• Characters of situations mentioned in the first scene appear in the subsequent scenes

• Subsequent scenes take place in the same environment as the first scene

The reason why the first scene should be fairly long is that it should provide enough information for other scenes to build on. The name 'Deconstruction' can be interpreted as "Take a first scene, and then deconstruct it by using characters, locations, situations, played or referred to, and play/re-use those in further scenes".

Origin

For a long discussion about the format and its origin see Chicago Improv^R .

Diamond

Game

Continuation

Performance

The game is played as follows: the 2 players in front start a scene; the 2 players in the back move to the side to clear the stage. Players play until the host yells "Call", at which time all players step back to their original positions in the square. MC then calls Right or Left, and square turns accordingly. The 2 players in front start playing a scene based on their suggestion until MC calls again.

This is repeated. When 2 players are up front for the second or third time, they continue their previously played scene. They can either plainly continue it, or continue at some time in the future (a day later, a year later, a century later).

Ding Characters

Game

Characters

Exercise

This exercise is unlikely to lead to good scenes, but it's a great help to teach players to drop into clear and varied characters instantly.

Ding Dong

Game

Audience Participation

Performance

Example. Player is in bed in the morning and the alarm clock goes off: BZZZ. You get a 'Dong'. Try again and alarm clock starts playing the radio. Another 'Dong'. Try again and player is woken up by the neighbour drilling a hole in the wall. 'Ding'. You got it. Continue with breakfast, and so on.

Ding

Game

Exercise

Performance

Spontaneity

Notes

If you use this as an exercise on Spontaneity^C the trainer can 'Ding' quite often (very frustrating for the players, but they will come up with stuff they never would have thought of before). Disadvantage of this is that the story/characters tend to get lost. Use sparingly for performance. Also known as Other Choice^G.

Disc(1)

Game

Exercise

Limitations

Notes

Disc(2)

Game

Exercise

Limitations

Game starts with a player entering the disc; he is the leader. As soon as the leader stops milling about on the disc, another player must jump in and restore the balance. The new player becomes the new leader, and the previous leader becomes a follower.

As soon as the balance is restored, the leader can start walking around; the other player stays where he is. As soon as the leader stops again, the follower(s) move and restore the balance. After that, the leader becomes one of the followers, and a new leader jumps in.

The group of followers may split into groups of equal size, and restore the balance that way.

Keep in mind that followers don't start moving until the leader stops.

See also Disc(1)^G .

Dissociation

Game

Association

Exercise

Warm-up

Example: cat, deodorizer, house, green, grass. Here we restart, because grass is obviously an association on green.

Notes

Distance Game

Game

Exercise

Limitations

Variations

Distorting Mirror

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Doors

Game

Environment

Exercise

Player 1 sets a (part of a) platform by miming a door. As soon as player 2 has an idea about where player 1 might be, player 2 steps into the scene and offers a line of dialog, expressing where we are. Player 2 answers player 1, acknowledging player 1's offer. This ends the scene.

The audience should know after these 2 lines of dialog where the players are, and who they are, or what their relationship is to one another.

Notes

See also Three Line Environment^G .

Doo Wop(2)

Game

Long Form

Performance

SingSong

When the scene is done the 'music' resumes till someone else starts a scene. Nice if the scenes start to connect, or if characters from different scenes meet and interact.

Notes

Doo Wop

Game

Performance

SingSong

Here's one in 5 beats: ask for an object. Then

• Lead singer sings verse about the object

• All sing Chorus, in the style of I love my (object)

• Verse 2: explain how you found your object

• (all) chorus on how you love your object

• Verse 3: That fateful night ... explain how you lost your beloved object. This can be done as a parlando (i.e. you speak to the music, rather than sing)

• (bridge) Explain how bad you miss your object

• (all) chorus on how you miss your object

• Verse 4: explain how your replaced your object by a new (or other) one

• (all) chorus on how you love your new object (finale!)

Feel free to drop e.g. the first of second chorus if you feel it drags you down. Feel free to modulate after the bridge, or not.

Notes

• Verse: C Am Dm G7 (3 times) C Fm6 C G7

• Bridge: G7% Am% (3 times) D7% G7 Ab7 (modulate to Db)

• Chorus: C C/E F G (3 times) C Dm7b5 C

Do Ron Ron

Game

Performance

SingSong

Variations

Double Blind Freeze

Game

Limitations

Performance

Double Endowment

Game

Endowment

Look and Listen

Narration

Performance

Pick a place where a scene will be played, and 2 players. Tell each player what they need to get the other player to do, without the other player knowing this. Players are not allowed to explicitly tell the other player what to do.

Example: an arena in ancient Rome. Player 1 needs player 2 to taste the sand in the arena, and player 2 needs to get player 1 to tie a knot in a lion's tail.

Notes

Double Opening

Game

Exercise

Limitations

Look and Listen

Narration

Variations

Dry Cleaning Bag of Death

Game

Limitations

Performance

Variations

Dubbed Movie

Game

Performance

The effect is (or should be) like watching a dubbed movie.

Duck Duck Goose

Game

Exercise

Group

Warm-up

See if the group can come to playing along the same rules.

Variations

Eights

Game

Warm-up

Everybody scatter around, stand up relaxedly. Ask the players to make an '8' movement with their left big toe, then their left foot, then whole left leg. Repeat with right toe/foot/leg.

Repeat with left index finger, left hand, left lower arm, left arm. Repeat with right hand/finger/arm. Try both arms. In opposite directions.

Make 8-shaped movements with your pelvis. Try horizontally and vertically. Try changing direction.

Ditto for left shoulder, right shoulder, both shoulders. Ditto for your head.

End exercise by making eights simultaneously with as many parts of your body as possible.

Elephant

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

• an Elephant, consisting of a trunk, made by the middle player, by holding your nose with one hand, and extending yo ur other arm through the arm that holds the hand that holds the nose (does this make any sense?). The neighboring players each form a big ear, using both arms. Don't forget to attach the ears to the elephant's head. Make an elephant sound.

• A palm tree: the middle player is the tree, her neighbors become the waving leaves of the tree. Make windy noise

• A car: the middle player holds the steering wheel, the neighbors do the wheels. Make car engine noise.

One player in the middle. Point to a person and yell Elephant (or Palm Tree, or whatever was agreed). Then choose another player and yell something else. Do this at high speed.

Now for the extension: when someone makes a mistake, look at what the person does, and add that to the list of possibilities. For example, someone might be waving their arms incorrectly in from of them, trying to build the trunk of the elephant. If the group things this resembles, say, a swimmer, we decide on adding a swimmer to the list of options. Say the middle player does the arms and her neighbor do the legs.

Repeat until you have so many options that everyone goes wrong...

Emotional Mirror

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Gibberish

Warm-up

Emotional Quadrants

Game

Limitations

Performance

Notes

Emotions Characters

Game

Characters

Exercise

Ask everyone to change partners. Players are asked to look at each other lustfully.

Change partners again. Players are asked to look at each other joyfully.

Then yell any of the three emotions. Players need to find back the partner with which they did that emotion and do it again. Repeat this several times. Then ask players to walk around the room. When they meet one of their 3 partners, they return to the look that went with that partner. In between partners they stay neutral.

You can try more or different emotions, of course.

Energy 1-10

Game

Energy

Exercise

Group

Warm-up

It's important to watch each other, to ensure we're all at the same energy level. Also make sure that the increase in energy is nicely gradual.

Evil Twin

Game

Performance

Notes

Exaggeration Circle

Game

Energy

Exercise

Warm-up

Notes

Excluding

Game

Exercise

Group

Notes

Tell players not to be afraid of 'being nasty' - be extreme in your exclusion (that makes it easier, also for the player that is excluded - see Mr. Nice Guy^K ). Whoever gets excluded should gladly accept this and react accordingly.

Excluded players can go to extremes to be re-included - hilariously funny if even this is thoroughly ignored by the others.

Variations

Also known as Alliances^G. . This game was originally created as a pattern game for long form shows at the Theatresports London Impro Lab in the late 1980's. The whole point of the game is NOT to actively try and exclude anyone. The exclusion of one player should happen as a result of the other players making alliances with one another. If you don't do this the scene doesn't form very good patterns and the players get too competitive. You also miss the slow, sliding status drops and the desperate attempts to hook into an existing alliance, that happen when a player is starting to realize that they are being excluded.

A good way to start this game would be:

• Start in a black-out seated round a table

• While the lights are still down the entire ensemble starts to laugh (as if someone has just told the punchline to a hilarious joke)

• The lights slowly fade up as the cast's laughter winds down and the alliances begin to form

• By the end of the scene, which climaxes in a final, dramatic exclusion, we usually end up with four to six threads and a clear protagonist

Big thanks to Alan Marriott of Crunchy Frog Collective and Grand Theft Impro (London, England) for the additional info on Alliances.

Family Portraits

Game

Association

Group

Warm-up

Players are going to 'build' family portraits. Ask for e.g.

• Family of accountants, bean counters

• Family of fat/skinny people

• Family of Pop Stars

• Family of snakes, rats, cats

• Family of garden tools

Tell the players you will want to see who's who in the family. We also want to see who gets along with who, who's the black sheep of the family, and so on. This only works if players watch each other closely.

Famous Last Words

Game

Performance

Verbal wit

Fast Food Laban

Game

Characters

Exercise

• Timing: Sudden or Sustained

• Weight: Heavy or Light

• Space: Direct or Indirect

• punching : sudden / heavy / direct

• slashing : sudden / heavy / indirect

• wringing : sustained / heavy / indirect

• stroking : sustained / light / indirect

• dabbing : sudden / light / direct

• smoothing : sustained / light / direct

• pushing : sustained / heavy / direct

Notes

Variations

• be a 'horizontal' or 'vertical' person

• be downward, or upward

• be light or heavy

Then experiment with these: be suddenly light (bird taking off from a tree) or continuously light (be a cloud).

You can do this using different kinds of music. What direction / weight / movement does a certain song or theme inspire?

Then try to experiment with characters: who or what would be vertical person be (a general?). What/how would be continuously light person be (stoned?). Suddenly light (flirty?). See also Fast Food Stanislawski^G .

Origin

Fast Food Stanislawski

Game

Characters

Exercise

• you want to seduce the other

• you are a nerd

• you like to make people laugh

• you want to impress others

• you are a nasty person

• you try to be ordinary

• you are an optimist/pessimist

• you will never find a girlfriend/boyfriend

Notes

If you are using this in a workshop it might be a good idea to ask the players how one would behave given a certain subtext. Stress that you are looking for Truthfulness^K .

This is an excellent technique to find a character. You can actually use this for performance - just give yourself a subtext when you jump onto the stage and see what happens.

See also Status^K .

Origin

Fast Forward

Game

Performance

Feature Film

Game

Long Form

Performance

Apart from seeing the scenes from the movie itself, we can (but don't have to) see scenes of what is going on behind the scenes (so you can have a totally different sub-plot going on there, if you want).

Some groups also involve the guy that actually wrote the script (as in Typewriter^G ).

Also known as Also known as At The Oscars^G. : where we start the performance with an Oscar nomination (or win) for the Director.

Final Freeze

Game

Limitations

Performance

Fingertips

Game

Trust

See also Blind Lead^G for a similar exercise.

Firing Squad

Game

Association

Warm-up

All players, except one, the victim, form a long line. The first player in the line throws any word to the victim, who responds as fast as he/she can with the first word that comes to mind. The next player in the line then throws another word, usually unrelated to the previous word, and again the victim needs to respond as fast as possible. Repeat till everyone has thrown a word.

Variations

You can even have multiple victims walking the line at the same time. Make sure there is enough 'space' between the victims, otherwise, with the first hesitation, victims will start bumping into one another.

Five Four Three Two One

Game

Format

Long Form

This is a long format, origin unknown, and has resemblance to a Harold^G .

5-4-3-2-1 can be played with 4 to 12 players. In this format the audience provides 5 different themes, objects, emotions, locations or situations. Then, the game is played in 5 rounds.

In the first round 5 scenes are played, each based on one of the audience suggestions. These scenes are totally unrelated. After the first round the audience decides which of the 5 scenes seen should be discontinued.

In the second round, the 4 remaining scenes are continued, and links start to appear between these scenes. Again, after this, the audience decides which scene to dump.

This continues until after 4 rounds there are only 2 scenes left. In the fifth round these scenes come together in one final scene. This format can be played with or without props and/or director(s).

Variations

Flock Dance

Game

Exercise

Introduction

Warm-up

The top player starts moving about the room (perhaps use music to guide the players). The second line follows the first player, and mimics her movements, and the third line follows the second line. The top player can alternate however she wants (and can be guided with e.g. a change in the music).

The top player can even turn around, and face the second line. Confusion will be complete. Other variations can happen when the top player bumps into the last line, and takes over their movements. See also Aerobics^G

Follow the Leader

Game

Exercise

Group

Middle player opens her eyes and tries to find the leader. The whole group follows the leader, in everything he does. As soon as the middle player finds out who the leader was the game is over.

This only works if movements are clear, not too fast, and if the group 'follows the leader' as fast and as precisely as possible.

Follow your Nose

Game

Exercise

Warm-up

End the game on a really silly note by leading with e.g. your internal organs. Also known as Foot Soldiers^G.

Foreign Movie

Game

Gibberish

Performance

Free Association Circle

Game

Association

Exercise

Warm-up

It's important to stay in the rhythm. Tell the players to just say 'banana' if they feel they can't think of a word, as long as the rhythms does not get broken. See also Word Ball^G and Clap Snap Association^G .

Variations

Free Association

Game

Association

Exercise

Warm-up

The Basics

In a free association we will ask players to say the first thing they think about when hearing (or seeing, feeling, smelling or tasting) anything another player provides.

It should be stressed that anything is valid, as long as it is not preconceived: the association should be based on what the previous player has offered.

Variations

• Free Association Circle^G

• Free Association Lines^G

• Walk-over Association^G

• Word Ball^G

• Firing Squad^G

Free Association Lines

Game

Association

Exercise

Variations

Can be combined with Last Letter^G .

Free Falling

Game

Exercise

Trust

Variations

Freeze Tag

Game

Association

Exercise

Performance

Warm-up

Notes

Alternatively, you can take your time and play every scene for several minutes, see what develops, and only at the end of each scene tag into another scene.

To avoid preconceptions, see Blind Freeze^G . See also Space Jump^G for an extension of this game.

French Braid

Game

Format

Long Form

Performance

It is played as follows: 2 or more players start a scene. At any time, when another player or players enters the stage, the scene is interrupted (or fades out) and the new player(s) start a new scene. This is repeated until all players have played.

Then the series is restarted with the first scene. This scene continues, or starts at a later point in time (or later in the story, like a Fast Forward^G ). The scene gets interrupted again, and so forth.

The whole is repeated several times.

This is typically played without a director - the players decide when to interrupt an ongoing scene. Players typically play one character.

Front Desk

Game

Characters

Environment

Exercise

Players construct the environment together - as soon as a door, a plant, a desk or whatever is 'placed' by any player, all other players should respect it. See also Group Environment^G .

Fruit Basket

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

Fusillade

Game

Energy

Exercise

Performance

All players line up in 2 lines, facing each other. MC or trainer yells a word/title, and next player in line gets 30 secs to do his or her thing, based on the suggestion. After 30 seconds new title/word is given and next player goes.

Fuzzy Ducky

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

• any number that is a multiple of 3, or contains a 3 (like 13) becomes 'Fuzzy'

• any number that is a multiple of 7 or contains a 7 (like 17) becomes 'Ducky'

• any number that is a multiple of 3 and 7 (like 21) or contains both 3 and 7 (like 73 and 37) becomes 'Fuzzy Ducky')

Any player that ends up muttering 'Duzzy Fucky' is put in front of the Firing Squad^G .

Game-O-Matic

Game

Performance

Kind of risky, but if the group has been playing short form improv games for quite a while, coming up with rules is easy.

Gibberish Commands

Game

Exercise

Gibberish

The idea is not to mime the command, but to try and make it obvious for the way the command is issued, and the environment that has been set.

Gibberish Expert

Game

Experts

Gibberish

Performance

Variations

Gibberish Malapropism

Game

Exercise

Gibberish

See also Malapropism^G .

Give and Take

Game

Concentration

Exercise

The focus can be given (i.e. a walker stops walking) or can be taken (i.e. someone else starts walking; the original walker must stop then). Feel free to try with multiple walkers.

Goalie

Game

Accepting

Characters

Exercise

This exercise is good for teaching players to react right away, and to snap into a character almost without thinking.

Goon River

Game

Long Form

Performance

The play usually starts with every character introducing him or herself. The order in which characters speak is not really important, as long as they all speak.

After the introductions, things start to happen. Every character reflects on what is happening from their own perspective, and each character adds elements to the story.

Keep going (and make sure that every character keeps contributing) and Reincorporating^K as long as things stay interesting.

Also known as Also known as Spoon River^G. , Also known as Moon River^G. , Also known as Goon River^G. and Also known as Spork River^G. .

See also Voices From Heaven^G for a short form game version which is really based on the same handle.

Origin

Notes

Referring back to the work of Masters, many groups tend to end the format with the death of (one or more of) the character(s).

Gorilla Theatre

Game

Format

This format is played with 3 experienced players, one MC and another player, dressed up as a Gorilla. The Gorilla is the prize to be won; the best player of the evening gets to spend a week with the Gorilla, and of course this is quite a privilege!

The Gorilla enters with last week's winning player (real or faked). The MC explains that the score for the evening will be counted by means of bananas; the player that end up with most bananas at the end of the game wins another week with the Gorilla.

The audience is trained to 'vote' by yelling 'Banana' (for a good performance) or something else, like 'Die' or 'Forfeit' for a bad performance.

Each scene is then played by 2 players, and directed by the third. The beauty of it all is the fact that not the players are judged by the audience, but the director.

Players take turns directing, and after each game the audience either awards the director a banana, or a forfeit. Bananas are pinned on a scoreboard, or pinned onto the winning player's costume - cardboard bananas are preferable in the latter case.

A forfeit is like a punishment for a poorly directed scene. Possible forfeits might be calling your mom and explaining why you've been such a lousy director, or having to sing a song about your bad scene. A list of Gorilla forfeits can be found in the Lists section on Improvland^R .

The director gets to choose the scene or the game to be played. Perhaps a list of games to be played this night is on the stage, and directors can write their names next to the games they want to direct. The director directs the scene, gives players side-coachings, can interrupt the scene, introduce tilts or make the players repeat (part of) the scene. To ensure that bad scenes don't drag on forever, or to prevent directors to play tons of 30-second scenes in order to improve their chances, certain troupes limit the amount of time for directing to like 20 minutes per player.

This format can be played with or without attributes and props. The Gorilla might even be used as a prop, or even as a player, although the Gorilla should not try and steal the show. The Gorilla is a player, so he too should be prepared to take risks, and he's supposed to be naughty.

This is a fairly advanced format, as the players not only need to play well, they also need enough insight to effectively direct scenes. This is also a rather nice format, as players are not rewarded; 2 players playing well together generate a banana for the director, and this way the format prevents competition between the players.

Origin

Greetings

Game

Exercise

Introduction

Warm-up

• greet each other like you greet a long lost friend

• greet someone you don't really trust

• greet an ex-lover

• greet someone you really hate

• someone you have a secret crush on

• someone you had a one-night stand with

• someone that sold you a crappy used car

• someone with bad breath

• greet someone like you are a cowboy, a soldier, a nanny, a Russian farmer,...

Group Environment

Game

Concentration

Environment

Exercise

Group

Then another player enters the same space, and places a mimed object in that space, either by physically placing the object (carrying, wheeling or pushing it into the space, or by just 'using' it, for example by hanging her coat over a chair. Second players leaves the room, either through one of the established doors, or by placing a new exit.

This continues until every player has done their thing. Each player needs to respect, and perhaps use all objects placed by previous players.

Notes

Group Freeze

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Obviously, the idea is for the group to freeze as quickly as possible.

Variations

Group Order

Game

Exercise

Group

Warm-up

Everybody starts milling about the room. You then ask them to line up , according to various criteria. Examples are:

• order by age

• order by weight

• order by shoe size

• order by mental health

• order by personal hygiene

• order by number of ex-lovers

• order by blue

Notes

Criteria like mental health or personal hygiene are quite interesting to train on Chivalry^K .

See also Blind Line Up^G .

Guest Game

Game

Narration

Performance

For example, a player might ring a doorbell at a house, ready to pick up his date. We never get to see the date, and all characters in the scene slowly provide hints as to what might have happened to the date. The game is over when e.g. we (the audience) discover that all occupants of the house have been hauling garbage bags out of the hous, all containing body parts of the date... It need not always be gruesome, though...

Handicapped Fairy Tale

Game

Limitations

Performance

Harold

Game

Format

Long Form

Performance

• Scenes, with 2 to 4 players

• Games

• Monologues

The format starts with a suggestion from the audience - this could really be anything. Players will start associating around the suggestion, and then an opening game is played. In this game, a lot of associated elements round the audience suggestion are presented. The opening game might be a song, a monologue, or simply a group association based on the audience suggestion. The idea is to use the elements and themes that come up or about in the opening game in what follows.

Then follow 3 rounds of scenes, all based on the themes found in the opening game. Each round exists out of 3 scenes, all unrelated, but each loosely based on the themes and associations form the opening game. Since these themes originated for the same audience suggestion, the audience will (hopefully) feel some links between the scenes.

After the first round of 3 scenes, an improv game is played; this game is unrelated to the 3 scenes played before. Then, in the second round, each of the 3 previous scenes is continued, and more or less obvious links between the scenes start to emerge. This is again followed by an improv game, and then the 3 scenes are played into a conclusion.

It's quite possible that in the third round not every scene is continued; scenes may disappear or even merge with one another.

A Harold can be played with a decent number of players (up to 12 or so), players can act in multiple scenes, as the same or as different characters. A Harold can be played with or without props, with or without directors.

Whether one sticks to the 3 rounds or not is really not relevant; anything and any combination of games and loose scenes that finally more or less come together can be considered a Harold.

Origin

This is an American format, described in Del Close^R 's book Truth in Comedy^R . We're not sure whether it's copyrighted - if you know please let us know.

Hat Continuation

Game

Continuation

Performance

The story needs to continue and should make sense.

Notes

Also known as Bermuda Triangle^G.

Heave Ho

Game

Group

Trust

Best to remove shoes, coins, and any other objects that might fall or hurt someone.

Helping Hands

Game

Limitations

Performance

The story should be a give and take between voices and hands.

Variations

He Said She Said

Game

Endowment

Exercise

Performance

Example:

• 1: "I want a divorce"

• 2: "She said, while grabbing a knife from the kitchen table." At this point player 1 needs to take a knife. Player 2 continues with his own line. "Sure Honey"

• 1: "He said, while turning to the sports page of the paper". Now, it's quite clear that player 2 should be paying more attention to the paper than to his wife. Player 1 continues with her own line. "You're not listening to me"

• and so on.

Players refer to each other as 'he' and 'she', and endow each other with the next action to take. This can be quite funny, if you endow your partner to do crazy or not-so-nice things to you (or to themselves, but that's would not be Mr. Nice Guy^K ).

Variations

Can also be one with 3 players: one provides directions and both other players do their own dialogs.

Notes

Hesitation

Game

Limitations

Performance

Examples:

• James, hand me that .... (signs the audience for a word) -- Lollypop.

• Ah, I was sailing the 7 seas in my .... Newspaper. Yes, Newspaper, finest vessel ever built by ..... (martians)

Hijacker

Game

Endowment

Guessing

Look and Listen

Performance

4 players, one leaves the room. Pick a means of transportation, and an object. The idea is that player number 4 needs to guess the means of transportation, and then use the object to hijack the others. Finally pick a goal for the hijacker to achieve.

The players need to provide hints to the hijacker, but they cannot explicitly tell the hijacker what to do, with what or why. Also known as Rebel without a Clue^G.

Notes

Hitch Hiker

Game

Characters

Exercise

Performance

Other hitch hikers join in, each with their own characteristics or emotions, taken over by the driver and the passengers in the car as the hiker joins. When the car is full, one of the players leaves the car to make room for the new guest.

Notes

Honey Walk

Game

Exercise

Warm-up

This is a group exercise. Tell the players they have an oxygen mask, and then talk them thru the exercise: players are to move about in successively thicker substances. Go from thin air, mist, warm water, oil, honey, Jell-O, wet cement to hard cement.

End the game by having them 'frozen' in cement and break out with a big bang.

Notes

Hot Spot

Game

Group

SingSong

Warm-up

Notes

Human Props

Game

Environment

Exercise

Group

Performance

Excellent exercise for building environments. Ask one player to start doing an activity that somehow defines (broadly) a location. E.g. when someone starts typing she might be in a (home) office. The other players then become the other objects in the environment.

Notes

When done, ask the first player to name any 'object' built in the environment.

Variations

Hyperlink

Game

Hyperlinks was created as part of a trip on magic mushrooms. It uses websurfer language to show the connections that all things have to each other. The form is this - a single word is gotten from the audience which is plugged into the improv "search engine" - three improvisers step forward into separate spots and, in turn, do the first two lines of a first-person character monologue. The content of the monologues and the scenes that follow should not have anything to do with web sites. Each monologue is inspired somehow by the word given. So the word "spirit" can lead to a monologue by a seer, a drunk and a cheerleader. - the host asks the audience to pick a monologue and informs them that they can yell "click" throughout the rest of the show to change the direction of the scenework. - the monologist that was selected moves centerstage and repeats the first two lines of the monologue and continues from there. The monologue works best when it relays a specific personal event. - the rest of the improvisers take turns creating multi-person still tableaus to either side of the monologist to illustrate things that they mention in their monologue. - when the audience yells the first click, the monologist enters whatever tableau is up either adding themselves to the tableau or taking the place of someone that was obviously playing them in the tableau. The first scene (which I call the "bread-and-butter" scene) starts from there. - from that point on it is all scenework. whenever the audience yells click you switch to a new scene. You can reincorporate previous scenes, characters, storylines or do throwaway scenes. The only storyline you have to return to is the "bread-and-butter" storyline. When you resolve that story, you resolve the show. The format lasts 50 minutes to an hour with intro. You will find that the audience will click very little at first (allowing you to establish scenes easily), quicken with the clickin' in the middle and will taper off at the end which allows you to end storylines easily.

Imitate

Game

Characters

Exercise

The idea is to give the 'customer' a basis to build a character. She will enter the shop in that character, and the other player (the shopkeeper) tries to imitate the character as closely as possible.

Use the following tricks as stepping stones for building characters:

• Ask 'customer' to talk to you in different voices. Pick one of these and there she goes.

• Ask the 'customer' to pull different kinds of faces. Pick one and there she goes.

• Pick a body part (elbow). There she goes; taking the suggestion 'elbow' as inspiration for her character.

• Pick an emotion and there she goes.

• Ask her to move around a bit, dance and let her freeze. The position in which she is frozen is her inspiration for the customer character.

This is an exercise for both players, but what is exercised is different for both:

• for the customer, the exercise is building a character out of a silly suggestion. Note that there are not good or bad characters; anything in the position/suggestion given to the player can be used as inspiration, even if the 'link' between the suggestion and the actual character is not obvious. The only goal is to come up with interesting, strong characters.

• for the shopkeeper this is a listening/watching exercise. The idea is not for the shopkeeper to build a character based on the suggestion; it is for him to imitate as closely the character treats of the customer.

See also Opposite Characters^G .

Impro Match

Game

Format

This format does not have a specific name and is mainly popular in French speaking countries. There seem to be leagues in just about every French speaking country; there's even a league playing this format in the Congo! These leagues meet every year to play a world championship.

The game is modeled after an ice hockey match: 2 teams of 6 players, 3 men and 3 women, perhaps with one coach per team play each other during 3 30-minute rounds, in a 'ring' resembling an ice hockey field. The game is lead by a referee and 2 aides.

The referee draws challenges out of a bin; challenges can be mixed or separated. A mixed scene is played by players of both teams; a separated scene is played twice, each time by players from one team. Challenges consist of:

• Title for the scene: can be anything

• Number of players per team: can be unlimited, or specified. In some countries they may even specify the genders, like '2 females for the red team, unlimited for the blue team'

• Category: could be anything, but examples would be Science Fiction, Drama, Dostojewski, Western, Musical, Opera, Without words or Without sound, or To Be Continued. For the latter one, the scene played by the first team is to be continued by the second team

• Duration: a number of minutes, ranging from 20 minutes to 30 seconds

Every member of the audience also receives a slipper. This can be thrown into the ring when the audience doesn't like a scene, or even better, at the referee, whenever he or she makes an unpopular decision.

After each round the team captains may ask the referee for an explanation on the faults that were blown, and then the audience gets to vote. Every team has a color, and the audience gets colored cards to vote with.

After 3 30-minute rounds we know which team won the match. Finally, a celebrity or local hero gets to award 'stars' to the 3 best players.

This is a very rigid format, in which just about anything, except the scenes themselves, are fixed. There is a whole protocol to be followed to play a match, and even the number of separated and mixed scenes is set in stone. The idea is that the rigidity of the format contrast well with the anything-is-possible concept of the improvised scenes.

This is a difficult format, as teams really play against each other. Quite often even players in the same team will play against each other, as everyone wants to get awarded a star at the end of the night.

Origin

Introducing Association

Game

Association

Exercise

Place all players in a circle. Ask one player to say a word, no matter which one. The player to her right then says no matter what word, and so on. Do not tell them they should try and 'associate'.

You (and hopefully the group) will notice that patterns of 'related' or 'associated' words emerge. Use this as an introduction to show how natural associating is to humans, and then proceed with the other association games.

Jeopardy

Game

Performance

Verbal wit

• What is the color of an American school bus? Yellow.

• What is dyslexia? Not being able to make words out of letters.

Then give the players an answer and let them come up with questions that might be answered correctly by that answer. It's kind of like 'what would the worst/sillies/funniest question be that could have this answer?'

Jump

Game

Association

Characters

Exercise

Warm-up

All players mill about the room. At any point the trainer yells "Yes!", at which point all players 'jump' into a position. Trainer can (but does not have to) sidecoach by shouting 'direction' (see Fast Food Laban^G ) like 'horizontal', 'up', 'down', 'sideways', 'big', 'small', 'light', 'heavy'.

The idea then is to let the position into one has jumped inspire the player to a character, a situation. The inspiration comes from associating the position with, euh, well, whatever comes to mind.

See also Association Jump^G for an extension of this exercise.

Just Gibberish

Game

Association

Exercise

Gibberish

Narration

Performance

Play a scene, completely in gibberish, no translations provided. The scene should be perfectly clear to the audience - we should be perfectly able to translate every gibberish sentence, and the story should make sense.

Notes

• This will only work if the stories are extremely simple, and if the Platform^K is made clear right from the start.

• Some players tend to do this as a scene without words, but that is not the idea of the exercise.

Killer Bunny

Game

Energy

Exercise

Warm-up

Silly, indeed.

King Game

Game

Exercise

• continue, in case she's interested.

• die, in case the queen is bored

• freeze, if the queen might be interested

Notes

Also known as Queen Game^G. . This is a PC site/document after all.

Kitty in the Corner

Game

Concentration

Warm-up

The faster the pace, and the higher the stakes (make diagonal eye contacts!) the more fun.

Ksss

Game

Concentration

Energy

Warm-up

• Move both hands up

• Point both hands left

• Point both hands right

• Point both hands down

La Ronde

Game

Long Form

Performance

The format is fairly simple: we play scenes in which at every scene switch, the 'oldest' character disappears and a new scene is played with the remaining character, and a new one. The form ends when the circle closes and the last and first characters do a scene. Obviously, there is no need for all characters to bed each other!

Switching scenes is done by tagging out (like in Freeze Tag^G ). The idea is to see different aspects of a character, in different situations, interacting with different characters.

For a long discussion about the format see Chicago Improv^R .

Last Letter

Game

Association

Exercise

Warm-up

Variations

Last Letter Scene

Game

Audience Participation

Die

Limitations

Performance

Last Line

Game

Limitations

Performance

LCD

Game

Endowment

Gibberish

Guessing

Performance

One player on stage, the others off stage. The audience provides a location, an occupation and an object, only known to the player on stage. Second player enters and a scene is played in gibberish. Player one needs to communicate the location to player 2; as soon as player 2 thinks he's got it, her claps his hands and spins around. Then player 2 needs to guess the occupation; clap and spin when you think you got it. Finally, the object needs to be revealed. As soon as player 2 has the object, he needs to kill player 1 with it.

Then the next player comes on stage and the game recommences, until all players have played. Afterwards, line up the players and ask them where they think they were, what their occupation was and what the murder weapon was - usually quite far off the original suggestion, much to the audience's amusement.

Also known as LOW^G. (Location, Occupation, Weapon). Also known as Chain Murder^G. See also Hijacker^G for a similar game without the Gibberish^C component.

Variations

Lets Not

Game

Narration

Play in pairs: start with a location (e.g. a beach). One player give the suggestions (e.g. let's find a talking crab). The other player either accepts the offer, and both play accordingly, or refuses the offer. When an offer is refused the first player needs to make a better offer.

Notes

• teach players to drop their own ideas (see Chivalry^K ) and happily change course in their story

• teach players which offers are 'fun' and which ones are not. The player accepting or refusing the offers should accept any offer that 'feels good' or that advances the story, and only reject offers that don't sound like fun or don't seem to offer any potential for an interesting story.

See Ding^G and Yes Lets - or Rather Not^G for similar exercises.

Letter Number Name

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Introduction

Warm-up

Everyone in a big circle. You start by 'giving' your neighbor your name. Just lift your right arm and call your name to your neighbor. He does the same to his neighbor, and names run around the circle.

Then do the same with the letters of the alphabet. Give an 'a' to your neighbor, making a 'giving' gesture with your right hand. Your neighbor continues by passing a 'b' to his neighbor, and so on.

Ditto with the numbers 1 to 9. Use another gesture, e.g. pass the number by tipping your right foot in the direction of your neighbor.

When everyone's got this, try all of this at the same time. Start by passing your name, and as soon as the name thing has advanced 2 or 3 players across the circle, set a letter thing in motion, and then a number thing. If you have enough players, just mix and match.

Notes

Pay attention to how much gets lost - does everything you set in motion eventually get back to you or not? You can coach players by saying they only need to pay attention to what their neighbor does, not what's going on elsewhere in the circle.

Variations

• months of the year;

• notes (like 'do', 're, 'mi', ....)

Line Mirror

Game

Exercise

Group

Variations

Little Voice

Game

Performance

Anything can have a voice. Examples:

• a player walks in a forest and an ant starts talking to him

• a player is in the bathroom and his toothbrush starts talking

Variations

Notes

• Oh my god, a talking duck with a machine gun!

• Bet you've never seen a talking couch, have you?

Location

Game

Limitations

Long Form

Performance

Lounge Singer

Game

Performance

SingSong

Solo

Great opener!

Machines

Game

Exercise

Group

Performance

Variations

Make More Interesting

Game

Exercise

One player starts a scene. As soon as the trainer claps his hands, the player needs to make whatever he was doing more interesting, without advancing. If our player was opening a briefcase at the clap, he needs to make 'opening a briefcase' more interesting; he is not allowed to take something out of the briefcase, as that would be advancing; player needs to stick to 'opening the briefcase'.

Notes

Variations

Malapropism

Game

Association

Warm-up

Notes

Man Overboard

Game

Energy

Exercise

Warm-up

• 'Land ahoy' - and everyone hops on one foot, doing a salute with one hand

• 'Hit the deck' - all down on the floor in a push-up position

• 'octopus' - make groups of 2, one person on hands and knees and someone else over him or her in the same position

• 'Man overboard' - groups of 2, one bending back and knees and the other on the first's back (piggy-back style)

• 'two three four' - all sit down and start rowing

Mantra

Game

Exercise

Spontaneity

Variations

• Try with other mantras, like 'I hate you', and see what the effect is.

• Let players choose a mantra, and then play a scene.

See Mantra Introduction^G for more about mantras. See also Impro for Storytellers^R for a discussion on the use of Mantras.

Mantra Introduction

Game

Exercise

Spontaneity

Have all players sit down comfortably, if they want to close their eyes they can do so. Then ask them to blank their mind, to try and think about nothing at all. Let them do this for 2 minutes or so. While they do so, make sure to walk around, to make some minor noise (blow your nose, clear your throat, walk around) - but don't overdo this. If you can hear cars drive by in the street, or other people in the building, or hear birds sing then you don't even have to make a noise.

Then ask the players who managed to think about absolutely nothing at all. Ask those who say they did whether they heard the birds, the cards, you clearing your throat. If they did, weren't they thinking about that, then?

Now ask the players to close their eyes, and to keep repeating the sound 'mihad' in their heads. Have them do this for about 3 minutes. Then ask them again who thought about nothing but 'mihad'. If they are honest they should all admit they thought of all kinds of stuff.

The point is that our minds just never stop working. Even if you're trying to concentrate on a repeating sound in your head - a Mantra - your mind will still wander.

We are all capable of thinking about several things at a time, some people can keep up to 7 lines of thought going in their minds. Who has never driven a car, being perfectly concentrated on the traffic, without thinking about work, the groceries, the kids ?

You can use this exercise to show students they never need to be afraid of a brain freeze - our brains manage to come up with so many things all the time - if you let them.

Mantras are used as a technique for (Transcendental and other) meditation. The idea is to keep the most active part of your consciousness busy, and at the same time let unconscious processes and lines of thought surface. This is similar to what happens in our dreams, but it has been proven (we've been told) that these meditation techniques can be more relaxing or cleansing than sleep. Don't take our word for that, though.

Notes

Don't use 'mihad' if you're working with a class of Muslim fundamentalists; they might start thinking about a Jihad ;-)

See also Mantra^G for examples how you might use Mantras to play scenes.

Marshmallow Mania

Game

Limitations

Performance

See also The Gerbil^G .

Variations

Massage

Game

Group

Introduction

Trust

Warm-up

Variations

Master Servant Disaster

Game

Exercise

Narration

Status

An example:

• Perkins, get me a glass of brandy.

• Yes sir. Oh, sir, that won't be possible sir, we're out of brandy.

• Well, get me a glas of whisky, then.

• Yes sir. Ah, sir, um, we're out of whisky too, sir.

• Oh? Well get my any kind of alcohol, then.

• Ah sir, we're out of alcohol sir.

• Perkins, have you been drinking again?

• Well, the staff had a little party last night, sir.

• I see. Well get me a glass of water from the kitchen then.

• Yes sir. Ah, sir, the water pipes are bust sir, sorry.

• Well, get me some water from the pond then.

• Ah, yes, sir, uh, sorry sir, the pond is dry, sir.

And so on, until it turns out that the staff had a little party, accidentily set the kitchen on fire, used the water from the pond to fight the fire, and so on. Eventually, the only room still standing is the master's study, the rest of the castle has burnt down and all staff are dead. And all this for a perfectly logical explanation.

The idea is for the servant to connect all elements the master brings up, into one and the same disaster. In this respect this game resembles Boris^G .

Mexican Name Wave

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

When they've got this, at the same time, pass your name around the circle, going the other way. Names are passed by pointing to your left neighbor and saying your name.

Confusing, indeed!

Micetro

Game

Format

After each scene the audience decided, by cheering or applause how many points the scene should be awarded. Each player gets as many points as the scene he or she played in was awarded.

Once everyone has played in a scene, the players with the lowest score drop off, and the whole thing starts again. The directors ensure that (certainly with large groups of players) that there are more group-scenes at the start of the evening, and more 2-person scenes or even monologues toward the end of the evening.

This is a fun format that can be played with mixed bunches of experienced and not-so-experienced players. Since players are immediately judged, it is perfectly possible to pitch a start player after the first round. Since this system is basically somewhat unfair, and everybody knows this, no one should take elimination too personal (well, that's the idea anyway).

For beginners it's a nice format, as the directors will correct obvious blunders. And since all players in a scene get the same score, this format limits competition between players in a scene.

Origin

Millipede

Game

Group

Warm-up

Have this whole construction wheel along the walls of the room at high speed. Tell players to be careful and not to make fists or they might slam into someone's face.

Mirror

Game

Concentration

Exercise

Warm-up

Variations

See also Line Mirror^G .

Montage

Game

Long Form

Performance

Move and Speak

Game

Concentration

Environment

Exercise

Limitations

Performance

See Touch to Talk^G for a similar game.

Movie Review

Game

Narration

Mr. So and So

Game

Characters

Exercise

Performance

Players call for new characters, by giving them names that refer to character or physical traits. Things like: Ah, here comes mr. Bad Irish Accent; I think we need Mrs. Pathological Liar for this one; Dear dear, if that isn't Sir Eats-People. And so on.

The idea is to challenge the other players with weird and unexpected suggestions, and forcing htem to come up with an extravagant character right away. In a sense this is really institutionalised Pimping^K . Another game in which a similar pimping is used would be Supermen^G .

My Fault

Game

Energy

Exercise

Have everyone walk around leisurely, and hand 2 players the bottles. The idea is to make eye contact with someone. As soon as a player has eye contact with a player with a bottle, the bottle is thrown. If at any point the bottle is dropped, both the thrower and the receiver lie down on the floor and shout 'My Fault' as loud as possible. After than, one of them picks up the bottle and the game continues.

Side coaching: tell the players to take risks, to try and make eye contact with a player at the other side of the room.

Variations

• Tell the players the bottle is red hot, and they need to throw it as fast as possible, or they'll burn their hand.

• The bottle becomes extremely light, or extremely heavy, and the players act accordingly.

Name 6 Circle

Game

Association

Exercise

• sour tasting fruit

• foreign makes of cars

• names of seas

• B-movies

• Italian foods

Variations

Notes

• Tell players not to watch the ball go round when they're 'it' - they'll just panic and freeze. Try this with closed eyes.

• Don't ask for 1940's Nobel Prize winners, or simply 'emotions'.

Name the Monster

Game