Book Club
Description
Two improvisers have a book each from the audience and all their lines of dialogue come from those. The third person makes sense of those lines in the context of the scene. A location or relationship call-out helps at the beginning.
Example
Player A (No book): Thanks for helping me out today
Player B (Book): After conducting a long and taxing series of interviews at the offices of the London and North Western Railway Company.
Player A (No book): Taxing indeed, but I like the last guy Brian who came in, great CV and personality.
Player B (Book): We’ve already exposed the shortcomings of the railway policeman.
Players A (No book): Railway policeman aren’t what they used to be. But Brian will be a great replacement for Kim don’t you think?
Third player enters
Player C (Book): If you visit today and spend your money with local businesses, you will be contributing directly to the reconstruction.
Player A (No book): Oh hi Kim! That’s great but unfortunately we need to let you go.
Player C (Book): Buildings destroyed in the foothills closer to Kathmandu.
Player A (No book): See this is the thing you are always on holiday and we need someone reliable.
Player B (Book): That’s not very tactful, father.
Player A (No book): You have to learn to give it to people straight. I want you to tell Kim she is fired.
Player B (Book): Regiments and slaughterhouses.
Teaching Purpose
It’s fun! Students learn how to accept and justify offers given.
Additional Tips for Playing
- If the audience offer lots of books try to pick two that are very different from each other.
- Players choosing lines from the books listen careful to the other players, this will help you choose the most fun lines to add to the scene.
- Start the scene knowing each other.
- Have one of the improvisers with a book enter half way through the scene. This helps to heighten the scene.
Show Introduction
“This game is called Book Club, where two of our improvisers will only be allowed to use dialogue from the book. Does anyone in the audience have a book we can use? Great thanks! Now to get started could we get a suggestion of a relationship between two characters? Summer camp friends, perfect, thanks”
Origin
No idea! It’s a very popular game so it seems to be played everywhere but we aren’t sure where it originally comes from. If you know please let us know and we’ll add it here.
Hoopla courses we play this game in
Mostly in our level 2 course and super short-form course and also a bit in our level 1 course.
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