Short-form in improv means short standalone games, usually where a suggestion is taken from the audience at the start of each game to inspire the improvisers on stage. The origin of a lot of short-form games come from exercises developed by people like Keith Johnstone and Viola Spolin to teach awesome acting skills through play[…]
This is from Keith Johnstone when he taught a couple of us a few years ago. You can also invent your own scenarios and scenes for this. How the exercise works First role play the following scenario: Two people are coming back from a date to one of their houses. They open the door. They[…]
An exercise that helps people to be obvious, honest and true. It also demonstrates how being honest and real is often more funny than actually trying to be funny. 5 improvisers stood in a line across the stage. They take it in turns to tell the audience about a pet peeve of theirs (a minor[…]
A lovely way to end a workshop. Everyone takes it in turns to sit on a chair in front of the class. When the teacher says “GO” the rest of the class tell them what they love about them as an improviser, why they like improvising with them, and why they like having them in[…]
Everyone in pairs around the room. One person in each pair keeps their eyes open and makes a sound, any sound. The other person has their eyes closed. Whenever the sound is made the person with eyes closed walks towards it. When the sound stops they stop. The person making the sound can move to[…]
Everyone stood in a circle. One person walks across the circle to someone else and says “I need a….” followed by three things they need, the first things that come to them. The person they walk to then walks to someone else and uses the last thing said as the first thing in their list.[…]
A fun quick way to end a workshop on a high. Everyone runs around the room and pairs up and they say to each other at the same time: “I’m great” “You’re great” “We’re great!” Then high five and run off and find a new partner. Keep going until everyone has said it to everyone[…]
This is a really fun character exercise from Mick Barnfather, a Clown and Character teacher and director in London who we highly recommend. How the game works Everyone stood in a circle. One person says an adjective/describing word, for instance “happy”. The person next to them says an animal, for instance “shark”. The next person[…]
This is an exercise we learnt from Keith Johnstone and is helpful for adjusting body language to be more positive and connected to each other. Ask two improvisers to start a scene where the first line is “you are my best friend”. Rewind and adjust body language until it feels like they really mean it.[…]
This game is inspired by the bit in the film When Harry Met Sally where various couples sit on a couch and tell us about how they met. You don’t have to have seen the film to play the game. It’s a great game for discovering character in the moment by listening to changes in[…]
The theory of status, and how to play high status, low status and status interactions, is so well written by Keith Johnstone in his book Impro that we aren’t going to write about it here and will just write about the exercise. We highly recommend Keith Johnstone’s book Impro if you’d like to read more[…]
This is a write up of an exercise called Circle of Expectation. For a description of the theory of Circle of Expectation we recommend reading Keith Johnstone’s books Impro and Impro for Storytellers. Often when people are trying too hard to be funny, clever or creative they say offers that are disconnected from what’s actually[…]