A helpful exercise for learning Game of the Scene, especially about delaying the funny to build a believable platform and also for spotting the first unusual thing. Two people on stage. They are given a situation. They improvise that situation as normally and realistically as possible, without any attempt to funny. When something unusual/funny/ridiculous happens[…]
A good game to help group mind and support. Everyone stood in a circle. Eyes closed. One person stars making any sound of an instrument or any musical sound with their voice. Could be a drum, a piano, a violin, la la la. Everyone joins in and backs them up by doing the same sound.[…]
A fun way to end a workshop. Everyone takes it in turns to say something motivational to the class in the motivational speaker character of their choice.
Everyone stood in a circle at start of class. Each person takes it in turn to say their name and a boring fact about themselves, but said in the emotional tone as if it was a really exciting fact. The class then gives them a huge round of applause as if what they said was[…]
Step on stage to build a relationship From Keith Johnstone. Telling improvisers to get on stage and “do a scene” can be less helpful than saying “build a relationship”. Going on stage to build a relationship means we have something we can actually do and means we go on stage focussed on each other and[…]
Repeated Scene A helpful exercise for discovering the full potential in offers and also helpful for discovering what a scene is about and the game of the scene. 1. Two improvisers improvise a scene from suggestion. 2. Two different improvisers then re-do that scene with roughly those lines and roughly that order. 3. Two different[…]
Meditation to scenes Two people on stage. Sat facing each other at any distance. They close their eyes. Music is played. While the music is played they connect to how they feel in the present moment. They allow that emotion to increase. Their body may start to match that feeling. When the music fades down[…]
John Cremer characters and scenes We’ve named this after John Cremer from The Maydays as we learnt it from him. So often in life we are having to pretend. We may have something going on in our life, or feeling a certain way, and yet then have to put on our professional face and go[…]
Object Circle Exercise for teaching object work (miming objects in improv scenes). Everyone sat in a circle. Done without words. Around 4 people mime a different object each, believing the weight, shape and the size of it. They interact with it and show it to the person next to them. That person takes it off[…]
Shuffle / Mix Tape We first saw this format with The He Haas in Brighton, and later a similar one with Tea & Toast in Brighton. It now seems to be quite widely used around the world and known by different names. We currently use it as one of the formats with our house team[…]
5 Titles / 10 Titles This is a great format for open standalone scenes, used by Grand Theft Impro who are one of London’s longest running improv troupes with a regular monthly show at Hoopla. The host goes on stage and asks the audience for 5 titles (or 10, or however many depending on how[…]
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[…]