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 long the show is) for scenes or stories. The rest of the cast write down those titles on a blackboard that is visible on stage to the audience. The host then reads out all the titles again as a recap. The cast then improvise each scene in order. The scenes are usually ended by a light edit from the tech desk, and they put in a variety of scene lengths.

Top Tip

• Variety. Vary the style, pace, length and emotion of scenes. If you’ve just had a group scene, try a two person scene. If you’ve just had big laughs, go for real relationship. If you’ve just had naturalistic, go for big characters. Adding variety makes this format really exciting.

Variation

• You can have different types of suggestion for each scene. For instance one could be a title, one could be a genre, one could be a location for a play, one could be “something” the movie. Whatever excites you and your group. Have fun with it.
• You can vary the number of scenes.