Bad Rap Description In a circle, the group sets a rhythm. One person raps a rhyming couplet, leaving off the last word. It should be a pretty obvious set-up for the word, eg: “Going out tonight and I want to flirt What shall I wear? I guess this…” Instead of staying the obvious rhyming word,[…]
Word Restriction Description Three players are individually given a specific number of words that make up their lines of dialogue. Example Improviser A ( 5 words) : Thank you for these flowers! Improviser B ( 3 words) : For your garden. Improviser C (1 word) : Birthday! Improviser A: Yes its 50th Birthday today Improviser[…]
Zip Zap Boing Description Everyone stands in a circle. With a lot of energy the first person passes a “zip” around the circle. “Zap” goes across the circle. “Boing” returns the zip to the person who just zipped, and they zip again in the other direction or zap. Teaching Purpose A good warm-up for building[…]
Word at a Time Story Description Two improvisers stood opposite each other make up a story together by saying a word at a time each. One player says the first word, the next says the second word etc. At first you can start with “Once, Upon, A, Time…” or “One, Day..” and then move on[…]
International / English as a Second Language London is a very international place and we are lucky enough to have a huge variety of nationalities and backgrounds on all of our courses. We especially have a large number of people from Italy, Spain, France, India, USA, Canada on our courses, along with a number of other[…]
Homeless people or people living in a vulnerable situation Each year we run free improv courses at St. Mungo’s Broadway Recovery College, a charity for homeless, vulnerable, unemployed or lower income people. These courses are free and open to all. The St Mungo’s Recovery College is a pioneering, inclusive learning programme, based on the principle[…]
People with a Physical Disability Having a physical disability or using a wheelchair doesn’t have to stop you doing improv. All of our improv exercises in courses can be adapted to suit people with different physical abilities. We are improvisers after all so we thrive on being adaptable. We have successfully worked with a number[…]
18-21 We want to bring improv to more 18-21 year olds to Hoopla to help us improve the overall diversity of Hoopla and the UK improv scene in general. Improv was originally designed for working with this age group or younger, by Keith Johnstone and Viola Spolin, and it’s a tradition we are keen to[…]
Men in Improv What’s that Hoopla? You’ve put a section on MEN in your Diversity and Inclusion policy? That’s right! Because Improv for Everyone means everyone and that includes men. Just because we are putting on additional shows and workshops to encourage more women into improv doesn’t mean we want less men. We love having[…]
Diversity Scholarships Hoopla aim to make impro open and accessible to everyone. Hoopla aim to provide a fun, friendly, encouraging, trusting, safe and supportive environment where people can enjoy learning, performing and watching improv. We believe that everyone can enjoy improv, whatever their background. We aim to provide the best training, resources, shows and community[…]
Questions Only Description In this game players can only speak in questions. The players get into two lines, and step forward for scenes in pairs. If they stumble or make a statement another player comes in and takes over. Example Location: Airport Player A: Have you got your boarding pass? Player B: Why should I[…]
Melodrama Description The improvisers attempt to play the most melodramatic scene possible based on a suggestion of the smallest most insignificant event from the audience. Playing Tips Melodrama is a style of theatre with heightened emotions with overly stylized stock characters, grand stage gestures, poetic language, and sentimental plots. Example Suggestion: Receiving a letter in[…]