This is really going to be a mind-dump of sorts. Really, this is just a way for me to remember the improv games I’m really liking right now so I can run them later with my buddies.
Recently I’ve been practicing improv along with my fellow improvisors. Depending on schedule, we would have a different coach every so often. Here are some exercises I found really useful from a variety of coaches. I don’t really remember the names of the exercises, if you know the names let me know.
I’m Also Eating Soup!
This exercise is great for warming up the muscle that lets us say, “YES!”
Every one stands in a circle. Person goes in the middle, thinks of an object to play with, does object work, as well as say a phrase with an opinion of their object. So they might mime eating soup and say,
“Mmm…this is great soup!”
Another person joins, does the same action, and says the same words. But, they heighten the action and the words. So if the first person was twirling a spoon, the second person might twirl harder, and say, “Mmm” a bit more affectively.
Then the next person goes, and then the next person, while each person heightening more than the person before. The last person comes and asks, “Hey, are you talking about that [object?]” (i.e. “Hey are you talking about soup?”)
Every one else says, “Yeah!”
Then the last person says, “It’s pretty [description], right?” (i.e. It’s pretty great, right?)
Every one then says, “Yeah!”
And then everyone forms the circle to repeat the process.
The idea is that we all listen to each other, find the quirk, and then replicate it with more emphasis. This is an exercise in training our muscle that says, “YES”!
What’s the goss?
This exercise is great for warming up the muscle that lets us say, “and!”
We stand in a circle. The first person says to the person to their right,
“Hey did you hear about, [random name]? I heard they’re [gossip]”.
Each person then adds more gossip to the story. It’s a game of telephone where you want to add more juicy details to the goss. This trains the muscle that says, “if this is true, what else is true?”
Canadian Suicide (Like the exercise)
This exercise teaches to listen and tune in to each other, understand an emotion, and heighten it together.
Nobody uses words in this exercise. Three to four people stand at a wall. They run to the other one. The first person to touch the wall starts random object work. Every one else does the same object work too. Then, some one makes a grunt. With the grunt, they choose an emotion. Everybody does the object work with the emotion. Everybody now needs to find ways to heighten the emotion while still doing the object work. And once they move on to a new action/heightened emotion, they all clap at the same time. They run to the other wall. Then repeat. Preferably, everybody gets a chance to be first to touch it.
So for example…
Billy, Sarah, and Alex run to the wall. Alex touches the wall first. Alex starts miming using a Q-Tip in their ear. Everyone starts doing it. Sarah grunts, and she makes it clear, she’s super inquisitive while keeping the Q-Tip in the ear. Everyone follows suit with their “Hmmm?! Ooooh!”, sounds and facial expressions. They continue heightening their emotions. Billy starts putting the Q-Tip through his head! Everybody is doing it too! All the while their “Hmmm?! and Ooooh!” are more inquisitive! The Q-Tip goes through their heads! They clap! They run back to the first wall… they repeat with other actions!
Feelings shop
This trains the muscle of abstracting the funny thing about a scene, so you can create good analogous scenes. This is particularly useful for practice of formats like The Harold, with second beats.
People stand in a backline. One person goes up and starts restocking the shopping aisle. Another person goes up and asks,
“Hey do you have that feeling?” and then they ask for a very specific feeling such as, “That feeling you get when you are in second grade and every one gets a little sticker on their forehead and for some reason you blush when the teacher gives the sticker to you”. The other person might then say, “no we don’t have that feeling, but we do have, ‘that feeling you get when you are on a basketball team captain is congratulating everyone by slapping their butt, but when you get slapped you jump a little even though you are cool with it'”.
Then, the restocker, goes to the line. The shopper takes the place of the restocker, and then a person from the backline becomes a shopper. Repeat!
…So the idea is to have person A describe a feeling, and then person B describing an analogous feeling. It’s important for B to dissect person A’s feeling into more general ideas. So for the example above, B should realize A’s feeling is about, 1) an authority figure 2) congratulating you like they do your peers, 3) but you getting a startled, response.
Pattern Game Split
This trains our ability to listen to the other person’s intent. This also trains our ability to clearly express our intent. This also slightly makes us cognizant of how some premises are easier to express and play, which may lead us to better goals to achieve with the pattern game.
The group splits in to two. Group B leaves the room. Group A stays in a room, they do a pattern game to come up with a premise (“game”) per person. A premise is then assigned for each person in Group A.
Group B comes back into the room. One person from Group A and one person from Group B do two person scenes. Group A person initiates. Group B person then tries to play the premise as well as they can. After a few beats, edit the scene, and move on to the next two person scene.
After each Group A person goes up, each Group B member is asked what they think the premise their scene partner was supposed to convey. The groups switch to repeat the exercise.
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So those are the improv games I’m liking right now. I’ll go back and edit for clarity maybe later. Probably not.