Introduction to Improvising
Extension
* The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 20 Mins
Aims: Improvising, speaking in front of an audience, offering an idea, being serious about silliness.
- Make an audience and put three chairs on the stage.
- Three people sit in front of the audience. One gives good advice, one bad advice and one ugly advice.
- Ask someone in the audience to ask for a piece of advice – it doesn’t have to be true about them. You can pre-prepare suggestions if you think your group may
struggle to think of questions e.g.
I’m in love with my neighbour, what should I do?
There are some trainers I want but can’t afford them, what should I do?
I don’t like my new work colleague, what should I do? - The people in the chair then give advice. For example:
I don’t like my colleague, what should I do?
Good: Try and find something you have in common with them and be polite and patient.
Bad: Tell them you don’t like them. - Ugly: Get them fired by planting work
money in their desk.
Troubleshooting: The student giving bad
advice has the hardest job and may give ugly
advice. Remind them that they need to leave the
worse advice for the student giving ugly advice –
they can’t go straight to the extreme. You may
want to do the bad advice for the first round.
* Party Guest 20 Mins
Aims: Improvising, characterisation, physicalising an idea.
- Make an audience.
- Three people are guests at the host’s house.
- The host goes out of the room whilst the students and teacher decide what the guests “quirks” are. For example:
Always touching their hair
Thinks they see ghosts
Only replies with questions
Thinks they’re a superhero
Can’t stop eating - Host comes back in and, one at a time, the guests knock at the door and enter.
- They improvise a scene, having a conversation whilst the host tries to figure out what their quirks are.
- The host has to guess what each of the quirks are in order to win.
Troubleshooting: If you think your group may
struggle with this, you could start off with just
doing emotions first and the host has to guess
that first.
* Park Bench 20 Mins
Aims: Accepting another person’s idea, improvising, speaking in front of an audience, trying and failing.
- One person sits on the bench.
- Another comes into the scene and they have to find a way of getting that person to leave the bench e.g. telling them their dog has ran off, coughing near them etc.
- They are not allowed to touch the other person.
- Remind them they are not allowed to block an idea
For example:
Person 1: Your dog ran off!
Person 2: I don’t have a dog
* Story Death 15 Mins
Aims: Improvising, listening, making mistakes.
- Make an audience.
- Five participants line up across the “stage.”
- They are going to tell a brand-new story.
- Get a topic from the audience and then come up with a title.
- The teacher acts as conductor in front of the line, pointing at one of the five.
- The person the teacher points at must tell the story.
- When the teacher points at someone different, they must continue the story without hesitation.
- The aim for the actors is to make the story seamless and always be ready to jump in to continue the story.
- If anyone hesitates, freezes or repeats unnecessarily, the audience shouts out, “DIE!”
- That performer has to give themselves an imaginative (and of course imaginary) death scene. The bigger the better!
- Now there are only four people to tell the story.
- Get a new topic and give a new title.
- This continues on until there are only two actors battling it out.
- Ensure everyone has a turn.
* Freeze, Move, Freeze 20 Mins
Aims: : Exploring body language and eye contact, physicalising an idea, analysing, improvising.
- Make an audience.
- Two volunteers stand on the “stage.”
- In pairs, start shaking hands.
- One person remains frozen, the other moves into a different position, maintaining some type of physical contact, then freezes.
- Then their partner moves.
- Repeat with a different emotional attachment. For example:
You are supporting this person, who is upset.
You do not trust this person.
You are in love with this person.
You are scared of this person. - Elicit suggestions from the group.
- Repeat the exercise, replacing physical contact with eye contact.
- Freeze in position.
- When your partner has stopped moving, switch your eye contact to them.
- Encourage the audience to shout out ideas for scenes from what they are observing.
- Repeat with a new pair.
* Freeze Tag 20 Mins
Aims: Improvising, discipline, listening and reacting, learning to accept others ideas and then adding your own, speaking in front of an audience.
- Make an audience.
- Two people act out a scene.
- At any point an audience member will yell “Freeze!” And the performers will freeze.
- The person who shouted out will them tap a performer on the shoulder and take up that person’s position.
- The original person rejoins the audience.
- The person who has entered the scene then needs to start a different scene from that position.
Troubleshooting: Students may not give them enough time to develop a scene, so the teacher can be the one to say “Freeze!” If this is the case and select students to have a turn. Students might have a preconceived idea in their head – emphasise that it must come from the physical position. If they are stuck, the audience can support them with ideas. For example, if the actors are standing palm to palm, maybe they’ve accidentally superglued their hands together, or one is looking into a mirror talking to their reflection or they are siblings pushing each other.
* Sit, Stand, Lie 20 Mins
Aims: Working as a team, improvising, making mistakes, accepting and adding ideas.
Note: This is very advanced
- Make an audience.
- Three people act out a scene, but at all times, one of them must be sitting, one must be standing and one must be lying down.
- The three people can switch positions but the others must adjust.
- Elicit suggestions of a place they might be from the audience. e.g. a cemetery, a hospital, a school, a library, a cafe, a forest