Favorite Exercises and Games?

[Holmes]

Please post your favorite improv exercises, games, notes, quotes, and so on.

[Holmes]

No picks?

It'd be a big help for me if you jot down some stuff that stood out for you, personally, and maybe just what kind of games and warm-ups you love.

[SamuraiElvis]

3-Line/2-Line

Two up, start a standard scene. Play as normal, edit as normal except the first person who talks must repeat his first line twice before saying anything else (and his second line twice, and his third, etc...). the second to talk must do the same thing but repeat their lines 3x. You don't have to go line for line with the other improviser, if it's appropriate you can repeat your lines in succession (ex. "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" - new line).

Really simplifies the scene and makes you focus more on character, game and attitude than words. Also cool how the 3/2 structure means the repetition doesn't quite sync up so the improvisers start new lines in an irregular and organic seeming fashion. It's magic!

[Marbach]

Some of my favorite exercises are...

Hot Spot. Old game, but it's great for pushing the whole "got your back" aspect that teams need.

Red Ball. This because it pushes eye contact, listening and patience- all things a team needs.

A favorite warm up is the Beastie Boys rhyming game. You get a beat going with the group in a circle. Person A does a line, then person B completes the line with a rhyme. On the rhyme everyone jumps in and yells it out. Then person B starts a new line.
Person A: I went to the kitchen to get a drink...
Person B: Then I put the dirty glass inside the (everyone) SINK!

A variation of this I also love is instead of rhyming you choose something else. Person A would do everything but the end this time. For me this is somehow harder than rhyming.
Person A: I went to the kitchen to get a drink... Then I put the dirty glass inside the...
Peson B: Dishwasher.

One of my all-time faves is an exercise me and some of my friends started doing we called the "Diamond Dance". I'm sure there's something similar. One person plays "dj" while 4 people in a diamond pattern dance. Whoever is facing forward is leading while the others mirror everything done. The dj changes songs whenever he/she sees fit. It's pushes all that is important in improv... listening, reacting emotionally, stage picture, give and take, eye contact, initating, editing, supporting and more. Plus, it's really fun.

[Holmes]

Originally Posted by Marbach

Red Ball. This because it pushes eye contact, listening and patience- all things a team needs.

Could you explain red ball? I don't know it, unless I know a variation with a different name, as is often the case with improv exercises and games.

[JessiSnow]

I enjoy a version of Red Ball, probably similar to the one of which Marbach speaks. It’s where you pass stuff around the circle simultaneously (eventually). You know, start with a red ball (real or imagined and vocalized), throw it to someone and then throw someone else a blue ball, green ball, dotted ball. Or, if you’re not using real things maybe a squealing pig, a tiny elephant, a bowling ball. . . So everyone ends up throwing and catching stuff at the same time. You can try to keep it in a sequence or not, but you usually name it throwing and catching ("Thank you, blue ball. "Blue ball.") whether it's real or not. My personal favorite version is not real things in a sequence, so one has to remember who they send “squealing pig” to then be prepared to catch “tiny elephant” from someone else, remember where that goes and then do the same for “Nine pound bowling ball.” K Schier has her improv kids do the real ball version a lot, so when Kristen brings her balls, it’s fun that way too.

I like what some call “Montang Jefferson” and I think Activity Book named “Carrots” last week. Two peeps back to back, one suggestion, both go from A-C without looking at one another, then start an activity, then exist in the same world. Fun times. The N Crowd loves to justify the ridiculous, and also to exist in whacked-out worlds.

[buseman]

I enjoy me some chinese retard. Good for matching, heightening, and physicality.

Also, a fletcher fav is "pass the beat" Like pass the clap but everybody passes their own rap noise and motion. It's fun, gets you making and recognizing patterns within the game, and I think it's a good way to laugh off nerves before a show.

For scenes, I also really enjoy Montang Jefferson. Great for getting both people to initiate at least physically with an action, even if it's two different things.

[Holmes]

I think it's really interesting how exercises evolve.

Montang Jefferson is something that Billy Merrit wrote about in his journal here on the IRC. I think it was supposed to be Montana Jefferson, but I've taught it with the typo.

I can easily see how a certain name, without an explanation, might not work for someone teaching or learning. I don't like to say "Chinese Retard" and I also wanted to do a different slant on it (no pun intended), so I made a different version with a different name.

Did you learn 186, 187, 252, or some other number for the "Walk into a bar..." game?

[Marbach]

Jessi is right about the "red ball" of which I speak. I also like to do another variation of it where in addition to passing the balls, you also move. For example, I have a red ball to pass to someone else I make eye contact with someone and say, "Red ball". They reply "thank you red ball". I will then walk over to that person's spot and as I'm walking over they are passing the red ball to someone else. There is constant sound and motion going on as more balls are introduced. So, listening, eye contact, patience all become even more important.

I also did a version last night for the first time with no talking. Everything had to be mimed. It was up to the players to decide how to get that message across and pass things on.

I'm also a fan of Zip, Zap, Zop and it's many variations. The variation I like the most is where you take and heighten the way it was passed to you. Maybe there's a slight hesitation when I say Zap. That hesitation should be picked up and continued by the Zop-er. All this continues until by the end of it Zip, Zop, Zop are barely recognizable as the words that started it off.

Along the same lines I like the Organic Character Circle. Someone's standing in the center and gets the suggestion of any sound. They then take that sound and do whatever they can with it to make it their own and let it influence how they sound; how they move. Then when that sound has become something new entirely they let out a line of dialogue, they make eye contact with an other person in the group who then matches their sound/motion, they switch places and the person in the center goes through the same process. It's one of my favorites because it stops people from thinking and starts them doing- which can be my issue at times. It lets the improv work rather than you doing the work.

[JessiSnow]

The N Crowd also really enjoys something we tend to call “The Gethard Thing” (because Chris taught it to us) or “The Character Thing.” We’re very clever with naming them.

It’s when you have one person do a little character monologue in the middle of the circle and then stay true to what they’ve created as the people from outside the circle tag in and put that character in situations that one would not expect for them.

[Holmes]

Originally Posted by jessisnow

the n crowd also really enjoys something we tend to call “the gethard thing” (because chris taught it to us) or “the character thing.” we’re very clever with naming them.

It’s when you have one person do a little character monologue in the middle of the circle and then stay true to what they’ve created as the people from outside the circle tag in and put that character in situations that one would not expect for them.

character tornado!!!!!!

[Marbach]

Originally Posted by Holmes

character tornado!!!!!!

I'd like to see an Organic Character Torando. That could be interesting.

[kristenschier]

here are a bevy of improv warm ups i like to do:

bad improv scenes. - have everyone so the worst improv scene they can imagine being done. opens up creativity. gets folks thinking about improv philosophically a little and is good for getting rid of fear.

i like to play emotional zip zap zop where you play the game with a predominating emotion or attitude

i also like playing "electric factory" in character - give everyone a generic character catagory like a "professor - then everyone plays their specific type of professor as the group passes words to one another. you could also do without assigning a character catagory and just play in any old character.

i am also a fan - for those improvisers who do short form - of warming up for alphabet scene with electric factory by making the next word passed around the circle have to start with the next letter of the alphabet

i am also a fan of three new excercises that i am not sure people know about

i am soo - were one makes an emotional or other type of position statement and repeats it three times - "i am sooo mad, (repeat 2x)", or, "i am so light (repeat 2x)" and then you pass the person in the circle next to you an object directly or indirectly related to how you feel - "i am so mad, i am so mad, i am so mad that i am giving you this failing report card". then the other person receives that object with a position statement of their own (inspired by what they received from you of course) that they repeat three times, handing the next person an object of their own - and thus it continues around the circle.

i also like hello governor which is a character circle game where you create a character that says three lines and the person in the circle mirrors your character and repeats your lines, however this is done in dialog as if it were a conversation.
so it might sound like this:
hello governor
hello governor
mighty nice cap your wearin
mighty nice cap your wearin
fancy a drink?
fancy a drink

but the response is not a copy of inflection - it is spoken as if in response - like a dialog
then of course the receiver gets a chance to pass their character to the next person in the circle.

the third is a game called merecat

where the whole group creates spontaneous tableus or frozen pictures

one person runs to a point in the room and strike a dynamic evocative pose - the rest of the group runs to join them quickly and some sort of scene crystallizes around the initial pose

once everyone in the group has contributed to the scene by mirroring or adding detail to the scene someone breaks off into a new pose informed by the last scene or not

it is good for agreement,stage picture, initiation - all that stuff

i stole these exercises from asaf. don't know if he stole them too but they sure are great...

[Mikey]

I like to do three line scenes with groups I coach, in the three lines they must identify their relationship to each other and identify their environment. It is a great warm up or exercise in rehearsal.