Here are some previous posts that might be useful:
"So two people face eachother and place word association...at the same time. They each count down from 3 and on the '0' they instead say a word. The goal is to be able to listen to what they other person said and try your best to find what they may say next. They will be doing the same, so you may find a word that is 'in between' both words. For example, if I said forehead and Frank said jaw, we might both decide to say nose.
It's a really fun game for getting out of your head and into the zone."
"We did two, what start out as, separate stories. They actually end up being very similar to each other, so similar that we were able to switch back and forth between characters and the audience was able to follow us.
A good example of one rehearsal we did was the suggestion of sweater. One scene was about the husband getting ready for his business trip. I had starting that scene by looking at my self in the mirror (and adjusting my sweater), the story would later reveal that the wife (my show partner) did not trust me to go away as I was going with my boss who was a babe, etc.
The second scene was about an old grandmpa (my partner). I was the grandchild who was there to live with her as I did not trust that she was able to live on her own. Her memory was going. That scene started out with my scene partner knitting a sweater.
We soon discovered that while we started with a sweater, we found more and more connections as time went on. Both stories were about security, faith, and trust. Sweaters make you feel safe.
I like suggestions, but they should never be seen as a limit or a guide, but a gift."
"I've recently started doing duo work and the two of us are lucky enough to have one of the best coaches on the west coast (davemorrisisa.com). Because of busy timetables around school, work and other improv related happenings (the two of us are in other groups as well) we are only able to rehearse two times a week for about 1.5 hours each practice. I'm not positive of the theory behind our teaching style, but it seems to be working well and I would like to share my thoughts as this is a pretty new experience for me.
- figure out what the needs and goals of your group is. Is there an event or format you are working towards? What forms, games, warm-ups and other such things can you see being a help to getting to your goal.
- Make sure that you are all able to really personally connect. Aside from a physical/group mind exercises, we generally do things that help us "check in" with one another. We just stare into each others eyes, examine our body movements and the way we are interacting with each other. We make "I" statements and once we think we've checked in with the other person, we start to make "I" statements that the other person might also say. It's not a dead set warm up, and it is fun to play around with.
- Don't spend all of your time rehearsing and take the last 10 or 15 minutes you've got and talk about what you just did. How did it make you feel? What would you like to do more or less of? Just talk shop and throw around awesome shit that you know."
