After a one-week hiatus for the Independence Day holiday, we all got back together last night for improv class.
Most of us seemed tired or rundown, so the first set of excercises we did were actually “games” that we’ll play in front of our graduation performance audience. The games help you flex your mental muscles, get comfy in front of the crowd and warm up the audience for the show.
First off we played a version of that schoolyard staple “categories” where we fired off examples of cereals, mall stores and rock band names in rapid succession. Fun.
The opposite of this game, Zulu, has the improvisers creating fake names of things that should belong in a category. There are basically no wrong answers, unless you go totally blank or stall out.
We worked on three specific “scenes” for our show. Now these “scenes” aren’t pre-planned or scripted, but they are basic groundrules for creating the improv show.
Here goes:
- Freeze Tag
- Word-at-a-time story
- What I should have said
Not the schoolyard classic.
A game where performers take turns changing an object (an orange traffic cone, a bowl, a pool “noodle”) into something else entirely.
A ping pong storytime. You’ve seen it before.
A normal improvised scene where a moderator rings a bell to force the improvisers to revise their stories mid-stream.
Since most of the “scenes” involve only two performers on stage, there was a good deal of sitting in the audience and watching the show this week.
Honestly, being on the other side of things gives you a greater respect for your fellow improvisers and a peak into the process of it all.
I’m getting really excited about the show. Details to come soon, I promise.