In learning Tertiary Moves an improv student is taught that “the first move is trump” (a reference to card games not our shitty president). In practice this means that if the first tertiary move is a Walk-on then the next tertiary move should also be a Walk-on to heighten the game at play.

While there are no mistakes in improv if you do two different tertiary moves that just requires more additional moves to make sense of the larger pattern.

If Player Three does a Walk-on, Player Four does a “We see,” and Player Five does a “Cut to,” while “success” is “possible” you can watch an audience fold its arms and legs, showing they have no faith in what comes next.

But experienced/aware improvisers can mix tertiary moves if they own them and their Triggers. So it is in this clip from the Johnsons & Detective mash-up set. Jessi makes the first Tertiary Move, walking on and walking off. Maybe a good way to support Jessi would be for other players to heighten with a Walk-on/off of their own. Instead Angela and Anthony do a Split Screen (man, oh, man, do I love seeing Split Screens on The Coalition’s wide, shallow stage). Jessi then comes through that scene with a callback Walk-on/off. Everything looks patient and purposeful and the audience loves it.

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Check out these other great videos from The Johnsons / Detective mash-up:

• Organic Tag-out Triangle: https://improvdoesbest.com/2019/03/01/organic-tag-out-triangle-video-example/
• Tag-out Pivot Run: https://improvdoesbest.com/2019/03/01/tag-out-pivot-run-video-example/
• Detective’s Hey Everybody Game: https://improvdoesbest.com/2019/03/01/detectives-hey-everybody-video/
• Detective’s Opening: https://improvdoesbest.com/2019/03/01/detective-opening-video/
• Linked By Patterns: https://improvdoesbest.com/2019/03/01/linked-by-patterns/

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The Johnsons are: Scott Beckett, John Hilowitz, Jessi Schmale and Lauren Serpa

Detective is: Sarah Ahmed, Anthony Brazeau, Jesse Hill, Angela Massino, Jonathan Mostowy, Nicole Nielsen and Taylor O’Sullivan