We want to avoid conflict, debate and negotiation in our improv scenes. The audience knows we’re making it up – building something from nothing – they don’t want to see us arguing over imagined reality; they want to see us react to an accepted reality.
What’s the best way to avoid arguing? Acceptance! Agreeing to a conflict-laden declaration is the easiest way to ensure a scene’s forward momentum.
So want a warm-up that’ll engage those Acceptance muscles? Continue reading
Whatever we have to say on an improv stage can be spun into gold with enthusiastic agreement.
So we shouldn’t feel like we have to deliver some killer creative line to start a scene.
We should remember, in fact, that what we bring authenticity – what we care about – however mundane – is rich fodder for an improv scene.
So, looking for a warm-up that has players accessing and caring about their daily minutiae that also highlights the fun of immediate enthusiastic support? Continue reading
Personal Games are the focus of the base Mirror, Action, Object warm-up exercise. 
Engaged in either how they feel about themselves, how they feel about what they’re doing, or how they feel about a mimed object, players build progressions of emotional reaction triggered by active endowments. As examples: A player loves his outfit, and as he scans himself toe to head he grows more and more impressed with himself (Mirror). A player grows more insane with every monotonous saw stroke. A player becomes more and more vain with every bite of the apple.
This add-on expands the warm-up to practice Scenic Games as well. Continue reading
Aaron Grant once took the stage across from me, making eye contact but planting his feet firmly just beyond the stage right wing. I mirrored him on stage left. He mimed the 
classic flirtatious fishing move. I played his fish but broke his line bashfully, the stage’s distance remaining between us. I danced as someone with a club; he played my seal. He loaded his heart into a gun and shot it at me. I loaded my heart into a mortar and launched it at him. He shot me with a bazooka of love. I put love in a centrifuge and then in a bomb that erupted in a mushroom cloud of hearts. He built and climbed into a B-52 bomber than rained love upon me. We both stood up from the rubble and traced out hearts to one another. Never a word was spoken.
How does one teach Silent Games? Read on! Continue reading
“I love opium.”
It’s a fine line between a character evoking a plot and a character reacting to their reality. A very fine line. But I believe that attention to that line can mean the difference between a scene where improvisers force a sequence of events dependent on an audience’s satisfaction with a resolution and a scene where characters are engaged in the moment of their reality with an audience reacting to – and investing in – a character’s consistency regardless of “sense.”
The following is a series of exercises geared toward prioritizing characters in-the-moment over improvisers setting-up-situations-to-be-negotiated. Continue reading
A wonderful conceit about Seinfeld, explicit in the meta-dealings with Jerry’s and 
George’s sitcom pitch within the sitcom, was that it was a “show about nothing.”
Yet of course the truth is that, while maybe an episode is not be driven by plot, it is about “something” – every episode revolves around the way known characters react to “something.” Continue reading
Friends, it’s 2018! Luckily all the bad stuff from 2017 has been tidied up nicely and we have a brand new start!
No?
Well,… how about updated improv curricula in lieu of world peace and universal sanity? Continue reading
I sat with across from an executive. It was a benign conversation – a check-in meeting. Neither of us was all that engaged. 
Looking down at his desk, I noticed he’d arrayed files on his desk in the order of a rainbow – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple (though Roy G. Biv forever, squad).
I didn’t say anything about it. But thinking about it led me to this exercise.
Looking to practice evoking emotions through engaging environment? The audience loves seeing improvisers “see” something on stage. They love seeing us enthusiastically accept what our fellow players imagine. And they love it when we invest emotionally in those imagined somethings.
Want an exercise that forces us to see something, say something and have that something matter to our scene partner? Keep reading. Continue reading
Everyone in a circle.
Starting Player starts with a Self Contained Emotional Statement through the filter of being a “crazy” character-type (a pirate, a monster, a nun.. see nonMECE list HERE.). For example, (proudly) “The full moon’s rising and with it my transformation.”
The Player to their right interacts through the lens of a “normal” character-type one affiliated with a “normal” location (a checkout gal at a supermarket, a bum in a bench, a trader in a Wall Street pit… see Life for MECE list.). For example, (proudly) “We have a 24 hour concierge for whenever you need to stay or fetch.” Continue reading
“Silver.” “Eclipse.” “Model.”
Not a Word Association that would pass muster. How does the second move build on the first? How does the third Cement the pattern?
What’s the progression? Continue reading