Category Archives: exercises

Feb 26

Focus Outward exercises

Focus Outward: There is a ton of material for us to mine in our improv if we are committed to seeing it, hearing it and embracing it. We don’t need to be in our heads worried about making something happen once we learn how we can follow what’s already happening to a collaborative end.

Suggested Exercises:

ACTION PASS – In a circle, a player turns to his left and executes an action, any action. The next player observes that action and attempts to recreate it EXACTLY in turning to the player to their left.
Progression:
• Do it once through. Then immediately have them do it again focused on slowing down and really noticing all the nuances of a player’s action and working to repeat the action exactly.
• Call out people that are in their head and not focused outward
• Call attention to what makes them laugh – straight repetition, embracing something “accidental”
• Call out when someone tries to force the evolution for a laugh – this will happen after they get comfortable with a few “successes” under their belts
Lessons:
• See head to toe – take the time to really see all that players are giving you; Where are their toes pointed? How are their shoulders’ squared? What face are they making?
• See more than you’re given – the things a player does subconsciously or accidentally should be noticed and repeated; What did they do before and after the action?
• There are no mistakes/There is no “right” – there is only “what has happened” and “what’s happening now.”
• Repetition is heightening – we don’t need to create unrelated information when there is already material at play to mine. Collaborative evolution is a fun enough; don’t force difference for difference’s sake.

PHRASE PASS – Like Action Pass, but with a sentence.
Progression:
• Focusing on exactly what was given to you
• Pick just one thing (one word, emotion, inflection, character, etc.) and heighten it 2 notches
Lessons:
• Even with small things, we create a feedback loop that will heighten everything we do to places no one could imagine or achieve on their own
• You don’t have to force evolution – if everyone is concentrated on heightening what they see and hear, the phrase will naturally change. We want to continue embracing small changes to foster evolution instead of forcing mutations that separate an individual from the group.

Feb 26

Story Stealing memory exercise

STORY STEALING – Everyone in a circle. One at a time, players enter the center and tell a true, personal, 30 Second Story. Once everyone has told a story, the teacher tells the class that players now have to enter the center and recreate someone else’s story. Every story should be revisited once by another player.
Lessons:
• Don’t mock; mirror – this is not about making fun of each other, it’s about making each other look good by remembering their story
• The more you remember, the more options you have – you might not get the chance to revisit the story you remember best so you need to work to remember everything
• Remember specifically – remembering a few specific details will be more powerful than remembering everything generally
• Remember reactions – our emotional reactions are improv gold; focus on those when setting other player’s stories to memory
• See what’s not shown – recreating what our fellow players initially did subconsciously is great fun. How do they stand? How do they move? What do they sound like?

Feb 26

One Person Walking focus sharing exercise

ONE PERSON WALKING – Students spread out through the room. Without talking, one person has to be walking at any given time. Students have to see each other to know when to give and take focus.
Variations:
• Now two people are walking at a time. Now three. Build to everyone walking and then work back down to one person walking.
Lessons:
• Make eye contact
• Give and take focus
• Be willing to surrender focus to your scene partner

Feb 25

Emotional Heights/Depths exercise

Emotional Heights/Depths: Committed emotion should be an improviser’s base at all times. We need to be able to exhibit the highest highs and lowest lows on stage so we need to practice emotion at the extremes to become comfortable in that space.

EMOTION TO 11 – Teacher gives students an emotion. The class gives a suggestion of what to emote to. Around a circle, students engage in that emotional perspective toward that suggestion, ramping up from 1-10 to 11. You’ll need to be attentive in this one since people tend to hit walls here. They really need to go bonkers and forget to make sense in what they’re saying. If someone really clams up, offer to do it with them, alongside them. Use your judgment to know when to push and when to let it go.
Progression:
• Give big, round, easy emotions, “happy, sad, fear, anger”
• Push people, gently “more, bigger” to discover and emote. Don’t be mean. Do it with them if they struggle.
Lessons:
• Exude the emotion physically – 11 in sadness is rolling on the floor and weeping
• Push it past comfortable – being vulnerable enough to share big emotions can be hard, but we have to trust each other and the safe place to “go big” in practice. Support each other with applause.
• Being bored or unaffected is hard to heighten – care

Feb 25

Emotional Context exercise

Emotional Context: Committed emotion is all the “what” and “why” a scene needs. What’s extra fun is that, when we do have emotion, that emotion can add/change the meaning of our words and heighten the depth of our scenes.

EMOTIONAL NURSERY RHYME – Around a circle, a player recites a common nursery rhyme with an emotional filter. The next player does the same nursery rhyme, further heightening the same emotion or trying on a new emotion. Repeat with different nursery rhymes.
Variations:
• Song lyrics
• Old salts / sayings
Lessons:
• The details gain weight with our emotional perspectives
• Acting is emoting – understanding a motivation can be hard and grueling. Committing to an emotion without regard to “sense” is easy and fun.

Feb 25

Emotional Character Development exercise

Emotional Character Development: We don’t need it “all figured out” the moment we step on stage. Make one choice and then build other choices on top of that choice.

We can start with emotion and build the details of our character around that. Or, we can start with a detail and build an emotional character from there.

CHARACTER WALK – students walk around the space as themselves. Teacher gives prompts for them to make choices from (see Progression below). Teacher asks additional questions to flesh out the characters. Teacher has students reset, returning to walk around the space as themselves again. And repeat.
Progression:
• Have players change elements of their personal walk to see how it affects the way they feel
• Change your rate – speed up, slow down
• Change your size – is your walk big or small?
• Walk with a different body part forward
• Change your spine
• Be an animal
• Walk like someone you know
• Ask the class to try on a different:
• Emotion
• Posture/Physicality
• Desire (I want…)
• Perspective (I like…, I hate…)
• Environment
• Action
• Ask questions to flesh out the character. Basically “if this, then what”; for example, how do you feel about the action you’re doing, or how does that desire affect your walk?
• Ask students to speak in their character’s voice – calling out students individually to contribute
• Tell students to acknowledge each other’s presence to discover their ‘status’
Lessons:
• Don’t let starting a scene be intimating – all you need to start is one choice

Feb 25

Emotional Matching exercise

Emotional Matching: If we agree, we can just be; we don’t have to explain or defend. Have fun just being emotional together, trusting that your commitment to the same emotion is all the context for your relationship that’s needed.

EMOTIONAL CHAIR PASS – It’s like hitchhiker, but just two people, and the suggestion is an emotion, not a character. Set up two chairs on the stage and the rest of the class in an audience. One person sits and expresses an emotion to the audience. When someone in the audience thinks they know what it is, they get up, take the other chair and match it, then sit in it for a sec. You call “scene,” the first person sits, and the second one repeats the activity with a new emotion. Someone gets up, matches, sits there for a second, feels it, then sits. Repeat.
Variations:
• After 3 or so, start asking, during the “sitting in it” portion, the same Character Walk questions: What kind of person sits like this? Where are they?
• Allow students to acknowledge each other. Eventually they’ll be drawn to exchange some lines, encourage that. You will have tricked them into doing a matching scene.
Lessons:
• If we agree, we can just be; we don’t have to explain or defend.
• Trust that your commitment to the same emotion is all the context for your relationship that’s needed.

Feb 25

Emotional Scene exercises

Emotional Scenes: “How we feel about who we are, where we are and what we’re doing,” and “How we feel about who our scene is, where they are and what they’re doing” should be our focus in improv scenes. Let “How we feel” trump all else, especially plot and “sense.”

Suggested Exercises:

“I [FEELING] YOU.” “I KNOW.” – Players form two “lay-up” style lines on either side of the stage. Players at the front of each line decide on an emotion inside their heads. Player from the stage left line comes out and says “I [blank] you” (i.e. “I love you”). Player from the stage right line comes out and says “I know” filtered through the emotion they chose ahead of time (i.e. they chose “sad” so they say “I know” very depressed). Have both player repeat their lines 3 or 4 times, heightening their emotions each time.
Variations:
• Linguistically “I ____ You” can get a little weird (i.e. “I happy you”), so feel free to change it to make it fit. Like “you make me happy,” actually “You make me _____” will probably fit better for most things.
Lessons:
• Feel a certain way, direct that feeling at the person with you, assume things about your relationship, heighten
• As they go, there’ll be a few that seem really natural. If you see it happen, some cool points to make are “didn’t you start making a story in your head about who they are? Our audience does the same thing, they see all kinds of connections” or “when we talk about relationship this is all it is, how people relate to each other, how they feel about each other.”

ANNOYANCE-STYLE SCENE STARTS – Have the class form a line across the back of the stage. Call out one name. That person should immediately take the stage and “take care of themselves” with a choice about their emotion, posture, environment, activity, etc. The moment you call that name, another improviser should be coming out on stage as well. That person must also “take care of themselves” with a choice. Players expand on their choices, most importantly establishing and heightening their emotional perspective. Run through this several times until you are confident everyone will take care of themselves right out of the gate and, eventually if not immediately, get to emotion.
Lessons:
• If I’m picking my nose, what does that say about my age? If I’m forty-five and picking my nose, where am I? If I’m forty-five and picking my nose in a restaurant, am I embarrassed?
• A scene needs information. But expand on what you’ve already got. Commit to it.
• You don’t need motivation to have a feeling

Feb 24

Magic Clay mime warm-up

MAGIC CLAY – Around a circle, a player builds a mimed object “out of clay” and then hands the object to another player who interacts with it as and then molds the “clay” into a brand new object. And repeat.
Variations:
• Weaponized Reactions – form a weapon out of the magic clay, attack another player with it. That player should react to the attack and die if called for.
• Weaponized Retractions – form a weapon out of the magic clay, attack another player with it but, before you attack, decide not to and put your weapon away. The key is to feel your desire to attack and then to feel the change of heart.