Tag Archives: group

Jan 7

Ocean/Pool Contrasting Reality group game

Be careful changing a scene’s reality.

In improv we’re building something out of nothing. So if improvisers make a choice on stage they’re moving forward and to negate that choice threatens to stall that forward motion as they scramble to justify the contradiction. Not only do contradictory choices disrupt the scene for the improvisers, it erodes the audience’s willingness to engage in the scene – if the players aren’t seeing eye to eye, what hope does the audience have to understand what’s going on?

Admittedly, a contradictory choice can get a laugh – but if in the aftermath of that choice the scene is compromised you have to ask yourself whether that laugh was worth it?

Now, if you’re on stage and a scene’s reality is changed on you, here’s what you do: Don’t justify or explain away the contradiction; Embrace it. Commit to heightening both sides of the contradiction, allowing them to coexist. If we confidently accept both realities the audience can relax and buy in as well.

Check out this example –


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Dec 29

Macaroni Lovers Anonymous Hey Everybody group game

Don’t solve problems in improv. If there’s a fire on stage we want to throw gas on it, not water.

A lot of group games start with problem statements. “We need to…” “Let’s figure out…” “Brainstorm time!” The problem with problems is that when we’re focused on working up a solution we too often deprioritize emotional in-the-moment reactions which in improv are always more powerful that clever dialogue.

Hey Everybody mechanics keep us focused on heightening patterns of emotional behavior, helping us to exacerbate problems instead of alleviating them. 

Want proof? Watch this.


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Dec 29

Helicopter Parent Hey Everybody group game

A solid Hey Everybody example. Watch it.  What do you notice?

1. Repetition is heightening. Laura didn’t need to do anything more than repeat “I’m a North Carolina State Mom” to get a laugh at the start of the second pass of the game.  In fact, the audience also laughs with a sense of relieved release – it has been made clear to them that the sequence they witnessed is being made into a pattern.  With the rigid repetition they know they’ve been here before and they’re along for the ride.
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Dec 29

Massage Convention Hey Everybody group game

“A Massage Convention’s an HR hotbed.” –> “If OSHA says this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.”

With Hey Everybody mechanics in our back pocket we can confidently jump into chaos knowing that all we need to do is each stick and heighten our individual perspectives while collectively sticking to the order of individual contributions. With these tools we harness the power of the chaos, enabling it to swell and pop.

We can relax, too, in the knowledge that every player doesn’t need to nail it; they just need to participate. Especially in that first pass, what’s most important is just for each player to say/do something, anything. And if “anything” is too broad and therefore crippling then we remember that we can always align and agree with one another as well.

Watch this example. Note how the first pass gets established – who agrees with whom, who has a different perspective, who doesn’t speak. How many different perspectives would you say are in play among these 7 improvisers?


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Dec 22

Patterns and Games Montage

I am immensely proud of this show and the group that created it. It comes from The Coalition Theater’s Fall Patterns and Games Class.

In a Patterns and Games, success and failure hinged on the collective performance of the group. And…this class succeeded. Watch them all support each other through a performance that runs the gamut of games – rubric and organic, shorter and longer, lots of folks and few folks. The show is well paced, varying the use of moves from scene to scene.  Most importantly, as you can see, the group clearly had a lot of fun performing in it.  And the audience loved it. 

When improvisers follow each other, committing to taking the next step together, confident they’ll find whatever end together, the audience leans in, along for the ride. That’s improv as improv does best. Especially impressive given the size of the group, the level of collaboration shown here by a 301 class is alone worth the watch.  Enjoy!

Players are: Gerard Antoine, Sarah Berday-Sacks, Kevin Clatterbuck, Michael Farmer, Patrick Gaskill, Zachary Mann, Shannon Rodriguez, Hannah Rumsey, Max Senu-Oke, Geoff Stone, Vince Sunga, Carter Tait and Elliot Wegman

Nov 14

To The Ether video example – I Can’t…

When building Group Games, trust simplicity as The Coalition’s Big Bosses did in this To The Ether game.

Why? When a pattern is this clearly established and heightened you can reach the point where you don’t even need to finish the sequence before the audience is laughing uproariously, having completed the pattern in their own head. 

More To The Ether video examples –>

Jul 6

Blind Following – video example

Don’t let why keep you from following how. You don’t have to decipher what you just saw, you just have to repeat and heighten it.

And I so love when The Johnson’s do something like this that I have to showcase it even if the video cuts off the width of the stage show.  I’m sorry – it’s improv; you had to be there.

On a smaller scale…

effortless…

purer(?)

Click and Watch This: Kids Boldly Following