breathing and relaxing
pauses (slow and silent is ok)
you don’t always have to be fast - some of the best improv moments I’ve ever seen involve a pause and a gesture
mindful acceptance of everything that comes to mind
listening - of not just words and concepts but also emotions
acceptance of all offers
contrast (with what comes before)
details and specificity (the rarer and quirkier the better)
following the sense of a story
creating and resolving dramatic tension (instead of following rules or lists): something shifts, something stays the same.
expanded philosophy
Don’t prepare. Give up planning. Drop the habit of thinking ahead. Stockpiling ideas for future use is unnecessary. Avoid multitasking. Attend to one thing at a time.
Trust your imagination. There is always something in the box. Allow yourself to be surprised. Welcome whatever floats into your mind. Throw out the “rules of improvisation”, and instead focus on following one’s instincts. The trick is to practice like crazy and then let go and surrender into the present-moment. You have to learn how to let your soft animal body take over and channel all that goodness automagically through a fresh pipe.
Being in the moment. A great improviser lives in the here and now, in the present. He is alert and is able to respond instantly and sharply to changes or sudden twists and turns. This means that all sorts of other thoughts do not distract him, but that he is totally focused on things that are happening around him at that particular moment in time. By being in the present, and not judging the situation, all options are open and everything is possible. Attend carefully to what is happening right now. Do not focus on things outside your control. The solution to being better at focusing on the here-and-now doesn’t come from directly thinking “I must focus on now” but instead comes from training yourself to not worry and obsess about things beyond your control.
Life is attention. Notice everything, particularly the details. Become a detective. Shift your attention from yourself to others. Make an effort to remember names and faces. Keep on waking up. This moment only happens once. Treasure it.
Quickly form a distinctive character (specificity is good)
Character is expressed differently based on whom they meet: a boss, an audience, an audience where one of the members is a crush etc.
establish status and emotion during the scene (try contrast)
establish where and why (location and situation)
location
time (day/night) age (period of history) weather props (bench etc)
create a physical space and then adding to it (for example, all through object work unlocking the door, entering the house. then discovering the space. sitting on the couch and turning on the tv, flipping around channels…
situation
Summary on how to build context (who, where, why)
Who, What and Where: When these details are crafted with care and love during the opening of a scene, improvisers are more likely to have a strong and nuanced base from which to build their creative journeys
character - location - situation - status - motivation - emotion - objects - physicality - voice - gestures
content
For Characters
Set a clock for 10 minutes. Start with a character monologue. After no more than 60 seconds, you should slip into a two character scene with that character. From there, keep “cutting to” or wiping to related scenes, flashbacks, flashforwards, or completely new scenes. The two goals are a) to improvise nonstop for 10 minutes and b) to create as many characters and situations in 10 minutes as possible. Do one of these as a practice, and then do one for real. Let yourself be creative in your “cut-to” situations. This exercise strengthens an improvisor’s sense of responsibility onstage - you quickly learn that you can’t bail on a scene or check out mentally! It also builds your confidence, playfulness and your facility in being able to play and heighten a moment in a long form.
For Emotions
For Object Work
Imagine a box in front of you that has an endless amount of things. For 30s just remove objects out of the box (with action) naming them and then throw them away. Speed is critical. Ex: Elephant, Chair, Car, pin… Repeat this for 15s and then 5s. Try to break any patterns observed. If someone is blank, ask them to continue the action and say blank out aloud a couple of times and then continue.
ropes, feathers, vampire gloves, fake tattoos, aphorodisiac, perfume
Step into a room and as quickly but as fully as you can, give a short description of every item that you can see.
Most times when we walk into a room, we’re just hit with the overall vibe/mood/tone of it as opposed to all the elements that are creating that vibe. By exercising the mental muscle of seeing each thing as a separate entity, I think it starts to prime your brain for doing that in reverse (more easily seeing items in your brain and placing them in a context of a room or space you’re creating).
depth dive on a object. They pick something up at home (or point at it if it is heavy) and then use the following prompts: describe it, what does it do, who uses, mine using it, where did I get it, mime how the day time I received it, how did I feel about it, how do I feel about it now, what would I do it it broke, mime it, what would I do if it was stolen, how would that make me feel and finally what else could I do with this (could be something surreal).
where they point at things and say what they aren’t? Point at the table, say hamster. Point at the floor, say newspaper etc.
Randomly pick up an object from the room. Observe the texture, weight, size of the object. Keep it back. Then use the object without actually picking it up.
Ex: If I had chosen a pen initially. I will lift an imaginary pen from the penstand/table, open the cap, check the ink, write, etc
Get 10 index cards. Write one object on each of them. Anything. You can write “flowers” on one and “Belgian waffle” on another. Now take a few moments to write five settings on a sheet of paper. Examples can include: “ballroom dancing class,” “hostage negotiation,” “brewery tour.”
Shuffle your cards. Pull two out and put them face up in front of you. Create a story involving these two items in the first setting that you listed. It doesn’t have to be humorous at first, just plausible. As you keep going, you can try to make it humorous. Repeat until you complete the set. Reshuffle. Repeat. Make it funnier each time.
Grab a pen, some paper and a timing device. In a few minutes time per subject, come up with as many uses as possible for the following objects (think of five random, unrelated nouns):
Here’s a quick example
In what way are pencils and judges the same? They pass sentences, always have the last word and are wright all the time
If you are cross eyed and dyslexic, does that mean that you can see perfectly?
Example: What’s the connection between a skeleton and a bar? A skeleton asks a barman for a pint of beer and a mop.
There is no connection between the two except that we recognize when the skeleton drinks there is nowhere for the liquid to go except the floor. What makes it funny is that the skeleton is unable to drink but wasting his money and good beer.
With a friend, brainstorm a list of random objects. Write each one down on a piece of paper, fold them up, and put them in a bowl. Draw a piece of paper at random, and set a timer for 1 minute. Come up with as many uses for that object as you can before the timer goes off. Read them aloud, crossing out the uses that the other person also listed. Whoever has the longest list at the end of this process wins.
For Drama and Content
These will feel strange at first, but it’s a great exercise to add to your warm-ups, as it gets your brain moving and gets you to commit fully to a range of characters.
For the first few of these, start off being easy on yourself, then tighten up the scenes. Focus on getting out the who, what and where in those scant three lines. Work through negative and dismissive responses until you are only giving yourself positive agreements with each three-line scene. Push your range of characters and your range of contrasts - you should keep doing these until you are well beyond your stock characters.
Once you have warmed up with three line scenes, slow down and try an extended two-character scene.
Focus on giving gifts to yourself - “Rosemary, your pale gauntness is delicious!”
Let these go a little long so that you can explore the possibilities of being the sole driver of a scene. As you slip between characters, let yourself be physically neutral. Take care to keep the characters’ physicalities distinct. After a couple of these, challenge yourself to try three character and group scenes.
Two hands creating a dialogue (sock puppets!), or two objects creating a dialogue. Put a hat on look in the mirror ask a question, take hat off and reply, let these two play. Put TV film on turn sound off and invent dialogue. Talk to a chair or a shoe as master to servant, you can play with a friend on the phone as if you can see each other, I played on radio with a member of the public and got in trouble when he found me in the bath with his wife. Enjoy going slow and simple.
How To Practice Solo
Write and speak a lot every day. Everytime you speak, do it clearly.
To get better at generating streams of words, you need to practice generating streams of words. Being able to say the first thing that comes to mind when you’re onstage is invaluable!
Start a conversation with a random person on a bus or other means of public transport.
Conversational skills are very important in improvisational theatre as you will find yourself in different scenes where you’ll have to make your character more believable + you never know what crazy stuff your fellow bus rider has to offer, from settings to characters and situations.
Write every morning, and I usually have a least one period of social time every day.
Once you have stable and good quality content, you can work on tuning the details of how it’s delivered. You can work on tone, and inflection, and timing. You can tease-out that pause before the punchline while making eye contact with someone in the audience. You can slow down, stand up tall, and survey the crowd. You can breathe deeply and soften down into your legs so that your consciousness fills your body and the room, so that you can enthrall and delight the audience, so that you can entice them into your world and entertain them like royalty in your palace of presence.
Voiceovers
Go to a public place and watch two people having a conversation. Perform a “voiceover” in your head of what they might be saying, giving different voices for the two characters. Watch vox pop videos on youtube and try to imitate normal people. Observe animals when they do animal stuff. Cut the sound on a movie and try to voice over. Do it with with a wildlife documentary.
Practice a new accent, Figure out how you talk - quietly, singing, loud, screaming, questioning. Stop talking high pitched through the nose, clear airways, breathe.
Practice Sentences and Paragraphs with Audio Recorders - Use audio editors such as Audacity (Free Audio Editor and Recorder) and Practice 15 - 30 minutes a day until your general speech habits improve. Place emphasis on words, sentences, and paragraphs that are most difficult for you to articulate. Repeat certain sentences and paragraphs until they soundto pleasant
Imitate Celebritiess
Do your best impressions of highly articulate and successful talk show hosts, news anchors, radio hosts, actors, voice actors, etc. This is a great way to invoke benchmarks that you can use as comparisons to your own voice habits and articulation level.
Visualize Yourself Speaking Well on National Television and in Front of Large Crowds - Believe it or not, your unsatisfactory speaking habits and articulation may be rooted in the fear of being the center of attention and embarrassing yourself. Your lack of articulation could result from tension and a certain level of social anxiety that result from your own thoughts and perceptions. Picture yourself talking in situations that you think are well out of your league, and you’ll start to develop the peace of mind and confidence to articulate your speech carefully in situations that would normally intimidate you.
People Watching
When you are out and about, watch people, how they behave when they are on their own, how they relate in a group, how they get each other attention. Notice when it is that people actually have a conversation and when it is that they just take it in turn to brag.
Start with a concept, like seeing a disheveled-looking man ordering a coffee at Starbucks, and build up a story and a life around him. Create a history for him and plan a future. Ask yourself what his family is like, what he does for a living, what he does for fun etc. If you notice something suitable for world-building, like two squirrels coming out of a tree, construct a fictional universe for them to live in. How are these squirrels related? What’s their language? Is the tree their house? Their place of work? Do they interact with other animals or are squirrels the only sentient animals in this world? Ask yourself world-building questions and then answer them.
Anthropomorphize develop personalities for everything. I find this is easiest to do with cars because their front grills are very expressive faces and their bodywork lends them a good personality. I think of BMWs as snooty french men (because of the moustache) and then the the different models of BMWs have different personalities. One thing that humans really have going for us is that we see humanity all around us. We are trained to spot faces wherever we look, like in the front grill of a car or an electrical socket. Where there is a face, there is a character.
Grab any postcard or photo or picture at random, and proceed to articulate in detail, preferably in a loud voice, what’s in the picture
Whats the theme/what’s in the foreground/what’s in the background/what’s in the centre or middle/what’s on the right/what’s on the left/what’s at the top/what’s at the bottom/what at the top-right/top-left/bottom-right/bottom-left/what’s happening/is it inside or outside/who’s there/how’s the weather and/or timing; how do you know/compare and contrast/how do you feel/what do you like/what do you dislike/would you like to be in the postcard or photo or picture; why and why not?
List of Improv Games