Improv

If you are ever bored on a road trip, needing to distract from minor foot pain on a long walk, or forcing your partner to support your new Improv obsession, we’ve got a game for you. The game is based on the Improv principle of creating a Base Reality , which is defining who the characters are and their location. What you’ll do is start a set with a single word/concept for a prompt. From there, the first player starts a round by using that prompt to assign themselves a charac

I did it! I made it through my Improv class. And I didn’t just eke it out, I loved it! My experience with trying something new out of my comfort zone mirrored what I loved about each scene I got to do. You don’t really know what’s going to happen, but you step in and find a way to have some fun with it. I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit my initial expectations and compare those to my actual experience to reflect on what I’ve learned. Belonging Expectation I'll be ou

One of the most intimidating aspects of stepping into an improv scene is keeping it alive once you’ve established a base reality (the characters, location, and what they are doing). There’s no script and no plan, and you need to find a way to get on the same page with your scene partners to keep it going in real time. The key is finding the first unusual thing, then creating a game from there that can be played through the end of the scene. The game  of the scene is the centr

When creating an improv scene, you start from a base reality that specifies characters, location, and an activity. Once this starting point is established, the task of the players is to find the first unusual thing that creates a game that propels the scene toward comedy. Characters can be played straight to explore the base reality and provide background for the unusual thing to stand out. Game characters  are played to intentionally break from the expectations of the base r

My improv teacher gave us some homework (my kind of comedy class) to read through The Upright Citizen’s Brigade Comedy Improv Manual . It’s a really well laid out book that outlines the basic structure of an improv scene and includes some exercises to build basic skills. I hope to do the book justice with a simple overview, and then I’d like to do an exercise with you to show you how Option C uses these skills as well. The arc of an improv scene starts from a base reality tha

I have been trying to challenge myself lately to push into experiences that I have always thought of as “not me”. My introvert credentials are pretty stacked: math major, software developer, multi-pass text message editor (reread at minimum 3 times before sending). I have this unfortunate skin reaction when I speak in public (low bar of more than 2 other people), where my neck and face splotch bright red. This misfortune compounds into a feedback loop now that many of these p