This 301 class is about game, the backbone of all Improv scenes.

We talked about the importance of setting up the base reality. We started with a warm up called the Robot Game. This game involves two people and these are the only lines they’re allowed to say

Player 1: I am ...
Player 2: I am ...
Player 1: We are at ...
Player 2: We are doing ...
Player 1: I feel ... because ...
Player 2: I feel ... because ...

All three lines should be unrelated to each other. For example, if you’re a doctor you should not be in a hospital, if you are at a gym you should not be doing something other than working out. The reason for this constraint is that the first few lines in a scene set up the base reality, and we want the base reality to be broader so as to give us more things to play with.

The next game we played was No Questions. In this game, two people start a scene and the rule is that you are not allowed to ask questions. Every time a player asks a questions he is replaced by another player from the backline. Asking questions in a scene in improv is lazy acting, it puts a lot of pressure on our partner and pushes the responsibility back to them. We ask a lot of questions without actually consciously thinking about them, the role of this game is to make you aware of that.

Not to say that questions are not allowed in a scene. However, a question should also provide our partner with some information thereby advancing the scene further.

Finally, we practiced playing two person scenes involving a Weirdo and a Voice of Reason. In these kinds of games, one of the players makes a very strong emotional choice triggered by a very minor incident. While the reaction should be surprising, it should not be entirely irrational and should be justified by some person belief. This then becomes the game i.e. the weird thing in the scene. The voice-of-reason’s job is to calm the weirdo down and take the game away from the weird thing and rest the scene.

The belief should be both broad and specific.