Object Work

These games and exercises involve investing in the environment of the scene and miming realistic actions.

Chain Murder

This is a game for 4+ improvisers where each walk-on will have to try and guess the suggestions and then convey them to the next person using only miming and gibberish.
All but one improviser leaves the room and the remaining improviser and/or host get three suggestions.
The suggestions are for an occupation, weapon, and location.
The scene starts when the starting improviser mimes killing an improviser from the backline with the murder weapon. The murdered improviser should lay on the floor and become a dead body.
Teach the audience to shout a phrase like, Oh no! There's been a murder!, each time a murder happens to summon in the next improviser.
Each improviser who enters the scene will assume the standing improviser has murdered the dead person or persons on the floor and accuse them (using only gibberish mind you).
The standing improviser then mimes the three suggestions in order.
The guessing improviser should give some indication that they think they know what the suggestion is before the miming improviser moves on to the next one.
Once the guessing improviser understands all three suggestions they then mime killing the other improviser with what they think is the murder weapon.
This cycle continues until all improviser have had their turn.
At the end we call scene and the host goes down the line and each improviser says what they think the suggestions were.
Instruct the audience to clap or make a buzzer sound based on if the improviser is correct or not.

Use the acronym O.W.L. to remember the order of the suggestions being acted out.
Really play up the gibberish and be expressive. The scene gets awkward if the improvisers are too quiet or not animated enough.
The guessers shouldn't make the miming improviser spend too much time on each suggestion, as soon as you think you have an idea of what they might be doing give them the go-ahead to switch to the next suggestion. We don't want the scene to go on too long and it's funnier if the suggestions get lost along the way than if they stay the same the whole time.

The host sets up the game. Two improvisers will perform an entire story in just one minute. They can riff a little about how movies today are too long, people don't have long attention spans or whatever.
The host then gets a suggestion. It could be an existing story or movie title, a made up title, a genre, or any basic suggestion.
The two improviers then perform that scene, trying to create the entire story in one minute. The host will time them and call scene at one minute.
Then the host will point out that it's still too long and set them up to do the same scene in half the time.
This pattern continues doing the same scene in half the time going from 60 to 30 to 15 to 7 to 3 to 1 second(s).
Each time the scene is replayed it's distilled and/or sped up further until the final one second scene.

Try to move around the stage and use object work to help you remember the flow of what happens in the original scene.
It probably won't be an extremely compelling narrative but try to have a beginning, middle, and end.
Play up dramatic and film tropes.

One improviser initiates a scene with some sort of phyical activity.
The activity should be something that can be continued throughout the scene like washing dishes, folding laundry, decorating for a party, etc...
A second improviser should join the scene and the activity.
They must then perform the scene without speaking about the activity at hand.

Usually you don't talk about doing dishes while you're doing dishes, or most other mundane activities.
It's more realistic this way.
This exercise will also help you build your environment and keep the scene dynamic without getting stuck talking about something uninteresting.

The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improv Manual (second edition) by Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh - p. 36