Scene Work

60 Seconds of Silence

Description

• Two improvisers take the stage.
• A suggestion is given.
• They strike a pose then hold it and wait.
• After 60 seconds the teacher calls start and the scene begins.

Purpose

• In the beginning you'll be thinking of many different ideas and dropping them, thinking about the other person, and shifting your posture slightly.
• As you near the 60 second mark that panic will settle and you'll have nothing but a general idea of the dynamic between you and your partner.
• By the time the scene starts you should be ready to listen intently to your scene partner.

Sources

• How to be the Greatest Improviser on Earth by Will Hines - p. 22

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Ad Game

Description

• An ensemble member comes up with an unusual product by taking an ordinary item and giving it an unusual trait
• A car that changes color based on it's surroundings.
• A refrigerator that is also a radio.
• The ensemble works together to create an advertising campaign for an unusual product.
• They will come up with a name, slogan, target demographic, celebrity spokesperson, jingle, etc...
• All the elements of the product should complement each other.
• No matter the idea, the entire group must support and yes and it.

Example

• Improviser 1: "We could call it The Chameleon!"
• Improviser 2: "Yeah! We could have Meryl Streep as the spokesperson. She could talk about how she disappears into her roles like this car disappears into it's surroundings."
• Improviser 3: "Yeah! She could start off the commercial as Julia Child and then finish as Margaret Thatcher."
• Improviser 4: "We could sell it to criminals! If they're being chased by the police, they can blend into their surroundings to hide."
• Improviser 3: "We could take helicopter footage of a police chase and suddenly, the car disappears, blending into the highway!"
• Improviser 2: "When you don't want to be seen, this is your machine."
• Improviser 4: "Great slogan! *Starts to sing* This car's named after a lizard that can hide, buy this car and camouflage your ride!"

Purpose

Used as an exercise, the ensemble will...

• Practice performing verbal all-at-once group games.
• Strengthen their ability to listen, yes and, and utilize give and take.

Sources

• The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improv Manual (second edition) by Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh - p. 302

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Alphabet Game

Description

• Two improvisers take the stage and a basic suggestion is given.
• They perform a scene where each sentence must begin with a word that starts with the next consecutive letter of the alphabet.
• They can go from A to Z and end the scene there or restart at A and continue until a more traditional edit is made.

Example

• Suggestion: Car alarm
• Improviser 1: Alright can you turn that off?
• Improviser 2: Boy it sure is loud! What did you say?
• Improviser 1: Can you turn off the alarm please?
• Improviser 2: Didn't hear you. The alarm is too loud.
• Improviser 1: Enough! Please turn it off.
• Improviser 2: Friend! I can't understand you!
• etc...

Purpose

• This excercise privides a fun challenge for improvisers and forces them to listen and think quickly.

Variations

• You could play with more than two players.
• You could have the audience choose the starting letter.
• You could play it as an elimination game where people get out if they mess up or take too long to respond.

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Change

Description

• Two improvisers start a scene and a third acts as a host.
• The host will ring a bell or say a phrase like change! or new decision! periodically after a line of dialogue has been said.
• The improviser who said that last line of dialogue will have to say a new line of dialogue to replace it.

Example

• Improviser 1: What do you want?
• Improviser 2: I want a muffin.
• Host: Change!
• Improviser 2: I want a whole cake to myself.
• Host: Change!
• Improviser 2: I want you to love me again!

Tips

• Try to heighten each time you are made to change a line of dialogue and go for a drastic change on the third changed line.
• As the host, utilize the rule of three most of the time, only occasionally making the improvisers change only one line of dialogue or making them change many lines in a long run of changes.

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Day in the Life

Instructions

• An audience volunteer is selected to tell the story of their day, or alternatively you could ask for a specific type of story.
• Best day of your life
• For a theme show: your craziest New Years Eve story
• The interviewer or backline should feel free to ask clarifying questions or to ask for more details if the story teller is a little more timid.
• After the interview, the ensemble will perform this persons day.
• The goal is not to recreate the story as is, the goal is to use the characters, ideas, situations, and general structure from the story to create a fun scene.

Purpose

• The interview section will force improvisers to listen intently.
• This is a good exercise to teach the basics of premise based long form, like listening for specifcs in an opening and bringing them into a scene.

Tips

• Members from the backline should feel free to become inanimate objects in sections of the scene where there are no secondary characters present.
• Don't be overly indulgent in the interview section, we don't want to alienate the audience member by constantly interupting them for jokes. The improvisers can be funny during the scene.
• It will also make the whole setup and scene take a really long time.

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Half Life

Description

• 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.

Tips

• 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.

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Justification Realtor

Description

• One player starts a scene as a realtor preparing an open house.
• Shortly after a few guests(usually 2-3) knock on the door and are welcomed to view the house.
• The realtor shows the guests around and one by one the guests ask questions about the absurdities of the house.
• These questions involve a bit of scene painting of absurd things we don't already know about the house.
• It is the realtors job to logically justify these absurd features of the house.

Example

• Guest: Excuse me, could you tell me a bit about this rusty blood stained trap door here in the floor?
• Realtor: Ah certainly! One of this home's primary security features. There is a ferocious blood thirsty beast underneath that door. If ever you're in danger from a home intruder, you need only pull that lever.

Purpose

• This exercise allows improvisers to practice:
• playing a grounded character
• scene painting
• coming up with inconsequential absurd ideas
• justifying

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Pillars

Description

• One or Two volunteers from the audience are selected to come stand or sit on stage.
• Get a suggestion.
• Two improvisers perform a scene.
• Every now and then the improvisers will tap a volunteer on the shoulder and the volunteer will supply a random word.
• The improvisor will then have to justify that word as if they had said it themself.

Example

• Improviser 1: Sure is a beautiful day!
• Improviser 2: Yeah, on a day like this I really feel like... *taps volunteer*
• Volunteer: Scooping!
• Improviser 2: Scooping up some mud and just making some mud pies with you bro.
• Improviser 1: Ah! That sounds amazing! I... *taps volunteer*
• Volunteer: Grapes!
• Improviser 1: Grapes, I think grapes are the snack we should bring.
• Improviser 2: You're so thoughtful. You know I love grapes because... *taps volunteer*
• Volunteer: Sniff!
• Improviser 2: Sniff, the sniff aroma of grapes pleases me.

Tips

• Give the audience members a chance to practice before you really start the scene.
• Instruct the audience memebers to just blurt out a random word, don't try to make it fit in the context of the scene.

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Sentence Game

Description

• Before the show have audience members write sentences on strips of paper.
• These can be random silly sentences, song lyrics, lines from movies, pick-up lines, or anything else!
• Set up a basic scene with a suggestion or use one of the variations below, then pass out 3-4 sentence strips to the improvisers.
• The improvisers will perform a scene, occasionally pulling out a sentence strip and reading it as their dialogue.
• The improvisers must then justify the line they just said.
• The scene continues until the host edits, usually after they've used all their sentence strips.

Example

• Improviser 1: I love the sound of rain outside.
• Improviser 2: Yeah I feel so peacful.
• Improviser 1 pulls out a sentence strip
• Improviser 1: Get rid out it, now!
• Improviser 2: What?! Get rid of what?!
• Improviser 1: There's spinach in your teeth! It's making me sick!

Purpose

• A great exercise in listening and justification.
• Usually a real crowd pleaser, audience members are excited to hear the dialogue they wrote, and it's always funny to see the cast react to the out of no where line they've just said and try to justify it.

Tips

• It's usually best to just pull out a strip and read it without any prompting like "My grampa always told me..." or "That makes me think of the time..."
• Don't read the strip immediately, give the scene a few lines back and forth to establish the base reality and a bit of the character first.
• You can have someone(not someone who will be performing in these scenes) pre read the sentences to make sure there isn't anything problematic.
• Either way make sure the improvisers know they can omit anything from their strip they deem problematic or are uncomfortable saying.

Variations

• Pick-up lines
• Have the audience members write pick-up lines on the strips.
• Designate 2-3 improvisers to be the ones the pickup-ees and the others will get the sentence strips and be the pickup-ers
• You can say they're at a bar or get a suggestion for where these pick-ups are happening.
• The pickup-ers will take turns shooting their shot, coming up to talk to the pickup-ees, delivering their pick-up lines, and getting rejected.
• It's fun if by the end, at least one of the pick-up lines works and that pair leave together.
• Eulogy
• Get an audience member to volunteer their name, the improvisers will be attending their funeral.
• We designate the front center stage to be where the open casket is located.
• The improvisers will approach in groups of 2 or 3, mix and matching performers each time they come back.
• They will be playing the dead persons, friends, family, co workers, etc... Talking and sharing stories about the person using their sentence strips as inspiration.
• These are just couple variations we play, there are infinite possibilities so make up and experiment with your own.

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Talk About Something Else

Description

• 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.

Purpose

• 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.

Sources

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

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Typewriter

Description

• One player is the narrator of the story and sits or stands on stage miming like they are writing a story on a typewriter.
• The narrator speaks aloud what he is "writing".
• Improvisers will enter the scene to play the characters the narrator mentions and begin playing the scene normally.
• The narrator can give and take focus at any time.

Example

• Narrator: The mystery of the missing moose. Chapter one, the forest sleeps. A cool chill hung in the early morning air as Park Ranger Mitchel and his young apprentice Carl began their morning forest inspection hike.
• Two improvisers step out miming preparing for their walk.
• Carl: It's freezing out here Mr. Mitchel. Maybe we go back and sit around the fire until it warms up a bit.
• Ranger Mitchel: I'm sure everything's fine Carl. But it's our responsibility to make sure all the forest creatures are safe from anyone who would do them harm.
• Narrator: But everything wasn't fine in the forest that day, and it wouldn't be long before the ranger noticed something out of the ordinary.
• Ranger Mitchel: Oh my god. Freeze boy.
• Carl: Why? What is it Mr. Mitchel?
• Ranger Mitchel: You see that? It's a moose egg. Not usualy for them to be left alone like that. Momma's gotta be nearby.
• Narrator: A large, brown, and furry egg lay nestled in a bed of pine needles surrounded by trees in every direction. A trail of crimson staining the forest floor lay before them leading into the thickest brush of the woods.
• Carl: Wait... Mr. Mitchel. Is that blood?

Tips

• Be sure improvisers are using give and take to share the spotlight. The bulk of the responsibility shouldn't fall on the narrator or the actors.
• The narrator can take advantage of the format by establishing tone and using scene painting.
• Yes and the narrators decisions including the physical reality of the space.
• The narrator can always jump forward in time, to a new location or rip up a page and start over. They don't have to write the story in sequential order.
• Focus on telling a good story rather than doing bits. Bits can have their place though.

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