My group loves to play a game which we call “What are you doing there?”. It goes like this:
Setup:
- A small stage, on which one or two people play
- The rest of the group watches them in a half circle
- People can enter the stage from one side of the circle. Another person then leaves the stage from the other side
So the whole group rotates in a circle through the stage.
A person starts doing something on stage, for example playing the violin in pantomime.
Then the person next in line steps up from the audience, and asks the signature question: “What are you doing there?”. Person A responds with something different, for example: “I’m reading a book.”, and leaves the stage. Person B now reads a book in pantomime until asked by person C.
As always, many variants are possible. Recently, we mostly played the group variant, where two (or three) people are on stage simultaneously, playing a scene including words.
I was hoping to find a thread just like this one! It’s a shame it isn’t very active, but, you know, be the change, and all that.
I don’t have anything really exciting to offer, but I’m trying to remember ones from the various levels of classes because my wife, who is too afraid to try improv lessons, enjoys participating in the exercises on car trips and stuff.
So of course, there are three-line stories. That’s hardly a warmup, but you know, if you’re playing with someone who’s bashful to even be doing something like this with you, it’s a safe starting point.
There’s also stories where each person adds one word at a time. Like “The” “big” “hairy” “acorn” “had” “never” “forgotten” “that” … and so forth.
In my theater there is a lot of Mind Meld, where people take turns stepping into the middle of a circle and announce a word on the count of 3. Each subsequent attempt (by other pairs, depending on how many people you have) try to guess the same word, next time, based on the last two words. So if I said “chair” and you said “brush”, you know, we would win if we both said “barber” or “salon” at the same time.
Another one that’s probably not a real warmup, but is fun to do with non-improv people is counting to 20 without anyone talking at the same time as anyone else. You shouldn’t be in a position to make eye contact with anyone. Only one person can count the next number at a time, and if people ever talk at the same time, it resets back to 1. Win by counting to 20 without error.
One my wife likes and my in-laws will tolerate, that is more like a warmup is “you think that’s bad”, which has a little Family Guy stink on it, but which is fun, and is easily the most improv-centric thing I’ve put forth so far. It’s about practicing mild escalations, as well as listening to a certain extent. One person starts with a mild complaint like “I’ve got a rock in my shoe” or “I think this milk is expired,” and someone else says, “you think that’s bad? I’ve got sand between my toes” or whatever minor escalation (I shouldn’t have given two opening examples). It goes up and up until the escalations are really out of this world, like, “you think that’s bad? if I can’t turn this quarter around, everyone at the quarry loses their jobs and have to go be slave labor for my competitor, Mr. Slate”, or whatever. When someone reaches the point they just can’t escalate anymore, they concede and the last person to escalate wins.
Our theater also does a lot of zip-zap-zop. I don’t find any particular utility in that one except that it’s good for reminding players they need to pay attention to their fellows. I find that people, at least when I was taking the classes, tend to forget the point of it, and they start zipping and zapping and zopping before they have actually made eye contact with, and received an implicit, gaze-based acceptance, from the person they’re targeting. For a reminder to anyone who’s new and hasn’t heard of this: you stand in a circle, and you make a somewhat pointless hand gesture in the direction of someone else, while saying “zip”, “zap”, or “zop” (I’ve also heard some people say “zog”); but the idea, as I understand it, is you’re supposed to make sure they see you, and are expecting to ‘receive’ it from you. Then, they do the same thing, with the next word in the cycle, to someone else. It’s about listening and awareness; it’s not about being the fastest to “zip” or “zap” or “zop” someone else (although it is meant to speed up as you go along), but rather, about paying attention and being ready to be zipped, zapped, or zopped.
I’m sorry I don’t have any more substantial ones to offer than that, but I’m curious whether we can get the ball rolling in this thread. I’d love to learn or be helped to remember some of these exercises.