Class Notes for the lovely people who are attending Introduction to Comedic Improvisation
Class Notes for the lovely people who are attending Introduction to Comedic Improvisation
Class 1: Everything is Improv
Class Objectives
- Establish Norms: It’s okay to fail. Get rid of the fear of looking silly. It’s supposed to feel weird – that’s how you know it’s new.
- Explore and Play: Volunteer and try new things; cheat if you can, “It is the mind that moves“
- What does Improv feel like? Focus, Flow & Failure
Three Exercises & Reflections
1.1 Word Association
Rules: Hear a word, and say the first word you think of. Pass it around in the circle. Say the first word that comes to your mind.
Reflections: Questions to ask yourself when you play the game
- Did you hesitate? Why? Were you trying to choose your word?
- Did you change your word because of self-censorship ? Because you wanted to make a joke?
- In day to day life, how often do we hesitate and overthink things?
1.2 Categories
Set Up Round: Pick a category (e.g. “Trees”). Everyone points at someone else, naming an item in the category (Banyan, Spruce, Bonsai). Then pick another category and try again (“Food – Fries, Hot Dogs, Biriyani”). Do this until everyone has a thing in both categories.
Game Round: Pick a category; one player starts naming the item and pointing. Go around the circle.
- How many things do you need to remember? How many things do you need to focus on?
- When you change places in the circle, was it hard to remember? What are you remembering, the person or the face or the position in the circle?
- In day to day life, are we trying to remember everything?
1.3 Sun, Moon & Stars
Pick somebody to be your Sun, your Moon, and your Stars. Try to stand as close to your Sun as possible; then as far from your Moon as possible; then between your Sun and Stars; then copy your moon.
- When one person moves, how does that change everybody else?
- What happens when nobody moves first? When happens when everybody moves?
. . .
Class 2: How to Listen / Yes, Let’s
- How to Listen to Others: Listening to others means paying attention to details. What are they saying with their mouth, with their body, and with their offers? What can you observe that you can turn into a character trait or a plot situation?
- How to Listen to Yourself: What memories, emotions and experiences do you ahve? How can you channel that into your character, scenario, or ideas?
- Use Your Body (So Others Can Listen) If you’re in a crowded room, does your body take up more or less space? So if you shrink your body posture, you can say
2.1 Yes, Let’s
Anyone can shout a suggestion at any time (“Let’s jump on one foot!” “Let’s do side planks!” “Let’s lie down on the floor!”) Everybody must shout “YES, LET’S!” with extreme enthusiasm and do it immediately.
- Last Offer Wins. If you don’t like the offer, make a better one.
- Kill Your Babies. Don’t get too attached to your ideas; be ready to change to a better one
- Whatever You Do, Do With Extreme Enthusiasm Basic idea of Improv: yes, let’s!
. . .
Class 3: Let Yourself Be Changed / Yes, And
- Action and Reaction: If you throw a knife and I catch a banana, it’s nonsense. If you throw a knife, and I get hurt, that’s a scene.
- You Can’t Control What Gets Thrown At You…: If you throw me a knife, I have to deal with the knife. We can’t choose what scenes we end up in…
- …But You Can Control How You React to It If you throw me a banana, I can use the banana to fence with you. Or I can decide to be allergic to bananas. Let yourself be changed, but know that you can change back.
3.1 Prescott’s Character Creation Circle
Players in a circle create a character, offering a name, an adjective, and an occupation; the fourth player becomes the character and the fifth player starts the scene.
Player 1: “Archibald…”
Player 2: “the Ferocious…”
Player 3: “Mooncake Master.”
Player 4: (growls)
Player 5: “Do you have Matcha mooncakes?”
- First Offer Wins When your partner picks your character, it’s called endowment. Either you make a strong offer when you enter, or you play what you’re endowed with. Sorry.
- Kill Your Babies. Don’t get too attached to your ideas; you have to be ready to change your character and idea.
- Agree With Enthusiasm Deal with the offer you’re given, and make a different one.
. . .
Class 4: Make Strong Offers / What is Interesting?
- Everything is an Offer: So make your offers interesting.
4.1 Bus Stop
Player 1 waits at the bus stop. Player 2 walks up and tries to creep out player 1. Then, Player 3 enters to creep out player 2, and so on.
- Strong Offers, Sharp Offers, Different Offers What’s the creepiest thing you can do? What would make someone run away fast? What different ways are there to creep someone out?
- Justify: To justify is to give a plausible explanation. It can be flimsy nonsense, but the audience enjoys when you make a connection out of nowhere
4.2 Photo Montage/The Museum of Weird Things
Player 1 is showing off their photos from their travel. Players 2 – 5 get into weird poses and shapes and become the photo. Player 1 must explain what’s happening in each photo
- Why Why Justify Why is there a dog in the museum? Why is there a wheelbarrow on the space station? This makes sense.
- Get Into Trouble, then Get Out Audiences love it when you get into trouble. When the poses look ridiculous and nonsense. They love it even more when it all makes sense.
. . .
Class 5: Make Me An Offer
- The Audience Has Fun When YOU Have Fun: Make your offers interesting, exciting, surprising to yourself or your partner.
5.1 Goalie
Everyone lines up against the goalie. They initiate a scene, the goalie responds, that’s it. The goal is to just throw offers at the Goalie, and the Goalie just needs to return serve.
- Make An Outrageous Offer The goalie is surprised when the offer is unlike any other. That’s also the best way to start a scene, or start a movie, or start a book: open with something crazy.
- Follow The Crazy The best way to respond to a crazy offer is to crazy offer back.
. . .
Class 6: How to Secretly Make An Offer
- Listening + Offers = Amazing Scenes
6.1 Reverse Interview
One player is the Host on an Interview talkshow, the other is the Guest.
The Guest is an expert on an obscure subject, and needs to end the interview by introducing themselves as the expert on that subject.
Start with “That’s all for our interview, goodnight,” and the interview goes backwards until “Hello, I’m ___ and I’m an expert on ____”
- If You Listen, There Is An Offer Everything is an offer; every line is a hint to what the next line should be. This is true in every scene.
- If You Don’t Know What To Say, Say Yes True everywhere in Improv
. . .
Class 7: What Makes People Laugh?
- If You Tell 100 Bad Jokes, The Audience Will Laugh At Least Once
7.1 178 Lightbulbs Walk Into a Bar, the Bartender Says …
Find your own punchline. You’ll notice the first five take forever, but #10 – #15 come quickly, and everything becomes funnier at joke #9 onwards.
- If You Tell 100 Bad Jokes… Just keep trying. True in Improve, true in Life.
- It’s Less Stressful to Tell Bad Jokes People still laugh anyway. The trick is to just keep telling jokes until someone laughs. True in all of Improv, true in life.