- •Introduction
- •1 What Is Improvisation!
- •2 Rules
- •The History of The Rules
- •Fear Fear Fear
- •Breaking The Rules
- •3 How to Improvise Part One: Do Something!
- •Part Two: Check Out What You Did.
- •Part Three: Hold on to What You Did.
- •The Magic of Improvisation
- •4 "What About My Partner!"
- •Take Care of Yourself First.
- •Take Care of Your Partner.
- •Listening to Your Partner.
- •What If I Am the Partner?
- •5 Context and Scenes
- •Context
- •6 Common Problems
- •Too Much Exposition
- •Talking Too Much
- •Justifying
- •I Love/I Hate
- •Pausing
- •Bailing on a Point of View
- •7 More Than Two People in a Scene Three-Person Scenes
- •Entering Scenes
- •Four-, Five-, Six-, and Twenty-Person Scenes
- •8 Advanced Improvisation
- •Opposite Choices
- •Specificity
- •Pull Out/Pull Back In
- •Curve Balls
- •Reaching for an Object
- •Personal Objects and Mannerisms
- •Personal Variety of Energy
- •9 Advice and Guidelines for Improvisers Talent
- •The Concept of Training
- •Men and Women
- •The Perfect Actor
- •Auditioning Guidelines for Improvisers
- •Common Patterns
- •Summary
- •10 Improvisation and he Second Law of Thermodynamics
- •First Law of Thermodynamics
- •The Second Law of Thermodynamics
- •The Thermodynamics of Improv
- •11 Exercises to Do at Home
- •Dada Monologue
- •Word Association
- •Gibberish
- •Solo Character Switches
- •Character Interview
- •Styles and Genres in a Hat
- •Sound to Dialogue
- •Environment
- •Body Parts
- •Breakfast
- •Object Monologue
- •Scene with Emotional Shift
- •Scenes of Status Shift
- •Heightening
- •Read a Character from a Play Out Loud
- •Film Dialogue
- •Write an Improvised Scene
- •Counting to One Hundred
- •Notes on Good Acting
- •Exercise
- •12 Annoyance
Sound to Dialogue
Stand and make a sound, any sound. Let that sound slide into a character's dialogue. Improvise for around ten seconds as that character, then make another sound and slide it into another character. For example, I make the sound, "Ohhhhhh." Then I let that slide into a character: "Ohhhhhhhkey-dokey, I want a biscuit!" or "Eeeeeeeeeeeeasy does it! Don't come any closer."
Do this for about six hours. No, do this for about two minutes.
Purpose
This is a great way to stretch out your voice and arrive at characters you didn't even know were in you. It's also a great way to train yourself to make a vocal initiation in a scene, and force your brain and mouth to catch up with your initiation.
The following exercises are about the physical: body and space.
Environment
Stand in the middle of a fairly empty room. Now, without thinking, reach out in the air and grab some imaginary object. It's tricky, but truly challenge yourself not to preconceive the object. The second your hand hits that object, let it inspire you to choose what it is. Then go ahead and use the object.
So, for example, I just reached out and grabbed something. I didn't know what it was until I reached out and when I saw my hand I was inspired to think, "torch." So now I have a torch in my hand. I start walking with it as if I am in a dark room. If the object were an oven, I might open and close the oven door. If I found that it was a banana, I might peel and eat it.
After you have used it, set down or leave that object, taking note of where it is. Then immediately imagine another object that is somehow associated with the first object.
So in my example, I take the torch, put it in a torch holder, then pick up a wine bottle.
Next, find a third object that might be appropriate to the first two. In my example, I have a torch and a wine bottle, and I find an old trunk. At this point, you might get an idea of where you are. Let that inspire you to find a fourth object. In my example, I feel like I'm in an old cellar, so now I find an old dress.
Continue until you've created about ten objects. For bonus points, see if you can revisit all of the objects you have created in this environment. Congratulations, you just created an entire world by reaching out your hand.
Purpose
This is a great way to practice creating environments. By beginning with nothing but the act of reaching out, you will learn to immediately come up with something, and you'll find over time that doing so is not so scary. You will also find you can create a whole environment, regardless of whether a location is offered as a suggestion for a scene. Further challenge yourself by creating an environment while in character monologue but not talking about what you are doing. From the very first second you reach for the first object, begin talking.
Body Parts
Walk at random around a room. Think of a body part, such as a nose, then lead with that body part. By lead, I mean give the nose presence: Stick out your nose a little and walk forward. After a bit, switch the body part and give that presence. For example, give your right shoulder presence and continue forward. Keep doing this until you have gone through every part you can think of—head, nose, chin, toes, left knee, wrist, chest, pelvis, shoulder, left ear. You get the idea.
Purpose
When you lead with a body part, you will discover that it actually makes you feel differently. It gives you an instant character. This is a great tool to help you make character choices that wouldn't normally occur to you. After you do the exercise a couple of times, do it over and make character sounds that feels like the character you have embodied. Then, as a third challenge, actually bring each character to words: Start talking in character.