Why Improvisation? Well, aside from being a lot of fun, the ability of an actor to think on his feet is a valuable skill. It also encourages creative thinking and taking risks- all needed for strong character development. Believe it or not, improvisation is like a muscle- it can developed and get stronger. The more improvisation an actor does, the better they will get.

Theater Sports used to be a very popular form of competitive improvisation games, and is still active in some areas of the country. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the syndicated show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" I recommend watching this show to get an understanding of how to run improv games, but BE WARNED: The show can get mildly vulgar without warning, so if you are easily offended, skip the show. If you do watch it and decide to try some of the games they play, make sure that you choose games that are not to advanced for the skill level of your team, so as not to discourage them. Some of the games may look like fun, but the actors on "WLIIA" are very skilled, and make it look easy!

Freeze Tag: (2 people) An excellent warm-up game. Have two people take the stage and get a relationship and place from the group. Have them begin a scene. When someone watching from the group sees a particular position that could be a completely different situation, the yell FREEZE! The two on stage freeze, and the one who yelled tags one of the people and takes there place in exactly the same position. The one who tagged begins a new scene with the current positions. The game continues as so until you decide to end it. The sooner someone yells FREEZE! the better this game moves along. If you find that no one is yelling freeze, try doing it yourself and encourage someone to make up a new scene based on the frozen positions.

Emotions/Genres: (Two people) My favorite game! Choose either "Emotions" or "Genres", don't combine to two. Make a list, or get suggestions from the audience if you have one, of different emotions or genres. Such suggestions might be: anger, joy, confusion, playful for emotions or horror, western, sci-fi, romance for genres. Get a relationship and place and have them begin a scene. After the scene has been established yell HOLD! and give one of the suggestions on the list to each person (for emotions, give a separate emotion to each player, for genres give one genre for the scene.) After the suggestion, they scene must begin again, incorporating the new emotions or genre. End after a couple minutes or 3-5 suggestions. (This game is played on "WLIIA" called "Film, TV and Theatre syles".)

Props: (3-4 people) Have your people take the stage and place an everyday object in front of them on a chair or bench. Time them for 2 minutes and have them race against each other to run to the object (this isn't a marathon, place it only a few steps away) and demonstrate as many different things that the object can be. Only one suggestion each time, and after each suggestion is made, they must set the object down and step back to the starting place before making another suggestion. If you like, have other members of the group keep count of how many different suggestions one of the persons comes up with and see who thought of the most at the end of the 2 minutes. No repeat suggestions allowed! ("WLIIA" plays a game similar to this of the same name. I won't explain it here. If your curious, tune into the show.)

Silly, Stinky, Sexy: (4 people) Have your people take the stage choose one person to host a "party". Explain that each person playing this game must assign one of the adjectives (silly, stinky, sexy) to one of the other people playing - not out loud, only to themselves. Have the host begin the party, and the other people enter one at a time. They must then interact at the party with each other, keeping in mind the adjectives that they have given to each person. Continue for 4-5 minutes or so. This game is a ton of fun to play and is usually an absolute riot to watch as well.

Statues (4 people) Have your people take the stage and pair off. One person in the pair will be the "actor". They will be the only one to speak during the scene- however, the cannot move at all! The other person in the pair will move them during the scene- they cannot speak. Get a relationship and place and begin the scene. ("WLIIA" plays this game and they use audience members as the movers.)

Story, story - DIE! (4-5 people)A very challenging game! Have your people line up on stage facing the audience. Get the title of a story suggestion from your group or audience. Stand or sit where the performers can see you and point to one of them. As long as you are pointing to them they must tell the story based on the title suggestion. When you feel like it point to a different person. This person must pick the story up right up where the other person left off. If they repeat the last word or hesitate for to long they DIE! and must step out of the game. Continue changing story tellers rapidly until only one person remains! ("WLIIA" plays a similar version of this with an even more challenging twist!)

One word story: (4-5) Have you people line up on stage facing the audience and get a title suggestion for a story from the group or audience. The game begins as the title suggests, proceeding down the line and back, the story is told one word at a time. If one of the performers repeats a word, says more then one word, or says a word that makes absolutely no sense they must leave the game. Continue until only one person remains, or the last two remaining people are so good that they are able to finish the story!