Here's just a sample of some of the games we play during our shows.

Improv Games

90 Second Alphabet

This is a scene consisting of 26 lines of dialog. The first line starts with a given letter (say `R`). The reply to that line must start with a `S`, and so on, until the whole alphabet has been covered. After `Z` comes `A`. The performers have ninety seconds to produce the scene.

Compulsive Liars (Original Game)

Two performers are given a scene where they are caught, by a third player, in a situation they must lie their way out of.

Dead Bodies

Performers are given a scene. Two volunteers play “dead bodies,” limp and lifeless, which are physically and verbally animated by one of the performers. A third person arrives midway through the scene as a character then “dies,” and must also be animated by the performer to complete the scene.

Death In A Minute

Two performers have one minute to improv a scene in which one or both of them must die by the time their minute is up.

Film/TV/Theater Styles

Suggestions are taken from the audience for different genres of film, tv or theater styles. Three players must enact a scene which intermittently cycles through each of the genres suggested.

Follow the Exiter

Two players begin a scene. Other players may join into the scene at will. The first character(s) to exit the scene cause the scene to end, the next scene begins with that or those characters arriving at their destination.

Helping Hands

Scene played by 4 players, playing 2 characters. Each character consists of one player, who does the voice, holding his hands behind his back. Another player stands behind player 1, and provides the `hands`.

Hollywood Director

The audience is asked for the name of a movie that has never been made. One performer plays the director of a movie starring three other performers. The performs begin the scene, during which the director can yell “cut,” change the scene, and restart the scene by yelling “action.”

I Like My Women (or Men) Like I Like My…(blank.)

Performers must complete the sentence using a theme suggestion from the audience. For example, if the suggestion was “fruit,” a line might be “I like my women like I like my fruit, sweet and juicy.”

Incredible Growing Shrinking Machine

One player begins a scene. Another player enters the scene and the scene/characters change. A third player arrives, scene/characters change and so on, until all the performers are in a scene together. Then, one by one the performers exit in the order they came in, and the scene changes each time until there is only the original performer left.

Interrogation

A performer (the criminal) is asked to wait out of earshot while another performer (the interrogator) hears audience suggestions for the details of a crime (what they were wearing, what they did, what they left behind, and where the crime took place.) The “criminal” comes back in, and the interrogator must give the criminal hints about the details of the crime through their interrogation. The criminal must guess the details and incorporate them into the scene.

Irish Drinking Song

Four performers are given an embarrassing topic by the audience and must construct a rhyming song based on the topic.

Let's Make A Date

Three performers are given “quirks” or characters while a fourth waits out of earshot. The fourth performer returns and must ask the potential dates questions which reveal their characters. The contestant asking the questions must guess the “quirk” or character of each of the three contestants.

Moving Bodies

Two volunteers from the audience are asked to come onstage and pose the bodies of two performers during a scene the performers act out through dialog.

Party Quirks

Similar to Let’s Make A Date. One performer (the partythrower) is asked to wait out of earshot while three others are given “quirks” or characters. The partythrower must then start a scene where they are preparing for a party. Each “guest” arrives in turn and joins the party, it is up to the partythrower to guess the quirk or character of each guest.

Props

The performers are split into two teams. Each team is given a non-distinct prop, and the teams take turns performing short scenes making use of the props.

Questions Only

Performers are given a scene. The performers must act out the scene phrasing everything in the form of a question.

Quick Change

Performers are given a scene. At any point during the scene, the host can yell “change,” and the last person talking must change the last sentence they said to something different.

Scene Replay

Performers are given a scene. They have one minute to act out the scene. Then they must re-enact the same scene in 30 seconds, then again in 15 seconds.

Scenes From A Hat

Before the show, suggestions for scenes are written on cards by audience members. The scenes are then read aloud and each performer has the opportunity of jumping up and acting out a short scene based on the suggestion.

Sitting, Standing, Bending

Three performers are given a scene. At all times, one performer must be sitting, one must be standing, and one must be bending over. If any player switches position, the others must accommodate.

Superheroes

One performer is given a superhero title and a crisis they must fight by audience suggestion. They then begin a scene as that superhero, establishing the crisis. Other performers join the scene one by one and are given a superhero persona by the performer who arrived before them.

Three Headed Broadway Star

The audience suggests the name of a fake musical and the fake title of the hit song from that musical. Each performer can only sing one word at a time in a round with the other two, and they must make up a song together based on the suggestions.

Two Line Vocabulary

Three performers are given a scene. One performer can say anything they want during the scene, the other two can only say two lines apiece, which are assigned to them by the host.

Verbal Freeze Tag

Two players begin any scene. At any time, the other performers can yell “freeze,” and tag out the last performer to speak in the scene, replace them, and begin a new scene, starting with that last line that was spoken.

Waiting For Charlie

The audience suggests a location where three performers are waiting for a fourth player (“Charlie.”) The three performers must act out a scene describing “Charlie,” and imbuing him with three different characteristics. “Charlie” must then arrive in the scene, embodying all three characteristics.

What Are You Doing?

The performers line up in two rows. The performer at the front of one row begins doing a random motion. The player at the front of the second row asks them “What are you doing?” and the first performer must describe something DIFFERENT from the action they were doing. The player who asked then begins doing THAT thing, and they trade back & forth as long as they can until one player can’t think of something. Then, two (or three) initials are asked for from the audience, the performers must now use the initials as acronyms for the things they are doing. (If the initials are A.M., the performers must now answer “What are you doing?” with something like “Adjusting Mammals” or “Amplifying the Music.”)

Whose Line

Before the show, random lines of dialog are written on cards by the audience. Two performers are given a scene and two line cards each, which must both be used at some point during the scene as lines of dialog.

World’s Worst

The audience is asked for examples of the world’s worst “something.” The performers have the opportunity to jump out and perform short scenes based on the suggestion.

The Gauntlet:

The audience is asked for two professions and a relationship between them. Two performers then perform one scene as these characters through five different games. The scene is started with no rules. One by one the host changes the rules to those of the five games.

The games are:

Questions Only - The performers must act out the scene phrasing everything in the form of a question.

One Syllable Words – The performers can only form dialog out of one syllable words.

Letter Substitution – The performers can say anything but must replace one letter in the alphabet with another (For example, “R” becomes “W.”)

If You Know What I Mean – The performers must follow every sentence with the suggestive phrase “…if you know what I mean.”

Dr. Seuss – The performers must perform the scene using alternating rhyming lines in the style of Dr. Seuss.

More Games

http://fuzzyco.com/improv/games.html

http://www.humanpingpongball.com/gm.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_from_Whose_Line_Is_It_Anyway

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