Let's Improvise!

Submitted by Aimee Alger, Drama Rep

Improv theatre can be daunting if you’ve never tried it, but once you get going, it can be the most fun you and your students can have in a drama class!  Here are a few games that you can space out over a couple classes that gradually introduce your students to improvisational theatre.   I did not come up with these games, so please feel free to tweak and alter to suit your group! There’s nothing better you can do while teaching improv, than being able and willing to improvise yourself when something isn’t working. 

Here are 4 games for you to try!

• Pass the Yes

• Yes and Object

• Fruit Bowl

• Three-Headed Expert

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Pass the Yes  

Level

• Beginner 

Purpose

• Make eye contact

• Support the speaker

• Move the action quickly

• Accept offers 

How to Play

1. The first rule of improv is to say yes.  This is a quick, easy game to get students used to saying a literal "yes" out loud, making eye contact, and being ready to play.   

2. Explain to the class that all they have to do is look at the speaker and be ready to say “yes” if the speaker looks at them.  I let them know there should not be dead air with the person with the Yes trying to find someone to look at.  I tell the students to follow the “yes” with their eyes, so the person who gets it should have the entire class looking at them.  This is how an audience should behave during a performance; looking to wherever the action is.  I start with the yes, and the person I make eye contact with will say yes, and everyone will turn to look at them. 

3. The game can end once everyone has had a turn, or you can add in your own challenges (say yes in a different language, with a different emotion, non verbally, etc.) 

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Yes & Object  

Level

• Beginner 

Purpose

• Accept what has been established

• Add something new

• Keep the scene progressing 

How to Play

1. Have everyone sit in a circle and imagine an object in the center.

2. Ask who sees it and collect simple object ideas (e.g., a cake, a truck). No details like color, size, or location.

3. Choose one object.

4. Go around the circle. Each person adds something by starting with “Yes, and…”.

5. Students must keep the object consistent (a cake can’t become a dinosaur) but may add details (frosting color, decorations, fillings).

6. No one can overwrite a previous detail, only build on it.

7. Continue until everyone has added something.

My students love this one because it allows for a lot of creative freedom!

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Fruit Bowl  

Level

• Beginner 

Purpose

• Movement

• Listening

• Ice breaker

How to Play

1. Have everyone move their chairs into a circle.

2. Ask for suggestions of different fruits and pick three or four (depending on class size).

3. Give everyone in the circle a fruit name and then have one student stand so you can remove their chair from play.

4. Let them know they are trying to get a seat.

5. They may call the name of any of the fruit groups, which would cause all the people in that group to get up and switch chairs.

6. They cannot sit back in their own chair.

7. The last person standing calls the next fruit.

8. They may also call “Fruit Bowl,” which means everyone in the circle must get up and move.

9. I let them know they cannot sit in the seats directly beside theirs either, so they must get up and move, not slide over one space.

Students can be quite competitive with this one, so be prepared!

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Three‑Headed Expert  

Level

• Intermediate

Purpose

• Listening

• Accepting offers

• Offering during a scene

• Working together with scene partners

  
  

How to Play

1. Have students sit as an audience with three chairs facing them in the performance area.

2. I get three volunteers to sit in the chairs and explain we will be asking questions of an expert, but this expert has three heads and can only speak one word from each head.

3. As an audience, we choose what the expert is here to speak about (it can be anything!), then we begin the game.

4. The students must answer audience questions starting with the person in the first chair saying one word.

5. The next person adds a word, and then the third.

6. This continues until they have answered the question in a sentence that makes sense and answers the question.

7. I teach them the ELA trick of using the question in their answer to have longer sentences.

   
   

This is a phenomenal game to dive into improvised dialogue because the students are only having to produce one word at a time and have the support of two others.