IMPROV NIGHT
These activities require everyone to get out of their comfort zone and open up.
Sit,stand,lay-
This game is for 3 improvers. Give them a
Scene to act, let’s say 2 friends going to get a tattoo. The twist to this game is 1 person must always be sitting, one always laying, and the third always standing. If one person changes their position the others must also.
Replay-
Good for 2-3 actors. Give the actors a scene, let’s say the grandson visiting his old grandparents on a farm learning how to milk a cow. Play the scene normally. Then the ‘director’ will say “CUT! CUT!CUT! Really good job, but I think I want this to be a musical.” The actors must then replay the exact scene again, but now as if it were a musical. Continue to cut the scene and change the genre (romance,horror, western, mystery etc) Background music is definitely a good idea.
Sound Effects-
4 actors. 2 will be acting and 2 will be in charge of creative sound effects . Persons A & B will be acting, persons C&D will be if stage with mics, person C responsible for all A’s sound effects and person D for B. Give A&B a scene, let’s say batman and robin responding to the bat signal. As they act out there scene the must respond to what ever sound effects are being given , they can also feel free to cue in sound effects with helpful hints, “turn on the bat mobile, robin!”
ABC’s
Players are given a scene (i.e. “family shopping trip” or “job interview”) and must alternate lines as they act out the scene. But there’s a catch! There lines must go through the alphabet, the first line starting with A, the next B, and so on until they’ve finished the whole alphabet.
God verses Devil-
3 actors, plus bonus actors which can cycle in if necessary. In this game God and the devil each have an imaginary type writer which writes out the life of the actor in the middle. They each write one phrase at a time on their type write followed by “enter” while the poor actor in the middle acts it out. Who will win
- Ex. God: “John wakes up one morning to a beautiful day. Enter.”
- Devil: “He is late for work and gets fired from his job. Enter”
- God: “He realizes that he didn’t like his job anyways and can now follow his dream to become a chef. Enter.”
… this keeps going back and forth until it seems like a good place to end and then the director can cut the scene.
Time Crunch-
Good for 2-5 actors. Have them act out a scene (i.e. “first day of school” or “boy scouts going camping”) after a few of minutes of action, enough for a storyline to develop, cut the scene. They must then act out the exact same scene but in 2 minutes. After this, they must do it again in 1 minute, in 30 second, in 10 seconds, and in 5 seconds.
Playground Insults
Have at least 8 volunteers and a facilitator (staff member). The rest will be the audience. Instruct two volunteers to leave the room. Those two are the Actors. Everyone else then comes up with one or two phrases. Each phrase is composed of two words: an adjective and a noun. Ex: stupendous lunchbox. This phrase is a playground insult. Split the rest of the volunteers into two teams, each assigned to one of the two actors who left the room. Call back the actors, and have them sit in a “sandbox” in the middle of the room. They will act out a quick introduction scene as two kids starting an argument in a sandbox. Ex: One kid starts using the other kid’s toys, and they begin to argue. The facilitator should choose one actor to start. The actor begins calling the other actor insults, trying to guess the playground insult which the group came up with. As described above, each actor has a team. The team stands on the sidelines acting out the phrase or parts of the phrase for the actor. The actor has 20 seconds to guess the phrase, until the facilitator calls “SWITCH!”. At this point, the other actor begins to guess the insult as his team acts it out on the sidelines. The actor who guesses the insult wins the battle.
Submitted by Maryland Youth Ministry Community