The art of Improvisation
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The document provides tips and exercises for drama students to practice being spontaneous, accepting offers, extending scenes, and advancing the storyline in improvisation exercises like questions only, space jump, blind freeze tag, and bus stop. Students are encouraged to provide details, continue the narrative, respond to others' offers, and avoid statements, hesitation and repetition.
The art of Improvisation
- 1. The Art of Year 10 Drama
- 2. Tips for • BE SPONTANEOUS • MAKE OFFERS • ACCEPT OFFERS • EXTEND • ADVANCE
- 3. Questions Only • Two actors take the stage. They are given a topic to talk about, but they can only speak in questions. It must be a conversation of questions in response to each other, not just a list of questions vaguely related to the topic. • Actors can be buzzed out for replying with a statement e.g. “I don’t know”, hesitating, repetition, if question is only one word, or going too far off topic. • AVOID: Statements, hesitation, repetition of any form, lists of questions.
- 4. Be Spontaneous • State the obvious if you can’t think of what to do. • Take baby steps. • Be logical.
- 5. Spontaneous Game – Walk around the room, and name things (what they are) for one minute as quick as you can. – Now walk around the room and names things what they aren’t (avoid categories and stalling) Question: Which is easier? State the obvious.
- 6. Extend and Advance • Extend (give detail) to colour your scenes and help audience to believe what you are doing • Advance or go into the future to keep scene flowing.
- 7. Extend and Advance Game • Work in pairs • Person A tells a story, and Person B calls out ‘extend’ when they want more detail in the story. Person B can also call out ‘advance’ when they have enough detail or they want the story to continue. • When the story is complete, swap over and Person B tell the story!
- 8. Make and Accept Offers • Have input rather than stand frozen • Don’t block their offers. Say “yes”. • Listen to what the other actors are doing and avoid talking over each other
- 9. Space Jump • An actor starts off with an original scene and plays it out alone for 10 seconds. • After this time the next actor calls “space jump” and the actor on stage freezes. • The new actor creates a brand new, unrelated scene inspired by the position held by the original actor. • The next actor does the same until the whole team is on stage. • After this point the actors must make excuses and leave the stage in reverse order. As they do they must go through the scenes in reverse order finishing with the first actor and the scene they started with.
- 10. Extension Games…
- 11. Blind Freeze Tag • This game is open to all. • Two actors start a scene. After about 10 seconds an audience member turned away from the performance will call freeze. The actors freeze their positions. • The audience member replaces one of the actors and start a completely new and unrelated scene by using the positions the actors were originally in and making a starting offer. POINTS: 3 points for first time on stage. 1 point each entry after everyone has been given an opportunity. Bonus points for quick starting offers.
- 12. Bus Stop • This game is open to the audience to enter the stage as different characters. • Only two people can be onstage at any one time. If someone decides to leave they must make an excuse and a member of the audience becomes the next character. If an audience member comes on stage, an existing member must make an excuse and leave. POINTS: 3 points for first time on stage. 1 point each entry after everyone has been given an opportunity. Bonus making good excuses to leave offers. Points off for stage hogs.