Playing the Game

In this exercise, we will combine all the skills we have practiced to improvise comedy scenes. Two Players improvise a short (3-5 minute) scene using all the principles we have learned

To summarize, our scene should have a repeated pattern of unusual behavior (the game). Every time we revisit the unusual thing, it should get more exaggerated (heightening), and every moment in between should ground it in reality (justifying).

Typical scene structure looks like this:

• Use “Yes, And” to build on top of each other’s ideas and set up the Base Reality.
• Discover and Frame the First Unusual Thing.
• Justify it, ground the absurdity in reality. If this unusual thing is true, then why is it true?
• Heighten the absurdity 3-5 times. If this unusual thing is true, then what else is true?
• End the scene once we have heightened the game as much as possible, and made it as absurd as it can be.