Improv Improv exercises
An exercise isn't meant to be watched. It isolates one thing — listening, status, silence, saying yes — and repeats it until it stops being a decision and becomes a reflex. Nothing here is designed to get a laugh, and that's the point: a laugh in an exercise usually means the group escaped the difficulty rather than went through it.
A to C Thinking
Given a word (A), don't use your first association (B) — voice your association's association (C). 'Beach → not sand → sunburnt tourists.' Trains original, specific offers.
Advance / Expand
A coach calls 'advance' (move the plot forward) or 'expand' (stay in the moment and deepen it) during a scene. Players learn the two gears of storytelling consciously.
Animal Work
Choose an animal and become it entirely: the rhythm, the breath, the centre of gravity, the way of looking. Then humanise it in stages — 75%, 50%, 25% — until only a person is left, with something animal inside.
Character Walks
Walk the space leading with your nose, then chest, pelvis, knees. Let each walk generate a voice, an age, an opinion. Meet others and small-talk in character.
Chorus First
Before any song, the group builds the chorus: one short, repeatable line, drawn from what the character wants. The verses are built around it, and the chorus returns — unchanged. You learn that an improvised song is not a string of sung sentences, but a structure that comes back.
Emotional Symphony
A conductor assigns each player an emotion-sound; conducting them like an orchestra — louder, softer, solos, all together. Pure permission to be loud and feel things.
Environment Build
One player enters an empty stage and uses one object; each next player adds an object with detail. Then play a short scene in the built space, respecting every placement.
Gibberish Opera
A scene sung entirely in gibberish. No words exist: emotion, melody and relationship carry everything. Then replay the same scene in English and see what survives — almost all of it.
Gibberish Scenes
Full scenes in gibberish: emotion, status and relationship must carry everything. Then replay the same scene in English and see what survives.
Gift Giving
Pairs exchange imaginary gifts. The receiver defines what it is upon opening ('A puppy! You remembered!') and the giver justifies. Endowment plus space-object work in one.
Give and Take Focus
The group moves in space; only one player may move (or speak) at a time. Take focus boldly, give it generously. Then apply to a group scene. Stagecraft fundamentals.
Given Circumstances
Before playing, the partners silently settle four things: who I am to you, where we are, what has just happened, what I want now. Then the scene is played — and none of the four is ever spoken aloud. The audience must read them off the behaviour.
Hot Seat Interview
One player sits in the hot seat in character; the group interviews them. The character discovers opinions, history and voice live. Excellent before longform character work.
If This Is True
Premise expansion drill: given one unusual fact ('the boss naps in a coffin'), players list what else must be true in that world, then play scenes exploring it. Core of premise-based longform.
It's Tuesday
One player delivers a mundane line ('It's Tuesday'); their partner reacts with maximum emotional commitment, justifying why it matters. Trains reacting big to small offers.
Laban Efforts
Eight movement qualities to travel through: punch, float, press, glide, flick, slide, wring, dab. Each player explores walking, then an everyday gesture (pouring a glass) in each quality. Then improvise a short scene, keeping YOUR quality.
Last Word Response
Each line of dialogue must begin with the last word of the partner's previous line. Clunky at first, then it forces true listening to the very end of sentences.
Meisner Repetition (Full)
Face to face, you mechanically repeat your observation of the other ("you're smiling" / "I'm smiling"), until the repetition changes by itself under the pressure of what is actually happening between you. Nothing is manufactured: you answer what you SEE, including the irritation rising.
Melody Mirror
In a circle, one player sings a short melodic phrase on a single syllable — the group repeats it exactly. The next player offers another. No words, no meaning to find: only a melody to hear and give back.
Mirror Exercise
Pairs face each other; one leads slow movement, the other mirrors exactly. Switch leaders, then let leadership dissolve. Builds connection and slows players down.
One Word Story
Tell a story one word per person. Aim for boring — the group's job is coherence, not cleverness. Advanced: one sentence each, or two-word chunks.
Play the Verb
Each player is secretly given a transitive verb to play on their partner: to seduce, to punish, to reassure, to humiliate, to rescue. You don't play an emotion, you DO something to someone. If the verb isn't working, change it mid-scene — as people do in life.
Psychological Gesture
Find one large, sweeping gesture that sums up the character's deepest want: to grab, to push away, to open, to close, to pull down. Repeat it physically, big, several times. Then play the scene letting it live INSIDE — invisible, but governing everything.
Repetition
Meisner drill: pairs repeat the same sentence back and forth ('You're smiling.' 'I'm smiling.'), letting emotion and meaning shift with each repetition. Trains listening beneath words.
Rhyme Tennis
In pairs, you throw rhymes at each other from a starting word, without pausing, until someone dries up — and you celebrate the failure loudly before starting again. The point is not to win: it is to learn to miss a rhyme in front of people without the world ending.
Sense Memory (Objects Only)
Rebuild a precise object through the senses: the exact weight of a glass, the temperature of a door handle, the smell of a school corridor. Physical sensations only — no painful memories, no grief, no trauma.
Silent Scene
Two players play a complete relationship scene with zero dialogue. Who are they? What changed? Debrief what the audience read. Proves how little words matter.
Sing the Mundane
Sing a shopping list, an instruction manual, the terms and conditions of a contract — with the commitment of a great operatic aria. The gap between the flatness of the text and the gravity of the singing does all the comic work.
Sound and Movement Pass
Circle: one player crosses with a repeated sound+movement; the receiver copies it exactly, transforms it gradually into their own, and passes it on. Full-body commitment, zero judgment.
Status Party
Everyone gets a playing card defining their social status (ace low, king high) and mingles at a party playing it. Then: wear it on your forehead so only others see it. Discuss how status physically feels.
Story Spine Drill
Tell quick stories through the spine: 'Once upon a time… every day… but one day… because of that (x3)… until finally… ever since then.' Rotate who fills each beat.
The Moment Before
Before entering, each player decides in silence what happened to them ten seconds ago — not yesterday, ten seconds. They've just been fired, they've just read a message, they've been running. You come in WITH that, and play an ordinary scene.
The Private Moment
A player alone on stage does what they would only do if certain of being unseen: talking to their reflection, dancing badly, crying, rehearsing a sentence they dread saying. The group watches in silence, without reacting, without laughing.
Three-Line Scenes
Rapid-fire: player A initiates, B responds, A responds again — scene over, next pair. Drill dozens of openings: who/what/where established in three lines, no small talk.
Wants and Tactics
Each player secretly picks a want from their scene partner and pursues it through changing tactics (charm, guilt, threat…). Debrief: did the want read? Scene work with acting teeth.
What They Don't Say
A scene whose text is forbidden from telling the truth: two people talk about a meal, a train, the weather — and nothing else — while everything is happening elsewhere (she is leaving him tonight, and he knows). No line may name the real stake. The audience must understand all of it.
Yes And Circle
In pairs or a circle, build a plan one sentence at a time, each starting with 'Yes, and…'. Then try the same with 'Yes, but…' and feel the difference die. The foundation of everything.