Hey there,

I’ve been practicing/performing improv non-stop since May of 2024. During that time I had a pretty quick rise within my community; cast in many shows (including a MainStage in my first year), won a lot of competitive things, and delved head first in to my community. I came out on the other side with a pretty successful troupe including some other “wunderkins” of my class. We’ve begun running weekly shows that have had relative success and growing, we’ve helped carve a new space for the community and I feel like I should happier than I am, but each week I feel more and more like I’m not.

I feel like this is the least I’ve understood Improv in my whole time of doing it. I used to be able to make people laugh with most decisions I made, but at some point that became my obsession and I think it’s ruining me a little. Now I know I shouldn’t prioritize being funny, but like I said, my troupe has some solid members including one person in particular who can seemingly do no wrong. To the point, that they’re pretty much the star of every scene. So if I don’t get a laugh during a show, or at least some moment of note, I feel as if I’ve not contributed anything and I was more a support character for this persons show.

It’s really messed with my psyche quite a bit and it’s odd, when I go to a jam, or if I’m in a one off show where I perform with people I barely know, it’ll all come back to me. But then I’m with my troupe again *poof* my improv ability is gone.

I can’t help but feel that their might be some toxic underlying reasons, i’m having trouble fully deciphering it, as I am in it, so if anyone has any advice or perspective I’d really like to hear it because like I said in the title, I just feel lost.

I’m taking a musical improv class soon, and I’m kind of nervous. So I was just wondering if you guys have any words of wisdom to share. Was there any “trick” you learned or feedback you received that made things click for you?

Hey all!

We typically share these Improv is Dead live sets on our Patreon the first few weeks and then post to Youtube after. This one is from April 11th with Damian Anaya, Tim Lyons, Ollie Hobson and Kyle Bethea. Unfortunately, Damian's mic went out just before we got on stage for this one so we're picking him up in the other lavs and one of the camera's.

Logan Square Improv is working on a sick little 3 camera set up so hopefully they'll be more shows captured from their space.

Enjoy!

How we stand on the edge of the stage; how we stand on the edge of our lives.

I (f75) have been in an Improv troupe for 11years, we do about 6 shows a year and we sell out every show. Lately, we’ve acquired some new members who range in age from 20s to 50s . As a rule only 9 of us are in a show and are called up for different scenes. I’m not the only senior member and it seems to me that, even when we’re in the show, we are in fewer scenes than the younger members. I admit, I can’t do handstands or jump very high, but I can be animated and move around in a scene. I just feel like eventually I’ll be “let go “. Sigh. Rant over

I've already said this - that said, I've been thinking about taking up improv, but I need something to help me do improv from the comfort of my bedroom. Sometimes I have a lot of trouble finding the right words, and I sometimes worry that I might end up saying incoherent stuff. I've heard that improv would help me in finding the right words.

Are there any improv Discord servers that has free classes and such through lobby chat?

My social skills are absolutely abysmal. I'm such a socially awkward quiet and shy person. I can't even have basic conversations for the life in me. I can't banter, I'm not witty, and as such I just get painted as a really awkward boring person everywhere I go. Like at work, everyone is so chatty and expressive with each other and able to joke around and banter which I can't. I want to be like that, become more chatty and an overall more fun person to be around.

Will improv help with this? Help me be more confident in being myself and being more witty?

I've been looking for some places online that film and upload their improv shows. I find that I've been able to learn so much from watching great players perform on stage.

Things I've watched so far -

• TJ and Dave (Vimeo): You can learn everything from them!
• Middleditch & Swartz (Netflix): Their duo energy is fantastic, on what seems to essentially be a guest-list type format with a narrative element to it.
• From Zacky to Ally (Dropout): A fun ensemble performing mono-scenes. Watching them navigate 8 players on stage at a time, was a wonderful reminder of the importance of sharing stage-time with your fellow players, showing patience, and not stepping on each other's toes.
• Shoot from the Hip (YouTube): Full improvised narratives. They upload quite regularly.
• Bigger (Dropout): Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Izzy have such a fun energy on stage.

I'm looking for more resources like this. :)))

P.S. If you've seen any of the above recordings, I would love to hear from you what your main takeaways were while/after watching it.

Our Indie Team, Full of Bones, just released our debut special on Youtube. Wanted to share it here, we're hoping to make more of these so any likes/comments/shares helps us a ton as we try to get this off the ground. Thanks so much everyone!

Filmed at The Brooklyn Comedy Collective in New York

About 10 years ago, I saw a flowchart of improv books, suggesting what you should read based on what you're looking for. I can't find it online now. Does anyone have that kicking around?

Apologies for self back-patting. Mods - Pls delate is not allowed.

https://preview.redd.it/yl6z5pvcmj1h1.jpg?width=1287&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b07013e7b95ad8411d59247cd93146803d2616ca

I’ve been doing improv for like a year, and recently finished classes. I feel like I’m sort of stuck now in that there isn’t a way to consistently do improv that’s enjoyable to me.

The people in my class weren’t as into it as I am and so there wasn’t interest in making an indie team. I’ve gone to james but I’m really introverted and just don’t love that vibe. I’m part of one indie team but we meet every other week, which feels like not enough.

I’m just trying to find a group of people that are as into improv as I am and want to make a team that practices regularly. I’ll try to get on a house team at the studio I took classes at, but those are competitive and they only do auditions once per year.

Maybe this is more of a vent than anything, I just feel like I have this thing I’m really into that I actively can’t engage in anymore unless I retake classes.

If anyone with years under their belt has advice or tips on how you were able to keep going after classes, I’d love to hear it.

I’ve only recently begun improv and joined a small street theatre, our facilitator has focused on non-verbal comedia del’art which has been fun but ultimately challenging leading me to understand how the body leads the emotional response and your voice is merely a vehicle of emotional validation.

Based on the history of improv, it seems European’s focus on the body while American’s focus on voice.

What has been your experience with using voice/body in improv?

Looking to do improv in SD. Are there any clubs or groups looking for new members?

For a long time, I was struggling to understand what the comedy "premises" are, how the "Unusual Things" work in improv, how to come up with them deliberately, and how to turn them into "playable" games. I was searching for a clear explanation that would make sense to me, and a process that would reliably generate usable premises.

I have finally figured out a structured approach that really helps me come up with comedy premises, and I want to share it with you.

(Note: This post is about deliberately introducing unusual things into the scene, which, I know, goes against typical improv advice. If you're wondering why not just let the unusual thing come up during the scene organically, I address that here.)

What are comedy premises?

> Premise = Unusual Thing + Justification

In organic scenes, you start by establishing the base reality and playing a grounded scene, and then carefully listen, trying to notice anything unusual that stands out in contrast to the base reality you have established. When that happens you justify and heighten it.

When brainstorming premise-based scenes, you come up with the unusual thing directly, and start a scene with it right away.

The key components of the scene

You can pick apart a base reality into several key components (there's more, but these are the most useful ones):

• Character. Who they are, their occupation or archetype.
  > Construction worker, knight, vampire, old lady, hillbilly.

• Character trait. Their main characteristic or personality trait.
  > Clumsy, incompetent, ambitious, sad, honorable.

• Character mindset Character's thoughts, feelings, opinions, beliefs.
  > Believes in following rules, feels excited, believes he needs to prove himself, etc.

• Situation. Often just the location where the scene takes place, but more broadly, a general situation the characters are in.
  > In a courtroom, on a spaceship, on a date.

• Action. Character's behavior, things they say or do in the scene.

In a non-funny scene idea ("Base Reality"), all these components make sense together, and add up to something normal, expected: > - Competent lawyer making a case in a courtroom.
> - Primitive caveman hunting mammoths in the savannah.
> - Evil vampire drinks the blood of an innocent maiden in his castle.

How to come up with unusual things

To deliberately introduce an unusual thing into the scene, create combinations of these key components such that they're absurd - wrong, incompatible with each other, don't make sense together. Wrong thing to say or do in this situation, unexpected personality trait or dialogue line for this character.

> - Character trait + character: Posh caveman, clumsy vampire, superstitious lawyer.
> - Character + situation: Caveman in a courtroom, aspiring motivational speaker in tech support call center, fortune teller working at the IRS.
> - Character + action: A pirate files his taxes, birthday magician performs exorcism, Zeus takes anger management classes, angels are quietly trash talking Jesus.
> - Situation + action: Space captain gives a corporate-sounding TED talk before the battle, a torturer keeps apologizing for the whole process, a survivor bitten by a zombie tries to hide it, an airplane pilot wonders over the intercom whether life is worth living.

Another way to think about it is that each key component of the scene is "slot" that contains our assumptions and expectations about what is supposed to go in it. Take the expected contents of the slot, and replace them with the ones that are unexpected, out of place, wrong for this character or situation.

For example:

> Normal Base Reality: Competent lawyer defends a murder case in a court room.

> - Replace character trait slot: Superstitious lawyer defends a murder case in a court room.
> - Replace character slot: Competent caveman defends a murder case in a court room.
> - Replace action slot: Competent lawyer attempts to seduce the judge in a court room.
> - Replace situation slot: Competent lawyer defends a child's case at a parent-teacher conference.

An easy and convenient way to replace a slot is to follow this template: > Normally, I'd assume/expect [character] to do, say, think, or feel [expected behavior], but instead they [something very different].

There are two main ways to replace the slot with something absurd/surprising/unexpected/wrong:

1. Subvert expectations. Take one component and ask yourself "What do I expect? What would be wildly different from that?", and replace it with something unexpected.
   > - Normally, I assume/expect the lawyer to be competent, but this lawyer is superstitious.
   > - Normally, I expect monks to be deeply spiritual, but this one is "spiritual but not religious" in a shallow way.
   > - Normally, I expect people at a funeral to be sad and solemn, but this guy is trying to pitch his startup idea.

2. Combine two random components that don't belong together. Take two unrelated components (for example, one random character and one random location), and put them together. Ask yourself "What other component would belong with it the least?"
   > - Caveman + Courtroom = a caveman in a courtroom.
   > - Pro Wrestler + Couples Therapy = two pro wrestlers at the couple's therapy.
   > - Therapist + Drunk Aunt = therapist who acts like a drunk aunt.

Using different justifications to come up with different premises

The next step is to come up with the justification for the absurdity.

> - Investment banker reading "Art of War" a bedtime story > because he's convinced that teaching cut-throat business principles early is the only way to prepare kids for the real world.
> - Birthday magician performing exorcism > because they hired the wrong magician by mistake.
> - Food critic reviewing kindergarten lunchboxes > because their career took a dive recently.

Think of the unusual thing as the "symptom" of the game, the first instance of the absurdity that you see in the scene. The justification helps turn a premise into a playable game because it reveals the underlying pattern of behavior or thinking that can be heightened, a "framework" for the absurdity, creates a "rule" you can follow to come up with more examples of the game (heightening by asking "if this is true, then what else is true?"). It establishes a consistent character logic that will drive similar but escalating choices.

For example, let's take this unusual thing:

> Base Reality: Dad talks to a guy who's picking up his daughter for prom.
> Unusual Thing: Dad offers weed to the guy.

Here are a few possible justifications, and the "game moves" (progressively heightening examples of the game) that would follow from each justification:

> The dad offers weed because he wants his daughter's boyfriend to think he's cool:

> - The dad shows off his skateboard tricks in the driveway.
> - The dad shows off his old BBQ party photos.
> - The dad insists on taking a selfie together.
> - The dad awkwardly uses teenage slang.
> - The dad challenges the boyfriend to a rap battle.
> - The dad invites him to join his underground fight club.

> The dad offers weed because he wants to test his daughter's boyfriend for good character:

> - Offers him a flask of whiskey to "double-check" his integrity.
> - Pretends to have a heart attack to test if he knows CPR.
> - Offers him stolen watches to see if he'll report it.
> - Stages a mugging to see if he'll protect his daughter.

> The dad offers weed because he's nervous about his daughter going to prom and needs a smoke:

> - Tells the guy a much too personal story about his failed prom
> - Tries to teach the boyfriend defense techniques
> - Tries to chaperone the prom himself "I’ll just hang in the back, no big deal. You won’t even notice me."

> The dad offers weed because he doesn't want his daughter to have a subpar prom experience:

> - Gives them a printed list of local makeout spots ranked by privacy
> - Asks the guy to select a brand of condoms from the selection he prepared
> - Slips the boyfriend a hotel key with a wink and says "Don’t worry, I booked you a suite—you’re welcome."
> - Pulls out a detailed PowerPoint about optimal positions for backseat activities.

Bonus: 10 easy prompts for generating unusual things

If you're looking for an even simpler way to come up with unusual things, here are 10 easy prompts you can use, these are like "tricks/shortcuts" that get you to the unusual thing immediately:

1. Confession of doing something ridiculous. > "Honey, I've been meaning to tell you... I bought us a lizard."

2. Accusation of doing something ridiculous. > "Bro, why did you shave my dog?"

3. A wrong thing to say or do in this situation. > Space captain gives a corporate-sounding TED talk before the battle, a torturer keeps apologizing for the whole process, a survivor bitten by a zombie tries to hide it, an airplane pilot wonders over the intercom whether life is worth living, a hostage begins bossing around her captors.

4. Behavior or attitude that is out of place in this scene. > Pitching startup idea at a funeral, making awkward small talk during a bank robbery, asking for a divorce on a roller coaster, doing stretches before a duel to the death.

5. Wildly inappropriate response, weird or unusual reaction. > Haggling with your mugger, being annoyed about getting rescued from a tower, trying to flirt your way out of getting a detention, vampire asks the legendary vampire hunter for autographs, an eldritch snake god acts uncomfortable and disturbed when his worshippers offer him a human sacrifice.

6. Unexpected behavior or activity for this character. > A pirate files his taxes, birthday magician performs exorcism, Zeus takes anger management classes, a kid dreams of becoming an investment banker, angels are quietly trash-talking Jesus, Hamburglar tries to cover up his first murder.

7. Exaggerated, inappropriate, or disproportionate emotion. > Person 1: "I bought a pie."
   > Person 2 (places hand over mouth): "OH MY GOD."

8. Strong opinion, unusual belief or philosophy. > A pirate captain who thinks maps are cheating, "Weekends are for the weak!", "Locking doors is rude."

9. Unexpected characteristic or personality trait for this character. > Hillbilly vampire, superstitious lawyer, thief who acts like a suburban mom, "spiritual but not religious" monk, heart surgeon with an attitude of a hairdresser, millennial pirate, evil lunch lady.

10. A character who does not belong in this situation. > Caveman in a courtroom, real estate agent tours a haunted house, motivational speaker in a call center, a ghost haunts a Starbucks, fortune teller works at the IRS, a superhero and their nemesis go to couples therapy.

More resources

• If you liked this post, you will probably like the Improv Comedy Workshop I'm working on. In this short PDF you can see the exercises we're practicing. I started running it only recently, I'm planning to run it 1 or 2 times per month. If you want to improvise with us, you can join our Discord community.
• Also, here's my collection of fun improv games and exercises.
• My favorite learning resources are "UCB Improv Manual", "Improv Beat by Beat" podcast, Improv Nonsense by Will Hines and Chuffah by Mike Trapp.
• Thanks a lot to everyone who replied to this post to help me understand some of these ideas.

I'd love to brainstorm comedy sketches with someone via discord chat. It'd be like a game, where we exchange messages, whenever we have the time, and take turns pitching/justifying unusual things. If you're interested - add me on Discord, I'm lumenwrites.

I'm still learning these things, experimenting, and trying to get better at them. So I'm not an expert, but if you have any questions you think I might be able to help you with - don't hesitate to reach out, I'd love to have another comedy nerd to talk to about this stuff =)

Hello! I had a bit of a rough improv practice recently. I think I generally struggle with anxiety and confidence, but some days, I'm more than fine -- I'm perfectly calm and confident and do well.

The last two practices I had, I had just come back from a trip where I got to relax and work out some of my anxiety, and my mind was settled and calm. Maybe it's because I'm back to regular life, but I feel off again. I came into practice in a weird, insecure mood the other day. I was nervous about the practice on my way there, and on stage, I was just a confused mess. Nothing in particular was bothering me; it was almost like a physiological state where my brain was just not working right, and my body felt it too. Everything I was saying felt awkward and wrong, stilted, etc. I didn't feel comfortable doing anything. I know other people could see that, which made me feel more awkward. It's like the things I was saying in scenes were almost random, badly-timed, counterintuitive. You know when uncertainty just colors every single decision you make? On stage or off? I tried to push through and just fake confidence but that didn't work well.

This might be beyond the scope of a simple mentality adjustment and might be a mental health thing (I'm in therapy already), but I was wondering if any of you get like this, or have these two "modes" you operate in where one version is a calm, confident you, and another day, it's like you're a different person and nothing feels right. It's like the simplicity of humor and improv just escapes you and your mind overcomplicates everything, and you sort of "freeze" because you don't know what to do, or feel a lot of pressure about what to say next.

It's interesting because it affects my "listening" too. In one scene, I just kind of missed what was happening -- I was trying to listen, but I was confused and couldn't latch on to the general idea or "game" because I was anxious. I had no choice but to participate in this particular exercise, though, so when I came on stage I just did my best, even though it didn't fit the vibe at all.

Is there anything I can fall back on in moments like this? Anything to help me snap out of it? Should I lay low and only speak up when I have to?

Thank you!

I have taken up through improv 5 with an instructor here in Indiana and my group is looking to do some workshops and I'm just wondering how often people do workshops in Chicago and where I can find them. When I look for anything it just shows me full curriculums of schools . I've also joined a few Facebook groups.

Any idea where to find this information?

Hi all,

I'm looking for improv games or activities that work well with large groups of 11- and 12-year-olds in school—especially ones that keep everyone involved while teaching core skills.

So far, pair games have worked really well. Outside of this, main challenges I've identified are:

- Circle games take too long and leave students waiting

- Passing games like Zip, Zap, Zop can be confusing—kids struggle to track who’s pointing/looking where

- Splitting the class (e.g., Party Quirks) gets loud, making it hard for the audience to follow

- Some students feel shy or think certain games feel too childish

Would love any suggestions, tips, or go-to activities that help with these challenges—thanks so much!

We used to play a game in an older troupe I was in called Blind Date (I think). When I search for it all I get is the dating game style game similar to Party Quirks.

This was two people literally on a date and one was a weirdo of some sort. I just cannot remember what the actual rules were.

Any help is appreciated.