Games and Improv

Keith Johnstone and Augusto Boal

Ways these techniques can be used in film and videogames.

The Philosophical Premise

“Improvisation is intuition in action ...A rapid fire of Choice, Choice,

Choice, Choice.”

[Nachmanovich, ]Stephen

Free Play, 1990

Spontaneity

Keith Johnstone (b. 1933)• “You can't learn anything without

failing.”• “Don't do your best. Trying to do your

best is trying to be better than you are.”

• “Release, receive, return; Make and accept offers; Get into trouble.”

Games and Improv

Secret language of improv• Disrupt the routine – Action begins with disruption of routine* • Make and accept offers. Embrace the fantasy.• Say “Yes, And” – ‘Yes And’ moves scenes forward instead of

shutting down with “No” or “Yes, But.”• Be in the Now – Concentrate on the Relationships – stay

present in the scene. Really listen and let go of baggage.• Make the other person look good –Make them look good, and

you will too!

Games and Improv

Story Story DIEFour people line up and narrate a story together. An emcee points from person to person, cutting off the words of one and forcing the next to pick up where the story was left off. When someone stumbles, repeats a word, or hesitates, the audience yells "DIE!" When only one person remains, they choose deaths for each of the defeated actors, who then perform short scenes where they die according to their defined destiny.

Samples of Improv Games

The Blob This exercise is also known as "Speaking in One Voice." Two or more players link arms around each other's waists or shoulders, moving and speaking in unison as a single person (the Blob), either to the another Blob or in response to questions from the audience. Blob members neither to lead nor follow but to speak simultaneously while maintaining eye contact with one another.

SNL Sketch

Samples of Improv Games

Augusto Boal (b. 1931 - 2009)Forum Theatre is a dynamic place of interactivity through direct action and social change where the actors are the authors and spectators become “spect-actors.”

In both creative process and in performance, it’s about Games.

Games and Improv

The actor’s work must involve:• Sensitizing the instrument of expression; the body. Goal is to

freely manifest emotions through the body.• Can use Muscular, Sensory, Memory, Imagination, and

Emotional exercises.• The actors creation is interrelationships with other actors.• Verbs, not adjectives. To act is to produce an action and every

action produces a reaction – conflict.

Structure of the Actor’s Work. From Games for Actors and NonActors

Dialectic Structure of Actor’s Interpretation:• Dialectic is: “Discourse between people holding different

points of view who wish to establish the truth guided by reasoned arguments.”

• Fundamental for the actor is not the “being” of the character but the “will.” Not “Who is this?” but rather “What does he or she want?”

• The essence of theatricality is the conflict of wills.

Structure of the Actor’s Work. From Games for Actors and NonActors

Examples of Boal’s Games – In Creative Process

Examples of Boal’s Games – In Performance Mode

Forum Theatre (Uses games in creation mode).• Actors perform a short play about a social issue (to climax).• A Joker explains rules of the game and starts the play again.• This time any spectator can yell “Stop” when they perceive a

better course of action for a character. Becomes a spect-actor.• That person improvises within the scene to try out a different

set of consequences.• Boal refers to this as a “Rehearsal for Reality.”

Actors Who have cut loose with ad-libs and improv:Jim Carry/Jeff DanielsDumb and Dumber

Dustin HoffmanMidnight Cowboy

Robert de NiroTaxi Driver

Malcolm McDowell Clockwork Orange

Improv in Film and Videogames

Bibliography• Boal, Augusto. 2006. The Aesthetics of the Oppressed. Tr. Adrian Jackson.

London: Routledge.---. 1992. Games for Actors and Non-actors. Routledge: London. ---. 1979. Theatre of the Oppressed. Tr. Adrian Jackson. Routledge: London.

• Johnstone, Keith. 1999. Impro for Storytellers. London: Faber and Faber. An earlier version of this book was published by Loose Moose Theatre Company, Canada, as Don’t Be Prepared, in 1994.

• Johnstone, Keith. 1981 Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. New York: Routledge.

• Nachmanovitch, Stephen. 1990. Free Play: The Power of Improvisation in Life and the Arts. Los Angeles: Tarcher.

Games and Improv