Broad characters are the norm in this highly physical short-form game.
The Basics
Before the scene, players form a line, and the host (or another facilitating performer) slowly raises and lowers their hand beside each actor until a designated audience member calls stop. The corresponding body part determined by this process becomes the source of each character’s driving energy or mood (their “body lead”). After each player has been subjected to the “physical thermometer,” a scene is played in which this random assortment of characters interact. Depending on your venue, company demographic, and comfort levels, you can exclude “swimwear zones” from the selection process. In fact, that’s generally a wise strategy in general so as to avoid unnecessary icks in an otherwise silly mechanic.
Example
The physical thermometer randomly assigns A their chin and B their knees as character leads (along with other body parts for C and D). The scene begins at a gas station with A and B pulling up halfway through a long cross-country drive.
Player A: (rolling their neck from the driver’s seat) “Let’s not have a repeat of our last stop, please. We can just get our gas, and go…”
Player B: (already opening their door and starting to stretch out) “I’m not built for this like you. I can only spend so many hours folded up into your tiny car.”
Player A: “I’m not paying for a rental when I have a perfectly good mini…”
Player B now exits the vehicle and explores the forecourt with a very knee-centric walk.
Player A: (irritated) “Don’t go too far, Clara.”
A unfolds from the car and starts to examine the various prices and grades of fuel with a chinny look…
The Focus
Let the inexplicable physical aspects of the scene guide you into new territory and dynamics.
Traps and Tips
1.) Play. Some body leads will feel innately more manageable and richer than others, and so it can be easy to get into your head about using an alien or peculiar physicality in the “right way.” Relieve yourself from that pressure and just try different things while using the filter of your given lead. There’s no one correct way of moving with aggressive knees or an inquisitive chin, so take the risk of just doing something – anything – and then finding its logic and purpose. Often, broad character inspirations become riddles that it will take the whole scene to even partially “solve,” so throw yourself into the murky waters with abandon and fearlessness. As I’ve demonstrated, it can be helpful to add a quality to your assigned lead if you’re feeling a bit lost: aggressive knees will play differently than flirting or cautious knees, for example. (This is also the gimmick of the closely related game, Emotional Body Parts.)
2.) Discover. Similarly, avoid the temptation to front load justifications for your inexplicable energy and movement choices. If you’re a bit of a thinking improviser, this tendency can deflate the risk of exploratory movement. Player B’s “need to stretch” could potentially fall into this category if this choice was offered to explain away the odd walking that would follow. When this is the primary motivating factor, anything fun and unexpected that has already been framed in such a way won’t likely open any new doors for the action. Yes, there is certainly a degree of justification that will occur within the scene but avoid totalizing your character’s deal in a flippant verbal comment. This not only “names the game” but also reduces the wonderful accidental patterns that tend to present themselves when players start doing first and seeking meaning second.
3.) Reuse. Character leads provide a great tool for finding and heightening helpful behaviors, so be sure to look back on what you’ve done and seek to find ways to keep those energies vibrant and growing. It’s foreseeable that you might strategically throw away or minimize some movement-based ideas that felt clumsy or inorganic – and that’s okay. But look to mine offers that are encouraging risk-taking alongside atypical staging and energies. The audience will enjoy watching your character evolve and deepen, and patterns of behavior are particularly effective when it comes to isolating our “deals” as players. So, as always, if you don’t know what to do next, consider the things that you’ve already done and enjoyed, and do some more of that in a slightly new way!
4.) Build. This falls a little under the heading of my “stock advice” for games with an internal focus: while you’re getting your own character vibe going, make sure you’re truly connecting to and playing with others. It’s easy to start residing in your head as you search for the next move or physical choice, but in doing so, you’ll miss the opportunities your teammates are both deliberately and accidentally pitching. The character lead is a fun embellishment designed to push you out of old norms and habits. A host of disconnected movement and personae, however, will only be so much fun for so long, so don’t lose sight of building the scene and story together. Every choice needn’t be chinny or knee-y to the nth-y degree-y.
In performance
If your characters are becoming flat or dull, Physical Thermometer (and other essence or movement-based handles) are a great way to shock everyone out of the everyday. Played at a “10,” you’ll get wildly bizarre and comedic caricatures which can provide a boost in energy and presence to your playlist. Played at a “1” or “2,” you might find yourself crafting quite nuanced relationships with a hint of the unexpected that can add freshness to old stale tropes and scenarios.
Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
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Photo Credit: Tony Firriolo
© 2025 David Charles/ImprovDr
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