“T” is for “Trust”

Little of value occurs on the improv stage without a robust sense of Trust. If players aren’t confident that the ensemble will lift them up in times of challenge and make room for them in times of success, the rapid game of ping pong that is improvisation – with teammates instinctively and immediately exchanging creative volleys – will inevitably collapse.

Times to Trust…

This is just a taste of this entry/concept. Go here for more information.

Related Entries: Audience, Postmortem, Speaking Your Truth Antonyms: Fear, Winning Synonyms: Ensemble

Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
Join my Facebook group here.
© 2023 David Charles/ImprovDr

Connected Game: Creation Myth Scene

Game Library: “Replay”

A Replay scene is one of the few exceptional situations where a simple Transaction Scene (or problem/solution scene in the spirit of a Commercial) can actually serve your needs. When crafted as the first “base” vignette, such a predictable dynamic will provide sufficient memorable markers for the more out-of-the-box replays that follow.

The Basics

The basic Replay model offers the foundation for many related structures, several of which are outlined below. The dynamic begins with the creation of a deliberately modest template scene that responds to an audience ask-for. This first action usually lasts about a minute or so and should have a resolute button. You don’t want this offering to be too epic as you’ll be revisiting it several times. At the completion of the first vignette, it’s typical for a member of the team, director, or host to return to the audience and obtain one or more new handles or overlays. Players then restart the initial scene, repeating its major elements, but now through the newly acquired lens. The original scene replays several times in this fashion, often slowly moving further and further from the base model in the process.

Example

The first three lines of a scene are improvised based on the suggestion of “fast food.” (These scenes should go longer, but this is just designed to give a taste of the mechanics.)

Players A and B begin as a picky customer and an “over it” register worker, respectively.

Player A: (looking up at the large flashing screens of menu items) “You have so many options. I’m not sure what I’m in the mood for…”

Player B: “There’s a long line of people behind you, so when you’re ready…”

Player A: “Do you have anything that’s fresh and locally sourced?”

The scene continues until it finds its button and the lights fade. Quickly, the host leaps to the stage and asks for a new emotion for the scene and receives “passionate.” The onstage players shuffle into their original starting positions as the lights transition (perhaps with a truncated countdown).

Player A: (absolutely mesmerized by the robustness of the menu) “You have sooo many options. I’m not sure what I’m in the mood for…”

Player B: (with charm and not at all in a rush to move them along) “There’s a long line of people behind you, so when you’re ready…”

Player A: (with a playful wink) “Do you have anything that’s fresh and locally sourced?”

The scene continues as before but in this tone, until it reaches a similar ending and the host steps up once more…

The Focus

Much of the fun of this game consists of reinventing the initial tropes and plot points. Don’t be afraid of a mundane, perhaps even slightly dull, first action. In some ways, if you’re too creative right out of the gate, you can be making the work ahead needlessly daunting.

Traps and Tips

1.) Consider honoring the template. One of the gifts of a shorter base scene with clear beats and dialogue is that you’re more likely to remember the constituent elements. Without recreating the familiar steps of the template, you’ll quickly deviate from the stated intent of the game, which, as the title promises, is to replay the scene in new ways. Especially for your first efforts, it’s helpful to maintain as much of the original as is workable. This has the dual benefit of burning these major choices into your mind for future use and giving you a more dynamic arc. In the classic version of Replay, the gimmick can resemble Most Scenes in a Minute (discussed here), but in this latter context players strive to replicate the original vignette as many times as possible in a longer set time (perhaps with the added heat of trying to achieve a target number of scenes). For classic Replay, the pace is a little less manic and usually consists of a set number of repeats (usually two or three). In both iterations, it’s helpful to have a dedicated facilitator pitching each new handle either from a well-composed audience prompt or as the chief mischief-making director themselves. This “most scenes” version invites a very brief template scene – thirty seconds or less – that tends to get boiled down even further to an essence through subsequent rounds. The facilitating caller can greatly assist the shape of the game by providing a glorious variety of contrasting inspirations: from character quirks, objectives, and occupations to locations, moods, and animal essences.

2.) Consider keeping the text. As you face the first reenactments, strive to reiterate as much of the foundational text and staging as possible. A great deal of the game’s effectiveness resides in how dialogue and action reappear rather than just throwing out the first attempt completely and starting with a blank canvas. Explore how a new objective, subtext, or context can reveal a different meaning that has previously lay dormant in the original choices. As modeled in the fast-food scene, the players needn’t change much of the action at all to suddenly reveal more passionate undertones. Emotional Replay blossoms with this subtextual style of play. Yes, of course, it’s fine to tweak words here and there to suit your playful ends – and even deploy more wholesale changes in the final reenactment – but even a tacit commitment to fidelity delightfully raises the challenge. For this replay version, and those that follow, it’s traditional to improvise the first scene and then pause the action while a team member elicits three contrasting choices (emotions in this case) for the replays. Gathering them all at once also allows you to set the order in which they’ll appear so that you can place the largest or richest energy in the final position.

3.) Consider adjusting the text. When the game moves into more overt style or genre-based work, language adjustments will soon rightly follow. It’s still a lovely finesse to approximate the opening text as faithfully as possible, but as you move from modern day vernacular to more poetic or style-specific language games, your dialogue (and movement quality) should delightfully adjust. While the format doesn’t require each replayed scene to end identically, varied outcomes are especially common when you introduce the lens of genre. If our fast-food storyline now becomes a western, our customer might become a rancher confronting a rustler sitting at a hidden campfire who is dining on some stolen stock. Genre Replay invites this retelling approach, encouraging players to maintain the initial dynamic while requiring them to re-envision how stylistic concerns can elucidate unexpected connections and contrasts. Our fast-food template scene probably resulted in Player A finally ordering something on the menu; our western take is probably destined for some form of gun fight or altercation (in slow motion, of course).

4.) Consider maintaining the essence. The further you get from the assumed given circumstances of that first scene (which usually defaults to a here and now aesthetic) the more you’ll want to freely reinterpret the source material while creatively retaining at least a hint of its original flavor. Seek to honor the bigger moves, rhythms, and patterns without getting too caught up in the minutiae. A favorite replay variant is Through the Ages, which incorporates three historical periods. This invariably demands highly stylized results inspired by distant times and places. Here, players should ask themselves, “How would the initial scenic assumptions transform in these alien settings?” What would “fast food” even look like in Europe’s dark ages, ancient Egypt, or China’s Han Dynasty? What relationship would most closely resemble a server and customer? A simple transaction scene works extremely well in this replay version as a commonplace routine becomes surprisingly rejuvenated when subjected to some historical “if this is true, what else is also true…?”

5.) Consider all of the above. And if you play a freestyle or mixed replay, then all of the above advice holds true. When your scenic repeats don’t exclusively belong in one overlay column, you’ll want to strategically sequence your options and build your tactics to maximum effect. Often, it’s wise to start close to the source material, mirroring the base scene reasonably closely, and then ratcheting up the changes and attack. Scene Three Ways offers just such an opportunity. I like using the device of getting an audience member’s initials to then inspire three resulting handles: an emotion starting with “D,” a movie genre in the “A” section, and a “C” musical style. (This might garner dejected, action, and country, although you can obviously use any three prompts that best suit your company.) Music will nearly always gift you a strong finale, especially if you’re fortunate enough to have a strong musician and able singers in your midst. But occasionally, a shuffle may be in order, and I’ll tend to slate a really left field ask-for in the middle of the replays to make sure there’s a more accessible option for the climax.

In Performance

Replays tend to need a little extra space to flourish on your roster as even if the base scene is concise, you’re often looking at a performance time of eight to ten minutes once you’ve factored into account the set-up, ask-fors, and transitions. The built-in potential for a grander arc makes games of this ilk will-suited to the final spot in an act or evening. Each variant has a slightly unique gift to offer – from the attack of a timed freestyle Replay, to the subtextual subtleties of Emotional Replay or the broader stylistic strokes of Genre Replay, to the mental gymnastics of Through the Ages or the highwire act that is Scene Three Ways. Also, consider exploring Rashomon (found here) if you want a character-centric take on the same idea.

Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
Join my Facebook group here.
Photo Credit: Tony Firriolo
© 2023 David Charles/ImprovDr

Connected Concept: Transaction Scene

“T” is for “Transaction Scene”

An often-uninteresting subset of improv scenes that don’t tend to grow beyond the basic premise of one character buying a good or service from another.

Exchange Your Transaction For This…

This is just a taste of this entry/concept. Go here for more information.

Related Entries: CROW, Objective, Secrets, Strangers, Subtext, Teaching Scene Antonyms: Breaking Routines, Change, Stakes, Urgency Synonyms: Stasis

Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
Join my Facebook group here.
© 2023 David Charles/ImprovDr

Connected Game: Replay

Game Library: “Bad Rap”

This game title is perhaps a little misleading in that in order to pursue Bad Rap players must actually closely honor the core rhythmic and rhyme scheme tenets of the game while using a Third Thought technique to derail the listeners’ expectations. It’s no small task to be good at being this particular kind of bad!

The Basics

Players form a circle and establish a 4/4 rhythm by clicking their fingers or similar. Everyone chants the choral refrain. “Bad rap… bad rap, bad rap.” (The cadence I use puts the first “bad” on the first beat, and then the two final “raps” on the third and fourth beats respectively.) One player begins by providing the first couplet, setting up a target rhyme in the first line and then truncating the second line so that all but the rhyme word is completed. This final word or phrase is the moment when the couplet is swiftly passed to the next player in the circle to complete “badly.” That is, the next player should finish the pitched sentence logically but not with the intended rhyme. The “bad rap” hook is repeated between each couplet line, and the player who just completed the prior line now constructs their own couplet with a similarly clear target rhyme offer. This all becomes much clearer with the example below…

Example

All:

“Bad rap… bad rap, bad rap
Bad rap… bad rap, bad rap”

Player A:

“I was walking down the street…”

All:

“Bad rap… bad rap, bad rap”

Player A:

“In just ten minutes I had really sore…”

Player B: (maintaining the cadence)

“…legs!”

All:

“Bad rap… bad rap, bad rap”

Player B:

“I finally arrived at the gardening store. “

All:

“Bad rap… bad rap, bad rap”

Player B:

“Bought one bag of dirt, couldn’t carry…”

Player C:

“…enough.”

All:

“Bad rap… bad rap, bad rap”

Player C:

“Dragged that bag all the way home…”

All:

“Bad rap… bad rap, bad rap”

Player C:

“And made a little bed for my garden…”

The Focus

This exercise reinforces a litany of important improv skills but is particularly effective at modeling a third thought process. As the lyric receiver – initially Player B in the above example – your first thought is hearing the pitched word “street,” your second thought is parsing the intended target rhyme through grasping the context of the second half of the couplet which brings you to “feet,” and your third thought is providing a timely subversion that maintains the narrative logic by offering “legs” or any other non-rhyming word instead. Ironically, in the ensemble’s efforts to evade the rhyming couplet, rhyming will probably never feel easier or more organic!

Traps and Tips

1.) The rhythm is going to get you. The exercise has little chance of longevity if the rhythm becomes irregular or adjusts awkwardly to the perceived needs of the individual poets. The current speakers, in particular, can tend to distort the tempo as they construct or exit their lines, especially if they are a little musically challenged. Make sure you cleanly get out of the second couplet, in particular, for your teammate to have enough time to blurt out the last word. Generously use the rest of the ensemble to set and maintain the “bad rap” hook, but make sure your initial chorus isn’t too jaunty as you begin. Once everyone has a good understanding of the mechanics, then you can make the pace a little brisker. If and when fumbles occur, make sure you’ve set a tradition of robustly and sincerely applauding the team’s efforts before restarting.

2.) Target rhyming is a must. There’s a lot going on in this circle exercise, and harried players will occasionally throw out almost anything as their set-up line, especially if the rhythm sneaks up on them. The exercise can survive a little of this but don’t overlook the function of an obvious intended rhyme. If an intention for that last word of the couplet is unclear or possibly even omitted, the following player can’t really engage in an effective third thought process. This is not to suggest on any level that this is easily achieved but refocus or slow the pace if target rhymes disappear entirely. It’s hard to joyfully subvert the goal of each couplet if there was no clear goal established in the first place. The exercise also provides practice in clearly landing those pivotal final rhyme words as you can’t rhyme (or, in this case, not rhyme) with something you didn’t hear or comprehend.

3.) A continuous narrative is helpful. When I first introduce this exercise, I tend to make each couplet discreet so that Player A’s offer of walking doesn’t need to necessarily inspire or relate to B’s subsequent idea. Invariably this additional freedom increases the likelihood of some proficiency although I would posit that most players across the circle are spending the build up to their turn well and truly in their heads coming up with their offering in advance. Once everyone has a more confident sense of the logistics involved, pursuing a connected narrative decreases the trap of pre-planning and increases the risk and abandon. In most instances of shared storytelling, I’d recommend a third-person narrative style, but there’s something on point about a more braggadocious first-person voice for this particular game.

4.) Yes, there is a way to make the game even more challenging. This variation is most definitely not for the faint of heart, and if you or your troupe is only just managing the basic model, perhaps skip over this bullet point completely! But if you’re consistently meeting the challenge head on, you can raise the bar by treating the missed rhyme – “legs” in the first couplet – as the intended rhyme for the next exchange. So now Player B might continue, “I wanted an omelet, so I bought some…,” at which point Player C leaps into the fray and might finish the couplet with “milk,” thereby avoiding the intended “eggs.” Player C would then craft a line that sets up a rhyme for “milk…” This approach essentially reduces the turn around by half (while increasing the chances of stumbles tenfold!) I will be completely transparent and admit that I don’t think I’ve experienced more than a fleeting moment of success with this version especially when playing in a larger group.

In Performance

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed incorporating aspects of this mind-numbing dynamic into various directed scenes: a Tag-Team Song where one or more players are instructed to foil the artful target rhyming efforts of their teammates is a particular guilty pleasure. On the way to “mastering” Bad Rap, you are actually actively honing an array of powerful lyrical and poetic skills.

Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
Join my Facebook group here.
© 2023 David Charles/ImprovDr

Connected Concept: Third Thought

“T” is for “Third Thought”

A Third Thought approach to improvising invites players to put aside their immediate response and follow a less obvious connection so as to tap into more tangential (and typically less over-used) ideas.

Three Thoughts on Third Thoughts…

This is just a taste of this entry/concept. Go here for more information.

Related Entries: Abandon, Obvious Antonyms: Over-Originality Synonyms: Care, Surprise

Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
Join my Facebook group here.
© 2023 David Charles/ImprovDr

Connected Game: Bad Rap

Game Library: “Soundtrack”

By completely removing the potential for speech, Soundtrack serves as the perfect remedy for excessive Telling on the improv stage.

The Basics

I’ve primarily experienced this game with a highly adept technician ably moving from one lush musical score to another, but it can surely work with an equally equipped live musician providing the accompaniment. A fully pantomimed scene occurs with this dynamic underscore changing periodically throughout the action to accentuate major discoveries and narrative tilts.

Example

“Bakery” informs the action. Player A begins alone onstage accompanied by a sleepy melancholic musical strain. With ingrained precision they place their wares in the various display cases until everything is “just so.” With one last look into the store, they approach the front door, unlocking the bolt and flipping the hanging sign to “open.”

The music immediately shifts into an up-tempo industrial feel. Customers, embodying the bustle and rhythm of the soundtrack, rush into the store. Player A retreats to the counter, watching as their cherished loaves and cakes are unceremoniously grabbed and pushed towards the register. One customer after another demands and receives attention. And in another swirl, they are gone.

And the music changes once more as a solitary figure, Player B, stands in silhouette at the baker’s door. The soundtrack is now a sweet ballad full of hope and promise. Player A lovingly straightens the goods around them without losing sight of their beloved who floats between the various shelves displaying a care and appreciation absent from the insatiable hunger of the prior store occupants. And then their eyes meet...

The Focus

Tell a detailed story through experiencing and showing your choices and feelings. In lieu of dialogue, make sure you’re activating your whole body to communicate your character’s hopes and fears.

Traps and Tips

1.) Use the music. Unlike similar formats that expect a more avowedly dance-like quality, Soundtrack doesn’t typically result in epic balletic numbers. But that being said, the music should influence your movement even if this is in more subtle ways. Let the rhythms and tempos infuse your activities and staging. Embrace a more stylized movement vocabulary. One of the advantages of using recorded and familiar stock pieces is that improvisers may be able to predict and subsequently honor significant shifts and builds. And while the base language is mime rather than dance, this doesn’t mean that our baker and their beloved couldn’t have a moment of dance (imagined or real) as part of the rising action.

2.) Use the music. In addition to rhythmic cues, the ever-changing soundtrack should also provide rich subtext gifts. Without the tools of language, the music should fill in this gap for the characters and relationships. (It generally works best not to “pretend” talk but rather just create scenarios in which the characters choose not to communicate with words as their emotions are just that strong.) Let the specific instruments stand in for specific characters and their streams of consciousness. Typically, accompaniment without lyrics is preferable as this permits the beautiful musical equivalent of specific ambiguity. Even if the melody remains similar for a while, listen closely for subtle or not so subtle shifts in the dynamics or instrumentation as it’s truly breathtaking when we can see an honest embodiment of what we are also hearing.

3.) And use the music. Lastly, the musical transitions are a big gift that should be fully exploited. Ideally, the technical or musical improviser will pitch these shifts at opportune moments in the action when the characters are ready to explore a new energy or facet. But even (especially) if the timing catches you off guard, don’t passively cling to your prior tone and choice. Quickly assess the overall mood of your new subtextual accompaniment and risk changing something onstage accordingly. If you’re offstage, a sudden energy shift can inspire and frame truly effective entrances (and exits, too, for that matter if you’ve previously been onstage). You don’t want to throw out what you’ve created – combine rather than replace – but don’t be afraid of some strategic character consistent inconsistency. Try something new, then figure out how to justify it.

In Performance

There are literally only a handful of improv scenes that I can vividly recall seeing from my teenage years. A group of Canadian improvisers toured New Zealand in the late 1980s and placed their technical improviser onstage with a comprehensive array of cued cassette tapes (remember those?) lining several tables. As a Gothic romance occurred on a cliff top, the sound improviser brilliantly shifted from one musical mood to the next without missing a beat, while the other improvisers similarly changed emotions and plot points on a dime (or, allowing for the conversion rate, a twenty-cent piece in the vernacular of my home country!) I think I’ve been chasing that level of physical and technical dexterity ever since.

This format shares a great deal of creative territory with Ballet minus the utilization of a narrator figure. Review this Game Library entry here for additional pertinent insights.

Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
Join my Facebook group here.
Photo Credit: Tony Firriolo
© 2023 David Charles/ImprovDr

Connected Concept: Telling

“T” is for “Telling”

In ninety-nine out of a hundred situations Telling on the improv stage will prove inferior to its antitheses showing. To tell announces or describes a choice in lieu of committing to it with all your physical, emotional, and subtextual being.

Tell Me About It…

This is just a taste of this entry/concept. Go here for more information.

Related Entries: Talking Heads Antonyms: Emotional Truth, Showing Synonyms: Cartooning, Commenting

Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
Join my Facebook group here.
© 2023 David Charles/ImprovDr

Connected Game: Soundtrack

Game Library: “Booth Torture”

Booth Torture puts the invaluable Technician more overtly front and center in the improvisatory action.

The Basics

A suggestion is elicited. For the following scene, the technician is empowered to season the vignette with random sound effects, music, lighting shifts, and any other technical elements at their disposal. The onstage improvisers must work together to justify these offers, weaving them into the greater narrative.

Example

The play stems from the audience suggestion “shuttle.” The technician bathes the stage in a dense red light to start the action.

Player A: (calling from offstage as they enter) “Captain? Captain! There’s been a breach in the cargo bay. The upper decks are in lockdown…”

Player B: (assuming the role of the captain, and throwing themselves onto the ground) “Something knocked me over the head, Ensign. The autopilot must have engaged.”

They both lurch towards the left as if the shuttle has just conducted a counter measure. The booth adds a whistling wind sound effect.

Player A: “Do you hear that, Captain? The control room may have been compromised.”

Player B: (struggling to stand) “Help me get to the console. I have to implement the override protocols to secure this deck. Where are the others, Ensign?”

Player A: (ominously) “There are no others, Captain…”

The technician slowly dims the light and introduces the sound of chickens…

Player A: (with true terror) “…no other crew members!”

Player B: “The cargo? That was the cause of the breach in the cargo bay? I think I’m beginning to remember what happened…”

The captain lets out an inexplicable cluck of their own. They have been bitten…

The Focus

For the onstage improvisers, the game is really a justification fest as the technician punctuates the story with unanticipated contributions. Don’t be afraid to be equally as surprised as the character as you are as the improviser! A moment or two of palpable panic merely reminds the audience of the impossible task at hand.

Traps and Tips

As the tools required for the onstage improvisers are really identical to other justification games – it’s just the source of the torture that has been relocated to the booth – my advice below is primarily designed for the improvising technician.

1.) Start strong. I wouldn’t necessarily advocate that the booth should always make the first scenic move, as I’ve demonstrated in my shuttle example, but it’s helpful to offer up something significant and provocative in the first few moments. Such a choice clearly demonstrates to the audience who is in “control” while also allowing you to set the stage a little for what particular brands of mischief you have at your fingertips. Like any other game, the scene will benefit from a clear foundation, so it’s kind to help build this rather than let the team get something going only to essentially erase it with your first gift. A shivving technician need not be a blocking or pimping technician.

2.) Leave room. This is pretty standard advice for any justification game but make sure you’re not providing such a flood of technical elements that your fellow improvisers don’t have sufficient time to really acknowledge and then creatively utilize any of them. There will be occasions when the team might deliberately or out of necessity shelve an offer – perhaps our shuttle team don’t immediately contextualize the chicken sound so as to let it build suspense – but it’s good practice to wait for the players to use each prior offer before adding even more to the fray. You’ll also want to think twice before introducing elements that truly thwart the overall audience experience, such as blaring sounds that prevent the players from being heard, or prolonged darkness that stalls any physical contributions of note.

3.) Play back. Often, many of the larger choices emanate from the booth, but this shouldn’t be a relentlessly one-way street. You can still respond to the pitched ideas from the stage: the air leak is a good illustration of this dynamic as it builds off the established conceit in an unexpected but not wholly unhelpful way. (Similarly, players shouldn’t wait for the next big offer to come from the booth but should fearlessly pitch their own strong ideas too.) Not every addition needs to torture to the same degree or in the same way, and a slightly useful choice makes the next bizarre one (chickens) all the more effective. Also, remember that you can playfully alter the timing, intensity, and repetition of a choice – each offer doesn’t have to top the last in terms of its bizarreness. And think twice about offers that irreversibly impede or kill off characters (or just needlessly violent effects in general).

4.) End strong. Leave yourself somewhere to go. In my current venue, we’re able to flood the stage with haze, which is probably the coolest effect in our toolbox. Yes, that would make for an impressive first salvo, but if you’ve nothing else of that same ilk available, you may be setting yourself up for a difficult curve of absurdity. On some level, there is a built-in expectation that things will get “worse” for the onstage players, so keep something in your pocket with this in mind. If your technical set up permits, it can be a nice finesse to curtain call (or reintroduce) most of your prior elements, especially if they’re still strongly in play, as this intuitively heralds that the end is in sight. And while you want to provide a “game” climax, make sure you’re equally attuned to what the storyline might need to finally land. You might need to hold back a little at the end of the scene for a story button to have the space it needs.

In Performance

We should always play with full-throated acceptance of the choices bestowed by our fellow technical and musical improvisers. This format elevates this critical collaborative truth while providing the technical improviser a chance for a little gentle revenge for all those times onstage players wandered out of their beautiful lights or ignored a rich environmental sound effect!

Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
Join my Facebook group here.
Photo Credit: Tony Firriolo
© 2023 David Charles/ImprovDr

Connected Concept: Technicians

“T” is for “Technicians”

The improvising wizards working behind, above, and in front of our performance spaces.

Honoring Technical Improvisers…

This is just a taste of this entry/concept. Go here for more information.

Related Entries: Ensemble, Hosting, Music Synonyms: Lighting Improviser, Scenic Improviser, Sound Improviser, Stage Managing Improviser

Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
Join my Facebook group here.
© 2023 David Charles/ImprovDr

Connected Game: Booth Torture

Game Library: “Expert Double Figures”

If you’re going to find yourself in a typically-to-be-avoided Teaching Scene, Expert Double Figures at least comedically reframes the whole affair.

The Basics

An interviewer conducts a session with an expert whose field of study has been elicited beforehand from the audience. While both characters provide their own voices, their gestures are supplied by fellow teammates (or possibly audience volunteers). Non-talking players stand closely behind their assigned fellow performer and insert their arms under the armpits of their talking counterparts whose own arms are tucked away out of sight behind their backs. In this manner, it “appears” as if both players are now forming one character each. Gestures – welcome or otherwise – should be incorporated and justified by the interviewer and expert throughout the scene.

Example

Player A performs as the interviewer, Player B takes on the role of an expert on the subject of railways, and Players C and D assume the arms functions, sliding themselves into the positions described above as the lights transition...

Player A: “And welcome back to On the Right Track! I’m your host, Greg, and let’s get this interview moving…”

Throughout the above, Player C provides peppy gestures culminating in a sweeping outstretched arm towards the guest. Player D, as the expert’s hands, waves to the audience.

Player B: “It’s an honor to share the stage with you again, Greg.”

Player D offers up an extended hand…

Player B: “…and I’ve brought you a little gift. Have you been a good boy this year?”

Player C reaches over to take the proffered object with one hand while dabbing A’s forehead with the other.

Player A: “Well, apparently not, as you seem to have brought me a lump of coal!”

As Player D pats their hands clean…

Player B: “Actually, that’s a sign you’ve been a very good boy as you have nearly unlimited power in your hands right now…”

The Focus

There are pluses and minuses in terms of whether to use fellow players as the arms or one or more audience volunteers. Teammates can often more expertly pace the gestural curve of absurdity, and there’s usually a greater sense of immediate trust. Volunteers are a little more hit or miss and may turn the game unabashedly into a torture scene through an excess or complete absence of movement. The latter of these dynamics can quickly scuttle even the most patient and proficient improvisers. But as is the case with most games that include audience involvement, a volunteer increases the charm factor tenfold and may win over an otherwise tepid auditorium. Whichever approach you prefer, the game requires active, full-bodied listening and skillful justifications.

Traps and Tips

1.) Warm up. Especially if you’re performing with unfamiliar arms, it’s important to take a few beats to determine your rhythm and preferred form of attack. If you’re using a volunteer, the first few lines of dialogue will normally involve teaching them some of the basic rules and techniques, as well as empowering them to take some physical risks. With a fellow teammate, the requisite rapport will (hopefully) come more naturally. In either situation, I’m an advocate for starting with natural and smaller choices that help establish the characters and relationship. This makes the absurdity that’s likely to follow all the sweeter.

2.) For the talkers. Pay attention. It’s surprisingly easy to almost forget that your alien arms are making choices alongside your dialogue. If you inadvertently ignore or overlook early physical offers, you’re not taking full advantage of all your scene partners. It’s particularly impressive when the small gestures (or lack thereof) are suddenly woven into the fabric of the character, so don’t just wait for that big move as such a mindset will disincline you from catching the stream of smaller subtler offers. It’s helpful to occasionally set up your arms for a strong moment, especially if they are being provided by a reluctant or overwhelmed audience member, but make sure this doesn’t become a one-way street (track?) or you’re actually placing the bulk of the justification burden on your obscured scene partner.

3.) For the gesturers. There’s only so much coaching you can do in the moment with an audience member, so these notes are primarily targeted towards improviser arms. Make sure you give yourself room to grow. If you start with the biggest and wackiest thing you can conjure, then you’re starting on shaky terrain; hence, my preference for leaning into more casually “normal” gestures at first (if not exclusively). There’s also something quite wonderful about selling the illusion so well that when larger choices appear, they become truly surprising for everyone. I’d also strongly advise against pre-setting “bits” – a pair of glasses suddenly appears in the expert’s shirt pocket for you to grab – as cramming such a move into the narrative will nearly always be at the expense of the more organic choice you’ve extinguished in the rush to get to the funny.

4.) For the whole team. Yes, you could just stand and have a relatively static and regular interview or teaching scene. But why would you just stand and have a relatively static and regular interview or teaching scene? The challenging teamwork required to embody the two characters invites action and mischief. Once you’ve warmed up and found your stride, playfully create activities to perform. This game configuration invites the use of demonstrations, ideally that require both characters (and all four performers) to closely collaborate. If you allow the scene to devolve into another talking heads diatribe, you’ve probably missed the boat (train?) a little in terms of really fully exploiting the game’s unique features.

In Performance

A related version of this game is Arms Expert where only the expert has their gestures provided by another person, usually an audience member. The mechanics are obviously the same, although now the focus squarely resides with the expert persona and their unexpected behavior. There are advantages to this slimmed down approach: with one audience member unpredictably pitching moves to two talking improvisers, you now have twice the brain power engaged in the tricky task of justification. With four arms that have their own minds, the challenge unmistakably increases, but so too does the creative potential, which is why I find myself returning in my own work to this four-player iteration.

Cheers, David Charles.
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Connected Concept: Teaching Scene