improvarama

Improv Level: Advanced I'm currently writing this on Google's Blogger platform and it has the interesting feature of allowing you to date a post into the past. I'll do that with this post as an example. I'm writing it on July 13, 2025 but I'm going to send it back in time -- not far, just a nudge, say perhaps June, 2025. You've seen many examples of time travel in movies, plays, and literature so now it's your turn. Create a scene with this premise: You can go back to any one day in your life and re-live or change it. That's the scene: the decision to change it and then what happens next. Based on what you know about time-travel, what would be the side-effects? What would be the results? What would be funny about any of that? Now go. Your turn! -- doug smith

Build a scene from this quote: Hatred burns the hater more than the one hated. -- doug smith  

Improv Level: Advanced Location: anywhere Situation: Time travel has been unlocked without sending you the memo. Start any scene and at some point (in time!) everyone freezes, except for one person who then gently rearranges the scene, snaps their fingers (or rings a bell, because bells are nice!) and the scene resumes with the now altered time change. Bonus Level: Include "easter egg" references to other time travel sources. -- doug smith

  Use the following quote to develop an improvised scene in three parts: Resistance causes friction; friction causes fire, and fire burns. Optional part four:  Resolve the fire.

Prompt: "If love is the natural order of things, we should stop resisting..." Situation: Any conflict. Contrast that conflict into a more natural order. Wind it down. Search for peace. "How do you make that happen?" "That's the challenge..."

The more we pretend the past doesn't matter the more likely it is to haunt us. Prompt: Improvise a scene during which at least one character avoids dealing with the past -- its thoughts, its actions, and its consequences. Notes: It's drama, so of course, ramp up the stakes and the consequences -- doug smith

What if we could not acknowledge that we are not who we used to be? And, what if we could? -- doug smith

When money rules, thieves will prosper. -- doug smith  

Opening Options:   Introduce the prompt by announcing it (with one person or several in unison), OR by walking across the space carrying a sign that says "If perfection was easy..." OR by writing it on a white board or chalk board. Build the scene based on the concept:   If perfection was easy we'd be bored out of our minds. Develop the scene by preventing boredom by making sure that nothing any of the characters do is easy. -- doug smith  

Here is a prompt for a silent improv sketch: The ego is lonely until it discovers others. Go.  -- doug smith

Premise:   Sometimes we learn a lesson too late to help us while we're learning it...we have to use it later. Scene: Improvise a scene where that premise becomes clear. Characters should struggle with at least three obstacles and vanquish none of them, yet bring the scene to a close with their realizations. Suggested Obstacles (but you can decide): Your point of view could be wrong. You may have created an enemy who will harm you. Throwing money at a problem may not solve it.

A patient in the emergency room presents with the emergency that suddenly life is not real and if we're not all careful we will all melt away. RAISE THE STAKES: Other players catch the condition.  

A curious mail deliverer asks detailed and endless questions of the receivers of the mail.  RAISE THE STAKES: Not only answer the questions, but take it to another level of "nobody needs to know" detail. Reverse the flow and interrogate the mail person.

A carpenter, who firmly believes that "there are no absolutes" builds a house for someone who thinks that perhaps 12 inches IS a foot and a right angle IS 90 degrees and walls should hold up. RAISE THE STAKES: Levitating tools.  

Two people in a restaurant attempt to order their meals and run into difficulty with a server who refuses to acknowledge the existence of vegetables or water. RAISE THE STAKES: Other customers enter who each refuse to acknowledge the existence of something commonly believed to exist (like proteins, knives and forks, napkins, money.)

 A cleaning person discovers a spot that won't come out, but is determined to prevail.

  Have you ever found someone who looks enough like you to be your twin? How would it make you feel? In this scene prompt, all of the people at a party slowing realize that they have a twin at the party. As implausible as they know it is, they come to realize that everyone at the party has at least one twin. ...and scene!

The driver of a bus stops the bus and refuses to continue because "life doesn't mean anything anymore." The passengers must decide what to do. RAISE THE STAKES: No escape. Inexplicably all the exit doors are also locked.  

The life boat can handle one more passenger. Four people are left on a sinking ship and are now faced with dealing with deciding who will be the last person on the lifeboat.

An alien has just arrived at your office and asks you to explain God.