Improv Blog 4 - Teaching or Leading a group

 I very much want to be teaching or leading an improv class or workshop. As I’m out for a walk or hike I often find myself concocting exercises. Today I was thinking about one of my favorite games or warm-ups which is known to me as the Alphabet Game. We start a scene at some letter in the alphabet between two players (though it could be done with more players in a specific order) and in turn, the next player starts their line or lines with the next letter in the alphabet going around the alphabet, ending with the letter the scene was started. The results can be delightful.


My thought was to combine that with a warm-up first that requires players to name things from a designated category. Now, I’m not planning this blog entry to be a description of warm-up games but rather an idea for an exercise that could help warm-up players. The idea of naming things in a category, such as the warm-up "Name three things" is really just food for thought for creating scenes. In the alphabet game, one needs some more words available for difficult letters. Now, there are clever ways to cover some letters by using names and of course, excepting sounds that are like the letter you need, X can be an example, for example, or saying, “exit now!” when you can’t think of anything for X. However, a good warm-up for that game could be to have people use letters for categories and going in order, perhaps around a circle ie: “Name words that start with Q.” and once everyone has had a chance at naming a letter, you could have them name two letters like: “Name 5 words that start with AF.” ex: After, Afront, afford, affect, aft, afraid. The first person could say the first word to be sure they are not just trying to trip up everyone else.  I've done this with names due to the fact that it helps establish characters if they have names.


Having a degree in arts education makes it so I can’t take the teacher out of me. Devising interesting and beneficial lessons is one of my favorite parts of teaching. Seeing them in action is another. This is where my yearning to teach improv must have developed. I love learning by teaching. May I suggest an improviser throw a personal party to exercise their own improv creativity?


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