Giuseppe: DSI's premier High School Team

Be A Character (Part 1)

Last week, we focused on games specifically dealing with big characters…HOWEVER:

One crucial piece of shortform improv that not many people put into play on a regular basis is this: The Game Doesn’t Matter As Much As The Scene.

The reason that shortform games EXIST is that people were doing such great scenework that their director gave them a challenge that turned out to be even funnier than their great scenes. BUT! Without that quality scenework as support, the games would have been (and still will be) nothing but the shortform equivalent of a fart joke; it might be funny, but it’s not what you want people to compliment you on after the show.

With that thought in mind, any time we look at games and say, “This game’s focus is huge unique characters, or short lines associated with big motions, or an active activity,” what we’re ACTUALLY saying is, “ALL scenes should have huge unique characters AND short lines associated with big motions AND an active activity.” And when we say, “This game’s focus is replaying the scene in 30, 15, 7 seconds,” what we’re ACTUALLY saying is, “This game is called Countdown…and it should have huge unique characters AND short lines associated with big motions AND an active activity.”

SO! Characters!

The Other Side
Each player is a huge unique character. At any point in the scene, I can call ‘Switch’ and the players take each others’ position and trade characters, taking the other person’s character up 10% and continuing the scene. I can call ‘Switch’ as many times as I want.

Eliminator
Three (or more) players perform a scene. Afterward, the audience votes one player out, and the remaining players must take over that eliminated player’s role. Repeat until there’s only one player playing the entire scene alone.

Character-World Exporation
Two players (A & B) start with a normal scene. Player A gets tagged out, and another player (C) comes in as a character who would know Player B and who would heighten B’s character game. Player D tags out B and repeats this for Player C. etc.

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Take a minute to comment below. STARTER IDEAS: What are your thoughts on character? Did you want clarification about anything from Friday or from this post?