@Olyimprov:-)
Improv Games
Over the years, Improv groups have developed large collections of games and forms. In typical improv fashion, they are freely published for you to inspect, adapt and explore
The following sites can get your started:
Local Improv Groups
- Improv Robot
- The Tokens
- Scatterbrains
- The Up Front Theatre
- Unexpected Productions
- Jet City Improv
- ComedySportz
Local PlayBack Theatre
Recommended Books about Improv!
Why would a book about improvisation be named one of the best spiritual books of 2005? Check out the Improv Wisdom Web Site and then Buy the Book. It is clear, wonderful and inspiring and encouraging.
"I know that improvisation has nothing to do with wit, glibness or comic ability. A good improviser is someone who is awake, not entirely self-focused, and moved by a desire to do something useful and give something back and who acts upon this impulse. My students wanted to know the password for joining the society of such people, to play fearlessly, and to work with greater ease.
Here is the password--it is yes!".....Patricia Ryan Madson in improv wisdom Don't Prepare, Just Show Up
Free Play is a wonderful book about the creative process in all art. It is written from a musicians point of view, but is valid for all improvisers. Free Play is an inspiring read. You may also want to check out the Free Play Productions Site. check out the
"I have never ceased to be astounded at the power of writing, music making, drawing, or dance to pull me out of sadness, disappointment, depression, bafflement. I am not talking about entertainment or distraction, but of playing, dancing, drawing, writing my way through and out. This process resembles the best in psychotherapy. We don’t go away and avoid the troubling thing, but rather confront it in a new framework. The capacity to personify, mythologize, imagine, harmonize is one of the great mercies granted in human life” . Steven Nachmanovich in Free Play
Keith Johnstone is one of the great improv teachers and his book Impro is one of the standards.
There are people who prefer to say "yes" and there are people who prefer to say "no." Those who say "Yes" are rewarded by the adventures they have, and those who say "No" are rewarded by the safety they attain. THere are far more "no" sayers around than "Yes" sayers, buy you can train one type to behave like the other." Keith Johnstone in Impro
Truth in Comedy by Charna Halpern and Del Close, and Art by Committee, A guide to Advance Improvisation" by Charna Halpern are great guides to Long Form Improvisation.
"If we treat each other as if we are geniuses, poets, and artists, we have a better chance of becoming that on-stage." - Del Close
Reading about Improv is not a substitute for doing improv, but it can help get you off the dime and perhaps move you to action. Here are a few more books I steal from liberally. Improv for Actors by Dan Diggles and Acting on Impulse by Carol Hazenfield.
At the 2006 Applied Improv Conference, we acquired a shelf full of improv books to read. We'll pass on more recomendations over time.
Improv Resources
The web is filled with dozens of wonderful improv sites. Here are a few. Expanded lists of Applied Improv sources in the Northwest will be coming soon.