Austin Improv

Three Blondes has discovered that it's a little hard to do warm-ups and rehearsal games for three people—many of the standard games work better with six or more people involved.

To the smaller groups out there: how do you get warm and kick off rehearsal?

First, you open the bottle of Boone's Farm. Second, take a swift. Third, pass to the left and talk about your week. Repeat until empty or it's showtime. (Like herding cats, over here!)

happywaffle wrote:Three Blondes has discovered that it's a little hard to do warm-ups and rehearsal games for three people—many of the standard games work better with six or more people involved.

To the smaller groups out there: how do you get warm and kick off rehearsal?

Jeff and i struggled with this in 710 Split for a while (also because we both hate warm ups. ). we started modifying certain games (with the help of Mike D'Alonzo) to make them more useful to our dynamic. our personal favorite is one we've taken to calling Trip Word Ass. basically like word association, but instead of just one word you have to associate a chain of three words. usually this involves associating off of the word you just said twice ("Fork." "Spoon. Coffee. Mug."), but occasionally lends itself to three word phrases ("Fork." "Spoon. River. Anthology."). also, incorporating movement into games that don't usually have it is useful, i've found. either way, i think taking old games and experimenting with/tweaking them to your needs is a great way to go. you get both the necessities of warming up and the bond of creating/discovering a game together.

BALL
OBJ: Keep the ball in the air
RULES: 1 touch per person (no double hits), don't let the ball hit the ground, count the hits out loud in unison

Use this brand -- "Skushi" -- an inflatable, rubber ball:


Also, good to do a "group stretch" before playing ball. It's similar to Chuy's warm-up, but substitute in stretching in place of swigging. Everyone joins the stretch set up by the person telling about their day.

I love three-person Bunny Bunny.

The Bennets really taught me to LOVE three person warm-ups (okay, maybe I just love Molly and Debs so much that it also included warming up together). Here are the first two that come to mind:

This one is from Eric Knobel:
One person stands in the middle, with the other two people on either side facing them. The person in the middle turns back and forth between the other two, who give them a word or a phrase to free associate. The person in the middle should flip back and forth as fast as they possibly can, and the outside two people should be giving them completely unrelated words or phrases. The person in the middle gets to switch out when the people on the outside think they are warmed up. It's key for the person in the middle to be already turning to the next person even as they are saying whatever their word association is to the previous prompt.

This one is from someone whose name I forget in LA:
Again, one person stands in the middle. They pretend that they are flipping through a photo album of a vacation, pointing to the photos and telling the other two people what is in them. At ANY TIME AT ALL the person on their left can ask them questions about the pictures or what they are describing, and the person on their right can ask them simple math questions (again, at ANY time). The person in the middle should continue to talk about the photo album, and also answer the questions.

Three person movement evolution is the best! Even more awesome with two!!

Fun ones, Meghan! I forgot about that type of thing. We did do movement evolution! And other silly things.

Big Booty where everyone takes off a shoe and the shoe gets a spot too. So there's six "players" - I'm Big Booty AND one, you're two AND three, our other friend is four AND five with shoes as placeholders.

One Word Story

Crambo and Dumb Crambo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crambo (Dumb Crambo in a three person version is the same except you think of a verb and they have to mime it instead of say the word as they guess)

Any warm-up can be adapted, you just have to think of how to strip it down.

OH! Also three person I am a tree is a good way to warm up your building on offers at top speed.

jillybee72 wrote:Big Booty where everyone takes off a shoe and the shoe gets a spot too. So there's six "players" - I'm Big Booty AND one, you're two AND three, our other friend is four AND five with shoes as placeholders.

*head asplode*

jillybee72 wrote:Any warm-up can be adapted, you just have to think of how to strip it down.

NAKED CRAMBO!

Jill, I love games where you play as if there were more people there.

Dukes of Hazzard is another game to do that with, but you don't need to have the shoe placeholders.