Austin Improv

Sometimes when you warm up with groups, you can tell they don't really understand what warm-ups are for. They'll pick only warm-ups of things they're good at, or only warm-ups that work the same skill. I'm sure the inventor thought putting "warm-up" in the name would get the idea across, but sometimes it gets lost.

• Your body should be stretched out so you have a full range of physical motion available to you.
• Your wordplay and connection skills should be in motion so that your neurons are firing like motherfuckers.
• Your focus should be razor-sharp so no offer passes you by.
• Your voice should be ready to project to the back row.
• Your silly settings should be on high and your heart should be open.
• Your awareness of the other beasts going onstage with you should be at peak.

...whether you do these things conventionally or unconventionally is up to you.

Very often, the people who don't think they need warm-ups are "roll-up" improvisors. It honestly takes them some time onstage to get comfortable and to start making jumps, and they don't get it, they don't see it. They honestly think they're 0 to 60 in 0 seconds. Well, okay.

And I feel that warmups are important so far as "being connected."




Take that as you take it. Some people just plain don't like doing warmups but they prefer to have a conversation with their improv partner. This connects them, sometimes more organically then a contrived game that loses its meaning after the thousandth practice.



(I agree with Jill some people do that one game just cuz they're good at it. I'm looking at you Hot Spot.)


All games start with good intentions. But some lose their meaning.

Spots wrote:(I agree with Jill some people do that one game just cuz they're good at it. I'm looking at you Hot Spot.)

I used to hate playing hot spot because I was so bad at it, now I love playing hot spot because I am so bad at it.

i hate warm ups (except for stretching. i love a good stretch!). i also understand the necessity of them.

i also hate looking for a job, apartment hunting, and dating. but i love being employed, having a place to live, and girls. gotta put in the work to have the fun.

People have different needs to feel ready to perform.

I ALWAYS have to at least pretend I'm a different person for a minute to understand what that feels like again before I go onstage. Otherwise, I'm in my head.

I love this list, Jill.

Todd Stashwick says you should be in "predator mode" which I always took as meaning you are aware of what's happening around you.

i also have personal "rituals" separate from warm ups, some general but some specific to particular shows or troupes. i feel like warm ups are important for connecting with the other actors, but the rituals are crucial in connecting with myself. so i suppose they could be regarded as solo warm ups? huh...i'd never thought of it like that, lol!

Jon Bolden wrote:I ALWAYS have to at least pretend I'm a different person for a minute to understand what that feels like again before I go onstage.

Oh I love this thought, never heard it articulated before.

In terms of solo warm-ups, I use the whole day before a Drum Machine. I like to make up a song, sing a real song at full volume, do four character monologues that all start with the same first line, play some initials What Are You Doing ("eating grapes, estimating grams, escaping Guam," etc.), tell a one-word story where every other word I close my eyes, plus stretching.

Whenever I coach a troupe I ask them two things: what kind of work do you want to be doing? what kinds of warm ups do you do? Invariably, the answer to the second question totally goes against the answer to the first. If you're interested in doing more grounded scene work then you shouldn't be doing Five Things (my least favorite warmup).

For me, warmups are supposed to be an decompression chamber between the set I'm about to do and the world I'm leaving behind. If there is a very particular mindset for the show (very physical, musical, etc.) I need to adjust for that "pressure" (speaking in a strictly metaphorical way.) Or if my day was so shitty, I will do warmups to help leave that behind.

Sometimes however my day was great and playful and the show is just going to be an extension of that. In which case, I don't feel the need for warm ups.

I don't mind warm-ups, but there's nothing that ruins a group dynamic more than someone suggesting a warm-up and then someone else shoots them down because they hate so-and-so warm up for whatever personal bullshit reason they have and blah blah blah.

I did have a question though. Does anyone else find doing the same warm-up again and again incredibly annoying? "Bunny Bunny" was really cool the first five times, but I'm just so used to it now that I don't get anything out of it. The same thing happened to me with "Fred Schneider."

I guess what I'm saying is I like organic warm-ups. Yeah, let's go with that...

Lubu: I get you. But If the performer has a genuine snag with a particular warmup I have no problem them shooting down a warmup.

Especially any rhythm based game or any game that stresses a rule like bippity bippity something something.


I often hear the argument that games were invented to get everyone on board. But that's simply not true.


Viola Spolin and Neva Boyd adapted the idea of games [from the field of social work] so that a student will take a risk and reward themselves for a particular hang up they are having.

You encourage them to leap and challenge themselves.


If you force someone to face their hangup right before a show I find the move to take a negative effect. Especially if they are simply wired differently from everyone else. You have to let them reward themselves at their own pace.

Before a show is not the time or place I want to experiment with this. I know that a rhythm based game has the potential to put me in my head. I don't know if this stems from my dyscalculia--- it simply is a fact.

Whereas others feel more connected by rhythm, I feel more isolated and more tripped up. But I usually will not argue with the group. I will quietly duck out of the room.


Because I know I will be more connected to the group when I come back when the rhythm based game is over.


I feel the idea behind improv* doesn't dictate that square pegs MUST FIT into round holes. Improv nudges a person who thinks he is a square peg to take a chance at ALSO being a round peg. And usually that works! But sometimes it doesn't.




*improv in the sense that it evolved from social work to theater games to its modern incarnation(s)

Spots: I get YOU. But, I still dunno.

If the idea is to encourage risks, then you should think about what games make you uncomfortable and actively try to understand what it is about this particular game that is hanging you up. That is more general advice for everybody, as you seem to have a good bead on what makes you uncomfortable with certain types of games.

Frankly, I've always thought that I benefit from warm-ups in a number of ways. I certainly use them to get my mind going a little faster, but I also benefit from failing and becoming comfortable with failure. I like to be able to go out on stage and think "Alrighty, even if I start uncontrollably saying 'Urine Urine Urine Urine Urine' onstage that I (with the help of the group?) can turn the scene into a delicious cake...made out of urine."

Before a show though, especially with people I don't perform with regularly, I just am not cool with someone shooting down a game or not participating, because then I worry about that person being a Disagreeable Donald and maybe carrying that energy into the show. On top of that, the person who suggested the game may feel like a Loser Larry. So I guess communication is the thing here. If you don't like a warm-up you should let everyone know that, and let then know why, and then I'll bet it won't affect the mood.

LuBu McJohnson wrote: communication is the thing here. If you don't like a warm-up you should let everyone know that, and let then know why, and then I'll bet it won't affect the mood.

That's definitely true. Or in the case of Hot Spot, be the guy who says: "Hey guys, let's do the version with alternating monologues. I really don't know song lyrics so I'd love to participate that way, or maybe I'll just make up pretend lyrics."



I struggle with the way my brain is wired. Most people with dyscalculia or dyslexia do. People who are bad at math or spelling for that reason are not lazy by any means. It's honestly how they are wired.

(in my case left and right disorientation)


This is something I was able to challenge all throughout childhood by failing math test after math test & nobody ever figuring out why. People would say "Come on, quit being lazy" while I was acing every other subject. People being insensitive to my hangup was super frustrating and overwhelming at times. Again, I say it's how I was wired differently from other humans.


But I will say this. Tami introduced a rhythm game recently that she loves. I didn't say anything because I was auditing the level 1 class. I wanted to "do the thing" and be a good role model and all that junk.

But you know what? I killed that rhythm game. I think I was just on a slower development curve. I needed time to build up the muscle maybe.


So even harder hangups CAN be overcome. I think. Sometimes it just takes time. And then more time. Also time.

i think there's also a difference between pre-show warm ups and rehearsal/class warm ups. the latter is the time to be working on those hard wired hang ups and rewiring your brain. the former should just be focused on connecting with your fellow actors and getting in a good head space for the show. (and that holds true for both scripted AND improvised theatre, i think.)

and i agree with Lubu that certain games lose their effectiveness when the novelty wears off so it helps to shake things up (which is difficult for me to take the lead on since i don't know/can't remember many games, so i usually just shut up until someone else suggests something, lol). but in a troupe/cast setting, i think there's something to be said for the ritual power of repeated games in developing groupmind and ensemble. for instance, i have no idea what "skills" bibbidy bibbidy bop taught me to use onstage, but playing it with the Jury for over five years certainly bonded me to those guys and put my brain in "magic time" mode. part of that was the repetition, part of that was developing/elaborating on rules together. so...yes...both things are true. i have added nothing.

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell wrote: for instance, i have no idea what "skills" bibbidy bibbidy bop taught me to use onstage, but playing it with the Jury for over five years certainly bonded me to those guys and put my brain in "magic time" mode. part of that was the repetition, part of that was developing/elaborating on rules together. so...yes...both things are true. i have added nothing.

Now that's interesting. Because that's a game where, if everyone in the group loves it, they can make it their own, what with the arbitrary rules you can add. But everyone in the group must love it, I find. In my days with Gigglepants I had the same experience with that game.

LuBu McJohnson wrote:

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell wrote: for instance, i have no idea what "skills" bibbidy bibbidy bop taught me to use onstage, but playing it with the Jury for over five years certainly bonded me to those guys and put my brain in "magic time" mode. part of that was the repetition, part of that was developing/elaborating on rules together. so...yes...both things are true. i have added nothing.

Now that's interesting. Because that's a game where, if everyone in the group loves it, they can make it their own, what with the arbitrary rules you can add. But everyone in the group must love it, I find. In my days with Gigglepants I had the same experience with that game.

agreed. i find the "i don't like that game/i don't want to do it" a far more common phenomenon in non-established group shows. jams and mash ups and Maestros and the like, where you haven't established what everyone's into and there's not that developed level of trust. but in those cases, i say just jump in with both feet and have fun with it. i thought Bunny Bunny was one of the dumbest things ever when i first saw it, but the first time i said "fuck it" and tried playing? i nearly entered a trance like state of euphoria.