Austin Improv

Hey all,

I'm putting together a list of Maestro games for use by future directors. What are your favorite games?

Games we play all the time, games we used to play back in the day, games you've only seen once, games you think would be cool in the future.

Hit it.

Parallel Universe - two or three independent scenes rotate out, justifying the positions of the scene that they're tagging in for.

Hesitation Debate

Inner Thoughts - two play a scene and two others speak their inner thoughts

Alphabet Scene

Scene in the Style of...

Replay a Scene in the Style of...

Hell Dub - A dubs B, B dubs C, C dubs A

Dating Video

Both Block - hard to describe

Scene from Nothing

Beastie Rap

Twin Pillars

some of my current favorites:

Rashoman - one scene replayed from the perspectives of each of the characters

Moving Bodies- 2 players, 2 audience members. Players can only be moved by the audience members

Gradual Lie- 1 player starts out telling a true story, and gradually starts to lie more and more until it's utterly ridiculous.

Choose Your Own Adventure- Scene is stopped periodically, and each player is asked "what happens next?" Audience votes on the outcome they want.

Alphabet Shakespeare Forward/Reverse- self explanatory

Typewriter- One player is 'writing' the story as the other players act it out

Radio Show- players do an olde timey radio show in the dark, or near dark.

Status Battle- players battle to see who can be the highest or lowest status.

Silent Scene set to Music

Status Switch - high status person becomes low status and vice versa by end of scene

chris allen scene - use third improv player as all props

backwards

hell dub

scene in the dark

tag team monologue

foreign film

uhm...

i have a 6 page long annotated list of all the games my old group used to play:

http://wiki.spotlightmobile.com/shrimp/show/HomePage

i'm working on updating it with the games i learned here. i'll let you all know when i've got that finished.

some games that seem to have been invented by us:

Movie Trailer Death match- two voiceovers in different styles have a gie-and-take battle for the scenes from a movie trailer being played out below.

Meet me in the middle: One pair of improviserrs starts the beginning of a scene, another pair plays out the last few lines of an unrelated scene, then they take turns, the first pair working forward, and the second pair working backwards, until they meet in the middle and we realize it was one complete scene the whole time.

One I just thought of the othere day- Choose your button. Three plaerrs each give a button or ending line for a scene. The audience votes on which one they want, then an unrealted suggestion is taken. The scene is played out, ending with the chosen button.

Was it the pork game? I wasn't there, so can't say. But I hear about it all the time.

Pan Left, Pan Right - 5 People perfrom 5 different scenes that are panned between. Can be played with 4-people (Scene Square) or played in a triangle with 3-people with a switch option where the characters change places in the scene (Triangle of Doom OR HellTriangle).

It Could Be Worse... - Invented by "The Pits", two people begin a scene with a minor problem, when once says "It could be worse" someone enters to make the scene worse until 5 people are onstage. The scene can be replayed as "Could be better" where you start with the same minor problem and the same 2 people, the other 3 people come onstage in the SAME order as the previous scene, but they make the scene better instead of worse. Played both ways we called it (Half-Full/Half-Empty) or (Optimist/Pessimist)

Shakespeare Scene - the tried and true classic of Maestro

Stringing the Pearls

Speak in one voice scene - two pairs speaking in one voice perform a scene.

Gibberish Scene - one pair does a scene in gibberish with 1 suggestion, second pair takes a completely different suggestion and performs the scene again in the same tones/actions in ENGLISH based on the 2nd suggestion.

Jeopardy! - this can be really fun if played correctly.

Nice Suggestion - Players take a suggestion and then flip the audience the bird in various ways based on that suggestion. *wink* Such a great fuckin game!

more will come to me.

Oh man, Phil, I totally forgot about 'It Could Be Worse'!
Those were the days...those were the days...

Favs...

Small Voice (played with lots of physicallity)
Slow-Mo Olympics
Making Faces
Totems
Card Status
Sybill Scenes
Solo Doors

...basically any game that plays with status or physicallity or <cringe?> solo work.

What about Foogle!!!

Yeah!!!

'Yes,' 'That sounds good," "I'll go along with that' or however that goes.

I didn't read this whole post... so if this is redundant then I guess it's redundant then.

The musical eycontact thing usually makes for a good scene.

Hmm... I know a few...

Calvin Ball
Limerick
Irish Wake
Amish Rake Fight
DVD
Foreign Film
Slide Show
Identity Crisis
Countdown
Helping Hands
Emotional Symphony
Emotional Party
Mood Music
Swinging Pendulum of Death
Time Shift
Entrances and Exits
T.N.T.
Sing It
Replay Styles (movie genre, author, director, age, high school clique, emotion, playwrite, book genre, and music style)
5 (or 3 ) Things - tough to pull off in Maestro, but DAMN!
No Laugh Scene
Blind Line
Number of Words
Pick a Play
Gibberish Opera
Gibberish Interp
Growing Shrinking Machine
Blockbuster/Biblical/Historical Ballet
Animatronic Jamboree
He Said/She Said
Pardon
New Choice
Word form our Sponsor
Movie Critic
Hitchhiker
Car Jacker
Naive Infommercial
Naive Expert
Home Shopping Network
Happily Ever After
Dinner At Joes
185
Slogans
Last Action Joke
Sequels
It Could Happen


I know a ton more but sadly..I have run out of time for now.

-Dav

One that we did in the first(?) Maestro I was in was the eulogy for an audience member. Seems to be a good game for the crowd, and it involves no-pressure audience participation.