Create Online Improv Plan

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Rojo Globo
I think I invented this game but I'm sure some other form of it has existed somewhere. To start, someone says any normal sentence. Then everyone else tries to say a sentence that conveys the same meaning without using any of the same adjectives, nouns, verbs that have already been used. Example normal sentence: "This yellow toy truck is my nephew's.". Followed by: "This banana-colored miniature automobile is my brother's son's." Followed by "This sunshine smurf-sized vehicle belongs to an almost-cousin of mine.". Works on being descriptive

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Rap Intros
Get a random suggestion and then that is the first DJs name. So for example "Snickers". Then that person does a short rap as the character "DJ Snickers" for 1-3 stanzas When they are done, they introduce the next rapper with a new DJ name on the spot. Great for getting the energy of the group up. Rhyming not required but trying to rhyme greatly helps. Works on justifying and talking without thinking too much.

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Forced Metaphor
Two characters in a scene. One player starts it by saying a descriptive metaphor that can be as weird as they want. The second player then has to justify that metaphor about themselves before returning a weird metaphor to the other player. For example "You're as well-lit as a whistle" ... "Thank you. I do tend to be be hidden in a crowd but you'll hear me when I speak." Go back and forth as many times as they can think of metaphors. If either struggles to make a metaphor for the next person, switch to the next two players to play. Works on justifying and making interesting observations. (Credit to John Windmueller for introducing me to this game.)

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Dyever?
Short for "Did you ever...". A one-word-at-a-time sentence building game. One person starts by saying "Dyever..." and then you build a question one person/word in a circle until someone restarts it by saying "Dyever" again. Sometimes it can be surprisingly philosophical. Works on getting a good "group-mind" for the players.

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Shirt/Meme Designer
Describe what is on a shirt or on a meme and then the person that you "send" that to has to give the title underneath the meme or shirt. For example "There are two frogs staring shocked at each other and a broken compass in between them on the ground". Then send that to someone to give a title. And they may say the caption is "Never Froget a Map". Please don't judge my examples. Group mind, good energy. Credit to Chance Kilgour for introducing me to this game.

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Word Limit
Two person scene but each person gets assigned a number of words that they are limited to say each time they talk. Roll a dice to see what the word limit is for each player. This helps for online improv specifically. There is a tendency for online improv to be very monologue heavy instead of short conversations with a lot of back and forth between characters.

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Slogans
Get a random noun or place and take turns going around and making up a brand new never before used slogan for that thing or place. For extra credit, have a host pick people at random so that everyone cant prepare their answer or get a new suggestion for each person.

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No Questions Asked
Start a two person scene and if either person asks a questions then they are subbed out by someone else to take over being their character. Try not to ask any questions but keep the scene going.

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All Questions Asked
Two person scene where they can only ask each other questions. If they take too long to think of a question they are subbed out by a new player.

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Franklin Institute
One person starts, "Franklin Institute, its so full of secrets, Franklin, Institute, lets hear those secrets now". The next person sings the secret. "In the basement, there are tons of cats, those cats are hungry, they will eat your face right off"

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Fred Schneider
The entire troupe chants HEY, FRED SCHNEIDER. WHAT ARE YA DOIN? The person whose turn it is immediately responds with whatever nonsense comes to mind but must deliver it while doing an impression of Fred Schneider from the B-52s. Play continues in this manner with a new person providing an answer to the chant until the troupe decides the game is over. This warm-up was referenced by Thomas Middleditch during a Conan interview

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The Hot Spot
A vague theme is suggested, one player takes the "hot spot" and sings any song (preferably previously existing) that theme. Then another player must interrupt that player to react to that song with a different song, pushing him/her off the hot spot and singing. Play continues for all players to interrupt this way. Players should try to make connections and push the scene--through the lyrics and songs--forward.

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Adjective-Occupation
Short monologue by one person based off of suggestions like "therapeutic mailman". One player then becomes the "therapeutic mailman" and does a small monologue as them. Emphasis on short (one to three sentences) in order to keep this as a warm. Can also be used as a longer form if you wanted to. Works on developing deeper characters.

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Why are you late?
Everyone takes a turn explaining why they are late BUT the reason why they are late is the plot to a movie. They have to explain why they are late without saying exactly what movie they are describing though. Its up to everyone else to guess without also being TOO obvious. For example. "Sorry I'm late guys, an astronaut landed in my living room. I was on my way here but then he fell out the window. I had to chase him down for a while and I also kind of got lost." Then keep going on describing if people don't understand. (I'm going for Toy Story by the way). Gets the energy of the group up.

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Narrated Story
take turns telling a story either one sentence at a time or have a person calling out different people to have the spotlight for unspecified lengths of time. Usually helps to start with "Once upon a time...". Helps get a group mind and understand the "beats" of a story together.

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Archeologists or Weatherman
With OozeBear the host can make a shared doodle board visible for everyone to draw on. Then you can play games where as the doodle is being drawn by everyone, one or two people are weathermen trying forecast the weather on malfunctioning green screen behind them OR be archeologists translating a hieroglyphic that they are dusting off in real time. (Credit to Sean Dillon for inventing this game.)

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Describe Then Speak
Two person scenes but before each person is allowed to say a sentence of dialog they must describe something as if you were a narrator in the room, or describe an action or look on their face. Like "The fish tank in the room was completely covered in algae. Hi Angela, so excited to have a sleep over tonight!". Great for building deeper scenes and letting the audience know where the scene is before telling what is going on between the characters. Great for building subplot if the characters are all happy but the scene you're painting is terrible around them it can be very interesting point of view. Also lets you be "physical" without being scene by describing the actions that your character is doing.

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Compliments
Two person scene based off of any suggestion but the two players must give the other player a compliment before they can say their second sentence. I was taught by the great Colin Thornton that giving someone a compliment in a scene is a great way to make the scene have more meaning because it become about the relationship between characters. This takes it to the extreme. (Credit to Colin Thornton for teaching me this scene-saving technique of complimenting your partner.)

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Wait Wait Wait
Two person scene but each player must wait 6 seconds before they are allowed to respond to the first. Helps players relax before talking and give a response that may not be their first thought. (Credit to Stacey Hallal for introducing me to this game.)

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Narrate Over Muted Youtube Videos
With OozeBear the host can share and control the playback of a muted YouTube video for all of the audience and players. Then the players can become the characters of anything you can find on YouTube. We've done this with old Threes Company episodes and it was awesome.

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Half Life
Start with a two person scene and then have a third person scene walk onto the scene and join in when they feel they should. Let the scene go for 2 minutes and cut it off. Then replay the exact same scene in exactly one minute. Then replay it in 30 seconds, 15 seconds, 7.5 seconds, 3 second, 1 second. Sounds hard but its fun. Helps you break down what is fun in a scene because you will naturally get rid of all the unnecessary fluff dialog in the shorter scenes.

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Dont Laugh
A regular two person scene but if anyone in the scene or in the audience laughs at a line, the player who said it is replaced by another player to repeat the same phrase and try to not get a laugh. Helps you work on having scenes not be too weird/silly/absurd and based in reality. But everything also becomes funnier when you know that you aren't allowed to laugh. Players can try and deliver their lines as if they are dead serious about everything to help.

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And Because of That
Start a story and everyone takes turns saying a new sentence of the story. The caveat is that every line except for the very first line has to start with "And because of that...". Good for building recognition of the "beats" of a story as a group and following a path together.

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Its Not About Me or You
Neither player is allowed to say something about the other player or themself. If they do they are subbed out. Focuses on describing the environment and saying more random things.

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Consciousness
Four players. Two players are regular characters in a scene. The two other players are assigned to one of the regular characters as the conscious. After a normal character talks, the consciousness of that player with say what they are really thinking. Some tips are for the consciousness to be an exaggeration of what the normal character says, the opposite of what they say, or something completed unrelated. It is important to work down the cadence of normal player#1 then consciousness speaks, then normal player #2 then their consciousness

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Premise Lawyer
One player suggests a premise. For example, "books damage minds". Another player defends and justifies the premise

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Sound Effect "What are you doing"
One player makes a sound effect. The second character asks "What are you doing?" The first player says an unrelated, noisy activity. The second player starts making sound effects for that activity. The third player then asks, "What are you doing?" ETC.

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Who are you?
The first player begins monologuing as a character. The next player asks "Who are you?" The first player responds with an unrelated descriptor + character. The second player begins monologuing as that character. The third player then asks, "Who are you?" etc.

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My Movie
Get some initials from the audience or random name generator. The players who have an idea for a movie with those initials shout "My movie! My movie! My movie!" The director chooses a player to hear their movie pitch. The player says their movie title and gives their pitch. The director can either choose to see a scene from the movie or to reject it and hear new pitches.

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185
Get a suggestion. Use that suggestion to tell jokes in the format: "185 _ walk into a bar. The bartender says, We don't serve __ here. (PUNCHLINE)"

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Choose Your Own Adventure
With OozeBear the host can run live audience polls. As players are doing a scene, the host can yell "pause" and propose two or more directions that the scene could go in and put them up for a vote by the audience. Its fun to let the audience decide where a scene goes and keeps the story unexpected for the improvisers as well.

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Slideshow
With Oozebear the host can display random images for everyone to see. You can then give one or two players a suggested topic to present about and have them present the pictures as if they were a prepared slide deck for the audience. It can take the form of a Ted Talk, class presentation, board meeting, sales pitch, etc.

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Marketing Pitch Meeting
Get a random adjective and noun and take that as inspiration for a new product you and your marketing team are introducing to the world. Everyone can jump in on this game and pitch new uses or slogans or marketing tactics for how to best sell the product. Great for an all play game that can get really weird with ideas. Try and have at least one manager of the entire marketing team keep a non-jokey role to keep the meeting progressing but also support every suggestion anyone makes.

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La Ronde
Put everyone who wants to play in an order of players. Get a suggestion and then let the player #1 and player #2 start a scene. When the player #3 in the list thinks that it is a good time to edit the first scene, they edit to a new time/location and hopefully a scene very unrelated to the first scene. BUT they must have player #2 as the same character that they were in the first scene in this new scene. Then when this scene is ready to be edited, player #4 starts a scene at a new time/place with player #3s character from the previous scene. You can go around the list of all players as many times as you want. Typically the scenes get shorter each time you go around the full loop of players

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Living Room Style
This is my favorite longer form for audio-only online improv. Doing improv online lets you meet people from all over the world with different life experiences. I have a lot of fun getting random suggestions and just letting everyone talk about that subject and someone usually has a story related to that suggestion. Talk about it for a bit and then start a scene about the general themes brought up. Its a great way to bond a group of strangers and have a much deeper level of fun together.

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Environment / Emotion / Action
One player tells a story by themselves and the host says "Environment", "Emotion", or "Action" throughout the story and the player has to then only talk about those things until the host changes the focus to another one.

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Voicemail
Get a suggestion of a major life event and the name of a character. Then have everyone take turns one at a time and leave a voicemail for the main character about what you saw go down at the "major life event". Try not to say exactly what happened so that the person who goes next can "yes and" your recording and add more detail. Between each voicemail recording play the "Please leave a message after the beep" sound. This is good for becoming a very distinct character and working on monologues. You can go for as many turns with people as you see fit as well and work on heightening

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Tag run city
First player starts as the mayor of Tag Run city, stating "I'm the mayor of Tag Run City, and I believe" - then state a belief, e.g. "and I believe that people should only ever have cats as pets. No other pets allowed". They then continue to talk until another player comes in. The next player should have a relationship to the mayor, or what the mayor was saying, i.e. "I am the pet store owner of Tag Run city, and I believe that all animals should be pets, even crocodiles." Those two characters will have a short scene until the first player is tagged out - la ronde style You don't have to have a job necessarily, it could be "I am the son of the pet store owner of Tag Run city, and dad why aren't you ever home anymore"

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Radio Spotlight
Played just like telling a conducted spotlight story, but each player is assigned a style of radio show. The spotlight goes from player to player like to tuning into a radio show currently in progress.

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Cocktail Party
Two groups of improvisors have separate conversations that are unrelated. The director switches focus between the two groups. The conversations jump back and forth, get interrupted, and start mid sentence. The conversations switch back and forth quicker. Making connections through allusions between the two unrelated conversations should be made as the game comes to conclusion.

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Flip The Script
Get a TV show as a suggestion. Then pitch the opposite of the show. Also, do a scene. For example, "Family Matters" becomes "Disregarded Strangers" etc.

drag_handle CHOCOLATE BUNNY

This is a call and response character-voice game. One person says "Someone stole my chocolate bunny", and the class replies in unison "...and I don't think it's very funny". Everyone must initiate the call with a unique character voice, and the class must say the response with the same character voice.

drag_handle 10 SECOND STAGE PICTURE

The class is divided into groups of 3-5 students. The groups are instructed to work together to create a stage picture based on the teacher's suggestion. No instruction is given about whether the groups can make movement or sound -- no restrictions other than the normal class rules. Once the suggestion is called, the teacher closes his eyes, counts to ten, and yells freeze.

The teacher starts by suggesting machines and devices: car, airplane, computer. Then, switch the type of suggestions to scene-scapes: Christmas morning, Kentucky Derby, World War II, etc. Then, switch the type of suggestions to abstract ideas: misery, patriotism, hunger.

It can be fun for the teacher to choose a favorite stage picture, guiding the groups toward making more creative choices. Group A wins because Charlie was brave enough to become a surfboard for Chelsea.

Create Improv Plan