A List of All The Improv Warm-Ups & Exercises

This is just a list of all the improv warm-ups & Exercises I used to use when I was coaching.

At the front of every notebook I’d write out three pages

1. Warm Ups – and what they’re good for. New teams, energy, thinking harder, slowing down.
2. Exercises – and what they’re good for.
3. A Note to remind myself how I coach.

I’m getting rid of all of my coaching notebooks. And it feels odd not to save these in some way. So… here we go…

Warm Ups

Exercises

• What & Gift
• Park Bench of Truth
• Things Get Worse
• Beat the Hell Out of the Game
• “In a world…”
• Understudy
• Genre Scenes
• “Scripted” scenes
• Rant
• Name Scenes
• I know
• Shared Story
• Shared Real Story
• Slo-mo Scene
• Back to Back
• Kill Yourself Scene
• Cartoon Scenes
• Scene Gauntlet
• Initiate All Scenes
• The Thing Where We Give Cards… Will Hines invented it (I think), and its fun
• Do All The Support Moves
• Bad Scenes
• Game Scene Set Up
• Same Suggestion
• Two Initiations @ Once
• I You Me – all lines start with that
• Unpopular Opinions
• Character Matching
• Premise Lawyer
• Fart Scenes
• Memory Moment
• Object Monologues – This is, it represents, character
• Cryptic Scenes
• Accusations
• 5 Ways of Pulling Premise
• Seven Words Or Less
• Robot Scenes – Give all of the details of a scene early.
• It’s Tuesday
• Pattern Game

A Note To Remind Myself How I Coach

1. I and the team I’m coaching are to be dedicated to high quality work.
2. I and the team I’m coaching believe in the mission of being funny.
3. The team gets to use their skill and gets recognized for it.

After scenes I will – Ask how it felt.

At the end of the practice, everyone will tell me one thing they learned.

Good Improvisers Tend To:

1. Accept Offers
2. Justify
3. Make Active Choices