Scene Work

Yes, and: The basic principle of improvisational theater that suggests accepting and building upon the ideas presented by your partner.

Active Listening: The ability to fully engage and effectively process the information presented by your scene partner.

Supporting and Heightening: The technique of enhancing the ideas and the story being told by your partner in a scene.

Emotion Work: The ability to portray and express genuine emotions in a scene for better audience connect.

Status Work: The understanding and skill to communicate a character's social standing with physical, vocal, and verbal cues.

Physicality: Nonverbal communication, posture, and movement that are added to enhance the scene reality.

Characters: Creating believable characters with a unique point of view, history, and personality.

Relationships: The style of the scene that primarily concerns the connection between characters.

Object work: A technique of creating a strong focus on the stage with an imaginary object to better convey the story.

Environment Work: The ability to create a realistic and engaging setting to support the scene.

Game Theory: Understanding and unfolding the comedic scene patterns by discovering the unusual or unexpected element.

Scene Work Structures: The different formats and structures that improv scenes follow, like long-form, short-form, and montage.

Group Dynamics: The ability to work effectively with others in the ensemble and playing to the top of your intelligence.

Storytelling: The ability to tell engaging stories that take the audience on an emotional journey.

Scene Improvisation: The understanding of the basic principles of improvisation, leading to spontaneity and creative performance.

Short-form: This is the most common type of improvisational theatre, and typically consists of a series of short, comedic scenes that are inspired by audience suggestions.

Long-form: Long-form improv involves a single, extended scene or story that unfolds over the course of several minutes or even hours. The performers use a variety of techniques to generate and sustain momentum, and often create complex characters and relationships.

Harold: A classic long-form structure created by improvisational comedy group The Upright Citizens Brigade. It involves a series of interconnected scenes that build off of one another and ultimately come together to form a coherent storyline.

Mime: Mime is a type of scene work in which performers use gestures, facial expressions, and body movements to convey a story or idea without words. It requires a high degree of physical skill and creativity.

Musical Improv: A form of improvised theatre in which performers use songs and musical numbers to advance the story and develop characters. It requires a strong sense of rhythm, melody, and harmony.

Chorus Work: In a chorus work scene, performers work together to create a cohesive, improvised ensemble piece. They use strong physicality and group dynamics to explore themes and ideas.

Storytelling: Storytelling scenes focus on developing rich, complex narratives that are engaging and emotionally resonant. Performers use techniques like character development, world-building, and plot twists to keep the audience invested.

Genre Work: Some improvisational groups specialize in specific genres of scene work, such as sci-fi, horror, or romance. These scenes often involve genre-specific tropes and archetypes, and require performers to be familiar with the conventions of the genre.

Object Work: Object work scenes focus on the use of physical props and objects to tell a story. This type of scene work requires a high degree of improvisational skill, as performers must be able to use any object they are given in creative ways.

One-Word Scenes: This is a type of scene work in which performers take a single word or phrase as inspiration and develop a scene around it. It requires performers to be creative, quick-thinking, and able to work collaboratively.