Theatresports is a form of improvisational theatre

Improvisational theatre

Improvisational theatre takes many forms. It is best known as improv or impro, which is often comedic, and sometimes poignant or dramatic. In this popular, often topical art form improvisational actors/improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously...

, which uses the format of a competition for dramatic effect. Opposing teams can perform scenes based on audience suggestions, with ratings by the audience or by a panel of judges (who are usually trained improvisers themselves). Developed by director Keith Johnstone

Keith Johnstone

Keith Johnstone is a drama instructor whose teachings and books have focused on improvisational theatre and have had a major influence on the art of improvisation.-Education:...

 in Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, in 1977, the concept of Theatresports originated in Johnstone's observations of techniques used in professional wrestling

Professional wrestling

Professional wrestling is a mode of spectacle, combining athletics and theatrical performance.Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling", Mythologies, 1957 It takes the form of events, held by touring companies, which mimic a title match combat sport...

 to generate heat

Heat (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling, heat refers to both crowd reaction and real-life animosity between those involved in the professional wrestling business. In terms of crowd reaction, heat is usually either cheers for a babyface or boos for a heel...

, or audience reaction.

Content

The content of Theatresports scenes is often structured games which can double as entertainment and as training exercises. Some example games are as follows:

• Remote Control: The idea is given by the judge and people need to advertise about the idea given.
• Death in a minute When the judges give the idea, then the people need to think for a 10 second and one person has to die. They must stay in the idea.
• Entrance and Exits: A game normally played with 4 people in which only 2 actors can be on stage at one time. Players are given a place and have to come up with logical explanations as to why they are entering and exiting that location.
• Word at a Time Story: Two or more improvisers alternate words as they tell a story. If done well, this game can be very entertaining. It teaches the skill of being 'in the moment' (not planning ahead), since there is no way to anticipate the direction in which another actor will take the story.
• Yes, Let's: Each improviser in a scene makes a suggestion that is loudly accepted by the others on stage with the words "Yes, Let's". When used as an exercise, this game teaches acceptance of suggestions by other improvisers and the value of a positive attitude on stage.
• Guess My Word: An improviser leaves the theatre to allow the audience to suggest a secret word. The improviser then returns to the theatre and tries to guess the word as suggested by another improviser in a scene. This game teaches improvisers to be alert to the actions of others in the same scene.
• Status Switch: Improvisers create a scene with an obvious high-low status relationship. Before the end of the scene, that relationship must be reversed (e.g. the meek customer turns the tables on the owner of the bank). This type of scene teaches the improvisers to be aware of the status levels of the characters in the scene, just as we do unconsciously in real life.
• Genre Replay: The audience chooses a number of different styles and the same scene is repeated and altered to reflect each style in turn.
• Puppets: This game involves players that aren't allowed to move independently (apart from speaking) and other players (sometime audience members) have to physically move them. Variation Torture Puppets: one 'puppeteer' must manipulate two or more "puppets'.
• Alphabet: Players play out the scene using sentences beginning with successive letters of the alphabet. (e.g: "Alison! It appears you have grown a beard!" "But I can't have a beard! My date will be here to pick me up any minute." "Come to the bathroom, we need to get you shaven." "Don't tell me what to do!" etc.).
• Paper Chase or Papers: Audience members are asked to write brief sentences on scraps of paper. The improvisers begin a scene, and, at regular intervals, read one of the scraps of paper and work it into the scene. Example: "Doris, I know you're jealous that Uncle Al left me ten million dollars, but [reading] "The moon on the lake makes me think of your thighs."
• Reduction:Players must act out a scene in 45 seconds. They then must act out the same scene in 30 seconds, then 20, then 10, 5, and finally 3.
• Emotional Rollercoaster: Players act out a scene normally, until the M.C. calls out an emotion like anger or joy. They then need to entwine that emotion into their performance.
• Historical Replay: Players act out a scene in 45 seconds. They then have to act out the same scene but at a certain date in history e.g. The French Revolution.
• Emotional Replay: Much like Historical Replay. Players act out a scene in 45 seconds then react it with a certain emotion that they need to use.
• Spacejump: This is a theatresports game often performed in large groups, such as classes of drama students. The game starts with one person in the centre of a ring of others, performing an action. At any time, another person can say "spacejump". When this happens, the actors inside the ring freeze where they are. The person who called spacejump enters and re-starts the piece, taking it on a different direction by adapting with the pose the first actor was in. Play continues, and at anytime another person can call "spacejump", which repeats this process of changing the setting. The first person will usually go off after there are 4 people on the stage, and the play continues until ended at the discretion of whoever is organising the game. This game is often used in schools and drama classes.
• Typing Scene or Typewriter: A typist narrates as s/he mimes typing a story, and the improvisers jump in to enact the scenes and add some developments of their own.
• Endowment Game: In an Endowment Game, a Player attempts to guess certain facts or information about the scene that the other improvisers and the audience are "in on". The other improvisers in the scene give hints to the player through their dialogue and the audience helps as well by "ooing" if they're close and then applauding when they correctly guess the information. The different endowment games include; Crime Endowment (an improviser has committed a petty crime, in a specific location and with a famous person or character); Gibberish Endowment (the same as Crime Endowment except all the players speak Gibberish, a made-up improvised language); Superhero Endowment (the improvisers have to guess their individual powers) etc.
• Freeze: A game in which two people start a scene and then people are tagged in and out with the word "freeze". It is usually a fast paced game and is used with a large group of people, it is used as a warm up in theatre.

Improvised themes are common, e.g.: "We challenge you to a scene ...

• involving an object given by an audience member."
• where all dialogue is in gibberish."
• that starts and ends with phrases suggested by the audience."
• that summarises a major movie in one minute."

Typical examples of heat

Heat (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling, heat refers to both crowd reaction and real-life animosity between those involved in the professional wrestling business. In terms of crowd reaction, heat is usually either cheers for a babyface or boos for a heel...

, often involving skillfully improvised rule-breaking, could be:

• The audience is encouraged to boo the judges, who take on the role of stern authority figures
• An improviser passionately protests a low score for a scene, carrying on until the judges eject the improviser from the game. The improviser returns later with a home-made protest sign.
• During a typing scene (see above), one of the improvisers "takes the typist hostage" to force the story to go in a certain direction.
• Improvisers can be "punished" for breaking the rules, say by being forced to act a scene as a pig, or barefoot, or as a character who is destined to die by the end of a scene, or by wearing a penalty basket on their head for set time.
• Freeze: A game in which two people start a scene and then people are tagged in and out with the word "freeze". It is usually a fast paced game and is used with a large group of people, it is used as a warm up in theatre.

Philosophy

Although staged as a competition, Theatresports has the philosophy that corniness and gags tend to lower the quality of scenes. The emphasis is on building characters and on spontaneous, collaborative storytelling. Jokes and gags are seen as disrupting the narrative, and avoiding both collaboration and building a scene.

Another technique taught by Johnstone is to establish a 'platform' early in the scene that defines the characters and background. Only once that platform is established should some wrinkle or conflict be introduced. According to this technique, a scene involves an ever-shrinking "circle of possibilities", which defines what sorts of offers the improviser might reasonably make in the scene. At the start of a scene, anything is possible; but, as more offers are established, and the reality of the scene is more clearly defined, the circle of possibilities shrinks, and improvisors should not step outside that circle of possibilities by making offers that seem inconsistent with what was previously established.

Derivatives

The television show Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Whose Line Is It Anyway? is a short-form improvisational comedy TV show. Originally a British radio programme, it moved to television in 1988 as a series made for the UK's Channel 4, for a 10 series run...

uses many games that first appeared in Theatresports, although, as a television show, it does have the luxury of being edited. ComedySportz

ComedySportz

ComedySportz is an improvisational comedy organization started in 1984 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by a group of local comedians including Dick Chudnow, Bob Orvis, Brian Green and many others.-Format:...

, started in 1984 in Milwaukee, WI, tends to emphasise the sports competition format more than Theatresports, for example by having a referee who awards points and administers fouls. The Australian shows Thank God You're Here

Thank God You're Here

Thank God You're Here is an Australian television improvised comedy program created by Working Dog Productions, which premiered on Network Ten on 5 April 2006, and aired for the first three seasons with Seven for the fourth season...

 and TheatreGames LIVE follow a similar format to these shows.

Trademark

In some countries, "Theatresports" is a trademark

Trademark

A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

 and copyright

Copyright

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

 of Keith Johnstone and is managed by the International Theatresports Institute. In Australia, the "Theatresports" trademark is owned and managed by Impro Australia Incorporated.

In the late 1980's various improv groups in London discovered the games and competed against each other in local pubs and colleges throughout the city. Americans studying abroad returned to the states with many of these games, and much of it is incorporated in today's improv groups including Second City and the Groundlings.

Sources

• Johnstone, Keith (1987). Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-87830-117-8.
• Johnstone, Keith (1999). Impro For Storytellers. Faber UK. ISBN 0-571-19099-5 (paperback).
• Keith Johnstone on the origins of Theatresports and how a typical show runs.
• "Theatre, English-Language". The Canadian Encyclopedia
  The Canadian Encyclopedia
  The Canadian Encyclopedia is a source of information on Canada. It is available online, at no cost. The Canadian Encyclopedia is available in both English and French and includes some 14,000 articles in each language on a wide variety of subjects including history, popular culture, events, people,...
  
  . Historica Foundation of Canada, 2006.
• Clark, Andrew (1999). "Comedians Without a Net". Maclean's
  Maclean's
  Maclean's is a Canadian weekly news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.-History:Founded in 1905 by Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean, a 43-year-old trade magazine publisher who purchased an advertising agency's in-house...
  
  , 1999-09-08, Vol. 112, Issue 32.
• Sillars, Les. "The Global Moose". Alberta Report
  Alberta Report
  Alberta Report was a right-wing weekly newsmagazine based in Edmonton. It was founded and edited by Ted Byfield, now the editor and president of the Society to Explore and Record Christian History , and later run by his son, Link Byfield, and ceased publication in 2003.The magazine began as St....
  
  , 1995-08-28, Vol. 22 Issue 37, pp36–37.
• "Unscripted", Chris Wiebe, Alberta Views magazine, September 2005.

Further reading

• Foreman, Kathleen and Martini, Clem (1996). Something Like a Drug: An Unauthorized Oral History of Theatresports. Players Press. ISBN 0-88734-918-8 (paperback).

External links

• International Theatresports Institute
• Keith Johnstone's official site with Workshop information
• Unexpected Production Improv Playbook
• Improv Encyclopedia, listing 500+ Theatersports games
• Theatresports & Drama Games
• Links to Games Lists from FuzzyCo.com
• The Far Games List of Improv Games
• The Improv Playbook Book of Theatresports-ready improv games, Keith Johnstone interviews, longform, etc.