Impro Learning: How to Make Your Training Creative, Flexible, and Spontaneous This training book treats creativity as the door to success, and aims to provide the keys to unlock it. Drawing on sources as diverse as theatre, accelerated learning, sports, co-operative games and psychology, the author reveals practical methods for enhancing all aspects of training, from joining instructions and bonding to detailed course design and evaluation. The emphasis throughout is on participation and results, and the text is packed with warm-ups, energizers, team exercises and innovative processes. The techniques in the book aim to help design and deliver training programmes that achieve demonstrable results and to improve skills as both a platform presenter and a group facilitator. It also helps to apply the principles of learning to broaden the range of training the reader can offer and enhance confidence and the ways to project it.

Improvising Real Life: Personal Story in Playback Theatre by Playback Theatre cofounder Jo Salas is the basic text used by new and seasoned Playback practitioners, trainers, and in university courses. The book has been translated into German, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Portuguese, Russian, Hebrew, and Korean (forthcoming). The 20th Anniversary edition includes a foreword by Roberto Gutiérrez Varea of Theatre Without Borders and co-founder of the Performing Arts and Social Justice Program at the University of San Francisco. Entertaining and thoughtful, Improvising Real Life is illustrated with photos and real-life stories told in performances and workshops.

We all like to laugh. We all like to be funny and enjoy the funny in other people. We all have heard quotes and read accounts of the value of laughter as one of the most healing energies of human existence resulting in longer life, higher self-esteem, and success in business. So, what is funny? Let’s take a peek at what happens when we find funny. Since all of the exercises have been developed in the course of training people to perform in the theatre as actors or improvisers, the techniques of improvisers prove to be a likely place to look for funny.

This Improv Book may be the best addition to your improv library and to your improv career! It brings forth concepts in improv that are new, or new ways of looking at things, that will inspire your improv scenes. This book breaks the improv experience into three core elements: You, Them and Us. The chapter on You focuses on your tools as an improv performer and things within your control. The chapter on Them will help you react to the intentions of your scene partner. While the chapter on Us brings it to the collaborative efforts of the team.This book has new philosophies like “Forces of Nature” and “S.C.O.O.T.S.” These new tools will help the new improv performer and add to an already experienced improv performer’s tool box.

The extensive theoretical reflection and the exhaustive analysis of testimonies from improvisers make this book an object of central importance for a better understanding of the practice of Impro. Its scope is transversal to all international practice, but it has a very particular impact on the contexts of research and creation in Brazil and Portugal. In addition to its academic relevance, the author’s vast experience in this area – both as a performer and researcher – and his professed passion for the modality, gives, in addition, to reading the text that inviting feeling that makes us let ourselves be carried away by those who know/ do/like. Prof. Dr. Gustavo Vicente Centro de Estudos de Teatro, Universidade de Lisboa

What prevents us from feeling that we are already creative? The society in which we live has taught us that being creative is synonymous with standing out from others, being ingenious, eager, etc. In reality, human beings are creative by nature. When we cook, when we remember something, when we kiss, walk, read… we are being creative. The interesting thing is to see the ways that people have of showing that creative singularity, that way of making coffee, of remembering, of caressing, of kneading bread; It is what makes us unique people. And then, how do we come to feel that we already are? This book is a one-way ticket to your interior, to your creativity, but not just any creativity. This will be a journey towards praise, towards creativity that is born only and only from contact with our essence. A journey in which you will break down the barriers that society, education, culture and family have imposed on us to prevent our essence, and therefore our creativity, from being expressed freely and generously. Welcome to the journey to the center of yourself. “They have taught us to applaud those who do something surprising, but at the same time…

A Doctor and a Plumber in a Rowboat: The Essential Guide to Improvisation (Carol Schindler) Mark Ruffalo, one of the stars of The Avengers: Age of Ultron, loves this book: “My cousin Carol was the person who inspired me to become an actor. I highly recommend her book, A Doctor and a Plumber in a Rowboat: An Essential Guide to Improvisation to anyone starting out or is still on the path to knowledge.” Seasoned improvisers CAROL SCHINDLER (founding member, CHICAGO CITY LIMITS) and TOM SOTER (producer/performer, SUNDAY NIGHT IMPROV) share the lessons of improv learned during their over 30 years of performing and teaching improvisation. Aimed at improvisers and those who teach improv, the advice in this book can also help actors, writers, teachers, corporate executives, producers, dentists, firemen, factory workers, goat herders, astronauts, social workers, magicians, accountants, manicurists, Ninja warriors, and, of course, doctors and plumbers. Improvisation can be helpful for everyone. Even if you don’t necessarily want help, it’s still just plain fun.

The Tao of Improv: A Philosophy of Creating a Scene (Tom Neile) Learning how easy improv is can be the hard part.There are important lessons in life that can lead to better improv scenes. And there are important lessons in improv that can lead to a better life. By putting improv techniques under an electron microscope of reason, The Tao of Improv: A Philosophy of Creating a Scene can improve the way we function, understand and interact – on stage and off. Excerpts from the Tao Te Ching are woven into an overall philosophy of scenic improv acting. Far from being mystical, the Tao of Improv provides a concrete platform from which to understand your place on an improv stage. This book is aimed at beginner to intermediate improvisers who have already acquired a few basics. You’ll learn what you can bring into a scene and, more importantly, the myriad items you can leave out of a scene.

There’s No I in Improv: The Complete Guide to the GS Improv Technique with Over 50 Improv Games Fully Explained Improv is an essential skill for actors because it teaches them how to truly listen to one another. Actors know there is plenty of talent out there, just a shortage of opportunity. Improv gives you the chance to play the hero, the villain, the loser and the winner – all in the same night! Improv is also a superb way for busy professionals to enhance their communication, listening and teamwork skills. Learning to improvise may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it can be done. There are actually many different improv games, each with their own structure and rules. The GS IMPROV technique can be applied to any improv game; this book employs an engaging, light-hearted manner in presenting that technique. The book also gives detailed descriptions of over 50 improv games, along with tips on how to play them coming from the author’s many years of experience. Improv is also great for engaging young minds and for keeping senior minds sharp. Simply put, Improv is great fun and this book enables the reader to join in.

Improvisation for Actors and Writers: A Guidebook for Improv Lessons in Comedy Far more than simply an overview of improv comedy, this theatre book helps actors, writers, and comedians learn the basics as taught in all the major comedy schools. First, the do’s and don’ts of the Comedy Improv Commandments. Next, the concepts that, when understood, hit the student like falling anvils: Anvil #1: Collaboration “€” Working with the “Group Mind,” Anvil #2: Agreement “€” “Just Say Yes,” Anvil #3: Foundation “€” “Who, What, and Where,” Anvil #4 “€” “Finding the Game.” There are twenty-nine chapters in five sections: 1. Improv Comedy Schools, 2. Improv Comedy Basics, 3. Comic Character Development, 4. Long Form Improv, and 5. Writing Sketch Comedy. Successful improv requires the skill of the actor, the talent of the comedian, and the ideas of the writer rolled into one. This drama book tells how it can all be done for performers and teachers.