An inspiring, hands-on guide to narrative improvisation, by the co-creator and director of the Olivier Award-winning improv show Showstopper! The Improvised Musical. Improvisation is a craft that anyone can learn. When freed from endless rules and rigid approaches and allowed to relax, react instinctively and work seamlessly as a group, improvisers can spontaneously create performances that thrill audiences with their liveness. Drawing on the author’s extensive experience teaching and performing around the world, Improv Beyond Rules is a fresh and exciting re-examination of the whole field of improvisation. Starting with the fundamental principles that work for all forms of improvised performance and the common traps improvisers fall into it goes on to explore the elements of narrative improvisation, where performers create a story without any predetermined structure: * The Moment: How to be authentically in the moment by listening and responding to your fellow performers, accepting their suggestions (not necessarily by always saying yes ) and committing to whatever happens next. * The Scene: How to connect moments together to build a compelling scene and keep it moving forward; why there’s no such thing as a mistake; understanding and working with audiences. * The Story: How to link scenes to…

The Improvisation Book: How to Conduct Successful Improvisation Sessions The “Improvisation Book” takes the teacher step-by-step through a series of graded improvisation exercises. It also contains a unique set of 96 Improvisation Cards. Drawn at random these cards determine Character and Scenario. The endless combinations ensure that the teacher never need run dry!

Explores in the words of those who participated in the growth of this theater hybrid how theatresports sprang to life and has grown into an international league spanning four continents.

Discover how to improvise more effective comedic scenes! Through the “game of the scene” technique, you’ll be able to create memorable comedic moments in an easier, more efficient and more consistent way. Long Form Short Book is a book that goes through the basics of comedy improv from a different approach, to then delve deeper in the technique that has propelled the career of personalities like Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation, Saturday Night Live), Donald Glover (Community, Star Wars), Aziz Ansari (Master of None), Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live), Ilana Glazer and Abby Jacobson (Broad City), Ellie Kemper (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), D’Arcy Carden (The Good Place) among many others. In this book, you’ll learn how to: – Create scenic realities. – Better develop characters. – Perform comedy from truth. – What is and how to play game of the scene. – How to build an improv set and an improv form. Make your improvised scenes so effective the audience will think they’re previously written with Long Form Short Book!

Absolutely Everything** You Need to Know about Teaching and Performing Improv is your personal guide to learning how to perform short-form improvisation consistently and successfully. Every challenge, every activity, and every rule presented in the book is rooted in 20 years of teaching performers from all skill levels. Material has been hand-picked to include only the activities that have consistently proven successful at overcoming the common pitfalls that can plague the improviser-in-training. Utilizing methods that are simple, easy to understand, and very, very fun, you will learn how to develop a program that allows one to maintain high expectations and create a professional looking product while still maintaining the informal revelry of game playing and humor. Simply put, by using this book, one should be able to success- fully mount any kind of short-form improv – be it corporate or student, single-team or festival, pre-professional or veteran – to the sound of riotous laughter and thunderous applause.

The visual guide to improv is an illustrated guide to the art of improvisation theater. It explains tricky concepts, ideas, techniques and formats through illustrations and concrete, easy-to-use tips. Whether you are a student or performer wanting to develop your improv skills or a teacher looking for inspiration and new tools to explain improv – this book is a must-have. THE BOOK INCLUDES: • 16o pages with more than 500 illustrations and infographics. • 50 tips that will help you develop brilliant scene work. • A crash course in classic storytelling – how to build heroes, villains and captivating stories. • 24 tips on how to edit scenes. • 18 improv formats. • Inspiration for genre work – ranging from action and rom-com to Jane Austen and Alfred Hitchcock. Web oficial: Visual Improv Guide

Improvising Better is an easy to read self-help book created with the new generation of improviser in mind. It’s written for today’s performers, looking for a quick fix to their performance problems. This book is a fast read with long-lasting results. Jimmy Carrane and Liz Allen have improvised, taught, and directed in Chicago for over thirty years combined, and have either seen or experienced the most common problems facing improvisers today. Improvising Better will give you simple tools for repairing your improvisation through original and enhanced exercises. This book addresses the improviser as a whole, including how offstage issues affect onstage performance. Speaking candidly about this very personal art form, Carrane and Allen offer common-sense solutions, some tough love, and a little inspiration along the way. Whether you are a beginner or a veteran, Improvising Better will catapult you to the next level in your career as a working improviser. Web oficial Jimmy Carrane

Every Christian desires to follow the Bible. But many of the things the Bible teaches—such as its instructions on how to treat slaves or its direction to sell everything one owns—seem to have little relevance to modern life. Picking and choosing what applies today leaves many readers frustrated and confused.Is it possible that Christians are asking the wrong question of Scripture? Ron Martoia suggests that the narrative sweep of the Bible is lost when it is reduced to quips and maxims. Faithfulness to the text requires faithfulness to its narrative form. Reflecting a high view of Scripture and a profound belief in its power to change lives, Martoia helps readers read the Bible so that its story shapes their own stories. In this new light, readers can move beyond the confusion about what is true today and what is “outdated.”With a passion for seeing people experience revolutionary change in their spiritual lives, Martoia shows readers how to look at the big picture of the Bible. As they will soon find out, the view is incredible.

As part of the ever-growing, increasingly popular Drama Games series, Jessica Swale returns with another dip-in, flick-through, quick-fire resource book, packed with dozens of drama games that can be used in the process of devising theatre. The games will be invaluable to directors and theatre companies at all levels who are creating new pieces of theatre from scratch and need lively, dynamic games to fire the imagination. They will particularly appeal to school, youth theatre and community groups where devising is a growing trend – and a core element of the drama curriculum. Written with clear instructions on How to Play, notes on the Aim of the Game, and illuminating examples from professional productions, the games cover every aspect of the devising process and develop all the skills required: generating ideas, creating characters and scenarios, using stimuli, structuring the piece, and creating an ensemble.

Executives from The Second City-the world’s premier comedy theater and school of improvisation-reveal improvisational techniques that can help any organization develop innovators, encourage adaptable leaders, and build transformational businesses. For more than fifty years, The Second City comedy theater in Chicago has been a training ground for some of the best comic minds in the industry-including John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and Tina Fey. But it also provides one-of-a-kind leadership training to cutting-edge companies, nonprofits, and public sector organizations-all aimed at increasing creativity, collaboration, and teamwork. The rules for leadership and teamwork have changed, and the skills that got professionals ahead a generation ago don’t work anymore. Now The Second City provides a new toolkit individuals and organizations can use to thrive in a world increasingly shaped by speed, social communication, and decentralization. Based on eight principles of improvisation, Yes, And helps to develop these skills and foster them in high-potential leaders and their teams, including: * Mastering the ability to co-create in an ensemble * Fostering a “yes, and” approach to work * Embracing failure to accelerate high performance * Leading by listening and by learning to follow * Innovating by making…