3 Long Form Hacks to Help Improve Your Improv Scene Work Quickly

Want to become a better improviser? Sometimes, making a simple adjustment is all you need to do to make your improv scenes really work.

Here are three long form hacks that can make an okay improviser good, and make a good improviser great. They are simple, but not always easy to do. But with a little patience and a lot of discipline, they can really help increase your success rate with your scene work.

1. Improvise Only One or Two Lines at a Time
   This first hack is the most important. Learning how to improvise only one or two lines as a time is the single most effective thing you can do to improve your scene work.
   
   It doesn’t matter who I am teaching, what country they are from, or if they are a seasoned improviser or new to improv. Not taking time to improvise one line at a time is the number one issue I see in scenic improv today. "Monologuing" in scenes has become a very bad habit. It's like you're spraying a fire hose and hoping your partner can hold on to it.
   
   But when students start improvising one or two lines at a time, the results in their work is immediate. It's not only easy to improvise this way; it’s also a lot more fun. Comedy is about surprise, and that doesn't only include the audience, it also includes you and your partners on stage. And you can’t be surprised if you’re the only one doing the talking.
   
   A simple exercise I use to help students improvise one line at a time is to have two people come out and do three-line scenes. Person A comes out and makes a strong initiation, Person B builds off that and says the second line and then Person A builds off of that and says the last line. I typically do this for 10 minutes, depending on the size of the group.
   
2. Over-React: Take things personally
   Overreacting to moments in an improv scene can very quickly heighten the comedy in your scenes. I have also seen it help students get out of their head and have more fun.
   
   The easiest way to do this is to have a strong, heightened emotional response to something your partner just said. 
   
   So if your partner says, “I am going to Starbucks to get a Frappuccino,” you might respond sadly: “You’re breaking up me with me! You’re not really coming back.”
   
   Or you might respond frightened: “I have to go with you! It will look suspicious if it’s just you.”
   
   Or you might say flirtatiously: “Just like when we were dating. I’ll meet you in the bed when you get back.”
   
   Before you say anything, take a second to decide how that may you feel and start with emotions and let the words follow and then heighten the crap out of it. I have seen one strong reaction fuel a scene and I have also worked with advanced improvisers who can make several strong emotional reactions throughout a scene.
   
3. Start with a secret
   You hear this all the time: "Start in the middle of the scene," and for some of us, that can be confusing. A great hack I found is make your initiation a secret that you have been holding on to for six months or so that you are revealing to your partner. The higher the stakes of your secret, the more mileage you will get out of it. Here are a few examples:

• A dating scene: “I know we’re only on our third date, but I want to marry you.”
  
• A couple’s scene: “I want to tell you I have been lying to you. I have been pretending to go to work, but I was fired six months ago.”
  
• Father and son scene: “Billy, the reason Santa didn't get you a bike is because your Mom and I are really Santa Claus and we could not afford one this year.”

I hope you’ll try some of these hacks in your next improv class or show and let me know how they go. Good luck!

Want to improve your improv in 2024? Don't miss Jimmy's Two-Person Scene Tune-Up in Aurora on Jan. 6!