Improv Made Easy: Why You Should Always Name Your Characters

If you want a great shortcut to doing stronger scene work, make sure that you give a name to yourself and the other people in the scene near the top of the scene. That’s because making up a name for yourself or your partner is a fast and easy way to discover the relationship between the characters and gives you the opportunity to make discoveries about them.

For example, let’s say two players come out and they name each other at the top of the scene:

Player A: “Oh, Mrs. Whitford! What a surprise!”

Player B: “Bobby, I am always here after school.”

Just by giving each other names, both players now have a lot to play with. Mrs. Whitford could be the principal, a teacher, a school counselor, or the nurse. Bobby could be a student, a former student, the janitor, another teacher, a parent, etc.

And the name alone conjures up certain character traits. For example, if someone named you Mrs. Whitford, what kind of teacher would you imagine she would be? A kind, old teacher? A strict teacher? A burned-out teacher?

By picking a name, you can find a whole character. And if you imagine what kind of subject she teaches, you can find out even more. If Mrs. Whitford was an art teacher, what kind of character would you play? Would a biology teacher be different than the drivers ed teacher?

Off of one name, you have lots of options, which is a good place for an improviser to be.

Now let’s take the name Bobby. Is Bobby in high school or college? Is he cool? Is he a jock? Is he the good-looking guy who thinks everyone wants to date him? Is he more into cars than school?

To me, the name Bobby inspires something different than, say, the name Nathan. I would think Nathan would be an honor-roll student who is class president.

Whatever a name makes you think of, trust your gut and use that to help inspire your character’s point of view.

Another advantage of naming your character or other characters in a long form is it is the simplest way to call a character back later in the piece. All you have to do is say their name and your partner will already know who you are to each other.

For example, let’s say you are doing a long form show, and in the first scene there is a loud and obnoxious guy name Carl. By the sixth scene, if you want to bring Carl back out to do a scene with your character, all you have to do is use Carl’s name in the first line of that scene, which will clear up any confusion, and 95% of the time, Carl will magically appear.

So the next time you're in a scene, try naming your scene partners right at the beginning and see if it opens up a whole new world of possibilities for you. Let me know how it goes.