Improve With Improv!: A Guide to Improvisation and Character Development [Paperback]

Brie Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1993

A complete improv curriculum programme divided into 20 class length workshops. Students learn how to create characters from their own imaginations through the use of solo and ensemble pantomime, physicalisation, vocal techniques, props, and more. Gestures, facial expressions, voice, and body language are studied in isolation. Many ensemble sketches are included, along with a final improv sketch with enough 'roles' for all members of a large class. Also includes class syllabus and guidelines, character outline sheet to duplication, character examples, and a reading list.

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About the Author

Jones

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Meriwether Pub; 1st edition (September 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0916260984
• ISBN-13: 978-0916260989
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,187,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Helps you with Every technique possible in Acting, August 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Improve With Improv!: A Guide to Improvisation and Character Development (Paperback)

I read this book last week. It was GREAT. It helped with all sorts of things. Like there was one chapter about Pantomime. So i skipped that chapter cause I thought it only taught you pantomime and i wanted to act. But when I was done reading the book I went back to that chapter and i read it. It was very helpful. It actually taught about character develpoment THROUGH pantomiming or even any body-language. They also have chapters like "Character Development" and "Vocal Technique" They were all so helpful that I took a highlighter and HIGHLIGHTED helpful parts in my book. I honestly recommend this book for the beggining actor or even the intermediate actor.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not "Whose Line", May 5, 2002

By 

Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Improve With Improv!: A Guide to Improvisation and Character Development (Paperback)

There is more than one purpose for improvisation. The term is now thought of synonymously with comedy, probably because of the influence of Second City and "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" However, it has also been used to create instructive lessons, socially motivated drama, and Augosto Boal's "Theatre of the Oppresed." And this book is none of these things.

Divided into twenty chapters, each intended as a free-standing lesson, this book provides an overview of improvisation useful in creating complex characterization, motivated movement, and good voice. In other words, this book is meant, not for improvisation players, but for conventional actors.

As a director, I've used improvisation to create good "straight" theatre. By making actors think about what the characters do outside the realm of the stage; by making actors think about what came before; by making actors become individual aspects of the character, a director can create a more complex, rounded stage picture. Most recently, I managed to create a one-act play this way, casting mostly untrained actors, with only twelve rehearsals, and produce a comedy so winning that people (including the director) laughed until their sides hurt.

This is where the value of Brie Jones' course overview here becomes apparent. Though Viola Spolin, the doyenne of improv, has already covered most of the issues in this book this lesson book remains valuable for high-school teachers and directors, workshop conductors, church youth-group leaders, and others who work with young actors.

The precepts of this book will be helpful for directors creating works like "Tony `n' Tina's Wedding" (guidelines for putting on a parody of this work are included in the back of the book), but for long-form character improv or the kind of games that are popular right now, this book is of little value.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a way to live life better, October 30, 2004

By 

Sharon B. Tootle "Tootle Tales" (everywhere, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Improve With Improv!: A Guide to Improvisation and Character Development (Paperback)

If you can improv, you can live better. When you learn to think on your feet, turn a phrase without a blink, you can solve more of life's problems easier. Bree teaches how to be imaginative and to utilize your imagination. These exercises, elementary as they may seem, stretch you and make you think and react. It is fun, stress relieving, and mentally stimulating. Grab a group of friends and try some of the suggestions...it will be the best time you've had in awhile. And if you practice improv regularly, you will begin to use your brain to think with newness and with invention. I took Bree's class in Improv and found that I could actually come up with some pretty funny lines and my response time to my partners was much quicker than I would ever have expected. This teaches you to think on your feet!