Customer Reviews

Improvisation Starters

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In my twenty-one years as a teacher of theater, I have found few books as valuable as this one. The book provides hundreds of interesting and challenging improvisation situations which have functioned to tap the most creative impulses my students have to offer. The situations have inspired my student actors to explore complexities of character conflict and motivational objectives that they don't often realize exist. I also found the chapter on using improvisation in play direction very worthwhile. I now use the author's suggestions during rehearsals for every play I direct, and my actors benefit greatly. No collection of books on acting, directing, or teaching theater is complete without this one. I give it my highest recommendation.

This book is an incredible value. There are, as the title indicates, hundreds of different improvisations. There are improvisations between coworkers, spouses, friends, salespeople/customers, managers/subordinates, and many more. There are also sections where scenes for one individual are introduced. In addition to the different improv situations, the author also includes instructions for teachers or instructors. I am not all that experienced with improvisation but this book makes it easy. Two thumbs up to Philip Bernardi for his excellent contribution to this area.

Philip Bernardi's "Improvisation Starters" is a fantastic collection of scenes, moments, and games that will provide an excellent foundation for improvisational work, rehearsal, and performance. A must have for actors, teachers, and improvisors.

As a high school theater arts teacher, this is one of my best resource books. This is the book I grab when we've completed our lesson and there is only 5 to 15 minute left to class. Grab a couple of volunteer actors and give them a conflict from this book and they're off. The scenes provide the basic elements of improv and acting. This is not a book on how to learn improv. However, it is a great book that provides good setups necessary for good acting and improv scenes.

This book has a HUGE variety of improvisation starters which not only provide a scenario, but also provide the actors with an objective toward which to work. This has really helped my students focus their work and stay on track with their improvisations. The only thing that would make this book better is if there were some scenes set up for more than two actors, which would make it more useful for larger group/class sizes (it takes an awfully long time to get through a class full of students two at a time!), but some of the two person scenes can be adjusted to allow for four actors instead, so I would not rule out this book simply for that reason. This is a great resource for anyone teaching improvisation!

If you're thinking of buying this book in preparation for comedy improv classes, you're off track. You'll learn in the first weeks of your class that you discover what your scene's about as it unfolds, not a second before. That's what's funny about comedy improv, watching players discover in the moment what the scene's about. And the game is usually something little, something accidental, like everyone's wearing too much jewelry on the job. That's it.

You and your partner figure out as you go what the game is in the scene based on the information you uncover, step by step.

I keep cringing when I think about kids buying this book because instead of learning to explore character, activity, emotion, dialogue and stage picture as a way to build a throughline from scratch, they're being handed pre-packaged "plots" which burden the player with required attitudes and, saps the life and comedy right out of everything.

The only way these scenarios may work is if you teach the kids to take the opposite point of view to what's expected. "It's 3AM and you were expected home from your prom three hours ago. That's my boy!"

My boss ordered this book in hopes that it would be helpful in preparing for "fun" improv activities at a summer camp he will be teaching at. Unfortunately, this book was dry and boring... the scenes suggested were not something that would keep any child of any age interested... they were simply rehashes of situations that pop up in every day life. If you're looking for fun and games, this book isn't for you.

This wasn't very useful to me. It contains merely lists of possible conflicts and conversations one might base an improvisation around. The ideas arn't particularly imaginative and are nothing I or my students couldn't come up with ourselves.

Philip Bernardi is easily one of the greatest living improvisational directors working in the U.S. today. I have actually had the honor of not only reading this book, which is truly informative and easy to use, as well as actually working with Mr. Bernardi himself, utilizing many of the tecniques he outlines in this volume. I'm sure many great things will come from this man, who is sure to go on to greatness