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I've never encountered with "improvisional theater". How does it work? What practically is "performing without a script"? You stay on stage and say anything that comes to your mind?



You know when kids play make-believe? Where one kid is a knight, and the other is a dragon? That's improv.

Improv can take a lot of forms -- there's one style that's basically "make up a movie, complete with narrated camera moves". There's another that's "a series of unconnected scenes". My team is doing one now that is basically an improvised podcast or radio play.

Simply "standing on stage and talking" is bad form, because it's not especially interesting. How many tv shows are just people talking? None; people are doing _something_. Sometimes those people are very active, like if they're riding a dragon into combat. Sometimes those people are less active, like if they're a radio host talking to callers. But never are people just standing: they're adjusting the radio microphone, or flipping a page to read off of.


> You know when kids play make-believe? Where one kid is a knight, and the other is a dragon? That's improv.

So, role playing games?


It's best not distilled that way. But some forms of improv can resemble things like role playing games. But not all.


And some forms of role playing games resemble improv, but also not all. :)

There's definitely overlap!


Yes. Let's go back even further to six-year-olds making things up in a backyard. That's improv! There's a sense of play, a sense that you just need to add one thing or less to what's already there, and a sense that no one's in charge. Improv.


I'd suggest watching scenes from "Who's line is it anyway" on youtube to familiarise yourself.




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