Terminology on Improv versus Scripted Plays

​Terminology

By Jill Johnstone

​Improv versus Acting from a Script

Improvisation Requires:

• Quick thinking

• Creativity

• Focus

• Communication

• How to read others on stage

Multiple Choice

Blocking in improvisation means

• the physical directions actors will take during scenes; the parts of the stage that will be used

• refusing to play, changing the ideas offered, or any action that does not carry the improv forward

• building the set and determining the types of props that will be needed as the foundation of the performance space

• the basic plot elements of beginning, middle, and end

Improvisation Requires:

• Quick thinking

• Creativity

• Focus

• Communication

• How to read others on stage

• "Exposition": Who, where, when, and while

• First player has to give as much information as possible

• Inciting incident or introduction of the problem

Beginning

Plot: A Beginning, a Middle, & an Ending

Plot: A Beginning, a Middle, & an Ending

Middle

• Rising Action -- leads up to some crisis

• Each "crisis" is followed by a reduction in intensity, also known as falling action

End

• Final crisis: moment of greatest dramatic intensity, also called the climax

• Some improvs will offer a resolution and tie up loose ends: denouement