Thursday, September 30, 2010

The F.I.T. and the T.I.T.

One day, there were 4 of us at an optional practice and we were tired. We were tired of playing short form games and didn't feel like just messing around with scenes, so we decided to make up a form.

What elements should it have? Scene painting (something we hadn't done before), maybe a follow the leaver element where a character carries over to the next scene, and start and end with a group scene.

So we were Four Improvisers, Tired of shortform, which gave us the name, the F.I.T. You get an object from the audience and build your scene around that, putting in doors and describing where your group scenes will take place (something usually became a bar, or a vfw post, or an apartment). Those 4 characters that the four of you come out as (for ease we'll name them 1, 2, 3, and 4) all have a very close relationship, as any scene partners should.

After that Scene are 4 scenes each highlighting the outside life of one of those first 4 characters (1 and his wife, 2 and his doctor,. etc. Sometimes you have a 1 with 4 in one scene and in the 4th scene 4 and 1 are still together, but try to highlight one character over another as far as foiling).



After those 4 scenes, the group comes back together, often with the middle scenes shining some light on the intricacies of the relationships displayed in the first group scenes. Originally it always ended with someone threatening to or killing everyone else, but that became too gimmicky and prepared so we threw it out.

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After a few months we were having a 2-man cage match so I dusted off the F.I.T. and we remade it as the T.I.T. The design's the same, only there are 2 scenes in the middle with 1 and someone else and 2 and someone else followed by the conclusion. The benefit of the T.I.T. is that despite it's sophomoric name, the relationship is often so much closer as a result of the form that there are usually some "funny cuz it's tender" moments.

2 comments:

  1. This form sounds great. That sounds like a great festival piece - it's different, but it combines a lot of great improv dynamics. I'd love to see this.

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  2. I was there that magical day of quadraboredom, and it truly was a defining moment in my improv experience. Not because of the form itself, but rather because of the form creation element. And when the F.I.T. got old and dated the T.I.T. evolved. A good improv game is like an epic English paper...it is never completely finished.

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