Improv Journal, Numero Quatro

Teams play two games (one each) in Round Two, also known as the Bucket Round, since both come out of the aforementioned Bucket of Doom. The bucket adds a random pinch to keep the players on their toes and also lets the audience know that no one sneaked off to write out all the good jokes. The audience needs to be reminded that walking the highwire is dangerous, something that long form occasionally gets away from (with). I remember thinking "ho-hum... written" during the first ImprovOlympic show I saw, because, two seconds into their long form improv, the team had already "deconstructed" the suggestion and never managed to return to it. Like watching the guy on a high wire walk over a pit 150 feet deep filled with snakes - he dies if he falls anyway. Why not add a little more suspense? Every bit helps. The winning team plays the Bucket Round first. This gives the trailing team a tiny advantage later on. When the referee asks the audience which game it enjoyed more, assuming all games and performances are equal (both untrue and dangerous but we'll explore both in a moment) the audience will remember the second performance better than the first. Which would you choose, the scene where Renaldo made Karen fly to Aunt Tilda's garden on a magic saucepan or the scene where the one guy told the other guy he should have done that one thing? Me, too. Also, like sex and chaos, a show's energy feeds back on itself. Once audiences realize the tightrope walker can make it all the way across toad's chasm, they settle in and begin to appreciate the skills of the players. So, the second scene seems much richer than the first... if the teams played them with equal brilliance. Big "if". Not every scene hits the same high notes, and not necessarily because someone fell asleep at the switch. Some games are, if not more difficult, less potentially brilliant in their execution. "Faces International" allows audience members to mold players' faces to their hearts' desire and then has the players improvise a scene with those faces. Unfortunately, the result is similar to the Simpsons' "B Sharps" - less amusing every second you watch it. Audience members often mold players' faces with no regard to their ability to speak, so when it comes time to lay down information (for example but not limited to: environment, character, relationship) players simply "Mmph!", "Aaagh!" or "Thbbbpt!" until the referee blows the whistle. Worse, a lot of faces involve buttressing their unusual expressions with their hands. So instead of picking up a cup of coffee, the freakishly bent player just elbows the imaginary cup off the imaginary table, neither of which the audience sees because the player had no chance to say, "Want some Folgers?" Each team silently wishes Faces International on the other. Costumes. Bucket Games: ** Short ** Madrigal (four suggestions blend into one theme - very much a verbal "morph") Irish Drinking Song/Irish Folk Song (for those less racist-minded) Forward/Reverse (heavy mime) Blues Jam (one suggestion, "blues'd) Dime store novel (interplay - no-no's are "he said..." and directing action; ideally, fixate less on striking the keys properly than observing and commenting on the action; the writer has as much of a duty to interact with toad's environment as the characters; also an ideal place to introduce people furniture) Arms expert (don't ask "yes/no" questions) Musical Option (as if the characters' emotions got so large, normal words just wouldn't carry them) Soap Opera Shift Left/Shift Right (must have at least four players) Dubbing (four players - two on two or round robin; three players, always round robin) Parallel Universe (like freeze tag, use positions to define the event... lots of things boil down to freeze tag) Shakespeare Alphabet Musical danger - getting stuck in the same locations at the very beginning. In the manner of a Disney musical (ripped off Broadway musicals from a decade ago), the first song defines the opening location, which in turn helps characters settle into... if not stereotypes, at least archetypes, found there. Trouble is, everyone's been the magical forest elf, the farmer and the coffee-fixated office worker. Replay Blind Line Musical Mega Blind Replay Five things Interrogation Party Quirks Other games - head-to-head round (clear-cut, singular winners): Da Doo Ron Ron (covered) Radio Story Rap Line

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