Improv games: 16 games for actors and beginners, with rules and what each one trains

Improv games are short exercises with one simple rule, such as "every line must be a question" or "freeze and take over the pose", that train performers to listen, accept what a partner offers and react without planning. The best ones for actors are Zip Zap Zop and Mirror to warm up, Yes And and Word at a Time to build agreement, and Freeze, Questions Only and status games to practice real scenes.

Below are 16 games grouped by what they train, each with the rules as published by a teacher, theater or improv reference (rules vary from room to room, and we say where they do), plus how to run them for a class, a rehearsal or two friends in a living room.

1. Accept and add. Wikipedia's article on improvisational theatre calls "yes, and" the cornerstone of the form: each offer is accepted and built on with a new one (Wikipedia). In a game, that means you never deny what a partner established ("that's not a telescope") or block it ("yes, but it's raining"), the two habits the University of Montana handout bans outright (University of Montana).
2. Celebrate the mistake. The same handout has the whole group cheer or bow together when someone fumbles, then restart at once, to train the brain "to recover quickly from mistakes without ruminating" (University of Montana). Actors need exactly that reflex for a dropped line or a surprise redirect.
3. Play the game, not the joke. Viola Spolin's games moved attention away from "acting" and onto the game itself, which reduced self-consciousness; she judged students on what they did, not on their lines (Casting Frontier). Teacher Jimmy Carrane says the point of a warm-up is to help students "stay out of their fricking heads" (Improv Nerd). If you are trying to be funny, you have stopped listening.

Use these in the first ten minutes of a class or rehearsal. They need no stage, no props and no experience.

1. Zip Zap Zop. Stand in a circle. One player makes eye contact with someone, points (Carrane adds a clap) and says "Zip"; that person sends it on with "Zap", the next with "Zop", and the pattern repeats, faster and faster (Improv Nerd, University of Montana). Improwiki describes a neighbor-to-neighbor version in which "Zop" bounces the pass back to the sender, with optional "Boing" blocks (Improwiki); agree on one version before you start. A wrong word or a long pause is the cue for the group cheer, not an out.
2. Silent Zip Zap Zop. No words: each player passes on a gesture exactly as they received it. Carrane uses it "when the group seems out of sync" because it makes players "really listen to each other" (Improv Nerd).
3. People Who. Chairs in a circle, one fewer than the players. The person in the middle says something true about themselves starting with "People who…"; everyone it applies to must stand and find a new chair while the middle player grabs one. Carrane uses it to wake up a tired room and to let people get to know each other in "a non-threatening and entertaining way" (Improv Nerd).
4. Mirror. Partners face each other. One leads with slow, smooth movements and the other follows so closely that an observer cannot tell who is leading; then switch, then try it with no leader at all (University of Montana). Spolin coached the leaderless version as "follow the follower", where both partners are following (spolin.com). A Spolin variant, Mirror Speech, mirrors words as well as movement and swaps roles when the coach calls "Switch" (Casting Frontier).

These train the "yes, and" muscle in a low-pressure way, because the group builds one thing together and nobody is alone on stage.

1. Yes And (location and offer). Agree on one place, such as a campsite or a kitchen. Player A brings in an imaginary item with an action and a line ("Look, I brought a huge telescope to our campsite!"); player B accepts it and adds something starting with "Yes, and…"; keep going around the group (University of Montana).
2. Word at a Time Story. The group tells a story one word per person. The Alliance Theatre's version challenges players to give it a beginning, middle and end and a main character (Alliance Theatre). Improwiki lists a stage version for four or five players in a line, and a harder one in which two players stand shoulder to shoulder, "merge into one person" and tell the story in the present tense (Improwiki).
3. Fortunately / Unfortunately. Alternate lines that begin with "Unfortunately…" (a new obstacle) and "Fortunately…" (a fix), keeping the story moving instead of stalling on the problem (University of Montana).
4. What's in the Box? The leader holds out an imaginary box; a player pulls out an object; the leader asks each player around the circle one question about it, repeats the answer and asks "Then what happens?" until a story appears. The focus, Carrane writes, is for players "to acknowledge what the other player has just said and build off of that" (Improv Nerd).

Once a group is warm, these put people into short scenes with a built-in rule that does some of the work for them.

1. Freeze (Freeze Tag). Two players start a scene while the rest wait at the edge. Anyone waiting can shout "Freeze!"; both players hold their positions; a waiting player taps one out, takes the exact pose and starts a completely new scene that justifies it. Improwiki's tips: offer strong, extreme poses, call the freeze when the picture is interesting, and look past the first idea, since a raised arm is not always a traffic cop (Improwiki).
2. Questions Only. Every line must be a question. In the Alliance Theatre's version, a player who makes a statement is out and the next person enters to start a new scene with the winner (Alliance Theatre). Improwiki adds the craft note: each question should still add new information and accept what earlier questions established (Improwiki).
3. Park Bench. Two chairs make a bench. The newcomer must give the sitter a reason to leave, without asking them to go and without pushing; when the sitter leaves, the newcomer slides over and the next player arrives (Alliance Theatre). It is a quick drill in playing an objective against an obstacle.
4. Party Quirks. One player hosts a party without knowing who the guests are; each guest has a character or quirk on a slip of paper and drops hints until the host guesses them all (Improwiki). Improwiki's advice: avoid quirks that make people uncomfortable to play.

These carry over most directly into scripted acting, because they work on behavior rather than on jokes.

1. Status games. Keith Johnstone's idea of status is the power difference between two characters, something you do rather than something you are, and he held there is "no neutral status". High status reads as focused, quiet and firm; low status as unsure, jerky and tight. Improwiki names the status swap, the status chain and guess the status as games built on it, and warns that high status is not the same as arrogance (Improwiki). Play a simple two-person scene, then replay it with the statuses reversed.
2. Gibberish. Two players hold a conversation in an invented language while one or two interpreters translate it for the audience (Casting Frontier). Without real words, you have to communicate with tone, body and intention, which is a useful check on whether your acting relies on the text.
3. Contact. A Spolin game in which you may speak only while physically touching your scene partner, with a new form of contact each time; Spolin later took hands off the list (Casting Frontier). Agree on boundaries with partners before you play it.
4. Good, Bad, Worse. Three players each play one character: Good Advice, Bad Advice and Worse Advice. Everyone else asks them for advice, and the Alliance Theatre's tip is to ask specific questions that need a detailed answer (Alliance Theatre). It works on a video call, too.

• Listening and focus: Zip Zap Zop, Silent Zip Zap Zop, Mirror. Pair them with Meisner repetition, which trains the same attention with words.
• Accepting a redirect in an audition: Freeze, Fortunately / Unfortunately and Yes And, where you must commit instantly to a choice you did not plan. Our audition and self-tape guide covers what redirects look like in the room.
• Objectives and obstacles: Park Bench, and Questions Only played with a clear want. This is the same "what does the character want" question at the heart of the Stanislavski system.
• Physical and vocal choices: Gibberish, Contact and status games.
• Commitment under nerves: all of them. Failing cheerfully in front of a group is graded exposure, one of the approaches in our stage fright guide.

• Two people: Mirror, Fortunately / Unfortunately, Questions Only and a two-person Word at a Time story all work with one partner.
• Three to five: Park Bench, Party Quirks and Freeze need at least three. Freeze is better with five or more so there is always someone ready to call it.
• Video calls: the Alliance Theatre's online list includes Good, Bad, Worse, team charades in breakout rooms, and Voice Over, in which two players dub a muted movie or TV clip, then swap in new players to see how many different scenes the same footage can hold (Alliance Theatre).

Running a session yourself? Start in a circle, move to pairs, then to scenes, and keep each round short. Stop a game while it still has energy rather than after it has died.

Most games in this guide trace back to two teachers. Viola Spolin developed theater games in the 1930s while teaching drama to immigrant children on Chicago's South Side, founded the Young Actors Company in Hollywood in 1946 and later directed children's theater in Los Angeles (Casting Frontier). Her book Improvisation for the Theater codified the exercises, and The Second City opened in Chicago on December 16, 1959, directed by Paul Sills (Wikipedia), her son (Casting Frontier).

Keith Johnstone (1933–2023) wrote Impro and Impro for Storytellers, founded the Theatre Machine group in England in 1967 and co-founded Calgary's Loose Moose Theatre Company (Keith Johnstone). He created Theatresports in Calgary in 1977, a competitive format in which teams play scenes from audience suggestions and are scored by the audience or judges (Wikipedia).

Games are the backbone of short-form improv, quick scenes built on a set game or structure and an audience suggestion. Long-form improv links scenes by story, character or theme, and its best-known structure, the Harold, came from Del Close (Wikipedia). Our guide to starting improv in LA explains how schools teach each style.

Games are how most improv classes start. At The Groundlings, for example, the Basic class teaches improv fundamentals through games and exercises, while its Intro Track needs no experience: Improv for Beginners was listed as a single 2½-hour session for $55 when we checked. Its Core Track (Basic and Intermediate, 12 sessions each, $580 each) requires a free audition (The Groundlings). Prices change, so check the school's site before you book.

Arlo lists the LA schools that teach improv, with levels, drop-ins and prices as each school states them, on the improv classes page. If you want the games as acting training rather than comedy, a weekly scene study class or the beginner's guide to acting classes is the next step, and many schools let you audit a class first. For a scene or monologue to try after a warm-up, find one on Offbook.