Game is Conceptual

Game of the scene. The funny thing. The comedic concept. It has many names but it is ultimately the same thing across the board: the pattern within the scene that becomes the scene’s comedic thesis. I think of it as the nucleus of a scene. However you feel about game, it is possibly the single most important aspect of not just improv, but all comedy.

I teach game and often I come across students that mistake plot for game. Plot is that things happen. Game is why things happen.

For example, if you’re playing a one-upping game (one trying to convince the other they are better than them), the plot of a one-upping game is characters one up each other until one character ultimately “wins” in some way. But the why? Because it’s a one-upping game. You can’t have one without the other.

Why does this stepdad keep trying to connect to his stepson despite his stepson hating him? Because it is a ‘vying for approval’ game.

Finding game can absolutely be organic. Playing the game? Absolutely not.

Once you find game, the goal is to get the game out of the way. Kind of like the card game Spades. You want to find the patterns so you can lay them down, but if you spent your turns trying to collect a suit of every single card, you’d lose every time.

Sorry if you don’t know cards…

It’s all about the comedy. I agree with the phrase “follow the funny”- but we can’t follow the funny without thinking about how to follow it.