Below are the Blind Round games: these are the games that teams must learn for the competition. They have been chosen because they all teach valuable improvisation skills. For a list of games you may wish to play in the second and third rounds, please refer to your school’s manual.

The first round of a Theatre Sports match will be the Blind Round, where a team will draw one of these games at random and will have to play it right away.

Maximum time allowed per scene: 2 minutes (Juniors) or 2 ½ minutes (Seniors)

Gibberish Endowment (Seniors only)

  • One player cannot hear while their team-mates get an occupation, a physical characteristic and an emotional state from the audience.
  • Within a time limit, the team attempts to endow the first player with these three characteristics.
  • The player being endowed must do the occupation, possess the physical quality and express the emotion.
  • No players may speak English: all players must speak gibberish.

Preparation

Both Dictionary and English/Gibberish Switch from the rear of the manual will help develop a facility with gibberish.

Points of Concentration

  1. Do the endowing players pay attention to the clues that the other player has understood?
  2. Does the player being endowed use gibberish and physical actions to demonstrate that they have understood one of the pieces of hidden information? When in doubt, do they make bold assumptions?
  3. If I want my partner to guess that she is a giant, I can’t become a giant. I must act as if she is a giant: look up when I talk to her, be afraid that she’ll break things, etc.

Ask-Fors: Occupation, physical quality, emotion.

He Said/She Said (Seniors only)

  • Two players will perform a scene.
  • When player A finishes a line of dialogue, player B will provide a stage direction, then say their own line.

Example

A: “Looks like rain”
B: She said, opening a window (A then mimes opening a window) “I’m worried the river might flood.”
A: She said, putting on a raincoat. (B mimes putting on a raincoat) “You’ll need more than a raincoat out there!”
B: She said, opening her grandfather’s trunk of diving supplies…

Variation: Two more players can stand at the sides and provide the stage directions.

Points of Concentration

  1. Make sure the stage directions are offers. Don’t just describe what the other player is already doing.
  2. Don’t just use the game to make your partner do embarrassing things. You have the chance to inspire the other player by giving them interesting things to do and advance the story in new ways.
  3. Accept the stage directions as what your character meant to do. This will enable the story to go in much more interesting directions. If you “fight” the directions or immediately try to cancel them out you slow down the flow of the scene.

Sample Ask-Fors: A relationship between two people; An occupation; Something two friends might do

Poem

  • The players tell a story in the form of a poem.
  • They choose the style of poetry and the rhyme scheme.

Preparation

To get an idea of the most commonly used rhythm, have four students stand in a line and recite “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star” a line at a time. To take the pressure out of rhyming, get two students to play a game of Rhyming Couplets where each line of dialogue must be successfully rhymed. Whenever one of the players is stuck, those watching call out words that rhyme.

The most common rhyme scheme is AABB (the second line rhymes with the first, the fourth with the third).

Points of Concentration

  1. Is the rhythm and/or rhyme scheme clearly established?
  2. Do the players have fun with their success and failures?

Sample Ask-Fors: A Three-Word Title; A Person’s First Name and Hobby; A Miracle to Make Happen.

Shared Story

  • A group of players tells a story, taking turns stepping forward to tell the story one at a time.
  • Each person tells their segment of the story, stepping back to signal to the other to pick up the storyline (this can be at the end of a sentence, or partway through).
  • The player must continue to tell the story picking up the story exactly where the previous person has left off.

Points of Concentration

  1. Does the story make sense?
  2. Are the players listening to each other?

Sample Ask-Fors: It’s often useful to combine two suggestions for this game: A Fairy Tale
Character and an Article of Clothing; An Animal and a Weather Condition; A Line to Begin the Story.

Word-at-a-Time

Taken from the category Spontaneity Games, Word-at-a-Time forces players to be in the moment and to work with their team-mate. Neither player can control where the story goes.

  • Two players become one person using the term “I” when narrating the story. They share the storytelling, each contributing to it one “word at a time”.
  • They speak in the past tense, yet the story is created spontaneously in the present.
  • The players physically act out the story, moving as they speak.

Points of Concentration

  1. Are the players focused on each other?
  2. Are offers immediately transformed into action?
  3. Do they players advance the story with physical actions as well as verbal offers?

Sample Ask-Fors: A Household Improvement; An Act of Bravery; A Place to Visit on Vacation.

Yes, and… Experts

  • Two players are experts in a particular field of unusual expertise given in the ask-for.
  • It starts with a fact or subject given by the audience and is expanded on by each player
  • Each line begins with the words “Yes and… “ before more information is added, taking the initial premise towards the absurd

Preparation

Question the Storyteller from the exercises at the back of the manual.

Points of Concentration

  1. Does the information progress in ‘believable’ stages?
  2. Do the experts show with their body language (eye contact, etc.) that they are listening to and enthusiastic about what each other says?
  3. Does each expert respond immediately without taking time to think? Are they relaxed and confident, as befits someone who knows everything there is to know about this topic?
  4. In your practice, try substituting the phrase “Yeah yeah yeah! And…” if you’re having trouble being enthusiastic.
  5. The point of the game is saying yes to your partner straight away. Substituting other words or taking ages to say “yes” will not make players look more talented.

Sample Ask-Fors: An actual Invention; A Mode of Transportation; A world/country crisis; An everyday tool/piece of Equipment.

Variation (can also be played this way in the competition)

Good Times: Starts the same way as Yes, and… Experts, but during the scene the experts will ‘remember’ a shared experience, which they then relate… still starting each line with “Yes! And…” For example, “Yes! And cows have spots.” “Yes! And they moo.” “Yes! And one day we actually bought a cow.” “Yes! And we kept her on our townhouse balcony.” etc. No matter how terribly this shared experience went for the “experts”, they relate the story with great enthusiasm.