Happy World Book Day! What a great day it is! And what a fantastic opportunity to write about the first ever book from Extreme Improv.
If you’ve not got a copy, or even if you’ve not heard of it before, I’d encourage you to check out the Extreme Improv Big Book of Improv Games.
If you’re a fan of improv and would like to learn how to play over 100 short form improv games like you’d see on the weekly Extreme Improv XStreamed shows, or our Extreme Improv stage shows, this is the best place to start! It features a great mix of classic improv games like you’d find on Whose Line Is It Anyway? plus original games, or classic games with ‘extreme’ twists that have been developed for the Extreme Improv shows.
It’s a book I planned on writing for a few years before it came to fruition, and even though the book first launched several months ago, I’ve never really spoken about the making of the book that much.
I think the idea of creating the book has been with me for at least five years. There are lots of books about improv out there, but as I was always interested in devising new improv games I knew the games I made up couldn’t have been written about before. It was on my mind that one day I would create a book that included my new games and put them alongside some of the classic games that I’ve loved to play for years and years.
I always get a thrill out of introducing new games to audiences and especially other improvisers. It’s always great when I’ve been performing at an international festival to crack out an original game and get improvisers who have been performing sometimes for decades to come up to me and ask me about a game I’ve created.
About two years ago I guested on a show and it was a lot of fun, and about mid way through we played a game which I was surprised to see come up as it was one that I had created. The rules were ever so slightly different to what I say, but it was close enough, and it even had the same name. It was strange to play as the way it was being presented with a tiny change in the rules completely broke the game in my opinion. It wasn’t bad, but a small change completely missed what I felt was the challenge for the performer.
After the show I spoke with the emcee, and asked where they had come across the game. I didn’t mind that it was being used at all, but just wondered where it had come from as it seemed too much of a coincidence for this particular rule set for a game to have the exact name I gave it. Sure enough I found that via six degrees of separation, the emcee had been introduced to the game via someone who had been on an Extreme Improv show a couple of months earlier.
For a moment they seemed worried that I was upset that “my game” was being played, and I assured them I wasn’t. I actually thought it was cool that a game I created was “going viral” and I did take the opportunity to say what I felt was missed from this version of the rules.
You’ll notice that I’ve not said what the game is. It’s because it doesn’t matter to me so much to take credit for creating this specific game, and I also didn’t want to be that guy who made a big deal about creating a game whilst then turning around and borrowing or embellishing 50 games from Whose Line It It Anyway? Now don’t get me wrong if I felt someone was copying my entire format or taking credit for creating something I created I wouldn’t be happy (and I have been there a few times too), but for the most part I’m happy to see these games go viral and would love some of them to become staples of improv shows so I feel like I’ve made my mark on the genre.
But with the book, as with the above example I’ve not specifically said which games I’ve created. With 104 games in the book I believe between a third and half of the games featured are ones I’ve made up, but I acknowledge in the book that if I could come up with an idea for a game it’s possible and likely probable that others have come up with a similar idea for an improv game. It’s a big world out there after all.
So I didn’t say which games I created in there, but I do have the thought that unless someone else beat me to the punch to write about my own game, that if there’s any improv historian out there who wants to keep track of where games originated, that when my book was published it would become the earliest written record of many of the games existence. For me, for now at least that is all the credit I need. If you play a game you learned from the Extreme Improv Big Book of Improv Games and want to credit me or if someone asks a little shout out is always welcome.
The more important thing for me is that people get the book and learn how to play the games. As ultimately I created these games so that I could play them on stage (or virtually etc) so that audiences could see them and have a good time. And in 99% of cases you can’t do improv alone, so if you want to do a new game you’ll have to teach it to others so they can play it successfully with you.
Having directed improv for over 10 years, I’ve become used to the approaches I think work when explaining a game to someone for the first time. And when writing this book I’ve tried to do so in a way that closely matches my method as it has seemed to have worked thus far.
Improvisers and actors in general get excited about knowing the lingo. Using terminology is a great short hand between performers to quickly know what each other is talking about, but sometimes I feel it’s used as a brag where performers use terms to show their status. It’s because of this that I decided to write the book in what I consider to be easily understandable language for anyone. Sometimes I’ll refer to a term such as a ‘tag’ or ‘get’ but believe that when I’ve used terminology any reader will be able to understand what it means via context.
I also do this because improv is essential an acting skill, but having trained as an actor I’ve noticed that the improv world has it’s own terminology which even trained actors don’t always know. As a trained theatre actor I was taught that ‘block’ referred to physically blocking the auidience’s view of another actor, but in improv block refers to blocking an idea or ‘offer’ given by another performer.
Another consideration was to make sure that the games don’t come across intimidating. I’ve seen great performers turned off a game or exercise because it was presented to them in the wrong way. A big message of the book is to embrace the failure, and know that even when you “fail” this can be a win, and sometimes a bigger win compared to when you succeed.
Empowering performers to feel the freedom of taking chances and risks without the worry of going wrong can be a big moment in any improvisers career. Often it can be as big as the time before they knew it was ok to make mistakes, and then the time after they have the realisation that it’s ok to make mistakes. The book aims to do this, but not overtly. It’s a message a try to give throughout, but it is one of those things where a performer will the realisation in their own way and their own time, and just telling them it’s ok to make mistakes isn’t enough on its own.
So with the book I know I wanted to teach people the new Extreme Improv games and I know what approach and teaching style I wanted to use, but perhaps the biggest challenge with writing the book came in creating a universal formatting for the games listed.
When I wrote the rules for the first few games they were detailed but I quickly found that I was having to write each game with different headings to explain how it worked. I couldn’t hit upon a universal layout such as Name of Game> Ask the Audience For > Rules etc.
I found writing “rules” of each game to be really problematic. Improv games have rules, but there are often things that you need to explain to be able to play it successfully that aren’t technically a rule. I stuck with the word ‘rules’ for some time, but knew it would have to be thrown out at some point.
I then considered that I should write ‘Steps’, but the problem is that even though steps meant I could include ideas that didn’t completely count as a rule, I had the problem that steps usually go in a set order. If I said this is step 1 then step 2 then step 3 etc it would imply this is the order you do them. I rewrote a ton of the games with Steps only to realise that this didn’t work either.
It seems silly now, but during the process of writing the book I hit my eureka moment when I realised that I didn’t need any term such as rules or steps, and that if I simply put a heading of ‘How to Play the Game’ followed by a list of numbered points it wouldn’t mislead or confuse readers that every point is a rule or that every step has to be done in a specific order. Labelling these points as such would do a diservice to the reader.
Once I cracked this problem I was off to the races and was able to complete the book to be what is now available to buy worldwide.
I was thrilled when the book launched as it very quickly hit the top of the charts on Amazon’s categories for drama and theatre books in several countries. Having a book ranked number 1 in your genre is an amazing feeling and instantly got me excited to put pen to paper again to work on my next book, which is currently in it’s early stages.
I’m not sure when my next book will be finished, and truthfully I realised that I’d be silly to rush the next book out, as The Extreme Improv Big Book of Improv Games is still to be discovered by so many out there that the current work on the title is to do what I can to spread the word and get as many eyes on it as possible. The book has been somewhat of a saving grace over the last year with the pandemic and has been a way to continue to support Extreme Improv whilst ticket sales have been impossible.
If you’d like to support Extreme Improv, the book, or myself, or just want to learn how to play over 100 short form improv games please do check it out. Links to the various Amazon sites form around the world are all listed on the dedicated page under our online store here.
