Game #1: The Question Game

When I was in a theatre class my freshman year in high school, our teacher had us play a lot of improv games that she taught us… uh… There was the question game, where everyone had to stand in two lines, and then the person at the front of each line… like, one person would ask the other person a question, and that person had to respond with another question, and, like, it had to make sense in the context, it couldn’t include, like, a statement answer, and it couldn’t be a repetition of the other question… that one was hard. And then if you couldn’t come up with a question, you’d lose and go to the back of the line, and then the person behind you would, like, challenge, I guess, the person you were going against.

Game #2: Freeze Tag

My favorite one was called freeze tag, and I still like playing it with people… theatre people, ’cause regular people don’t get it… but, yeah, this one we played a lot, and it’s where there’s two people, like, onstage or whatever, and they start improving a scene. And then at some point, someone from the audience will yell, “Freeze!” and the actors have to freeze in whatever position they’re in. And then that person from the audience will, like, tag one of them out, and get into the same position they were in, and they have to start a new scene starting from that position. And it just gets really funny, people do really weird stuff, and, like, our class got so many inside jokes from that game… yeah, it’s just really fun.

Background (from interviewer):

My informant is a very theatrical person– she enjoys playing games, making up scenes (one could say “playing make-believe”), and she has been very involved in her high school’s theatre department. We met during this theatre class, and the teacher who taught it had a very large impact on our lives. My informant has previously told me that this teacher was the one who got her into theatre and showed her she could become an actress someday, something she now aspires to be. These games and the general fun this teacher brought to our class are part of what made it so memorable and so enjoyable, and what created such close bonds between the two of us and between us and our teacher. My informant’s continued interest in and performance of these games shows the degree to which this class, this teacher, and the love of theatre that they inspired has shaped her life.