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Group Improvisation: The Manual of Ensemble Improv Games
Who would have thought that participating in group improvisation could be so enlightening and rewarding! Peter Gwinn has developed The Group Mind at Improv Olympic in Chicago to create a new awareness in the mind and spirit of acting students and professionals. Over forty improvisation games are included for developing group creation, bonding, dynamics, energy, focus and more. Techniques are discussed for breaking the ice, agreement, listening and support, teamwork, quick thinking and having fun! The Group Mind, the holy grail of improvisation, is created by a synergy between improvisation participants. It is like ESP. It is the feeling of being part of a greater entity, a sense of excitement, belonging, importance that takes acting skills to a new level.
- GenresComedyNonfiction
91 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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86 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 24, 2018
Unless you are specifically referring to this book and then literally using it in the field of organizing group improv games either to reinforce team building or to organize a set list for an improv show, this book is not really worth getting into it. In other words, reading it for the sake of reading it is pretty useless.
Not to blow myself up too much, but I have a more vested interest in group improv than the average person. I've been doing improv off and on for the past ten years, and recently passed the core curriculum at Upright Citizens Brigade - LA. But despite this core background in improv, even I found the page to page reading experience boring and a little alienating.
The bulk of the book is a list of improv games, including diagram-like descriptions of where the actors go and what they do. It's written very coldly, and the process is repetitive as it just leads in the same thing over and over again.
I'll admit that I'm probably being unfair, as it is described as a "manual" in the subtitle, so expecting a great reading experience is maybe not the point. But the little bits of quality writing in there, as small and disappointingly lacking as they may be, lead to expecting more than just a blueprint in a book.
The highlight of the book is Charna Halpern's explanation of tag out games. She's unfairly listed as an "additional material author" here for basically a few reprinted paragraphs that I believe I read in her far superior book "Art By Committee" which was much more philosophical in nature than this book. But her little bit here is still better prose than Gwinn's manual writing, and worth looking at.
And I can't really say I dislike Peter Gwinn's brief paragraphs, largely in truncated introduction and conclusion phases, about the importance of both improv teams and more general/corporate teams in the qualities that the games are supposed to help with, things like bonding, focus, awareness, energy, etc.
Talking about these qualities and why they're important to a team is hard to ignore, and it makes you feel like Gwinn understands the basics of human interaction and cooperation. It's good enough to raise this rating from a 1 star to a 2 star, but it's also pretty generic in its way, and like I said, its few and far between with these robotic descriptions of improv games.
For some people, reading this book is the best way to see improv games tick. But I would definitely recommend the much superior Charna Halpern "actually written by her" books "Truth In Comedy" and "Art By Committee" for a more involved reading and improv philosophy experience.
Not to blow myself up too much, but I have a more vested interest in group improv than the average person. I've been doing improv off and on for the past ten years, and recently passed the core curriculum at Upright Citizens Brigade - LA. But despite this core background in improv, even I found the page to page reading experience boring and a little alienating.
The bulk of the book is a list of improv games, including diagram-like descriptions of where the actors go and what they do. It's written very coldly, and the process is repetitive as it just leads in the same thing over and over again.
I'll admit that I'm probably being unfair, as it is described as a "manual" in the subtitle, so expecting a great reading experience is maybe not the point. But the little bits of quality writing in there, as small and disappointingly lacking as they may be, lead to expecting more than just a blueprint in a book.
The highlight of the book is Charna Halpern's explanation of tag out games. She's unfairly listed as an "additional material author" here for basically a few reprinted paragraphs that I believe I read in her far superior book "Art By Committee" which was much more philosophical in nature than this book. But her little bit here is still better prose than Gwinn's manual writing, and worth looking at.
And I can't really say I dislike Peter Gwinn's brief paragraphs, largely in truncated introduction and conclusion phases, about the importance of both improv teams and more general/corporate teams in the qualities that the games are supposed to help with, things like bonding, focus, awareness, energy, etc.
Talking about these qualities and why they're important to a team is hard to ignore, and it makes you feel like Gwinn understands the basics of human interaction and cooperation. It's good enough to raise this rating from a 1 star to a 2 star, but it's also pretty generic in its way, and like I said, its few and far between with these robotic descriptions of improv games.
For some people, reading this book is the best way to see improv games tick. But I would definitely recommend the much superior Charna Halpern "actually written by her" books "Truth In Comedy" and "Art By Committee" for a more involved reading and improv philosophy experience.
March 5, 2013
I'm buying this book. I've had it checked out for over two months and it's got a load of games we can use for youth group. Now I can take it back and stop getting bills for it!
January 16, 2014
It mentions the "Group Mind" concept and has a lot of interesting exercises that focus on different "ensemble needs".
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews