Boom Chicago, Level 1
Introductions / Ice Breakers | |
Name With An Action (building list) | The group stands in a circle. The first player comes up with an adjective that alliterates with their name, and to which they put an action. For example Jamal says “Jumping Jamal” and jumps up and down. The next person repeats all the previous names with actions and adds their own. In the end the whole group repeats all the names and actions together |
Name Passing (walking) | The group stands in a circle. The first person selects another person in the circle and walks slowly toward them, announcing the name of the person they are walking towards. As soon as the object of the call hears their name, they start walking toward the person they in turn select and so on. |
Warm Up | |
Clap passing | The group stands in a circle. The first person selects another person with whom they make strong eye contact and the pair claps their hands in unison. The other person of the pair then selects another person, does the same and so on. |
Zoom (motor vehicle themed) | Revving engine for zoom, screeching tires for bong, “oil slick” for ramp. Adds a position swapping mechanic |
Listening Exercises | |
Word-By-Word Stories | Working in pairs, the group leader gives the opening expression of a story, which the participants must continue by adding a word each in turn. At the end have the pairs report back on what happened in their stories |
Doctor Know-It-All | Done sitting down in separate chairs on stage. The doctor is introduced as having an area of expertise, and the audience invited to ask questions in that domain. |
Break | |
Conducted Story Telling | Groups of three or four tell an improvised children’s story. The group leader acts as a conductor pointing to the player who is to continue the story. When the conductor changes who they are pointing at, the next person must continue the story exactly where it left off (often picking up in the middle of a sentence). Focus on: storytelling, staying grounded, building a scene together |
Interrupt Story Telling | As above with a couple of differences. The most significant is that instead of the leader acting as conductor, players must jump in when the moment feels right (usually when the person speaking is just starting to struggle). The story begins with the start of a real story from one of the players in the group, and players picking up should match the tone, and manner of telling the story. Focus on: storytelling and scene building, listening and observing, building a scene together, staying grounded |
Cocktail Party | Six people take the stage in three groups of two. The players imagine that they are at a party, and that they are having conversations in their pairs. All of the conversations are happening at the same time, but we focus only on one at a time (conducted by the group leader?). When the focus shifts on to a pair they step forward and continue their interaction; when focus shifts away, they fall quiet and stand back upstage. |
Cool Down | |
Compliment Circle | The group stands in a circle. Each person in turn turns to the person next to them and says one nice thing about something that person did during the session. Once the compliment is delivered, the compliment receiver can say “thank you”, and everybody claps once together. Go round the circle once, skipping over the group leader. |
Introductions | |
Name With An Action (building list) | Reprise of the exercise from week 1. Those who were in the group previously use the same adjective and action as they used previously; new members come up with one for themselves. |
Warm Ups | |
Zip, zap, zop | The group stands in a circle. The first person selects another person in the circle and gestures towards them, clearly passing the action over to them with the utterance “Zip!”. The receiving person does the same, but the utterance this time is “Zap!”. The third person uses “Zop!”, the fourth goes back to “Zip!” and so on. You should be able to build up a quick rhythm of “Zip! Zap! Zop! Zip! Zap! Zop! Zip! …” bouncing around the circle. After this first round is concluded a second set of exclamation words is introduced: “tic”, “tac”, and “toe”. These can be inserted on the fly to replace “zip”, “zap”, and “zop” respectively, so the sequence bouncing round the circle may be something like, “Zip! Tac! Zop! Tic! Tac! Zop! Tic! Zap! Toe! …”. For a third round the words “Kentucky”, “fried”, and “chicken” can be introduced. Focus: Get a rhythm going. Make the passing very clear and energetic |
“Yes, And” Exercises | |
Gift Exchange | The group pairs up. The first person in the group decides on an object they are giving to the other person as a gift. They mime picking up the object they are imagining and give it to the second person. The second person mimes receiving the gift and says something like “What a lovely clock”, or whatever they are imagining the object to be. This is now what the object is for both players. The first person responds by adding a statement that adds detail to the gift, something like “I got you a red one because I know that’s your favorite color.” |
Storytelling Circle (with explicit yes and) | The group stands in a circle. The first person begins a story with a sentence (or a couple of short sentences). Each person in turn adds their own sentence to the story, and the story must be brought to a conclusion at the last person in the circle such that each person contributes once and only once to the story. The really important thing is that each person must say an enthusiastic “Yes, and…” at the start of their contribution. Focus: Receive the previous contribution enthusiastically and build upon it. |
Break | |
Warm Ups | |
Mind Meld | The group stands in a circle. One person says “one!”, another says “two!”, the first person acknowledges the second, they say “three!” together, then on the next beat the two together say the words that they have in their minds. If the words are not heard clearly, make sure they are repeated. Everybody tries to think of a word that relates to both the previous words. As soon as someone has a word in mind they announce “one!”, the next person announces “two!”, they say “three!” together and then announce their words at the same time. If the words match the group celebrates with the chant, “We did a mind meld. / We did a mind meld. / It happens all the time. / It happens all the time”. If the words are different, the step repeats with everybody thinking of a word relating to the words that were just announced. Keep repeating until the two words match (they will eventually). It can take quite a few attempts before finding a match. Often it will seem like the words are converging. Sometimes it will feel like they are diverging. Just keep going and you’ll get there eventually. Allowing the group to ponder on the perfect word can cause the game to drag, so emphasize jumping in as soon as you have something. If two people call “two!” simultaneously, the first person should choose only one to acknowledge. |
Monster Dance | The group stands in a circle. Together they perform a little rhyme (?), the ritual is repeated for each person in the group. Each person in turn, during the line (?), performs the physicality of a monster that comes to their mind, the rest of the group will copy their physicality for the lines (?). Each monster should be unique. |
“Yes, And” Exercises | |
Yes And Scenes (with place and relationship) | Scenes are played in pairs, each person adds a sentence or two, but each bit must begin with an enthusiastic “Yes, and…” |
Ad People | The group stands in a tight circle. The leader begins a scene in which the group is a team of executives in a boardroom, the company needs to figure out how to market their new product. The leader solicits suggestions and every suggestion is met with raucous enthusiasm by everyone. Everyone believes it to be the greatest thing they have ever heard. At the end of the game you will have a pretty well elaborated idea with everyone fully on board. |
Ad People With Pitch | Similar to the above, but this time the leader leaves the room for 10 minutes, tasking the group to come up with a pitch for when they return. Once they return, (a portion of) the group must perform the pitch for them. |
Cool Down | |
Compliment Circle | As session 1 |
Warm Ups | |
Zip, zap, zop | As session 2 |
Pass The Clap | The group stands in a circle. The first person makes eye contact with another person in the group and the pair clap once together; the second person is now the clap giver and chooses another person with whom to make eye contact and clap. The clap continues to be passed around like this. Try to get into a quick rhythm. |
Building On Exercises | |
Alphabet | Make the letter forms from A to Z using your bodies. One person jumps in to contribute a part of the letter. Another adds on or completes the letter. Once the letter is formed, the whole group calls out the letter together (e.g. “B!”) and the players step back to join the rest of the group. Focus on supporting and adding on. |
Statues | One player steps out of the group and adopts a pose. Another steps out and adopts their own pose in relation to the first. A third person does the same. A fourth person announces the name of the artwork. |
Machines | Standard machines. With a prompt (can be anything). Played without a stage front it became very tightly enclosed, so better played with a stage front. |
Scenes With A Gift | |
Break | |
Warm Ups | |
Bunny bunny | The group stands in a circle and chants “mmm - bah - mmm - bah …” together in rhythm, adding a backbeat by clapping hands to thighs on the “bah”. This will crouch you down slightly. Keeping the rhythm the first person stands up and makes a sort of air quotes gesture with their index and middle fingers while saying “bunny, bunny. Bunny, bunny”. On the first “bunny, bunny” the gesture is aimed toward their own face. On the second “bunny, bunny” the gesture is aimed at another person in the group, who picks up the action with their own “bunny, bunny. Bunny, bunny” on the next beat. Once a player has passed the “bunny, bunny” they rejoin the general “mmm bah” rhythm. Players should make it obvious who the bunny is being passed to using eye contact and gesture. Once the group has this down, the two people on either side of the bunny turn in towards that person, wave back and forth chanting “ticky, tocky. Ticky, tocky” in time with the “bunny bunny”. The leader should make sure the tempo keeps stable, and increases to a quick tempo. You should be able to get the bunny passing round quite rapidly with good energy. |
Shake Out | Together in rhythm the group extends and shakes out their limbs. Start with 8 shakes of the right arm, left arm, right leg, then left leg; then 6, then 4, then 2, then 1. Count the shakes as you do them and celebrate at completion. The rhythm is quick. The whole thing should take about 20 seconds. |
21 | The group stands in a tight circle and all close their eyes, tuning in to the people around them. Someone calls out “one”, then someone else calls out “two”, someone else calls out “three” and so on up to “twenty-one”. If two people say a number at the same time, then the count starts over. Celebrate failures (and success if you can make it to 21) |
Building On Exercises | |
Sound Effects | Four performers take the stage. Two of the performers stand center stage and improvise a scene; the other two performers stand at the wings of the stage and contribute sound effects to the action in the scene. Take suggestions for a location. A sound effect should accompany most actions in the scene. The actors should respond to the sound effects where appropriate. |
Scenes With A Gift (Identity And Relationship) | Two performers take the stage. The first gives the second an identity with a “you are …” statement like “you are a police officer”. The second person does the same thing for the first. Then the first person uses a “we are …” statement to set up the relationship of the scene. The "we are” statement could be an action like “we are making soup together”, or an emotion like “we are in love”. Once the premise of the scene is established, play it out building off those gifts |
Cool Down | |
Compliment Circle | As session 1 |
Warm Ups | |
We Got The Rhythm | Standing in a circle, the group keeps up a rhythm by clapping first their own hands together, then their hands against their neighbors’ hands. The group chants: “Scandinavia. Boom sha-boom. / Venezuela. Boom sha-boom. / We got the rhythm of the hands / [clap, clap, clap] / We got the rhythm of the hands / [clap, clap, clap] / We got the rhythm of the feet. / [stomp, stomp, stomp] / We got the rhythm of the feet. / [stomp, stomp, stomp] / We got the rhythm of the hips / [kicking hips left and right in time] A-boom, boom, a-boom boom boom / We got the rhythm of the hips / [kicking hips left and right in time] A-boom, boom, a-boom boom boom / We got the rhythm of the [lifting left pointing finger to the air in time] aaah-yeah! / We got the rhythm of the [lifting left pointing finger to the air in time] aaah-yeah!” The whole thing repeats, each time at a higher tempo. You can also instruct the group to stay silent for a portion of the lines, pushing them to focus on following the rhyme in their minds so that everyone joins back up at the same time. |
Follow The Leader (diamond formation) | The group gathers in a diamond formation so that there is one person standing at each of the four compass points (North, South, East, West). The leader stands outside the group and calls out a compass direction. Everybody immediately turns to face that direction and the person at that compass point (now at the front of the group) starts to perform some action. Everyone else joins in. The leader keeps calling out compass points to change the way the group is facing and who leads the action. After a while add the concept that anyone can take over the lead by audibly calling the group’s attention to themself. Encourage them to take over as soon as the energy is in danger of fading. |
Building A Scene Together Exercises | |
Scenes With A Gift (action and line) | |
Building A Room Together (with actions) | Four people line up to come onto the stage. A suggestion is made for the type of space it is; a gym, or a kitchen, or whatever. The first player walks on and, without speaking, interacts with something in the space, their object work creating the object. The first person exits and the next person enters. This person interacts with the thing the first player established in the room, then goes on to establish their own thing, then exits. The third and fourth players use the things previously established and add their own as well. Once everyone has been on stage, the environment should be pretty richly described. All the players should enter the room that is in the state the previous person left it. Each player should try to come up with a new way to interact with the established objects. |
Scenes In The Built Room | Following on from building a room together, play out a few short scenes in the room that has been created. |
Break | |
Warm Up | |
Big Booty | The group stands in a circle. One person becomes “Big Booty”. The others are given a number counting up from 1. Each round starts with a chant of “Ahh, Big Booty, Big Booty, Big Booty / Big Booty / Big Booty”, then Big Booty immediately follows on with “Big Booty, number five”, or some other number of a player in the circle. The player (let’s say it is number five) immediately continues, “number five, number two”, passing the chant to number two. Players can call a number that isn’t in the circle, at which point Big Booty has to jump in and pick up the action themselves. If a numbered player drops the chant the round starts again. If Big Booty drops the chant, then the person to Big Booty’s left becomes the new Big Booty and everyone shifts one number over. |
Building A Scene Together Exercises | |
Building A Room Together (describing) | Starts the same as Building A Room Together with actions, but rather than interacting with objects in the space, each player points out and describes something in the space. For example, “there is a wardrobe here about three-feet wide, and seven-feet high. It is made of wood, has ornate brass fittings and is very heavy”. As distinct from the action version of the game, following players only add something to the scene, they don’t need to interact with or describe any of the things that have already been established, although they should stay aware that they are there. |
Scenes In The Built Room | As above. This time in the described room |
Cool Down | |
Compliment Circle | As session 1 |
Warm Ups | |
Shake Out | As session 3 |
Stretching Circle | The group stands in a circle. Each person does a stretch that the rest of the group joins in with. Each person should express how they are feeling while they have the lead. Once the person is done expressing, the lead passes to the next person until everyone has checked in. |
Specifics Exercises | |
5 Ways To | The group stands in a circle. One person moves into the middle. Ask for a suggestion for something people do. Prompt the person in the middle to demonstrate five different ways of doing that thing. After completing the five ways demonstration, the group celebrates, and the player returns to their place in the circle. A new person moves to the middle of the circle, a new suggestion is generated, and so on. The game continues until everyone has demonstrated five ways to do something. |
Passing An Object | The group stands in a circle. The first person comes up with an object to give as a gift to the person next to them. They use mime to describe the object as best they can, without demonstrating its use (i.e. if it’s a bicycle then no riding!), then pass the object over to the person they are giving it to. That person receives the object, and uses it (now the bike gets ridden). Set the object aside and the receiver now becomes the giver for the next person. Continue once round the circle. Focus on using object work to really describe the object precisely, and use careful watching to follow what is being established. |
Profession Gift | |
Scene Options Discussion | |
Break | |
Warm Ups | |
Bunny Bunny | As session 3 |
Mind Meld | As session 2 |
Specifics Exercises | |
Three Line Scenes (Who, Where, What) | |
Three Line Scenes Running On | |
Cool Down | |
Compliment Circle | As session 1 |
(substitute teacher Rob)
Warm Ups | |
Bunny Bunny | As session 3 |
Emotion Exercises | |
Emotional Countdown | |
Emotion Symphony | |
Emotion Symphony In Gibberish | |
Talking Head Couples | |
Break | |
Warm Ups | |
Type Circuits | |
Specifics Exercises | |
Emotional Rollercoaster | |
Scenes With Confessions | |
Cool Down | |
Compliment Circle | As session 1 |
Warm Ups | |
Best Friends, Worst Enemies | Players move around the room, trying to keep their “best friend” between them and their “worst enemy”. After a while the relationships are inverted so that best friends become worst enemies and vice-versa. |
Penguins | Have you ever seen / a penguin come to tea? / When you look at me / then a penguin you will see. // Penguins, attention! / Penguins, begin! Left wing / right wing / left foot / right foot / moving around / penguin noises |
Opinion Exercises | |
Hate A Good Gift | How dare you! |
Love A Bad Gift | |
Scenes With An Opinion (And Response) | simple scenes with a given interior location. The leader calls out “opinion” and one of the characters has to express an opinion. The other character responds to that opinion. Scene runs on briefly then concludes. |
Break | |
Warm Ups | |
Zoom | As session 1 |
Bunny Bunny | As session 3 |
Opinion Exercises | |
Change Choice With A Big Emotion | |
Emotions Meeting (Silent Prelude) | Each player independently chooses an emotion which they will embody throughout the scene. The two characters begin doing something simple together like washing the dishes. The action carries on in silence until the leader allows them to speak. The emotions should flow into the scene. |
Emotions Meeting With An Opinion | |
Cool Down | |
Compliment Circle | As session 1 |
Warm Ups | |
Pass The Clap | As session 3 |
Penguins | As session 7 |
Mind Meld | As session 2 |
Exercises | |
That’s Important To Me | |
That’s Important To Me (without explicit phrase) | |
Break | |
Warm Ups | |
Bad Rap | |
Bunny Bunny | As session 3 |
Exercises | |
Conducted Story | As session 1 |
Four Corners | |
Scenes With A Confession | |
Cool Down | |
Compliment Circle | As session 1 |
(Positive) Feedback | |