Power2Improv

Find the game.

Comedy depends on structure, and subverting structures When improvising an unstructured scene (one without much of a game to play off of) you have to "find the game" which really means just finding a structure to work within. Say you and a partner are playing two old people talking about your operations and you keep trying to top each other with a more comically horrific illness -- you've found a game of one upmanship. Or you're doing a scene with a health inspector who finds something only to have the chef come up with an outrageous explanation as to why conditions are like that -- you've found a justification game. Finding a game or structure to work within helps you set up the humor and gives you something to play. A scene without some sort of structure that's completely random usually goes nowhere.