Long Form Improv Openings: A Compilation for the Improv Comedy Student
Updated: Jul 4
How to open a blog post about improv openings? If only I had a way to start... I know, how about this next paragraph?
Once you’ve been introduced to the basics about improv comedy you might start wondering about long form improv sets like the Harold or the Montage, particularly how they actually start. Not the suggestion part, everybody gets that, but the strange few minutes that come right after the suggestion, where the team is chanting, or word associating, or pretending to be in a documentary interview, all before a single real scene happens.
That stuff has a name. We call it the opening.
Not every long form team starts their shows with openings. Some don’t even start with a suggestion. But many, many do.
This post is a compilation of all the long form openings I think a well educated improviser should know, more or less in the order I would introduce them. I’ve also added some basic thoughts on their purpose.
Might someone else order them differently or perceive their purpose differently than I do? Sure. If you come across someone like that, they are probably right. Listen to them, not me.
But if you don’t, if you can’t find anyone else, anyone else at all, to tell you their comprehensive thoughts on long form improv openings, might I humbly submit my best take for your perusal.
With that, the list.
The Pattern Game - The First OF All Improv Openings
The story goes that this was the first opening for the first long form improv performances. Was it really? Maybe, maybe not, but it certainly was the first common opening.
To get started one team member asks the audience for a suggestion of anything at all. Once they have it they repeat the suggestion (just so we’re all on the same page), thanks the audience member for it and then repeats the suggestion again. The second time they repeat the suggestion it is understood that the Pattern Game has begun.
Typically the team stands in a U, like the staging of a play ion grade school, and one at a time, in no fixed order, free associates away from the word and then back to it again. You do this out and back pattern three times. You can think of each loop as a cloverleaf, because you keep using the suggestion as your center point and the associations arc out and return like the leaves of a three leaf clover.
What you are really doing is generating raw material. Ice cube leads to scotch, leads to an advertising executive, leads to 1950s New York, and somewhere in that drift team members take inspiration for scenes. It is the purest version of what every opening is trying to do, which is turn one idea into many, a theme throughout this list.
The inspiration team members take can be simple, like a location, a job or an activity. Or they can be a bit more complicated, like a full blown comedic premise or a theme.
There is much more to say about the Pattern Game, and I’ve said a lot more of it here.
If you don’t care to read that, know that there are many variations to the Pattern Game. So many it is impossible to name or even know them all. All of them come with their own do’s and dont’s, but all of them of them have one thing in mind:
Creating material that can be used to inspire the scenes that will follow.
Going A to C is a powerful tool with Pattern Games, especially if you are looking to create comedic premises. So is the concept of “hallways and rooms.” All this to be discussed in the pattern game post.
Pattern Games are commonly associated with improv theater Harold Nights and are used frequently by those theater’s Harold Teams. The form is a favorite among improv nerds in love with the art form, but not at all loved by your not-so-into improv friends in the audience.
A Monologue Opening
Popularly referred to as The Armando after Armando Diaz, the titular talent behind the long running Chicago monologue show, The Armando Diaz Experience. This opening is commonly used for class shows, young improv teams and popular (for improv) crowd pleasers like Asssscat, making it perhaps the most popular opening for long form improv comedy sets across the globe.
Unlike the Pattern Game, audiences unfamiliar with improv culture tend to really enjoy monologue openings.
Enjoy them or no, the purpose of a monologue opening is not to be entertaining in and of itself. Instead the purpose is to provide fodder for the scenes that will follow. To that end, monologues are expected to be detailed, honest and pithy.
For younger teams and class shows often three short monologues will be delivered by different cast members, each inspired an audience suggestion. Cast members will simply step forward to share a monologue and step back when done. Although they are all working off of the same suggestion, performers will try to tell a variety of stories so that the show can have breadth.
(If the suggestion is “chocolate” what follows shouldn’t be three stories about Valentine’s Day.)
Monologues in this format typically last around a minute each and free association can be used to get into them. For example, a cast member might step forward after hearing the suggestion “bluebird” and say, “Bluebirds remind me of flying, which reminds me of something that happened to me when I was much younger and flew to Miami for spring break”.
It is generally considered bad form to bring an idea from a story you told into the set later on (as it might appear like you planned it). Instead, if you tell a story, other members of your team should be the ones to use it for inspiration in the set. You would be free to use points of inspiration from the other two stories.
In larger, more crowd pleasing shows there can often be a guest monologist, who might even be famous. They might ask for a suggestion to inspire their story on the spot or they might simply share a story they prepared for the event. As long as the cast is previously unaware of their prepared story it's fine.
Under these circumstances the story might be longer, from 5 to 7 minutes. Just as before the stories are intended to be detailed and truthful. Guest monologists do not typically perform in the sets that follow, so there is no need to worry about them bringing their own stories into a set.
A set of 15-25 minutes of improv might follow a guest monologist’s story. Once the improvisers feel they have thoroughly explored that story with scenework, the monologist can often return to tell a second story inspired by either a new suggestion or something the set they just watched made them think of.
In either format, a cast member listening to a story can ask a question if they think there is something really interesting about the story that isn’t getting enough attention. This should be rare but not off limits.
The Living Room
Created at iO, but popular among most long form improv theaters, the Living Room feels like a cool kids opening. Based on a suggestion, a cast will arrange themselves in seated positions onstage, sometimes in a horseshoe U, or sometimes in a stage picture approximating people hanging out in a Living Room (get it?).
What follows is a real conversation, inspired by the suggestion.
In this way the form is similar to monologues as each participant is expected to be honest and detailed. Similar to monologue openings, players are expected not to initiate scenes or insert ideas into scenes pulled from their contributions in the opening.
Eventually somebody stands up and starts a scene based on the conversation. I’ve seen teams return to the Living Room stage picture in between the first few scenes or whenever they need new points of inspiration. So after the first scene starts there might be a few more scenes, or the set might return immediately back to the Living Room opening.
Transition back into the Living Room is done by someone not in the scene noticeably re-engaging in the previous conversation while seated in the position they were in during the initial stage picture. Sets using this format typically return to the conversation less frequently and for shorter durations as the set goes on. This can be a pleasant experience for audience members and I believe this is how the form first worked.
I’ve also seen teams sit in the original Living Room stage picture a little longer and generate an entire show’s worth of inspiration from just that opening instance of it. These conversations are intentionally longer and jump from topic to topic more aggressively in an effort to create enough ideas for an entire show. It has mostly been Harold Teams I’ve seen do that.
In terms of audience appreciation of this form, this one tends to be somewhere in between monologues and Pattern Games. Certainly it is more accessible than Pattern Games as people are clearly communicating ideas, but the sharp cuts from scenes back to the opening can be jarring for those confused about why it is happening (i.e. people new to improv).
Scene Painting
Scene Painting is an opening in which the team takes turns building out three locations onstage. You can take a location as the initial suggestion or you can take an initiation of anything at all and simply describe locations that suggestion makes you think of.
One player begins by describing an object in the space. They may start by simply describing the object (say an old, rusty stove with pasta sauce stains on it) or by announcing “We’re in a kitchen!” and then describing the stove. When describing it players typically indicate where it sits onstage and its size by moving to the location and using some light mime work.
When transitioning it is probably easier for each player to start the new location by loudly proclaiming, “We’re in a ____,” or “Now we find ourselves in a _______.” If you start describing a new location without the proclamation and just by describing a new item, this can work too. Simply describe an object that doesn’t fit the current location possibly adding a new emotion, point of view, character trait or opinion as you do.
When starting a location with just an object description you have to be okay with the location changing over the first few contributions. Someone describing a craft beer tap might think they are in a bar, but it could turn out to be a Dave & Busters, or a hip coworking space, or the home of someone who is kinda pretentious about beer, depending on what is added around it.
Each player is only supposed to contribute one item, but to some degree that is controlled by their teammates who are supposed to tag them out or simply begin speaking authoritatively in order to take control of the Scene Painting opening. The player taking control often adds something new to the feature the last player added and then jumps to a new item. Experienced players can make it seem as though they are finishing each other's thoughts.
For example:
SUGGESTION: A Gym
Player One (walking downstage and then running a hand over a long flat surface as they stroll to stage right): This is the main reception desk that you can’t help but walk right up to when you first enter the gym. It’s long and wooden and…
Player Two (tagging in): There are scrapes in it. It has a big pile of white fluffy towels all folded tightly at the end of the desk, right here, just before you get to the workout area. The towels are fluffy but rough...
Player Three (tagging in): And some of them have faded stains on them. Ridiculously close to where the towels are is a chest press. Someone has it set to 180 pounds! This thing is all gleaming metal and it is gigantic, starting here and taking up all this space to…
And so on.
Note, you aren’t supposed to add any characters or animals when Scene Painting, just stationary stuff you can see. It’s just the scenery (or scene), like a Hitchcockian cold open or the beginning of Back To The Future. You shouldn’t describe things from the past, things happening elsewhere, things that will soon happen in the future, feelings, intentions or opinions.
Sometimes clever players (or cheap players, you decide) get around this restriction by describing a sign in the space that states an opinion.
I am ashamed to admit I am just such an improviser myself.
What you are looking for are distinct elements of the scene you are painting. These will stand out to you and your teammates and they can be used as inspiration for the scenes that will follow. You might start a scene in one of the three locations,
but you definitely don’t have to.
Typically teams paint three scenes in an opening transitioning from one to the next by simply saying “New Location” or “Cut to a…” or "Now we're in..."when tagging in. I've seen it where a team just paints one location or two, but three is standard.
Any time you notice something of interest that a player adds you want to be sure to keep backing that thing up in that location. This is preferable to adding an endless stream of new interesting things. In this fashion you can build a discernable pattern useful as a comedic premise or game later in the set.
You also want to pay attention to how your teammates make additions in any given location. If they have a strong emotion when describing an item, maybe you should too. Or if they adopt a type of character or opinion about the items in the space, you definitely should match and even heighten those elements while building out the rest of the space.
As an opening, the team paints a location, or several locations, in vivid detail, and mines those places for premises, patterns, character traits, and unusual things.
Audiences can be pretty confused by this opening, especially if the locations are not featured as settings in the scenes that follow. That’s what happened when I first saw this opening and I know it confused me. Better for hip improv audiences than the general public.
Documentary Opening
Start by setting two chairs next to each other center stage with the performers in a backline behind them. Take a suggestion of anything at all, and then two players sit and speak as if they are being interviewed for a documentary. It should feel like When Harry Met Sally or The Office.
After a brief scene, these two performers will be tagged out by two teammates who will then deliver another tiny scene from a different documentary (I guess it could be another interview from the same documentary, but that isn’t how it typically works).
This should continue to happen until everyone on the team has been in an interview, normally 4 interviews for an 8 person team. The standard move is to then have each interview pair return two more times continuing their previous interview for a total of 12 scenes with an 8 person team. As we get into second and third interviews they should get shorter.
This format is great for building characters, stating points of view or philosophies and creating rich details for scenes. It is a crowd pleaser too as audiences like scenes. They get that!
You have to be careful of two common pitfalls when undertaking this opening.
Since the opening is a crowd favorite and there are so many scenes you have to be careful you don’t sit in it too long. Openings shouldn’t last more than 4 minutes and 3 is an even better goal. As Del Close famously stated, "The opening is the overture, not the whole first act."
Players tend to collide during the tag outs, especially as the scenes get shorter. Practice the traffic patterns if performing with this opening. I’ve seen head bonks that would make you wince.
Premise Keepers
A close cousin of the Living Room or a modified, premise heavy, Pattern Game. Players stand in a U formation as they typically do with a pattern game, and take a suggestion of anything at all. As soon as the suggestion is given, it is off to the races with comedic pitches.
You could think of this form as just a Pattern Game where every word is a full comedic premise. Not every contribution has to be funny, but most are. Like the Pattern Game, going A to C and using “hallways” and “rooms” is advisable.
When a team develops a premise they like, someone steps forward and initiates a scene off of it. Before that happens the team is likely to provide a few examples of game moves (2 or 3 is good, 4 is too many), a premise name, and a justification (icing on the cake, not required). If you build out a premise and no one wants to initiate off of it, that’s okay, just head back into a “hallway” and explore until you find a premise someone does want to initiate off of.
After a scene has run its course the team transitions back into the U formation, normally cued by stepping into their position in the U and pitching a new premise. Everyone else should rush into that opening formation and the scene should end abruptly.
Might go something like this:
SUGGESTION: Astronaut
Player One: I love how astronauts wear those stupid uniforms.
Player Two: An astronaut who is unaware his uniform is stupid. They are trying to be a fashion model in their clunky space gear.
Player Three: You can’t even see their face because of the big helmet, but they’re posing and suggesting people take photos.
Player Four: They are doing this because they think nothing is more with it than science.
Player Five: It’s NASA Runway!
Player Six (steps forward and initiates): Thanks for asking to interview me for your science magazine, but please no runway questions. I’m more than just a pretty face in great threads.
Player Seven (confused): No, I wasn’t going to…
Player Six (prancing model walk to where some chairs are): And strut, strut, strut. Here you can interview me on the couch. Okay fine you can take one snapshot, I can pose with my gyroscope if you want.
Two minutes later we go back into the premise keepers U when someone out of the scene steps back into the U and offers the idea: It would be so hard to try to sell a science magazine subscription door to door.
And off we go into a new exploration or “hallway”.
The back and forth flipping from scenes to the opening is very reminiscent of the Living Room. Just like the Living Room opening, the premise pitching sections will get briefer and rarer as the set unfurls.
Just like most openings, players should avoid initiating scenes off of premises they pitched.
Invocation — The Ritual
The Invocation is a heavyweight among improv openings, created by improv legend Del Close, the opening is supposed to have been inspired by pagan rituals and is framed as a way to call into the set the spirit or God of an everyday item.
Teams typically stand in a Pattern Game U at the start of the opening. They will ask for a suggestion of an everyday item. The suggestion cannot be anything at all, it must be an item.
Once the suggestion is received the team will invoke it over the four levels of The Invocation. As the team progresses from level to level their energy and theatricality should increase exponentially. Their focus on the item over the same progression narrows, focusing more and more on the contributions the team decides are most compelling.
LEVEL 1: IT IS
In level 1 players describe the item factually. You could think of it like a police report, only the facts of the item. Players take turns making declarative statements in no particular order, all of them starting with the words, “It is…”.
These statements are made about the item, observations really. The item might be pointed at or gestured to and is generally imagined to be hovering or sitting on a pedastal just under eye level in front of the U stage picture.
On a team of 8 you might expect every person to say 2 or 3 (maybe 4 for some of them, maybe...) things about the item in this level. While everything you say in this level is true, it doesn’t need to be simple. Look to make factual statements about the item’s function in society, what it represents, how it is used, relate it to types of people associated with it.
As much as possible players should look to introduce a wide range of ideas related to the item. The ideas of level 1 form the foundation of the entire exercise. While not all of them will return in later stages, nothing brand new will be introduced once this level is complete.
An example snippet from an 8 person Invocation that I imagined.
SUGGESTION: Steering wheel.
(Everyone chants, “Steering Wheel”)
Player 4: It is round
Player 5: It is made of very strong metal, but covered in leather.
Player 2: It designed to attach to a hinge so it turns.
Player 1: It is the thing we all use to navigate danger and stay safe at high speeds.
LEVEL 2: YOU ARE
In level 2 things get personal. Statements are made to the item as though it were a character in a scene; with emotion, statements of opinion, of feeling, of status and import. As before the object is imagined to be hovering just in front of the team or resting there on a pedestal.
Generally statements in this level start with “You are…” but don’t have to so long as they are of the same ilk. But all statements in level 2 are building off of statements in level 1. So if we build off the examples above we might get:
Player 8 (with awe): You are round, a perfect circle, a symbol of the life cycle, the yin and the yang.
Player 3 (with grit): Your external softness belies your inner strength. I take comfort from your inflexible core.
Player 5 (snuggle): You are my safety from harm, you help me go where it is safe.
Note, no one said anything about Player 2’s contribution in Level 1. That might mean it is falling away, that the group has decided this fact is not of great interest, or it might return in level 3 or 4. This section is a little shorter than level 1. On a team of 8 maybe everyone says 2 things.
LEVEL 3: THOU ART
Suddenly the object shoots up into the sky and it should be addressed formally, biblically, hyper dramatically. Each statement in this round is hyperbolic, based on earlier observations now revisited in epic, poetic language, the team names the platonic essence of the item and in doing so calls it to come forth and present itself in our reality.
Samples:
Player 6: Thou art a perfect circle curving through infinity and returning to what was, what is, what will be everlasting and neverending!
Player 3: Thou art an iron fist in a velvet glove!
Player 8: Thou art safe harbor itself providing all with succor and strength!
This level is shorter still, one or two contributions from players is more than enough. 12 or less total for a team of 8. Honestly 8 is good.
LEVEL 4: I AM
Finally the God, the spirit, the essence of the item is invoked fully and now possesses the performers. Each takes a turn embodying the item starting each statement with “I AM.” Sometimes teams have each player take a few steps and stand dramatically as they decry their possession. Sometimes they form a jokey stage picture of the item itself, intertwining their bodies to present an ABC Bodies version of a steering wheel, but rarely do teams remain in the Pattern Game U. One “I AM” statement from each player and then the whole team bellows in unison:
I AM STEERING WHEEL!
Leading up to that we might have heard:
Player 1: I AM CIRCLE!
Player 5: I AM STOICISM!
Player 8: I AM SAFETY!
Pulls from this opening tend not to be comedic premises but instead themes. From the small sample of examples here, we might see a scene about someone who feels life keeps repeating itself, or a scene where a character is mistaken for weak due to good manners, or a scene where characters navigate peril.
Sound and Movement
One of my favorite types of openings that feels inextricably linked to the group based Follow The Follower exercise. Here the team takes a suggestion of anything at all and goes nonverbal and extra physical, making a continuous stream of abstract physical shapes and sounds, usually all copying one another. It is Follow the Follower and Mirror exercises on LSD and a little speed.
The chaos can remain entirely abstract or be punctuated by momentary snapshots which resolve from the chaos. A group of wolves hunting gives way to lawn bowling, gives way to intense stapling. In between each of these scenes is an abstract soup that feels pulled from a drug induced nightmare had by a 1960s college student studying Salvador Dali’s work.
Chaos, order, chaos. After a few minutes, the opening ends and characters, locations, activities, feelings and sounds are pulled from the opening to inspire scenes. Sometimes sets will revisit Sound & Movement phases in between scenes, similar to The Living Room or Premise Keepers.
It can feel dreamlike, a little David Lynchian, a little Midsummer Nights Dreamy in the hands of a conceptual director who got too into it. That’s how it should feel.
NOT AUDIENCE FRIENDLY! Which makes it cool.
Organic Opening
I think of an organic opening as being more than just the opening but instead the entire set. I guess others on this list are similar in that way, like the Living Room and Premise Keepers. But for whatever reason, I feel more that way about Organic Openings. The rule is there are no rules except follow and support your teammates’ offers. Often Organics feel like high concept Sound & Movements; now an intelligent purpose has been laced through the chaos and directs it.
Maybe the suggestion is library and an abstract soup quickly resolves into the pages of a book turning. Suddenly a giant hand picks up the book and places it in between other books on a giant shelf. A new book is selected and opened and out of it pops the first scene.
That scene ends when the book is snapped shut and maybe there is some brief dialogue between the reader and a friend, priming the next selection which becomes and also informs the next scene.
This is all mimed of course, so it is ridiculous in the best way.
It doesn’t have to be that way. There could be no abstract soup. The mindset should be: I don’t know how this show will start, it will depend on the suggestion, the energy in the room, and the inclination of my teammates.
If the suggestion was “French Painter” the opening could very well be a standard Scene Painting with everything described as an impressionist might have painted it and locations classic artists might have inhabited. A courtyard, a garden, a bistro, etc…
Or it might be a super high concept with no abstract soup.
A Harold team at UCB, 1985 I believe, once got a suggestion like “Time Travel” (I think that was it, I wasn’t there). The person who took the suggestion immediately said “Thank you, that’s our show," and walked backstage.
Then the cast re-emerged and performed the third beats of their Harold, then the second group game, second beats, first group game, first beats and finally the opening. That’s an example of a non abstract high concept Organic, IMO.
Done well, improv crowds love it and the non initiated will at least put up with it.
Why do long form sets have openings?
That’s a great question!
I remember I was four years into my improv journey when I started asking the question with some serious attitude. I mean:
Most audiences find openings weird and, as a result, can check out before a show even starts.
Most improvisers don’t love them.
They are weird and hard and require lots of study to do well, which distracts from studying the thing audiences and improvisers both like: funny scenes.
Fair enough, but there are some good reasons for openings, like:
It’s tradition. Our improv forebears did them with gusto and glee, dare you spit in their collective eye?
They involve every member of an improv team or ensemble, meaning the show starts with everyone making a contribution instead of just two people in a scene. This feels right for improv, an art form that puts the group ahead of the individual.
They provide an opportunity for the team to set their trajectory for the show, giving each other and the audience glimpses of what is to come. In this way it helps the team achieve “Group Mind” while building shared context with the audience.
Openings allow for exploration and elevation of everyday suggestions. A suggestion like “Salad Fork” can quickly take on far more meaning through an opening.
They’re cool and interesting in a nerdily exclusive way; if you learn a new opening and then try to explain it to your family over Thanksgiving, no one will really understand what you’re talking about and some of them might get worried about you. Cool right?
Those are pretty good reasons and note the focus on the ensemble.
When the first long form structure (The Harold) was launched its creators were champions of the improv ensemble. Improv had been around for decades at that point, mostly practiced in a series of games that had clearly defined rules that normally lasted for just a few minutes. While there were some games that featured a group of players throughout, most featured just a few.
The creators of The Harold were attracted to the idea of an ensemble presenting a piece of improv that had a longer duration, less or no rules, and was powered by a true ensemble. In fact Del Close, the man most responsible for the forms creation, was a big fan of these ideas and therefore openings. He viewed the Harold as malleable and having an opening is a great opportunity for a team to shape its set.
That said, Del was aware about the negative parts of openings, as evidenced by this quote that indicates he didn’t want them overemphasized:
"The opening is the overture, not the whole first act."
An opening is not the show. It is the thing that warms up the group mind and coughs up a few ideas so the show has somewhere to go. If you find yourself trying to make the opening good in the way a scene is good, you have already wandered off.
The overture hums the melodies of what is to come. It does not bring the house down with a full show stopping number.
Those are my thoughts on openings, I hope you enjoyed them!
일정한 시간대에 집중해서 일하고 싶은 분들에게 야간 근무 형태도 하나의 선택지가 될 수 있겠네요. 중간에 밤알바 관련 내용을 확인하면 근무 시간과 업무 환경을 구체적으로 비교할 수 있고, 자신의 생활 리듬에 맞는 일자리를 찾는 데 유용한 정보가 될 것 같습니다.