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Status is the level of power or influence a character has. You can achieve interesting and often comic results by changing the status order in your drama when you improvise.

Imagine an office scene. The managing director is trying to make an important phone call. However, the cleaner wants to clean his office. What happens if you switch the status so the cleaner is the most powerful character in the scene?

Another good status exercise is to improvise when the actors are unaware of the status of the other characters but are forced to react according to the clues they are given. Playing cards are a useful tool for this. Each actor draws a card (king is high, ace is low) and must improvise in role according to whether they were awarded a high or low card. The director, Max Stafford Clark and the Out of Joint theatre company use cards regularly to explore status and relationships in rehearsals.

Three touch drama

This is an exercise where the actors improvise but can only say three words at a time. It’s very good for exploring the essence of a scene and really focuses actors and forces them to think creatively.

Alphabetical improvisation

The actors can use as many words as they like but the lines of dialogue must start with consecutive letters of the alphabet.

For example:

• Are there any buses that go to Birmingham from here do you know?
• Birmingham, why do you want to go there?
• Can you keep a secret? I’m on the run
• Don’t tell me anymore. My life is complicated enough. Who are you on the run from?
• Evil scientists who work for a top secret government organisation…

Don’t be afraid to use improvisation to experiment and generate content. Sometimes the best ideas are unplanned.