He's as lovely as a ____________.

He's as lovely as a ____________., originally uploaded by freestylereporg.

Improv is like writing in three dimensions. A character is drawn by a gesture, articulated by a tone of voice. A setting comes to life through a mimed door or a shudder.

As improvisors, we like to sit down at the table with writers, and dig into the literary buffet. Two of our favorite dishes are similes and metaphors. A game we play in our school shows, Simile and Metaphor Fill In the Blank, is as fun as pies in the face, as compelling as a banana peel waiting for the unsuspecting, as challenging as flipping a pancake and landing it back in the pan.

We get audience volunteers - who know what nouns are and are not afraid to use them! - to come up on stage. We begin improvising a scene, co-creating characters, setting and story. But, at any moment, we will stop in the middle of a sentence and point to one of the volunteers, who's job is to spontaneously say a noun. It could be anything, maybe just whatever they happen to be looking at that moment. Then we take that noun and turn it into a simile or a metaphor that supports the scene.

"He's as lovely as a

Even Shy People Can Do Great Improv

Even Shy People Can Do Great Improv, originally uploaded by freestylereporg.

Sometimes people don't feel like they can go on stage and speak in front of an audience. But the kid's playing Rodney and Laura V.'s arms in this scene are doing some wonderful improv without talking - or even showing their faces. They're just listening to Laura and Rodney, and focusing on making arm gestures that help their partners create their characters. Great teamwork makes great improv.

Why we do Family Improv at the Gallery Players

Why we do Family Improv at the Gallery Players, originally uploaded by freestylereporg.

Over the many years that Freestyle Rep has performed in schools, we had become concerned that many children, and even adults, seemed to think theatre was just for kids and happened only in schools. So we decided that teaching theatre should include encouraging people to see theatre outside of school.

The Gallery Players, which is very near two schools we teach in, is helping us with that goal, by co-producing our Family Improv shows. Every month, students from P.S. 321 & P.S. 124, along with all the other kids in the neighborhood, have the opportunity to bring their parents to a professional theatre and see their theatre teachers on stage.

Freestyle Rep teaches theatre at Spoke the Hub

Freestyle Rep teaches theatre at Spoke the Hub, originally uploaded by freestylereporg.

Freestyle Repertory Theatre teaches after school theatre classes at Spoke the Hub in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Students learn about improvisation, basic stage craft, and vocal production and put it all together to work on a script from classical theatre. So far we've done Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, and "The Scottish Play." For information and to sign up, go to www.freestylerep.org or call 718-408-3234. (In this picture, we're working on the fight scene from Romeo and Juliet.)