How to Play Here's Charlie Now in Improv

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Here's Charlie Now is one of those improv games that people tend to either love or hate. Among some improv troupes, this game is avoided like the plague because when it is not done well, the result is unfunny and often embarrassing to watch, let alone to act in. However, if done properly (and not too often), Here's Charlie Now can be a very entertaining game.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Step1

Start the scene with two or three players onstage and an additional player backstage/offstage but paying attention to the scene.

Step2

Begin the scene by having the onstage players talk normally for roughly 30 seconds. After that, they should being talking about their mutual acquaintance Charlie.

Step3

Give Charlie a specific trait or defect. When talking about Charlie, a player should describe a characteristic that can be made visible, whether it be physical ("Remember when he lost his left leg? I hear he has a fake one now") or mental ("Poor Charlie, he never could hear his name without crying").

Step4

Continue the scene with each player recalling one or two pieces of information about Charlie until somewhere from three to five traits for Charlie have been established. At this point, one of the players onstage should say, "Oh, here's Charlie now!"

Step5

Listen for the cue. The offstage player, upon hearing the words "Here's Charlie now," should come onstage as the character Charlie. This player should strive to embody each one of the traits that have been established in the previous steps.

Step6

Continue the scene until all traits have been displayed, at which point the scene should come to a natural conclusion.

Tips & Warnings

As a variant, you can have Charlie come into the scene after each trait, and then find a reason to leave. This will result in an increasingly defined character.
Carefully choose traits to avoid making them impossible to act out or hard to act out without overacting.