How to Play Celebrity

Celebrity is not only a great ice-breaker, but it is also a big crowd pleaser at parties and casual gatherings. You can play this game with four or more players of any age, but to be fair and not alienate any one of the players, it is best played keeping the age range of the people involved in mind when choosing points of reference. With just some bowls and several slips of paper, you can provide hours of entertainment to your guests. The game was invented by playwright and author Arthur Bicknell in the early 1980s. He and an entourage of actors, writers and musicians met on a weekly basis to develop and play the game, until it caught on in other social circles and became a popular pastime for many party-attending New Yorkers.

Things You'll Need

• Large bowls or containers
• Pieces of paper, cut into strips
• Pencils
• Sand timer or time piece with a second hand

Instructions

Preparation

1. Choose teams by lottery. Each team consists of two players, so decide how many teams there will be and write two of each number on a small piece of paper, fold it and drop it inside a large bowl. Each person will choose one piece of paper with a number on it and they will be matched up with the person that has the other matching number.

2. Hand out even strips of paper to each player. The number is not as important, but you will want to make sure that everyone has the same number of strips and that there are enough to make for an interesting game, but not so many that the game will last all night long. Depending on how many groups you have, 10 strips per person is a good rule of thumb.

3. Have each player write the name of a celebrity on the slip of paper and then fold it twice. The celebrity can be a person, animal, fictional character, movie, book, famous type of car or anything that has achieved celebrity status in its lifetime or beyond. Make sure that no one sees the slip or shares the name of the celebrity with anyone else in the room. Have each person place these slips into a large bowl.

4. Draw lots to see which team will go first, second, third and so on.

5. Have the two members of the first team sit across from each other. Let them decide among themselves who will give clues first and who will try to guess the answer.

Let the Game Begin

1. Have someone that is not in the first group give the command to start just as they turn over or start the timer. Each group is given one minute to see how many names they can guess.

2. Start the game and have player number one take a folded slip from the big bowl and read the celebrity name. He then attempts to convey to his teammate the name of the celebrity by using any form of information except the actual name. Possible strategies include a type of spoken charades, such as, “There are two syllables in the first name. The first syllable sounds like ‘egg.’” You may also describe anything about the person or thing, such as, “Okay. This is a mouse that Walt Disney invented, and he’s got a girlfriend named Minnie.” If you are desperate for part of the name and cannot find any other way to convey it, you may even resort to things like, “It starts with the 5th letter of the alphabet, and it rhymes with bee,” but you will only want to use this method in an emergency, as it is time-consuming and the timer is running out every second.

3. Put each slip, as the name is guessed, into a team bowl to be counted later and the players switch back and forth between giver and receiver of clues.

4. Know that if player number one feels she has exhausted her ability to make clues on any one celebrity slip, or if she does not recognize the celebrity, she may simply fold and drop the paper back into the large bowl to be retrieved by another player.

5. Move on to the next team. After the timer runs out on the first team, the second team repeats the steps, collecting any “won” celebrity slips in their bowl. Then the third team takes their turn and so forth.

6. Count slips. When every slip of paper from the large bowl is gone, each team counts up the amount of slips they have in their own bowl. The team with the most slips is the winner of round one. You can play as many rounds as you like, depending on how much fun everyone is having, but the winning team should have a two out of three win record.

7. Be aware that if anyone accidentally slips and says any part of the celebrity’s name, the slip is removed from the bowl and the cheating player’s team forfeits its turn to the next group. An example would be if the name were “Mickey Mouse,” and the person said something like, “It’s a mouse that Walt Disney created.” The word “mouse” in this instance is considered part of the celebrity name, so saying it would be cheating. Instead, the person could act out “mouse” by putting little fist-ears on top of his head or squeaking and crawling around on the floor–anything except actually saying Mickey or Mouse.

Tips & Warnings

• This game can publicly humiliate the undereducated or those unfamiliar with pop culture. If you're playing with fragile egos, you may want to set tighter parameters regarding where the celebrity names come from. For example, if you are playing with several very young players, you might make it a rule that only musical references from the past 20 years or television programs from the past 10 years can be used in this game.

Resources

• More fun party games
• More about playwright Arthur Bicknell