Play the Improv Game Rear View Mirror: Part 1

Video Transcript

"Why that smells like a good improv book. I need to read that one. It’s Plays Well With Others, by Les McGehee, a handbook of improvisation and play. And I’m Les; I’m going to teach you another game. You might have had a chance to look at the clip where I taught the game Forward, Reverse. It’s a comedy improv scene game where the host controls the remote control of the DVD so to speak and can put the scenes through various changes and paces largely built on the idea of having them go forwards and backwards and keep track of what they’re doing and keep all the context and physicality of their scene. Well we’re looking at another game in this clip and this one is called “Rear View Mirror”. “Rear View Mirror” is a challenging and wonderful game. I’ve been with a few groups, uh, uh, uh, the same theater company has over years and years like my theater companies have had. Comedy Sports and National Comedy Theater has different ensembles come and go. And some ensembles have really thrived on this game and enjoyed it a lot. “Rear View Mirror’ is the basic trick of forward, reverse, yet it’s a scene game first and foremost. Like any scene game we want to have some information come out early in the scene and we want it to have an environment and some belief system to it, we want to see that set on stage for ourselves. Also we want it to have a strong set of relationships, and tell some portion of story we care about. "