The Value of Group Improvisational Exercises

As a young actor, I was always excited when my acting class delved into group improvisational exercises. Not only was this a fun time to really cultivate my imagination and delve into my own subconscious, but it was an amazing learning opportunity when it comes with working with other actors.

Far too many actors spend their time trying to strengthen their own acting skills based on memorization, line delivery and character development; however, a vital acting skill is understanding how to work with your fellow actors and feed off of their energy in order to give a truly systematic and believable performance.

While there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of improvisational exercises, you must understand the value of group improv exercises to truly gain the most out of them.

Strengthening Community Bonds

Perhaps the most significant value of engaging in group improvisational exercises is its ability to strengthen "community" bonds. Now, I'm not talking about the actual community you live in, but the community of actors you're working with. In order for a play or movie to be success, all of the actors must intertwine themselves together to create a true sense of community and commodore. Throughout the use of group improvisational exercises, actors are taught how to interact with one another, feed off of each other's energy and adapt their own character and physical actions in order to meet the emotional bar set by their fellow actors.

Engaging in Physical Actions with Others

When I first started off in this business, I focused too much on monologues. While mastering monologues is vital in order to gain agency representation and land acting roles, if you put too much focus into this solitary form of acting, you will quickly find yourself at a loss when it comes to interacting physically with other actors.

Group improvisational exercises allow actors to cultivate the knowledge of physically interacting with others. Understanding how to position your body when there's other actors on stage, how to streamline your emotional flow to one specific person when there are several around you and speaking with a group are just some of the lessons actors will learn through group improvisational exercises.