Asking Questions In Improv

DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS!

That axiom was drilled into my head during my training a billion times.  It was a "rule of improv" that I worked REALLY HARD on following.  The spirit behind the rule was that basically questions in a scene require additional effort to work and most of us are not well equipped to handle that additional thought expenditure on the fly; thus, the scene goes downhill quickly.  Questions also put into jeopardy the reality that has been established in the scene depending on the line of questioning.  Again, if you don't have the skill in playing with questions, the scene will go downhill as actors get confused and  waste time on stage trying to figure out what's going on.

A popular improv game called "Questions Only" forces participants to speak their dialogue using questions only.  It's very popular on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"  Two teams of people send up a player to begin a scene based on a location provided by the audience.  As the scene progresses, the first one to make a statement (vs. a question), ask a question that doesn't make sense, or do nothing at all loses.  The winning team's player stays on stage continuing as the character they were playing before and the losing team sends up a new player and establish a new scene.  The new scene exists in the same world created through out the game.  Easy enough, right?

Wrong.

Most of us who improvise suck at this game because of our training to avoid questions like ebola.  The true goal of the game is to actually lead the conversation somewhere with questions.  Questions must be specific and have a direction.  Asking things like "Who are you? What do you want?" don't really  push the scene along because they require the actors to first agree to what the reality the scene is going to exist in and then determine wants, needs, & relationships.  That's a lot of valuable time as a viewer to suffer through.  Instead, just like in our standard statement-driven scenes, if the actors start out pretending they already know each other and know what they want, the reality is cemented quickly and the game of questions can truly be heightened.  For example, if the location is a train and we're watching two actors:

Conductor: "May I see your ticket?" (establishes "who" - one is a train official, the other a passenger)
Passenger: "Oh, I need one to ride the train?" (<--establishes "where")
Conductor: "Didn't you read the terms and conditions when you bought it?" (<-- establishes "what")
Passenger: "Where were they posted?"
Conductor: "How the heck did you get on this train?!" (<-- establishes "why")
Passenger: "Did you know how lax your security measures are?"
Conductor: "Do I look like the NSA., buddy?"

Passenger: (in fear, starts looking around): "WHERE'S THE NSA?!!!"

...

Even though there were a lot of questions, the scene breaks down as follows:
Who - Conductor and Passenger
What - Conductor is confronting a stowaway

Where - On a Train

Why - Conductor is doing his job

Notice in this scene, we didn't ask where we were or what the scene was about.  We implied what it was in our questions.

This game is VERY hard and requires a lot of practice.  I have people in my groups who have worked years in improv and still suck at it. it definitely requires a lot of reps.

So, don't be scared of asking questions in your scenes.  Do your best to have those questions go somewhere and you won't be considered a pariah on stage ;-)