One door opens…using doors in improv scenes
If you’re lucky enough to perform at some of the top improv theatres in the world, you might get to work with a real door on stage. As cited in the back inside-cover of Truth in Comedy, Improv Theatre Architecture Planning Guidance clearly states that every legendary American venue must have a pretty similar set-up of one or two doors on stage through which performers can enter and exit scenes. Some even have a window opening for players to pop into like a Jim Henson creation.
Unfortunately, the rest of us must mime.
Entering the scene is one of the most powerful moments available to us in an improv scene. At the start, it’s all the information we have about what’s going on and who these characters are. Mid-scene, it’s a useful injection of energy, a chance to add to the game of the scene, a nice curveball to keep your teammates on their toes, or all of the above.
If we only lightly suggest the presence of a door, we’re under-using their full potential in our improv scenes. We’re missing a chance to show something about our character, the location or even help play the game.
It’s just a door, isn’t it? Absolutely, but why amble on from the back line when you can use the space more creatively?
That being said, all improv doors are unlocked. Let’s not waste time knocking on like a physical ‘Knock Knock’ joke. Get on in there.
Doors are the best. Let them let us in.
I’ve spent too long thinking about this list and liberally stretching the definition of a door, but here’s some to give a try in your next show:
- A bog-standard office door with a nice safe handle
- A door that is a ‘pull’ but you always initially think it’s a ‘push’
- Revolving doors
- Hoist yourself over a stile into a rolling field
- A bank safe with a steering wheel style handle
- Iris scanner? Why not
- A stadium turnstile
- Those pairs of doors one after the other that you have to walk through when leaving customs at an airport
- Two doors either side of an air lock so one has to close before the other opens
- For cars, we have a standard driver or passenger door, vertical-opening car door like a Delorean, the car boot. Even the glove compartment is available to you, if you wish to play some sort of valet-elf
- The sliding door on the side of a Ford Transit van
- A zipped door on a tent
- Curtains
- A maze of doors like that game in Takeshi’s Castle
- A metal shutter
- Elevator doors (bonus points if the elevator is quite old and also has a door between the carriage and the floor)
- You have a ton of keys but don’t know which one works for this door
- The miniature door at the end of that shrinking corridor in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory
- A fridge door leading to a secret cocktail bar
- A number key code
- A sliding patio door
- Glass bifolds as seen in one of George Clarke’s fantastic property transformations
- A door watched by one guard who may only lie, and one who may only tell the truth
- A sash window (copyright The Free Association’s Chris Gau). Windows are doors too
- One with tons of heavy medieval sliding barricades, locks and so on
- Salloon doors. Fling them open and let them swing behind you
- Salon doors. Have a bit of fun with it, your version
- Those flaps that separate the supermarket shopping area from the freezer section
- A top-loading washing machine door
- A Biffa bin lid (obviously you’re coming out of this like Oscar the Grouch)
Now, let me now open the door to you (HONK). What’s your favourite door to open in an improv scene? Let me know.
