Product Description

Impro for Storytellers is the follow-up to Keith Johnstone's classic Impro, one of the best-selling books ever published on improvisation. In this book, Johnstone takes a further decade of experience as a teacher and coach and explores how an individual's potential can be released in group settings.
"Be more boring!" he might yell to a student striving to be original.
"Be more obvious!" he could advise a clever performer.
These are unorthodox techniques, but ones that are part of the games that have made Johnstone's work uniquely effective in the theatre community. Beyond its strictly theatrical applications, Impro for Storytellers aims to take jealous and self-obsessed beginners and teach them to play games with good nature and to fail gracefully.
If you've ever been clumsy and awkward, this book will improve your interpersonal skills and encourage a life-long study of human interaction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #298095 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 388 pages

Review
Many of these scribblings are gems... [Johnstone's] discussion... is of enormous value not only for improvisors, but for playwrights trying to bring something new to the stage... This is not to be missed... A display of the fitful fireworks of an original mind. -- Stagebill Theatre
With this in mind, I honour the seminal writing of Keith Johnstone in the field of improvisation and the great care that he has taken to share, teach and explore his Theatresports theories with drama and acting students, practitioners, researchers and audiences worldwide. -- Research in Drama Education
Impro for Storytellers provides the necessary theoretical underpinning to conceptualise and put into practice improvised forms in a manner that will enhance student learning, and facilitate sound drama pedagogy. -- Research in Drama Education
Johnstone's work is as important a contributions to the theatre, actors and drama education as Viola Spolin, Uta Hagen, Gavin Bolton, or Dorothy Heathcote. -- Research in Drama Education
Impro for Storytellers...display(s) the brilliance of Johnstone's writing, and his highly accessible style, formatted in a variety of manners ranging from personal narratives, teacher/student dialogues, directorial rants and reflective musings to strategic lesson planning, rationale and uncomplicated illustrations of numerous actor or student activities. -- Research in Drama Education
The book has the potential to be an invaluable resource for teachers, instructors, or directors who have a desire to expand their own understanding of improvised forms, as well as being a superb primer to help augment the repertoire of the student, actor, or performer. -- Research in Drama Education

Many of these scribblings are gems... [Johnstones] discussion... is of enormous value not only for improvisors, but for playwrights trying to bring something new to the stage... This is not to be missed... A display of the fitful fireworks of an original mind. -- Stagebill Theatre
With this in mind, I honour the seminal writing of Keith Johnstone in the field of improvisation and the great care that he has taken to share, teach and explore his Theatresports theories with drama and acting students, practitioners, researchers and audiences worldwide. -- Research in Drama Education
Impro for Storytellers provides the necessary theoretical underpinning to conceptualise and put into practice improvised forms in a manner that will enhance student learning, and facilitate sound drama pedagogy. -- Research in Drama Education
Johnstones work is as important a contributions to the theatre, actors and drama education as Viola Spolin, Uta Hagen, Gavin Bolton, or Dorothy Heathcote. -- Research in Drama Education
Impro for Storytellers...display(s) the brilliance of Johnstones writing, and his highly accessible style, formatted in a variety of manners ranging from personal narratives, teacher/student dialogues, directorial rants and reflective musings to strategic lesson planning, rationale and uncomplicated illustrations of numerous actor or student activities. -- Research in Drama Education
The book has the potential to be an invaluable resource for teachers, instructors, or directors who have a desire to expand their own understanding of improvised forms, as well as being a superb primer to help augment the repertoire of the student, actor, or performer. -- Research in Drama Education

About the Author
Keith Johnstone worked at the Royal Court Theatre in the 1960s where he developed his techniques for improvisational work. He now teaches at the University of Calgary.

Customer Reviews

Handbook for practitioners
Keith Johnstone's earlier work, IMPRO, has influenced and will continue to influence the way acting and improvisation for the theatre are taught. IMPRO is a book not only about theatre and improv, but about teaching and human interaction, loaded with insights making that book highly suitable for the general reader.

This follow-up is more specialized: a handbook for putting IMPRO into practice, including detailed improv structures for performance and for rehearsal, and chapters on how to teach these games. Sample run lists and notes from performances impart Johnstone's experiences, trials and errors over many years teaching in several countries. The book is exhaustive and beautifully written, but for the general reader, IMPRO is more appropriate.

One disappointment about the book is some sloppy copy-editing. It is rife with typos, of the sort that are not picked out by a computer spell-checker since the typos form actual words.

The title IMPRO FOR STORYTELLERS is, as Tim Sheppard pointed out below, potentially misleading. This is not a book that will help a solo performer generate material, though some of the exercises within can be translated for that purpose. Johnstone's concern is that improv not be restricted to a form of "light entertainment" (think "Who's Line Is It Anyway?"), but as a way of generating narrative and using it to explore human relationships.

The Second Coming of Keith...
This book, in contrast with his last one, is much more linear and down-to-earth, but every bit as powerful. He dives straight into 'how-to' mode, decribing his own version of improv theater. This might be a little tedious for those not interested in licencing a "Theatersports" venue in their own town, but hang in there. He quickly gets to the meat of simply creating good improv, what behaviours and actions get you there, and how to sustain it. This is a book 100% designed to assist the improviser, both the individual, as well as the 'group'. He even goes so far as to provide shortcut lists in the appendix for use in performance! Keith Johnstone is a visonary, and I'm convinced that whatever theater will look like in the coming years, he will have inspired much of it.

Whatever your interest, this book is right for you - buy it!
Not many practical manuals are also fun to just read, but this one is - funny, incisive, witty, philosophical and more. It is tremendously useful in many ways. I'm involved in applying impro, but not for Theatre Sports or comedy impro, yet this book is invaluable. My only annoyance is that it should be called Storytelling for Improvisors instead. If you are a storyteller hoping to learn how to improvise stories, this book will not address that directly for you, although if you absorb all the insight you'll get a lot of practical help. Johnstone's comments and analysis are very thought provoking, and reveal a great deal about human nature and the way our minds (and inhibitions) work. Any psychologist could learn a lot here too. If you are after a bumper book of games, go no further - this details a large number, but also with expert advice on how to teach and run the games, including warnings about all the variations that don't work.