Improv Long Form Game: "The Year Of" by Lauren Owen

Improv Form: Long Form
Time frame: 15-90 minutes
Difficulty: Low, assuming all players have completed Advanced Improv.

Description: We follow a group of people, who know each other very well, over many years, and see how their relationships develop and what happens to them. All actors play the same character throughout.
Every scene is preceded by a very short monologue by a different character.
Characters have scene wants and lifetime wants. And call backs are always helpful in grounding us. This works best as a 45-90 minute play.
Opener: Start by getting an activity or place from the audience that these people know each other through: a small art college, a rehab group, or they are family, etc. Get lots of suggestions and find something juicy since this is going to influence your whole improv play. (Note: the religious youth group suggestion might come up and can be tricky because it’s religion and you don’t want to offend anyone)
Get a year before 2016 (at least 10 years ago) from the audience when these people may have met. If the suggestion is video game club and someone says “1880” ask for a more realistic suggestion, reminding them of the club.  
Start: The first player will go to the front center of the stage and begin a monologue delivered to the audience that includes all of the information below. 
NOTICE that this is an acrostic spelling “YEAR OF” going down:

• Year: “The year was _______” (1880, 1999, etc)
• Environment: “We were at ______” (The beach, in the living room of my parents’ house, etc)
• Activity: “We were _______-ing” (We were opening christmas presents, building sand castles)
• Relationship: 
  • “I was with ______” 
  • IMPORTANT: The FIRST scene must have EVERYONE in the cast in it, which means that that monologue MUST be about the entire group, i.e.: “I was with my whole water polo team.” It’s not a first-meet-introducing scene, though. The group should already have known each other well for at least a year when that first scene takes place. Don't name the people in your monologue.
  • For non-first scenes, also keep this simple, don’t give people names like “my husband John”, just say the relationship “my husband.” Don’t say my “mom, my dad, my uncle, my cousin and my brother” – instead say “my whole extended family.” You can say “my mom and my husband” if you want to do a scene with just those people. 
• Objective in the SCENE: “I wanted to _________” (I wanted to make sure mom thought I liked whatever she gifted me because she had a hard year.)
• Feeling: “I was feeling ____” (I was nervous she would see through me.)

We then see the scene that that monologue was talking about and see where it goes.
The very first scene should be a group scene that includes all the actors. Subsequent scenes should start with two or three people, although more can join them if it's appropriate. 
The first player steps backwards into the middle of the stage and will be joined by the entire cast for the first scene. The first scene will be a group scene that involves the ENTIRE cast. 
This first scene should establish names for all of the characters and every character should speak at least once to convey some sort of personality. ​
Each subsequent scene must take place at LEAST 1 year later or 1 year earlier, but could be many years earlier or later as long as these people are still alive. 
Subsequent scenes: Each subsequent scene is started by a different player, and follows the YEAR OF format. These monologues do not say what happened in the scene, instead it is simply setting the year, the environment, activity, what that character wanted, and etc so that the players can explore what happens in that scene. 

• For example you might say, "the year was 1985 (year). My extended family was at our house (environment) unwrapping presents (activity) on Christmas morning. (Objective:) I was trying to pretend I liked the doll from Mom even though I wanted a rocket ship. (Feeling:) I was so disappointed that my mom had bought me such a stupid gift. "

Each player stays the same character throughout the entire show. If really truly needed, someone can play two characters that are not in the same scene. 
Not all the players need to do a monologue. (My troupe heavily disagrees with this, they all want to do a monologue. Haha.)
LAST scene: It’s lovely if everyone can join in the last scene. Exception: the people who are dead by the last scene don’t need to be there unless they come in as a ghost.
Edits: When you feel a scene is over, walk out in front of the scene, even if you were in that scene, and say “The year was …” even if you need to interrupt someone. This gives the que to everyone on stage that they should exit the stage and listen to your monologue. They only join once you step back into the middle of the stage and start doing space object work. 
Someone should try to mention the year once per scene to remind people what year it currently is. This can also remind people to step up and monologue. 
Someone can call the ending by yelling out "scene" when it feels right. Six people takes about 35 minutes.
Nearly Necessary: 
A white board with the YEAR OF Acrostic:

• Year: “The year was _______” (1880, 1999, etc)
• Environment: “We were at ______” (The beach, in the living room of my parents’ house, etc)
• Activity: “We were _______-ing” (We were opening christmas presents, building sand castles)
• Relationship: “I was with ______” 
• Objective in the SCENE: “I wanted to _________” (I wanted to make sure mom thought I liked whatever she gifted me because she had a hard year.)
• Feeling: “I was feeling ____” (I was nervous she would see through me.)

A white board with Names of characters on it. 
A clock or watch
Make bold character choices
Feel a positive emotion towards at least one other character
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I hope you  enjoy this form. I thought of it after reading the book “French Braid” by Anne Tyler and noticing how each character got to have their own chapter. Voila, “Year Of” was born.







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