Synonyms
This is your day.
Introduction
In this scene we need an audience volunteer to tell us all about a day in their life. The players will recreate that day for us all to see. Our brave volunteer will point out errors by yelling out “ding dong”
Description
Try to get a real day that happened to the audience volunteer. The host should get a few key points about the day, avoiding extreme detail. A mundane day will certainly be embellished by the players. It is helpful to get a brief character description about the audience volunteer. Usually a one word description will suffice. The players in the scene portray the key points key points elicited from the audience member. It is important to try and include them all. The audience is listening.
Like all endowment scenes the players do best when small changes are made to the offer. If the offer is refuted then make a tiny shift that reflects a narrative choice.
While the narrative elements are supplied by the audience volunteer the players should not lose track of following the STEPS of a narrative. Take the time to create a setting, show the ties or relationship and character. Even if how the scene get sorted is known the trip there is stronger with a fleshed out and embellished narrative.
The host must be nice to the audience member. Nothing will alienate the entire audience quicker than hacking on an audience volunteer.
Gimmicks
- Make the audience member out to be an spectacular superhero.
- Make the audience member a likable villain.
- Endlessly repeating ding dong over and over and over.
Variations
- Ding Dong – this is the variation of Day in the Life
Credits
- Ding Dong is from Improv Encyclopedia
- Keith Johnstone has been an advocate of this structure.