An improv glossary | The Long Scene

An improv glossary gives names to things an audience can see and a performer can discuss. Usage varies among teaching traditions, so these entries describe common meanings without treating them as a universal rulebook. A term is useful when it points to an action, a relationship or a clear part of the performance.

Wikipedia's article on improvisational theatre describes offers, agreement, imaginary environments and signals for scene changes. Those processes supply a starting point for this vocabulary. The guide to longform formats places scene choices inside larger performance structures.

The scene and its shared world

Scene: A developing piece of theatre in which characters share a situation. Its action, relationship and setting give the audience something to follow while the performers respond to each other.
Suggestion: Material supplied as a starting point for improvisation, often by an audience. It inspires choices without requiring the finished scene to mention the starting word or follow a fixed plot.
Offer: A contribution that establishes something in the fiction: a place, relationship, action or expectation. It becomes useful through how the other performers recognise it and let it affect the scene.
Agreement: Shared acceptance of the fiction being made. Performers can agree that a dispute exists while their characters disagree sharply within it; agreement concerns the scene's reality rather than matching opinions.
Block: A response that cancels an established contribution instead of using it. A character's refusal is not necessarily a block: the performers may still share and continue the underlying situation.
Relationship: The connection between characters, made visible through what they expect from each other and how they respond. A relationship can be apparent before its label is spoken, giving the scene a reason for an exchange.
Environment: The imagined surroundings in which a scene happens. Position, distance and the consistent use of objects make that place readable, while the physical stage can remain largely empty.
Endowment: Giving an element of the scene a defining quality or relationship. The contribution may establish something about another character or the setting, which the ensemble then carries into its responses.
Object work: Handling an imagined object through physical choices. The object becomes readable through consistency in its shape, position and use, even though the performer is holding nothing real.
Space work: Establishing and using the imagined environment. Doors, furniture and distances can remain part of the fiction after attention has moved elsewhere, giving later movement a shared context.
Character: A person within the fiction, made visible through behaviour, wants and responses. A distinctive voice can contribute, while relationships give the character a place in the developing scene.
Point of view: The attitude through which a character interprets what happens. It gives responses a recognisable logic and can become clear through choices without being announced as a description.
Status: The relative authority or standing made visible in a relationship. It can shift through behaviour; an official role alone does not explain how characters treat each other.
Game of the scene: A pattern of behaviour or logic that the performers recognise and explore. Later choices gain meaning through their relationship to the pattern, rather than being unrelated comic additions.
Heightening: Extending a scene's established logic so its implications become clearer. A development can be small in scale and still carry weight because of what the audience already understands.

Transitions and returns

Edit: A clear signal that a scene has ended or attention is moving elsewhere. It gives a change of situation a readable boundary without needing a spoken explanation.
Sweep edit: A movement across the playing area that signals a scene change. It marks the boundary for both the performers and the audience, allowing the next scene to begin.
Tag-out: A transition in which a performer replaces a character's scene partner, often allowing a relationship to be seen in a different setting or moment. The continuing character supplies the connection.
Walk-on: An entrance that contributes to a scene already in progress. Its meaning comes from the existing action, so a brief appearance can matter without becoming the centre of attention.
Callback: A return to material introduced earlier. The pleasure or dramatic meaning comes from recognition, especially when the return gives the familiar detail a different place in the work.
Opening: An initial passage that explores starting material and supplies ideas for later scenes. It creates shared possibilities without determining every relationship or event that will follow.
Beat: A passage in a form's development, or a distinct change within a scene. Context matters: an ensemble may use the word for a structural return or a smaller dramatic turn.
Group game: A shared passage in which the ensemble develops a pattern together. It can change the texture of a performance and carry themes without depending on a continuing scene relationship.
Cold open: A beginning that starts directly with action rather than an introductory exchange with the audience. The scene establishes its own context as the performers respond to each other.

Forms and ways of working

Harold: A longform structure that returns to characters, themes and scene patterns. Wikipedia's account of the Harold describes connected scenes arranged in three beats with group games.
Monologue: An extended speech from a performer or character. In an improv context, the speech can supply ideas and emotional texture for scenes, rather than a plot to reproduce.
Armando: A Harold variation that uses a guest monologist's true stories as starting material. The scenes can follow implications, themes and details while departing from the events described in the speech.
Monoscene: A longform approach anchored in a shared location. The continuing setting gives entrances, exits and changing relationships their context, while the performers create what happens within it.
Yes, and: A shorthand for accepting a contribution and adding to it. Wikipedia explains Yes, and as compatible with disagreement between the characters within a shared fiction.
Short form: Improvisation organised around relatively self-contained games or scenes with defined frames. The rules make the task legible while the performers create the material that appears inside it.
Long form: Improvisation that develops connections across a larger piece. Scenes may share characters, story or themes, with later returns giving earlier details meaning beyond their initial appearance.
Jam: An open-play setting where the playing group can include people with different amounts of experience. The shared frame gives a temporary ensemble a way to understand what is happening.
House team: An ensemble attached to a theatre's continuing performance arrangements. The label describes an organisational relationship; it does not specify the group's style or settle which forms it plays.
Coach: Someone who observes an ensemble's work from outside the scene and gives craft notes. The role supplies another view of choices that are difficult to see while performing.
Set: A continuous portion of a performance presented by an ensemble. It can contain connected scenes or a particular form, and the term identifies the piece without explaining its structure.

The monologue-show guide explains how a speech becomes material for invented scenes. The improviser's toolkit follows agreement, listening and patterns in more detail. The terms here are a way into those choices, rather than a substitute for seeing how they relate within a scene.