Can You Hear Me Now?
Can You Hear Me Now? is a vocal projection exercise in which players practice reaching different areas of the room with their voice without shouting. Partners provide feedback on clarity and volume from various distances. The exercise builds awareness of how vocal energy changes with physical space.
Structure
Setup
Players pair up. Partners stand facing each other, starting close (1-2 meters apart). One partner is the Speaker; one is the Listener.
Phase 1: Distance and Projection
The Speaker says a short sentence - a simple piece of information, or lines from an assigned text. The Listener gives genuine feedback: "I heard you clearly" / "I could hear you but it felt strained" / "I could barely hear you."
Partners step back one full step at a time, repeating the test. The goal is to find the point at which projection starts to break down - and then to practice extending it without pushing into shouting.
Phase 2: Non-Shouting Projection
At a distance where projection naturally fails, the Speaker experiments with techniques: lowering the larynx, sending sound "forward" into the room rather than pushing from the throat, opening vowels. The Listener provides real-time feedback on quality and effort.
Phase 3: Room Volume Test
All pairs speak simultaneously at their maximum comfortable projection distance. The facilitator maps where the voice carries and where it doesn't. Then silence, and the facilitator demonstrates projection to the full room.
Variation: Text Performance
Players deliver a short rehearsed text (a speech, a monologue) from increasing distances while maintaining natural delivery quality - not performing louder, but projecting further.
How to Teach It
How to Explain It
"Stand close to start. One person speaks, one listens. Then step back. Keep stepping back. Find the edge - where your voice starts to lose the room. Then figure out how to push past it without shouting."
Why It Matters
Many improv performers, especially those from workshop traditions without formal voice training, rely on proximity to be heard. In actual performance spaces - even modestly sized ones - this habit becomes a liability. The exercise gives performers concrete, embodied feedback on their own projection by having a partner serve as an immediate acoustic detector. The goal is not volume but quality: a projected voice should feel like it reaches the room naturally, not like it was thrown. Developing this sense prevents the habitual tension that comes from "trying to be loud."
Common Coaching Notes
- The listener's feedback is the mechanism. Invest time in calibrating the listener role. "Clearly heard" means no strain - not just "audible." Quality matters.
- Distinguish projection from shouting. Some performers immediately crank volume when asked to project. Name the difference: "Shouting tightens the throat. Projection opens it."
- Acknowledge room acoustics. Different spaces behave differently. A reflective concrete room amplifies; a soft-furnished room absorbs. Discuss this after the exercise.
- Follow with performance. After the exercise, ask players to run a two-person scene at the distance where projection breaks down. The contrast between forced volume and natural projection becomes immediately apparent.
Debrief Questions
- At what distance did your voice start to break down?
- What did you change to project further?
- How does thinking about your voice in a scene differ from when you were focused on it here?
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Listening Exercise, Eyes Closed is an applied improv exercise in which participants close their eyes and attend to the full auditory environment -- ambient sounds, partner voices, silence -- without the organizing and filtering influence of visual input. By removing vision, the exercise isolates the auditory channel and trains a more complete, unmediated form of listening that can be difficult to access when visual processing is active.
Listen Up ... Listen!
Listen Up, Listen is an applied improv listening exercise structured in two stages: a priming phase in which participants direct their attention outward to environmental sounds and the voices of others, followed by a partner-listening phase in which they practice full-body, full-attention listening without preparing a response. The two-stage structure creates a deliberate transition from ambient environmental awareness to focused interpersonal listening.
One Voice Expert
One Voice Expert is an applied improvisation exercise in which two or more participants stand side by side and speak simultaneously as a single expert, answering audience questions or delivering a presentation as if they are one person with one voice. The exercise demands extreme listening, mutual agreement in real time, and the willingness to follow a partner's lead word by word.
Two Players -- One Voice
Two Players One Voice is an applied exercise in which two participants speak simultaneously as a single character, committing to matching word choices, rhythm, and volume in real time, training deep listening, surrender of individual agenda, and the construction of shared voice.
Listen to Learn
Listen to Learn is an applied improv exercise in which participants practice listening with the explicit purpose of gaining new information rather than confirming what they already believe, preparing a rebuttal, or identifying opportunities to speak. The exercise reframes the goal of listening as learning -- arriving at the end of an exchange knowing something that was not known before -- and trains the kind of open, genuinely curious attention that this purpose requires.
Here's What I Heard
Here's What I Heard is an applied listening exercise in which one partner speaks briefly about something real -- a current situation, a concern, a recent experience -- and the listener reflects back what they heard in their own words. The speaker then responds to the reflection, noting what the listener captured accurately and what was missed or distorted. The exercise develops active listening, accurate paraphrasing, and the discipline of genuinely receiving another person's communication before responding.
The Lineage
Explore the schools and structures that influenced or evolved from Can You Hear Me Now?.
112 Acting Games (Levy)
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Can You Hear Me Now?. Retrieved October 15, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/can-you-hear-me-now
The Improv Archive. "Can You Hear Me Now?." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/can-you-hear-me-now.
The Improv Archive. "Can You Hear Me Now?." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/can-you-hear-me-now. Accessed October 15, 2026.
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