Lugares
Lugares is a scene-building exercise drawn from Spanish-language improv traditions in which the physical location ("lugar") is established as the primary creative force driving the scene. Characters and situations emerge from the performers' relationship to the space. The exercise trains environment-first scene work and demonstrates how place shapes behavior.
Structure
Setup
- The exercise begins with the playing space defined as a specific location: a kitchen, a hospital corridor, a bus terminal, a forest clearing, a cramped apartment in summer.
- Performers enter the space and interact with it before they interact with each other.
- No scene premise is given. The location is the only instruction.
Environment-First Scene Work
- Performers begin by inhabiting the space: handling objects that belong there, moving in ways the space requires, responding to the sensory qualities of the location.
- Character and relationship emerge from this relationship to the place. Two people in a waiting room develop different dynamics than two people in a kitchen.
- The scene grows from the location outward: who would be here, why, what history does the space carry.
What the Exercise Trains
- Scene work that begins in a specific environment rather than a premise or idea.
- Physical specificity: performing in a kitchen means using the objects in the kitchen, moving around the physical constraints of the kitchen.
- The understanding that setting is not decoration. The place shapes who the characters are and what they want.
Facilitation
- The facilitator names the location and allows performers to enter the space without further instruction.
- After two to three minutes, the facilitator may name a new location, requiring immediate physical transformation.
How to Teach It
How to Explain It
"You are in [location]. That is all I'm telling you. Go into the space. Touch what's there. Move the way that space requires you to move. Who are you, in that space, right now? Let the place tell you."
Common Notes
- Performers who enter the space and immediately begin talking have not engaged with the exercise. The physical relationship to the location must come first.
- Coach specificity: "You are in a kitchen" is less useful than "You are in a kitchen that smells like burned coffee, where one of the burners doesn't work, and there's a note on the fridge you haven't read yet."
- The best scenes from this exercise develop situations that could only happen in that specific kind of place. A scene that could happen anywhere has not found the location's gift.
Common Pitfalls
- Performers use the location as a backdrop and immediately begin a scene driven by premise or idea.
- The physical relationship to the environment is performed rather than felt: performers mime cooking in a kitchen rather than actually cooking in an imagined kitchen.
- Characters are too generic to have a specific relationship to the place. The location should feel inhabited, not visited.
Worth Reading
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The Young Actor's Book of Improvisation
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Improvisation for the Theater
A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques
Viola Spolin
112 Acting Games
Gavin Levy
Improvisation Starters
A Collection of 900 Improvisation Situations for the Theater
Philip Bernardi
Theater Games for Rehearsal
Viola Spolin
Something from Nothing
The Technique of Improvisation
Richard Goteri
Related Exercises
Location
Location is the archive label for foundational exercises that train players to establish where a scene takes place through physical behavior, object work, and spatial detail. Across the confirmed source base, the core demand stays consistent: the audience should understand the setting from what the players do in the space, not from a quick verbal label. The exercise develops environmental clarity, specificity, and the habit of treating the setting as an active part of the scene.
Move a Player
Move a Player is an applied improv directing and scene-work exercise in which performers practice physically repositioning a scene partner -- with clear intention and the partner's full agreement -- to alter the scene's staging, visual composition, or relational dynamic. The exercise trains the awareness that physical position in space communicates meaning, and develops the confidence to actively shape a scene's spatial reality rather than accepting the first staging that emerges.
On the Beach
On the Beach is a relaxation and guided visualization exercise in which participants lie on the floor and are led through an imagined experience at a beach. The exercise uses sensory imagery to help performers release physical tension and access a state of focused calm before beginning scene work or performance. The beach setting provides a shared imaginative space that most participants can inhabit without specialized knowledge.
John Cremer Characters and Scenes
John Cremer Characters and Scenes is a character-building and scene initiation exercise developed by UK improviser and educator John Cremer, in which participants develop distinct physicalized characters and then bring those characters into spontaneous scenes with one another. The exercise trains the connection between physical specificity and character logic, building confidence in initiating scenes from a grounded physical starting point rather than from dialogue or concept.
Warehouse
Warehouse is a fixed-location scene exercise in which every scene must take place in a warehouse. Performers discover varied dramatic scenarios within the single setting across multiple scenes, discovering how much narrative and character variety a single location can sustain. The constraint teaches specificity within sameness and challenges performers to find what makes each individual scene unique despite sharing a setting.
Create Your Environment
Create Your Environment is an applied improvisation exercise in which participants use mime and physical specificity to build their ideal work environment one object at a time. After placing objects in the space, participants inhabit the environment through movement and character rather than description, demonstrating what the space enables them to feel and do. The exercise develops physical expressiveness, creative self-expression, and the ability to communicate through embodied action rather than verbal explanation.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Lugares. Retrieved September 28, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/lugares
The Improv Archive. "Lugares." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/lugares.
The Improv Archive. "Lugares." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/lugares. Accessed September 28, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.