Passing Around Objects
Passing Around Objects is a circle exercise in which players create imaginary objects with distinct physical properties and pass them to their neighbors, who must receive and reproduce each object faithfully before sending it on. When objects return to their creators, the group examines what changed along the way. The exercise develops object work consistency, observation, and the discipline of treating a partner's physical choices as real.
Structure
Setup
Players stand in a circle facing inward. No props are used.
Progression
Each player creates a mimed object in their hands. The object should have specific, observable physical properties: weight, size, texture, temperature, and behavior. A bowling ball feels different from a soap bubble, and the difference should be visible in how the player holds, adjusts, and interacts with it.
Players spend a moment getting to know their object, turning it, testing its weight, and establishing its reality through committed physical work.
On the facilitator's signal, every player passes their object to the person on their left. The receiving player must watch the pass carefully, accept the object with attention to its properties, and maintain its physical reality. On the next signal, players pass the objects again in the same direction.
After two or more rounds of passing, the facilitator calls a stop. Each player now holds an object that has traveled through several hands. The original creators examine what they get back. The group discusses what survived the journey and what changed.
Variations
Instead of simultaneous passing, objects can travel one at a time around the circle while the group watches, making observation easier and raising the stakes for each individual pass. Multiple objects with sharply contrasting properties can circulate at the same time, requiring players to switch between physical vocabularies as they receive and send different items.
How to Teach It
Objectives
Passing Around Objects trains three core improv principles simultaneously: listening (observing the physical choices a partner has made), accepting (taking whatever is offered without reshaping it to personal preference), and commitment (maintaining an object's reality even when uncertain about its exact properties). The debrief reveals how well the group communicates nonverbally and how much physical detail survives transmission from person to person.
How to Explain It
"Create an imaginary object in your hands. Give it weight, size, and texture. Know what it is. When I say go, pass it to your left. When you receive an object, watch how the person hands it to you and keep it the same. After a few passes, we will see what happened to each object."
Scaffolding
Begin by having the group observe one object travel the full circle before everyone creates their own. This gives players a model for what attentive passing looks like. Once the group is comfortable with simultaneous passing, increase the number of rotations before the debrief to make the telephone-game effect more pronounced.
Common Pitfalls
The most common issue is players who rush the handoff, grabbing the object without looking at how it was held. Coach them to receive with their eyes before their hands.
A second issue is players who unconsciously reshape every object into something comfortable for them. A heavy object becomes light. A large object shrinks. Remind them that the exercise is about honoring someone else's physical reality, not imposing their own.
History
The exercise belongs to a family of object-passing games rooted in Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed work from the 1970s. Boal's Peruvian Ball Game, published in Games for Actors and Non-Actors (1992), uses a similar structure of creating, exchanging, and retrieving imaginary objects. Viola Spolin's object transformation exercises from Improvisation for the Theater (1963) explore related territory from a different angle, asking players to reshape objects rather than preserve them. Passing Around Objects focuses specifically on preservation and consistency, making it a distinct exercise within this lineage.
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Related Exercises
Pass Catch
Pass Catch is a circle warm-up in which players pass unique poses and sounds around the group. Each player receives an offer by mirroring the previous player's pose and sound exactly, then immediately invents a completely new pose and sound to send to the next person. The exercise builds comfort with silliness, sharpens the habit of fully accepting offers before generating new ones, and warms up physical expressiveness.
Object Morphing
Object Morphing is a physicality exercise in which participants pass a mimed object around a circle, gradually transforming it into a new object through continuous physical manipulation. Unlike exercises where the object changes instantly, Object Morphing requires the transformation to happen visibly and smoothly, so the group can track the object shifting from one form to another in real time.
Baffling Ball
Baffling Ball is a focus and coordination exercise in which players pass one or more invisible balls around a group while maintaining the illusion of weight, size, and trajectory. As additional invisible objects enter play, the demands on concentration multiply. The exercise trains object work, spatial awareness, and group focus.
Hot Potato
Hot Potato is a circle game in which an imagined object is passed rapidly around the group, and whoever holds it when a signal sounds must perform a task, answer a question, or be eliminated. The exercise raises energy and adds stakes to simple passing games. It builds speed and the comfort with being put on the spot.
The Thing
The Thing is an object work exercise in which a player is handed an imaginary object whose identity has not been declared in advance. The player must discover what the object is solely through the physical act of handling it -- registering its weight, texture, shape, and behavior in real time. The exercise teaches that specificity of handling creates the object; the object does not exist prior to the player's physical commitment to it.
Object Endowment
Object Endowment is a scene exercise in which one performer enters a scene and, through their behavior and reactions, reveals the nature and significance of an object that the audience has suggested but the performer's scene partner does not know. The partner must discover what the object is through the first performer's physical and emotional treatment of it, not through direct naming or description.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Passing Around Objects. Retrieved March 19, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/passing-around-objects
The Improv Archive. "Passing Around Objects." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/passing-around-objects.
The Improv Archive. "Passing Around Objects." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/passing-around-objects. Accessed March 19, 2026.
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