Performing Curiosity
Performing Curiosity is an applied improvisation exercise in which participants practice embodying genuine curiosity through three specific conversational directions: listening for what is new, asking open questions, and focusing attention outward. The core insight is that performing curiosity, even when it feels like pretending, generates genuine curiosity. The exercise develops listening, empathy, and the ability to shift attention away from internal judgment and toward a conversation partner.
Structure
Setup
Participants pair up for a conversation. No special materials are needed.
Progression
The facilitator introduces three curiosity performance directions that participants must follow during the conversation.
The first direction is to listen for what is new. After each exchange, participants ask themselves what new information just arrived. This trains attentive listening by giving the mind a specific task rather than letting it wander toward rehearsing a response.
The second direction is to ask open questions. Questions must be open-ended, connected to what the partner just said, and genuinely exploratory. Questions that can be answered with yes or no do not count. Statements disguised as questions do not count.
The third direction is to focus attention outward. Participants consciously shift their awareness away from their own thoughts, judgments, and agenda toward their partner's words, expressions, and meaning.
Participants hold a conversation using these three directions for a set period, typically three to five minutes. Even if the curiosity feels performed rather than felt at first, participants are encouraged to commit to the performance.
Debrief
Partners discuss how the conversation felt compared to a typical exchange. Most participants discover that performing curiosity quickly becomes genuine curiosity. The facilitator draws out observations about what shifted in the conversation when attention moved outward.
How to Teach It
Objectives
Performing Curiosity trains participants to redirect anxiety and self-consciousness into genuine interest in other people. The exercise demonstrates that curiosity is a performable action, not a feeling that must arrive on its own. By giving participants concrete directions rather than abstract encouragement, the exercise makes curiosity teachable and repeatable.
How to Explain It
"You are going to have a conversation with your partner. I am going to give you three directions. First, listen for what is new in everything your partner says. Second, ask open questions that connect to what they just told you. Third, focus your attention outward, on your partner, not inward on your own thoughts. Even if it feels like you are pretending to be curious, commit to the performance."
Scaffolding
Introduce the directions one at a time across multiple rounds rather than all three at once. In the first round, participants practice only listening for what is new. In the second round, they add open questions. In the third round, they add outward focus. This layered approach prevents overwhelm and lets participants feel the effect of each direction individually before combining them.
Common Pitfalls
The most common issue is participants who ask closed questions or questions that are thinly disguised statements. Coach them to notice the difference between a question that opens a door and one that leads the witness.
A second issue is participants who report that the curiosity felt fake. Acknowledge that the performance may feel artificial at first. The research behind the exercise shows that performed curiosity and genuine curiosity produce the same conversational results. The feeling of authenticity often arrives after the behavior, not before it.
In Applied Settings
Performing Curiosity has been used in healthcare (oncology nursing teams at Johns Hopkins), corporate sales training (teaching salespeople to accept conversational offers rather than push scripts), business education (MBA collaboration labs), and leadership development. The exercise transfers directly to any professional context where active listening and genuine engagement improve outcomes. Facilitators use it to demonstrate that soft skills like curiosity and empathy can be practiced and developed through specific behavioral directions rather than treated as fixed personality traits.
Skills Developed
History
Performing Curiosity was developed by Cathy Salit, CEO emerita of Performance of a Lifetime, as part of her work applying improvisation to professional development. The exercise emerged from her program with oncology nurses at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2008, where she delivered fifteen intensive half-day performance and improvisation workshops to approximately 250 nurses. The concept draws on the Becoming Principle from performative psychology: by performing as the person you are becoming, you develop the capacities you are performing. Salit published the exercise as Workbook 3.3 in her chapter for Applied Improvisation: Leading, Collaborating, and Creating Beyond the Theatre (Dudeck and McClure, 2018) and explored the underlying ideas further in her book Performance Breakthrough: A Radical Approach to Success at Work (2016).
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Related Exercises
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.
What?
What? is an exercise in which performers respond to each offer with genuine curiosity, exploring rather than accepting at face value. The exercise teaches the difference between blocking and curious investigation, building the habit of digging deeper into a partner's offers.
Camera Game
Camera Game is an observation exercise in which one player acts as a "camera," closing their eyes while a partner physically guides them through the space, briefly opening their eyes to capture mental snapshots of what they see. The exercise develops visual memory, trust, and sensory awareness. It reframes everyday environments as material worth noticing.
Scene / Character Walkabout
Scene/Character Walkabout is an exercise in which performers walk around the space embodying a character, then engage in brief scene interactions with other walking characters. The exercise develops character physicality, the ability to initiate scenes organically, and the skill of maintaining a character while simultaneously navigating an unstructured environment.
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.
Imitate
Imitate is an observation exercise in which players study and reproduce the specific physical mannerisms, vocal patterns, and behavioral habits of another person in the group. The exercise sharpens observational detail and builds the ability to embody external characteristics with precision. Close observation reveals how much personality is communicated through small, habitual movements: the way someone shifts weight, the rhythm of their speech, the angle of their head when listening. Imitate develops the skill set needed for character work grounded in real-world observation rather than invention.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Performing Curiosity. Retrieved March 19, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/performing-curiosity
The Improv Archive. "Performing Curiosity." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/performing-curiosity.
The Improv Archive. "Performing Curiosity." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/performing-curiosity. Accessed March 19, 2026.
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