Playbook
Playbook is a format in which a team of performers draws from a known repertoire of scene structures, games, and transitions to assemble a show in real time, selecting and sequencing elements based on audience energy and emerging thematic material. The cast functions as a collective director, reading the room and choosing the next element from their shared toolkit. The format rewards ensemble experience and the ability to adapt a show's structure on the fly.
Structure
Opening
The ensemble receives a suggestion from the audience and begins the show. The specific opening game or structure is chosen by the performers based on the suggestion or the ensemble's collective read of the audience.
Core Structure
The show proceeds through a sequence of games and scenes that the ensemble selects in real time. Individual performers or a designated captain signal transitions and call specific structures from the team's repertoire when the current element has run its course. This real-time selection process distinguishes the Playbook format from Harold-style formats, which have a predetermined structural template.
The ensemble's repertoire may include a range of game types: short scene games, musical games, long-scene formats, and group exercises. The skill of the format lies in selecting the right element at the right moment: a high-energy crowd may call for a fast-paced game; a crowd that has been following a thematic thread may benefit from a callback structure that develops that thread.
Thematic and narrative connections between elements are encouraged but not required. When connections emerge organically from the audience suggestion or from recurring images across the show, the Playbook format begins to develop a through-line that gives the show coherence beyond its individual elements.
Closing
The show concludes when the ensemble signals a final element or when a natural culmination point is reached. Callback structures and thematic callbacks work well as closings, providing a sense of resolution that the audience can recognize.
How to Teach It
How to Explain It
"We do not have a set list tonight. We have a playbook: a collection of games and forms the ensemble knows. We build the show in real time, calling what fits the moment. Give us a suggestion to start."
Format Use
Playbook is used by ensembles that have trained extensively in short-form games and want to perform without a fixed game order. The captain or ensemble reads the audience, reads the energy, and selects from their shared repertoire. The skill is in reading the room and choosing well, not in executing any single game.
Teaching Context
Teaching Playbook means teaching show flow and curatorial instinct. Begin with a fixed roster of four or five games and let the ensemble vote on order after each round. Progress to real-time selection as the group builds confidence in reading what the show needs next.
Common Coaching Notes
- "What did the audience need after that last game? Did you give them a change of pace or more of the same?"
- "When the energy drops, what does your instinct say to call?"
- "A bad game choice recovers with full commitment. A distracted captain does not."
How to Perform It
The format's primary challenge is collective decision-making under performance conditions. In a predetermined format, the next structural element is always known; in the Playbook format, the ensemble must agree (tacitly or explicitly) on the next element while maintaining the show's energy and the audience's engagement.
The most effective Playbook performances develop an ensemble shorthand for signaling transitions and calling structures. A captain or designated caller reduces the cognitive load on individual performers, allowing the group to focus on executing the current element rather than debating what comes next.
Audience reading is critical. The format's flexibility is only valuable if the ensemble can actually assess what the audience needs at each moment: when to escalate, when to change register, when to slow down, and when to end. Ensembles that cycle through structures without reading the room produce shows that feel arbitrary rather than responsive.
History
Andy Goldberg documents Playbook as a named advanced exercise in Improv Comedy (1991), listing it in the Advanced Exercises section of his curriculum. Goldberg's inclusion of Playbook in an advanced curriculum suggests it was used in developed training programs by the early 1990s.
The concept of drawing from a shared repertoire of games and structures at performance time reflects a broader practice across short-form improv programs, in which ensembles develop a working knowledge of multiple games and apply them flexibly within a show. The Living Playbook, noted by Amy Seham in Whose Improv Is It Anyway?, was an online resource cataloguing improv games and structures that reflected the field's interest in systematizing and sharing repertoire knowledge.
Worth Reading
See all books →
The Routledge Companion to Improvisation in Organizations
Miguel Pina e Cunha; Dusya Vera; António Cunha Meneses
The Applied Improvisation Mindset
Tools for Transforming Individuals, Organizations, and Communities
Theresa Robbins Dudeck; Caitlin McClure
Something from Nothing
The Technique of Improvisation
Richard Goteri
Improv Comedy (20th Anniversary Edition)
Andy Goldberg
Improv Ideas
A Book of Games and Lists
Mary Ann Kelley; Justine Jones
The Playbook
Improv Games for Performers
William Hall
Related Formats
Tapestry
Tapestry is a long-form format in which multiple seemingly unrelated scenes are played across a full show, gradually revealing thematic, character, and narrative connections between them. The full picture emerges only as the show progresses, requiring ensemble patience, callback discipline, and trust that the disparate threads will cohere. The format rewards thematic awareness and is named for the way its elements, invisible in isolation, reveal their pattern once complete.
Montage
Montage is a long-form improvised format in which performers present a series of thematically connected scenes inspired by a single audience suggestion. Scenes are linked by shared ideas, recurring motifs, emotional resonances, or occasional character callbacks rather than a continuous plot. The format's strength is its flexibility: any scene can follow any scene as long as the thematic connection holds. Montage is one of the foundational structures in Chicago-tradition long-form improvisation and is among the most widely performed long-form formats worldwide.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Playbook. Retrieved October 15, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/formats/playbook
The Improv Archive. "Playbook." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/formats/playbook.
The Improv Archive. "Playbook." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/formats/playbook. Accessed October 15, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.