Expert
Expert is a short-form game in which a performer plays a world-renowned authority on a topic suggested by the audience, fielding questions with total confidence regardless of actual knowledge. The comedy emerges from the contrast between the character's unwavering certainty and the absurdity of the claims. Scene partners or audience members ask questions, and the expert responds with authoritative detail, treating every answer as established fact. The game rewards commitment, verbal fluency, and the willingness to build elaborate fictions without hesitation.
Structure
The audience suggests a topic, ideally one that is obscure, absurd, or impossibly specific. One performer takes the stage as the world's foremost expert on the subject. One or more scene partners serve as interviewers, panel hosts, or audience members asking questions.
The expert responds to every question with complete authority, inventing facts, statistics, terminology, and personal anecdotes as needed. The expert never breaks character, never admits ignorance, and never hedges. Every answer is delivered as settled knowledge.
Interviewers feed the expert progressively more difficult or absurd questions, building the game by pushing the expert into increasingly unlikely territory. The best interviewers listen to the expert's previous answers and ask follow-up questions that force the expert to build on established fiction, creating a web of internally consistent nonsense.
The game ends when the expert has built a sufficiently elaborate and entertaining body of fake knowledge, or when a final question produces a peak laugh.
Variations include Panel of Experts (multiple experts with competing claims), Dueling Experts (two authorities who disagree on everything), and Expert Interview (a talk-show format with a host who takes the expert seriously).
How to Teach It
How to Explain It
"We need an expert. Give us a topic." [get suggestion] "Our expert knows everything there is to know about [topic]. They have spent thirty years in this field. Ask them anything."
Expert is an effective early game for teaching commitment and the principle that confidence sells any offer. Students who struggle with self-editing and second-guessing discover that audiences accept even the most absurd claims when delivered with authority.
The most common failure is performers trying to be funny rather than being expert. Coach for the character's reality: a genuine expert does not think their knowledge is funny. The expert is passionate, serious, and mildly offended by ignorant questions. The comedy arises from the gap between that seriousness and the content.
Use the game to teach the interviewer role as well. Strong interviewers practice listening and building, two foundational improv skills. Weak interviewers ask random questions that prevent the expert from developing a coherent fictional world.
The game connects to scene work through the principle of commitment. Performers who can sustain the expert character without breaking learn the discipline of staying in a reality even when it becomes absurd. This skill transfers directly to long-form scene work where characters must maintain consistency across extended scenes.
How to Perform It
The expert's authority must never waver. A moment of hesitation or self-doubt breaks the game's engine. Performers who pause to think of a funny answer lose the rhythm. The first answer that comes to mind, delivered with conviction, is funnier than a carefully crafted joke delivered with uncertainty.
Specificity drives the comedy. An expert who says "the mating call of the North Atlantic spotted slug operates at exactly 4.7 kilohertz" is funnier than one who says "slugs make weird noises." Invented jargon, precise numbers, and confident references to fictional studies all strengthen the performance.
Interviewers should listen and build rather than trying to stump the expert with disconnected questions. The game escalates when each question builds on the expert's previous answers, creating a snowball of absurdity that has its own internal logic.
The game plays well with audience interaction. Allowing audience members to ask questions directly increases engagement and produces genuinely unpredictable prompts that challenge the expert in ways scene partners cannot anticipate.
Worth Reading
See all books →
Yes, And
How Improvisation Reverses No, But Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration
Kelly Leonard; Tom Yorton
Business Improv
Experiential Learning Exercises to Train Employees
Val Gee
Comedy and Distinction
The Cultural Currency of a 'Good' Sense of Humour
Sam Friedman
Theatrical Improvisation
Short Form, Long Form, and Sketch-Based Improv
Jeanne Leep
Devising Performance
A Critical History
Deirdre Heddon; Jane Milling
The Art of Chicago Improv
Short Cuts to Long-Form Improvisation
Rob Kozlowski
Related Games
Expert Interview
Expert Interview is a variant of the Expert game in which a host conducts a formal interview with one or more improvised experts. The interview format allows for follow-up questions and deeper exploration of the expert's absurd claims. The game rewards the host's ability to ask grounding questions and the expert's ability to elaborate with increasing specificity.
Jeopardy
Jeopardy is a short-form game modeled on the television quiz show format, in which performers provide improvised questions to audience-supplied answers. The reversed format (answer first, then question) demands quick thinking and the ability to construct comedic setups from arbitrary punchlines. A host manages the game board and selects categories, while performer-contestants buzz in with their responses. The game rewards wit, timing, and the ability to find unexpected connections within the quiz show framework.
Smart Fellas
Smart Fellas is a short-form game in which performers play characters who are conspicuously intelligent or educated, using the contrast between intellectual posturing and the chaos of improv for comedic effect. The game may involve academic debates, expert panels, or scholarly discussions on absurd topics. It rewards confident jargon improvisation and deadpan authority.
Oracle
Oracle is a short-form game in which one performer plays an all-knowing figure who answers audience questions with improvised wisdom, prophecy, or absurd pronouncements. Supporting performers may embody the oracle's visions or act as attendants and interpreters. The game rewards deadpan authority, pseudo-philosophical rhetoric, and the ability to make any response sound profound regardless of its content.
Agony Aunt
Agony Aunt is a short-form game in which one performer plays an advice columnist or talk show host while others present absurd personal problems. The advice-giver must respond with confident, specific guidance no matter how bizarre the situation. The game creates comedy through the contrast between earnest expertise and outlandish subject matter.
Press Conference
Press Conference is a short-form game in which one performer plays a public figure fielding questions from other players acting as journalists. In the most common competitive variant, the central player is unaware of who they are portraying or what event they are addressing, and must deduce the situation from the questions while projecting confident authority. The game tests character commitment, subtext reading, and the ability to speak with conviction under uncertainty.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Expert. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/games/expert
The Improv Archive. "Expert." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/games/expert.
The Improv Archive. "Expert." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/games/expert. Accessed March 17, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.