Is There Any More?
Is There Any More? is a scene extension technique and game in which the host or audience prompts performers to continue exploring a scene or relationship after it appears to have reached its natural conclusion. The prompt forces performers to find new layers, new complications, or new dimensions beneath what seemed complete -- discovering that a scene's apparent end was not its real end. The technique trains the ability to mine depth from a premise that could easily be treated as finished.
Structure
Setup
A scene plays to what feels like a natural ending point: a decision made, a revelation landed, a relationship moment completed. The host pauses and asks: "Is there any more?"
Continuation
Performers re-enter the world of the scene and find what exists underneath the apparent conclusion: a feeling that was not expressed, an action that follows from the ending, a dimension of the relationship that was present but not yet surfaced.
The new material does not restart the scene but deepens it: what has just ended is now the foundation for another layer of exploration.
Multiple Extensions
The host may ask "Is there any more?" repeatedly, requiring performers to find multiple layers of extension from a single premise. Each extension should reveal something genuinely new rather than recycling what was already expressed.
Ending
The technique ends when the performers have reached a genuine new ending -- one that feels more complete than the one they arrived at first -- or when the host determines the scene has been fully explored.
How to Teach It
Objectives
Is There Any More? trains the ability to go beyond a scene's surface completion into its deeper available material, combats the improv habit of ending at the first satisfying moment, and develops the patience to look for what is not yet said or felt before declaring a scene complete.
How to Explain It
"When you think you're done -- you're probably not done yet. There's usually more. I'm going to ask you to go back in. Find what you didn't say. Find what happened next. It's there."
Scaffolding
Use the technique on scenes that clearly had more material than was explored in the first pass. Scenes with established relationships, specific stakes, and genuine emotion are the richest candidates for extension. Thin scenes that ended appropriately because they had nothing to develop often do not benefit from extension.
Common Pitfalls
Performers sometimes treat the extension as a repetition of what was already expressed rather than a genuine deepening. The coaching note is that each extension must reveal something that was not in the original scene -- a new feeling, a new action, a new understanding -- not a rephrasing of the same emotional note.
How to Perform It
Audience Intro
"That scene appeared to be over. It may not be. Let's find out if there's anything left."
Cast Size
Same as the extended scene.
Staging
Performers return to the scene space they were in. The host signals re-entry clearly.
Wrap-Up Logic
End when the extension produces a genuinely new and satisfying conclusion that could not have been predicted from the scene's first ending.
Worth Reading
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Something from Nothing
The Technique of Improvisation
Richard Goteri
Whose Improv Is It Anyway?
Beyond Second City
Amy E. Seham
Creating Improvised Theatre
Tools, Techniques, and Theories
Mark Jane
Improvising Now
A Practical Guide to Modern Improv
Rob Norman
A Subversive's Guide to Improvisation
Moving Beyond "Yes, and"
David Razowsky
Theater Games for Rehearsal
Viola Spolin
Related Games
Last Line
Last Line is a scene game in which the audience provides a line of dialogue that must serve as the final words of the scene. The performers build a narrative that makes the predetermined ending feel inevitable and earned rather than forced. The game trains the ability to reverse-engineer a story toward a fixed conclusion, developing narrative instinct and the skill of planting details early that pay off at the end. The audience's awareness of the destination creates dramatic irony and anticipation throughout the scene.
Last Letter Scene
Last Letter Scene is a hybrid game and exercise in which each line of dialogue must begin with the last letter of the previous line. The constraint forces performers to listen with acute precision -- not to the general content of what is said but to the exact final sound of each utterance -- while maintaining scene coherence, character, and forward momentum simultaneously.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Is There Any More?. Retrieved October 15, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/games/is-there-any-more
The Improv Archive. "Is There Any More?." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/games/is-there-any-more.
The Improv Archive. "Is There Any More?." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/games/is-there-any-more. Accessed October 15, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.