Cultivating Trust by Playing Alphabet Improv

“Ahhh, you can’t catch me!” shouts a seventh-grade student in theater teacher Todd A. Rollé’s movement class at Arts and Letters United 305 in Brooklyn, New York. Her partner looks confused and responds, “But why?” and the class erupts in laughter. The students are playing alphabet improv, a theater game that serves the dual purpose of helping cultivate trust and build classroom community while also sharpening working memory. 

The premise is simple: Pairs of students must stand at the front of the class and be ready to improvise a scene from a setting and character descriptions shouted out by their classmates. The catch is that each alternating line of dialogue must start with the next letter of the alphabet in sequence, so if the first line begins with the letter A, the second must start with B. Not only do the actors need to track which letter they are on (sometimes with enthusiastic support from their audience of peers), but also they need to keep the character and setting in mind while actively listening to their partner, so they can respond in a way that makes sense while still keeping to the constraints of the game.

The activity is easily customized and can be valuable for any grade level that knows the alphabet well. But for middle school students, who tend to be at the peak of self-consciousness and inhibition, it can be equal parts challenging and joyful, as they learn to let down their guard and lean into being silly with their classmates, ultimately forging stronger relationships and cultivating trust in the classroom that paves the way for deeper learning. “I saw them needing each other when they’re acting together,” says Rollé, explaining why he likes to do the game in his classes. “It’s always fun to watch them relax into that.”    

Find more theater games that sharpen executive functions and help students practice self-regulation skills by reading Child’s Play NY founder Jocelyn Greene’s Edutopia article “Building Self-Regulation With Theater Games.”