Impro

About the book

Impro gathers Johnstone's thinking on teaching actors to perform without a script. Its concerns are status, spontaneity, mask work, narrative and the habits of mind that block invention. The book grew from classroom practice, and its examples come from exercises and workshops.

Johnstone writes as a teacher who distrusts polish. He argues that ordinary education and social training teach people to censor their first responses, and he builds exercises around recovering those responses. Status transactions, the small negotiations of dominance and deference in everyday talk, form one of the book's central tools. Later sections turn to masks, trance states and the making of stories on stage.

The book sits among the founding texts of modern improvised theatre and has been used widely in actor training. Its influence reaches beyond the stage into writing, teaching and group work, though the book itself stays close to the rehearsal room.

How to read it

Treat the exercises as invitations to try, not rules. Johnstone often states a principle and then shows how a class responded, so the reasoning lives in the examples. The status material rewards slow reading; the observations are subtle and easy to skim past.

The prose is direct and anecdotal, with short sections that move quickly. Some passages on masks and trance are more speculative than the practical chapters, and readers may find the cultural assumptions of a 1979 theatre book dated in places. Keep a notebook nearby if you plan to use the exercises.

Who it suits

Actors, directors and teachers of performance will find the most immediate use, especially anyone leading workshops who needs concrete ways to loosen a group. Writers and facilitators interested in status and spontaneous speech will also take something from it. Readers curious about the sources of contemporary improvised theatre will find a clear account of one influential teacher's method.

Reading considerations

This is a book of practice and opinion, not a survey of research, and its claims about spontaneity and education rest on Johnstone's own teaching experience. Later editions and reprints vary in pagination, so check which printing you have if you intend to follow exercises by page. Treat the mask and trance sections as proposals to test rather than settled findings.